There are different levels of being in love. Some of you make love, physically. Some of you are in love romantically. Some of you are love, consciously.
A person who loves consciously is love in relation to everything they meet, that is one of the levels of love. In romantic love, you fall in love with someone and you say ‘I am in love with him’ or ‘I am in love with her’ meaning that person is my connection to the place in myself where I am love for I can’t get there by myself. I need you. I am in love with you. Because when I come near you I feel that place in myself and I don’t feel it unless I’m around you; I am in love with you.
The problem is that you are in time and you will die or go away or lose interest or become someone else’s connection, so I not only love you but I hate you, or I’m afraid of you because you have such power over me. That’s romantic love. That’s the subject of innumerable poems and love songs.
Ah, but when you’ve arrived at the next stage, when you have come into meditation, when you are dwelling at that place in your own chest which is love, you need nothing and everyone you look at is your beloved. Every one you look at. At first it’s a little complicated socially but we work it out until you’re so secure that you don’t have to collect lovers and you can walk down the street and look into another being’s eyes and love them so totally there is no you and there is no me, there is just presence, the moment, the love. You never miss a step you keep right on walking.
In that universe politics change, economics change, social problems change, so how do you in your daily life become an instrument of social change? You become in yourself the statement of love, the statement of choiceless awareness, you become the moment so that everyone that comes near you is liberated by your presence if they are ready. You do nothing to anybody. You live your life.
Which life do you live? Whatever your dharma demands.
If your work is to protest the injustice of races, you protest. If your work is to raise a family, you raise a family. If your work is to be a good lawyer, you’re a good lawyer. If your work is to be a shoemaker, you’re a shoemaker. If your work is to meditate in a cave, you meditate in a cave. No blame, no reward. You do your dharma. Each act you do you do as a vehicle for becoming this meditative, loving, present moment. This statement of love; the statement of choiceless awareness.
-Ram Dass
