The Trinity of Love

Learning to Love is not difficult in the laborious sense of the word, but it can be a struggle. Unlearning the fear based ego-centric patterns that close us off to the breath of Reality is a purging process, “A Dark Night of the Soul”. It is an evolutionary ascent back to our true nature, in which all things that are founded upon ignore-ance & confusion (and therefore are without being) dissolve into pure nothingness. In the fleeting moments when all of these superficial distinctions have dispersed life, in all of it’s textures, is laid bare in the mind’s eye. At which point the mind and reality are revealed to be one and the same thing. As vague and nebulous as this may sound, it is in fact the most fundamental truth of our existence, Love. The mind’s inherent capacity to reflect life as it is, so perfectly, so wholly, that the mind and life are revealed to be one and the same thing is Love. The next leg in our return journey to who we were before we had a name is to discover the living quality of Love, Compassion. In this context what is meant by Compassion is the breath of Love. Compassion is the realization that Love is in some sense a living organism. It is not an individual organism. Since Love is based on the discovery of equanimity, and in equanimity all of the distinctions that establish and sustain individuality are revealed to be devoid of any real substance, the vast sea of individuals are realized to be a single organism. The “singular” aspect of this realization is the manifestation of Love or Truth, and the “organism” or the living quality of this insight is Compassion, as it recognizes the sanctity of Life in all “things”. Compassion is the fullness of Love. Out of the spacious eternity that is Love, Compassion makes all things new. The recognition of Love is the death of the individual, and Compassion is the resurrection of the true self, the “total organism”. It is the anointment of Humanity with a spark of divinity. Compassion is an open dialogue which transcends words, memories, thoughts, and ideology. It is a two way street of communication where we love and allow ourselves to be loved. We cease to reach out and try to take hold of life or own it, rather life effortlessly flows through us. The third and final aspect in the Trinity of Life is Natural Joy. Through the infinite power of Love all of the barriers which proclaimed false individuality were destroyed. Once those conceptual walls have been disassembled the waters of love begin to stir, and this movement is known as Compassion. We learn to love, to be loved, and in Natural Joy we learn to be Love. Natural Joy is the completion of Love. It is the perfection of Love, not because it perfectly adheres to some definition or idea about love, but because it is complete expression of the Trinitarian Dynamic of Love. Natural Joy is full, lacking no thing, and therefore needing no thing. It is not poor, but infinitely wealthy. We can rest in the realization that through the magical power of Grace all things have already been accomplished; we need not worry about becoming some-one or some-thing. Based on such an insight this most perfect manifestation of Love is revealed to be, in the words of St. Paul, “Patient, kind… It rejoices in Truth, bears with all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” From this point of view Life becomes joyful. It is no longer something that we must wake up every morning and go do, rather it is who and what we are. We are not some-thing which exists apart from Love & Compassion, rather our true nature is Love, and Compassion is our natural movement. Natural Joy is the discovery that we need not take another step towards perfection. There is nothing to do. We need not worry about comparing ourselves to some contrived self-image, nor do we need to bother ourselves with attempts to become some-one or some-thing. Just simply rest in the Natural Joy that is Life, and allow the heart to direct itself. Genesis 1:27 says, “ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” So according to Christian theology humanity was created in absolute perfection, as it goes without saying that God is perfection. St. Luke, in Luke 3:23-38, goes as far as to trace the genealogy of man back to Adam and proclaim him, “The Son of God.” So from the very beginning humanity has had the potential to rest in complete perfection. However, the story of the Garden of Eden speaks of mans fall from Grace and into original sin. This fall hinged on Humanity’s decision to indulge in the world of duality, symbolized by the tree of the knowledge of good & evil, over the oneness of the tree of life. In eating from the tree of the knowledge of good & evil humanity died. They died to their true nature, and became self-consciousness, ashamed. One of the most common side effects of a dualistic perspective is the notion of self & other. This sort of individuality imposes a degree of separation between us and life, a feeling of being apart from the whole. We cut ourselves off from the tree of Life, the very content of our being, and as a result we find ourselves chronically dis-contented. However, if we recall John 1:1, “In the beginning, the Word existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God”, or Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”, it is absolutely clear that all things poured forth from God. So how does sin come forth from God, who is perfect, into his creation? The original meaning of the word sin is, “To miss the mark”. Sin is a falsity, a misunderstanding, and therefore lacks any substance. Sin is an illusion, one that we believe in perhaps, but nonetheless an illusion. So the question immediately becomes, “How do I realize that I am in the Garden of Eden?” The key to waking up from this misunderstanding is discovering the natural order of “things”. The natural order of things is God, and as St. John reminds us in 1 John 4:8, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love”. Therefore it seems rather obvious that we must come to know God, or Love as they are one in the same, and in the Christian tradition God/Love is revealed in the Trinity. It is clear that I am not God, but what may be difficult to see is that I am not other than God. To say that I am not God, nor other than God is no different than saying I am neither existent nor non-existent. The very notion of “I” in this case is sin, a total misunderstanding. “I” is little more than a conceptual hallucination, and a hallucination can not be proved to be existent nor non-existent as it’s insubstantiality does not even provide a basis for analysis. It is a work of pure fiction, there is nothing there to prove or disprove. In Truth, Love is all that there is, it is the ground of being. Hopefully everyone will come to discover the Trinity of Love in their own life, as it is the totality of this Life, and in doing so realize that they have running around in the Garden of Eden all along! * Disclaimer: I am in no way under the impression that this post justly expresses the faith of most Christians. This is just my interpretation. However, I would love to enter into dialogue with those who find this to be off or in some way a misrepresentation of their faith. In other words I welcome your comments.