This post is taken from chapter 34 “The Gift Of Love” of my newly updated book Redefine Your Reality. To read the full chapter, you can purchase the book here

Here’s one of the most difficult challenges we all face on the spiritual journey: remaining open and staying connected to the present moment. It is hard to explain, harder to remember and hardest to practice within the chaos of worldly affairs. But it is the key to freedom, the essential ingredient for all revelation, the link without which all secrets become useless head knowledge.

Remaining open to the present moment means transcending your ego mind. It means going beyond the identity you have assumed in this life time and becoming bare naked… nameless, identityless, roleless, limitless. It means coming out of the prison of intellect into the open sky of the infinite. It means letting go of control over the how and the when. It means becoming the witness of the perfection that is unfolding right here and now, without judgement, without preference, without trying to squeeze the ocean into a drop that you can hold in your hands. It means letting the ocean merge into the drop and watching the drop explode into the ecstasy of infinity. In other words, it is being fully present here and now and loving every moment of it!

When you are open and connected with the present moment, with God, with another human being, you go beyond the limits of your ego mind and merge with the ocean of the boundless One. In that moment you are no longer bound by the socio-cultural-economic-religious-family programming of this life that has created your framework of belief system, the paradigm of your life, the filter of your understanding. In that moment you are ready to experience the bliss and the joy of being one with the Universe – the One Song.

The Sufi poet Rumi once said “Love God or love another human being, but if you love deep enough, you will know Love.” Falling in love with another human being is one of the most potent opportunities to experience this bliss without having to spend twenty years in meditation or under the tutelage of a realized guru. When you are truly in love with another human being, all separation dissolves away, even if for a few days or minutes when you are in the arms of your beloved, and you go beyond your ego mind experiencing “We” for the first time in your life.

This We, which is a unified being that is the combination of the lovers, is very real and is capable of great accomplishments, if you are able to remain connected for a substantial period of time that is. Remember, true love is not wanting another person, it is recognizing yourself in the other person, it is becoming one with the other person. True love is that awareness where you realize that no separation exists. It is not you loving him but there is a We now, which is the unity of your being. That We is love.

But typically, that We-ness fades after a while, the desire remains, the craving remains, the insatiable feeling of wanting to spend time together remains, but the We-ness fades after a while (in most cases). After a while, it becomes me and her. It becomes…

“I love you so much, why do you not love me back in the same way? Why are you thinking about something else even when we are together?”

“I love you too. But there are other things in life you know. I had a bad day. My boss is giving me problems. Our friends also need our attention remember? We can’t be selfish and focus only on ourselves…”

“Yes but I don’t feel your presence anymore like I felt before. Its like you are here but not here.”

“But I am here. I don’t know how else to make you happy. Do you want to go grab a drink? Maybe if we go out more often you’d feel better?”

“You don’t understand.”

The We-ness has faded. One has gone into the prison of the ego mind, the other is taking time to join. Now it has become “I… love… you” rather than we ARE and all other explanation is superfluous. We ARE and we are floating in love, connected ALL the time, feeling each others heart moment by moment, every moment, as we grow together towards the end of time. We are one, serving as one, growing as one, loving as one, hanging out with friends as one, attending parties, funerals, tax filings and grocery shopping as one. When we make love, it isn’t me making love to you, stuck in my head of either “am I having enough fun?” or even “is my partner having enough fun?” but “Look! Your body is making love to my body and we are experiencing both our bodies as we enjoy the blissful ecstasy of bodily pleasure as ONE.” You are no longer stuck in your own body having pleasure or trying to give pleasure, but you are simply experiencing the mind blowing juiciness of the present moment as We and feeling the bodies writhe in ecstasy…. In that moment, together you are ready to experience God, because in that moment when you are no longer stuck within your ego mind role of “me against them”, but you simply are, you get a very powerful glimpse of what it means to be One with God.

But then again, that We-ness fades and we get carried away by the worldly affairs of trying to make a living, raising a family, dealing with traffic jams and politics… we slip into the sleep of separateness, into the roles and functions, into our endless quest of trying to become a “human doing” rather than a “human being”.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. There is a better way of living this precious human life. While that way of living can be a bit difficult to master, it is so much more fun, satisfying and fulfilling…

Read the full chapter by buying Redefine Your Reality

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