A Call to Love

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A Call to Love
If you are reading this, chances are you have a wise, close friend who senses in you a great capacity for love. This is not about romantic love or bonding with another, not about familial or parental love. It is about a deeper, broader love that can be generated by the human heart and sent out to all who come near.

Just as there are angry people who give off a violent, frightening force field, loving people radiate a benevolent safe space around them. You realize you are in the presence of love as soon as you encounter such a person.

The world at this time in history needs people who radiate love. Chances are you are one of them.
 
How does it work?
Think of love as an energy and not just an emotion. “What we call ‘love’ is a radiation that pervades the whole cosmos. It is possibly the basis of what we know as the phenomenon of gravitation,” wrote the great scientist, inventor, mystic and author Itzhak Bentov. Think of it as the basic energy of the universe. Surely this is what spiritual teachers East and West have continuously taught: that the purpose of living is to become a source of loving energy.

Love is infectious, a benign virus that can be passed from one person to another. When it happens there is often an awakening of something profound and powerful. The heart opens and starts pouring out love. This is what the human heart at its very best is all about.

 

Some people are born with this capacity. For others it seems to appear spontaneously, as a compassionate attitude that comes out of nowhere. For others it is an acquired skill. For me it came after an encounter with a beggar as I walked the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrim’s route in northern Spain. 

 

They say no one walks the Camino by chance. There is always an underlying reason or purpose, and I know this was mine. After a long and arduous morning of hiking I was treating myself to lunch in a small inn in a quiet village. Bread in hand, a glass of wine in front of me, I looked through the window and saw a man sitting on the curb outside. Dressed in dirty, ragged clothes, a look of incoherence on his face, he seemed to be the village idiot. Despite his appearance, I had a strong impulse to invite him to join me.
 

Right away, my middle-class prejudices stopped me from going out to him. The language barrier, the awkwardness… by the time I had resolved my inner debate, he was nowhere to be seen. But that encounter awoke something in me.

 

It was that night that I became overwhelmed with a feeling of universal love for my fellow man. I was aware that I had the capacity to love everyone I met. That it was possible to love all humanity. While my pouring this love out onto others appeared to have no apparent effect on their lives, in some way I knew that everything was different. That was over twenty years ago.
 
Generating love
For the next many years I have no memories of similar “highs”; however, there were times when I’d be aware of feeling an inner radiant love.

 

Then one winter, while my wife went off to study Spanish in Cuba for six weeks, I found myself actively working on a technique to put myself into this space. I sensed that the human heart was like an electrical generator that could produce an energy field and send it out to others. I felt that it could best be channeled over the lines of friendship, but also could be directed into a room or space, filling it with a warm glow, as if from a fireplace.

 

Everyone will have their own technique. For some it might be meditation, prayer, or simply intention. Brought up in the Catholic tradition, however, I found the image of the Sacred Heart resonating for me. I would imagine my own heart opening, at one with this icon of cosmic love. Then I would slowly count down from ten, sensing my heart growing ever warmer, until at last I could focus a stream of that energy—“love beam” if you will—out into the world. Alone at night, in serenity and silence, I would send out this love energy to my friends, neighbours, and all I met during the day. At the same time I envisioned myself joining with people around the world, creating a climate of love and acceptance.
 
What greater gift?
Are you open to such a possibility? For this is more than an invitation. It is a call to love, to open your heart, to see the heart as sacred, capable of generating an energy that transforms. And then to send it out to all you meet. While you might not change the world, it will make a difference, a profound difference, starting with yourself.

 

And maybe because I am in that time of life best described as golden, I sense that this call will have special meaning for people getting on in years, who may be wondering about their place and purpose in life. It is to be supportive, to bless, and ultimately to silently offer love to all you meet. This in my opinion is the ennobling task of old age.

 

Surely each of us has a small circle of friends, a small orbit of influence where we can be a loving presence. I like to imagine each of us sending this call out to friends near and far, so that a glowing grid starts to form, wrapping our planet in warmth and compassion, linking our global community with bonds of love.

 

Will you join with me in this openhearted work? Can you see your way to sharing this call with those in your circle who would understand and respond to this appeal? For this is an invitation: to loving people around the world, to connect on this level and create a world wide web of love.
 
Austin
    

thepilgrim@look.ca

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