(This is Part 12 of a series. Go back to Part 11.)
This would be a cold and lonely universe without love. Love makes it all worthwhile.
All that grasping and striving that we do to get more money, more status, more security, more whatever—what would it all be worth if there were no love? As far as I can tell, it would be worth nothing, less than nothing—it would all be empty.
The beauties of this world: The bird flying against the sky, hanging with friends, the moment of recognition in a work of art, an invitation from one's lover—what would they be worth if there were no love involved?
Without love, even the best moments become only a flicker of thrill or gratification. If we look closely, we see that the moments when we felt a deep love were the moments that really touched us at a level far deeper than "gratification" or "thrill" could ever go.
Those "useless" moments of love when perhaps nothing was really going on—nothing was being accomplished, no agenda was being forwarded—those were the deepest moments of all, the ones that made us truly glad to be alive, the ones that "thrilled" us far more than any mere thrill could ever do.
How wise of existence to not only be here, but to exist in such a way that love can exist. Because, really, there's no reason for any of it to be here—the bird, the tree, the child, the sky—there's no reason for any of it to be here.
To me, that may be the biggest mystery of all. Why does existence exist? Of course, we can say that it all exists because God created it or because of the Big Bang or whatever, but that explains nothing.
Take it back a step: If we say that God created the universe, that that is the ultimate cause, all we're really saying is that existence transmuted itself into another form. But then—how did God come to exist?
No matter what we call it—God, Existence, the One, the Creator—the mystery remains the same. Where did it come from? The mind boggles, staggers. The whole thing is just inconceivable.
And mere explanations explain nothing, they don't even begin to get at the mystery. Now physics is saying that even empty space is pregnant with positive and negative energies and particles popping into and out of being. But it still doesn't explain anything.
Take it back a step: Okay, according to the latest physics, "something" can come from "nothing". Even empty space, to put it poetically, is very pregnant with energy and possibility. Okay, yes—but how did empty space get so pregnant?
You see what I mean? Even the most sophisticated, most esoteric answers don't really explain anything. At the bottom of it all is the most incredible Mystery, a Mystery so deep that we can't even begin to really comprehend it.
And yet every time our heart opens with love, we do comprehend it—not with the mind, not with thought, but with love itself. Somehow love comprehends Love, somehow the little particle begins to understand that the love in our heart and the Love that transforms Itself into universes are actually the same thing, that love and Love are actually indistinguishable.
Indeed, when our heart is filled with love we actually enjoy that we don't understand, we enjoy that the Love that inhabits even the lowliest stone is expressing that love through us—not only a gift from Love to love, but also an incomprehensible gift in the other direction.
Of course, even to speak of love's direction is a gross mistake on my part, because there is no difference—no, not even the width of a hair—between Love and love, between me and you, between a stone and a star.
That's what's even more incredible about this Mystery: Not only does Nothingness exist as this world, this leaf, this moment, but somehow this Nothingness exists in a form where love exists. How? How? How? I don't know.
Maybe it has something to do with the reality that God is Love, that all those names like Existence, the One, the Infinite and so on are really just names for Love, that Love is the truest, deepest description of the Mystery.
And why is that so? Why is Love the Mystery's truest description or essence? I don't know. I feel like a babbling idiot at times because I know in my heart that I really understand nothing—and yet I keep writing, like some kind of dumb machine that doesn't know when to quit.
Well, I'm just grateful that it is this way. This existence that is suffused with love even when it seems just the opposite. This existence that is love itself even when it recoils in pain or suffering. This existence whose name is Love even when, as a "you" or a "me", it experiences loneliness, separation or sorrow.
This Love that is beyond mystery, beyond understanding, nevertheless is right here, right now. Its flower is always opening, in a million billion riotous colors. Indeed, that flower opened in you, angel, or you wouldn't be reading this. You're our teacher now. What will you teach?
—jimmy sloman, 8.2.05
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