Last of a three-part series | Read the Interview, Part 1 here | Read the Interview, Part 2 here
Love is an important topic as a human being. They say that love is the only virtue that remains in human beings at this time of life. We have just about eliminated everything else.
But, we don’t really know what it is. Love has many faces. There is love of our family, love of our pets, love of nature, romantic love. It’s like a roller coaster: it lifts us up one day and makes us fall down the next. But, so often we’re looking for love outside of ourselves, as if love were something that comes to us — and if I lose that thing that brought me love, I’ve lost love, too.
But really, love is something that gets stimulated by things outside of us. It’s something that is inside — deep inside. It’s part of the God Consciousness in us that just gets covered over or we look in the wrong places to try to find it. The wrong place just means we need to look inside ourselves. Even when we’ve had an old relationship, and now we think we hate the person and if only we could just peel away that pain and peel away that anger, there is still love there.
We need to recapture that love directly. We need to expand it so that it can become more useful and more present in our life every day.
The Love mantra is a tool that without having to think about love or analyze love, it just stimulates love in our heart and naturally wakes it up so that we feel more loving every day. And that just keeps expanding and expanding until we feel love everywhere all the time.
If we could do that, our whole life will change — and the world will change. As we change ourselves inside, the reflection of our life outside changes. The way we view everything changes, and it’s very contagious. It just takes a few people to start feeling their love and the rest of the world will follow.
My teacher said it in an interesting way. He said, “Love is the glue of the Universe.” It holds everything together. Without love, we would create so much separation that everything would explode. Nothing could stay together. Love brings us together. When we feel love, we can even draw our enemy to us and we can sit down and communicate and say, “Let’s just talk about the differences in our ideas and just love each other and appreciate each other.” And gradually we’ll come to an agreement, an understanding. Anything is possible with love.
I had an interesting experience several years ago. Some of my Japanese students had their visas expire in Thailand, so we took them down to Malaysia to renew their visas. One night I decided, “Well, I’m just going to find a taxi driver and have them drive me around the city. I want to see what this place is like.” The taxi driver was Islamic, and Malaysia is an Islamic country.
He said, “Oh, are you American?”
I said, nervously, “Yes.”
“Well, what do you believe?”
“First of all, I don’t represent my country and what my government is doing and the people in general in America don’t represent what the government is doing, but for me, when I look around I see God everywhere. You are a God, this taxi is a God, every place that we’re going is God.”
He said, “Oh, you must be Islam! That’s what we believe.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m not really Islam, but I can embrace it’s thought.” Because it’s just a different language for describing the same reality. If God is here, if Consciousness is infinite, then that must be God — and if God is present in Consciousness, love must also be there.
I believe everything is born from love; the whole Universe was created from love. The problem that we face today is that we also have ego mind that separates and focuses and tries to understand and tears it apart so many times that love disappears.
It’s very simple. If we just start to generate more love in our hearts, I think we will solve a lot of the world’s problems.
Bob Fickes will be presenting a three-day initiation of The Love Mantra meditation Sept. 11-13 at the University of Minnesota Continuing Education and Conference Center, St. Paul Campus, Room 135BD, 1890 Buford Ave., St. Paul. The cost is $345 (includes lunch) by August 11 ($40 more afterward), exact cash only at the door. For reservations and more information, email [email protected]. Bob will present the same event on October 9-11 at the Marriott Residence Hotel in Valencia, CA.
For more information on Bob Fickes, visit www.bob-fickes.com. To locate local teachers of Fulfillment Meditation, visit www.bob-fickes.com/contact/official-teachers/
Listen: Bob Fickes speaks on Edge Talk Radio on “InnerView” with Cathryn taylor at www.blogtalkradio.com/edgemagazine/2015/07/08/edge-innerviews-with-cathryn-taylor-and-bob-fickes
