Love - A Four Letter Word

Love. It’s that four letter word that the Webster Dictionary defines as, “strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties”. But what is LOVE? It’s a phenomenon of sorts that people have been trying to figure out for centuries. It’s not something that can exactly be defined by a dictionary. Love is something that some people say happens once in our lives. “One day you will fall in love”. Here’s a thought. What if… what if we fall in love every day? What if love is not so much something that we save for that one special person, but something that is in us all the time? We are taught by society that love is this special thing, this hush-hush word that should only be used in special circumstances. I’m not saying that I am perfect. I find it hard to express love. I find it hard to even tell my own mother that I love her and how much I love her. Should it be that way? Should we be fearful to express ourselves? Love is nothing special. It is something that is inside of us and something that is around us all the time. The way we look at someone is love, the way we speak is love, the way we are is love. We are love. Let me repeat that. You, me, them, we are all love. Love is what we were born to do. When you were pulled from your mother’s womb and into the world, when you saw your mother’s face for the first time, there was love. Love is so simple, yet we strive to make it so complex. There are two basics in life. they are love and fear. And so many times we let the fear trump the love. We don’t tell someone that we love them because we are afraid. We don't act in loving ways because of our fears. Love scares us. We have all had rejection in our lives, and it brings about that fear. We fear that the ones we love will reject us. We need to get over that fear. We need to open our hearts to our family, to our friends, to our lovers, to the world. Love is not specific. It is universal. It is something that is the same despite color, race, culture or class. Everyone we come into contact with gives us an opportunity to experience love. So here it is, to all of you. I love you. I love you. I love you. Now, go tell someone you love them. Namaste

Take a Break

We all know that living in American can be stressful. There is a tendency to rush around ALL the time. No matter what, even if we have a day off, if we have a free hour, with nothing to do. There is a sort of obsession with needing to be busy. We like to brag to our friends about how BUSY we are. My friends do this and I admit; I do this. I’ll be talking to my friends and they will ask me how I’m doing, and my response is automatically, “I’ve been busy”. I say this, even when I’ve had a few days off. Why is it that we always have to be busy? We always have to feel busy? We tend to panic when we have nothing to do. Like it’s the end of the world and we will DIE if we just sit on our butts for the day. Well, why not just do that? Sit. And in sitting, I mean the kind of sitting where you are completely present and aware of what is happening around you. I know it’s scary, and I know it’s difficult. I oftentimes sit on my meditation pillow and things just start coming to my mind. “I need to do the laundry. I have to wash the dishes. I left the light on. I need to nap before work. What’s the point of this?” And so on and so forth. This is something called monkey-mind and we all go through it. But sitting in meditation, monkey-mind or not, we should still take a break from “busyness”. So, here’s a challenge. Take some time out of your busy day to just be.  Peace.