The Only One by Meher Baba

God is Love.  And Love must love.  And to love there must be a Beloved. But since God is Existence infinite and eternal there is no one for Him to love but Himself.  And in order to love Himself He must imagine Himself as the Beloved whom He as the Lover imagines He loves.

Beloved and Lover implies separation.  And separation creates longing:  and longing causes search.  And the wider and the more intense the search the greater the separation and the more terrible the longing.

When longing is most intense separation is complete, and the purpose of separation, which was that Love might experience itself as Lover and Beloved, is fulfilled; and union follows.  And when union is attained, the Lover knows that he himself was all along the Beloved whom he loved and desired union with; and that all the impossible situations that he overcame were obstacles which he himself had placed in the path to himself.

To attain union is so impossibly difficult because it is impossible to become what you already are!  Union is nothing other than knowledge of oneself as the Only One.

Be Free My Love

Be free my love, 

for you are the essence 

of the song

that has been

played in the heart of every 

man and woman seeking God.

Love Flows from God

By Mechthild of Magdeburg


Love flows from God to man without effort
As a bird glides through the air
Without moving its wings --
Thus they go whithersoever they will
United in body and soul
Yet in their form separate --
As the Godhead strikes the note
Humanity sings,
The Holy Spirit is the harpist
And all the strings must sound
Which are strung in love.

My Heart was Split

Odes of Solomon

King Solomon ( 1^st century)

My heart was split, and a flower appeared:

and grace sprang up;

and it bore fruit for my God.

You split me, tore my heart

open, filled me with love.

You poured your spirit into me;

I knew you as I know myself.

Speaking waters touched me

from your fountain, the source of life.

I swallowed them and was drunk with the water that never dies.

And my drunkenness was insight,

intimacy with your spirit.

And you have made all things new;

you have showed me all things shining.

You have granted me perfect ease;

I have become like Paradise,

a garden whose fruit is joy;

and you are the sun upon me.

My eyes are radiant with your spirit;

my nostrils fill with your fragrance.

My ears delight in your music,

and my face is covered with your dew.

Blessed are the men and women

who are planted on your earth, in your garden,

who grow as your trees and flowers grow,

who transform their darkness to light.

Their roots plunge into darkness;

their faces turn toward the light.

All those who love you are beautiful;

they overflow with your presence

so that they can do nothing but good.

There is infinite space in your garden;

all men, all women are welcome here;

all they need do is enter.

Agony and Ecstacy

I am deeply connected and indebted to the great Sufi masters like Rumi and Hafiz. In watching a documentary on Rumi recently,  he was spoken of as a man who was missed by all religions as he helped Christians understand Jesus, Jews understand Moses and Muslims understand Muhammad. He spoke in the language of the heart and we can all understand the longing of lovers for their beloved.  Rumi's death was called his wedding night, when he finally consummated his heart's deep desire and his soul's journey on earth.

The Agony and Ecstasy of Divine Discontent:
The Moods of Rumi

In the orchard and rose garden

I long to see your face.

In the taste of Sweetness

I long to kiss your lips.

In the shadows of passion

I long for your love.

Oh! Supreme Lover!

Let me leave aside my worries.

The flowers are blooming
with the exultation of your Spirit.

By Allah!

I long to escape the prison of my ego

and lose myself
in the mountains and the desert.

These sad and lonely people tire me.

I long to revel in the drunken frenzy of your love
and feel the strength of Rustam in my hands.

I’m sick of mortal kings.

I long to see your light.

With lamps in hand
the sheiks and mullahs roam
the dark alleys of these towns
not finding what they seek.

You are the Essence of the Essence,

The intoxication of Love.

I long to sing your praises
but stand mute
with the agony of wishing in my heart.

How Did The Rose

"How
did the rose
ever open its heart
and give to this world all of its beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light against its being,
otherwise we all remain too
frightened." Hafiz



There is much we can see in the rose,  as she reflects our own inner being. She contains all the beauty and grace of our hearts, offering a delight for our soul and all of our senses. She opens her petals with the radiance of the sun's light and is nourished by water and our admiration of her beauty. She is protected from life with her thorns and despite that we handle her delicately and with much tenderness. 
Hafiz reminds us here that the rose is like our souls,  opening with Gods love. If we do the same we can offer the world the highest part of ourselves. We must examine what stands in the way for us to offer our love ? How do we become like a rose ?

How To Love God

by Meher Baba

To love God in the most practical way is to love our fellow beings.

 If we feel for others in the same way as we feel for our own dear ones, we love God.

If, instead of seeing faults in others, we look within ourselves, we are loving God.

If, instead of robbing others to help ourselves, we rob ourselves to help others,
we are loving God.

If we suffer in the sufferings of others and feel happy in the happiness of others,
we are loving God.

If, instead of worrying over our own misfortunes, 

we think ourselves more fortunate than many many others, we are loving God.

If we endure our lot with patience and contentment, accepting it as His Will,
we are loving God.

If we understand and feel that the greatest act of devotion and worship to God 

is not to hurt or harm any of His beings, we are loving God.

To love God as He ought to be loved, we must live for God and die for God, 

knowing that the goal of life is to Love God, and find Him as our own self.

Meher Baba

If anything ever touches My universal heart it is love. I have crossed the limited earthly oceans to bring to you all the limitless and shoreless Divine Ocean of Love.

Those who do not dare to love Me seek safety on the shores. You who have been loving Me are swimming in this Divine Ocean.

Love Me more and more till you get drowned in Me. Dive deep and you will gain the priceless pearl of Infinite Oneness.

— Meher Baba

Shakespeare on Love

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

	Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

	Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

	That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

	Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

	But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

	I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Conscious Love

Everyone will agree that human beings seek romantic Love. We seek to love and to be loved, to share intimacy, sexual pleasure, and life experiences. Most lovers experience elated and higher states when they first fall in love. They begin to idealize each other and become blind to anything negative in the lover or in the outside world. We see such lovers like living in a different world, enjoying  the simplicity of life. It is this state that many yearn to return to. In long term relationships some may say they love someone but they are not "in love" anymore. What happens to the "in love" state?  What happens to this complete bliss and elation ? If you ask psychologists or scientists they will tell you that the "in love' feeling is caused by a chemical reaction in the brain and can not be sustained long term. Eventually,  all relationships descend into the mundane and ordinary.  Often past wounds, weaknesses and shadow aspects of the personality begin to play out in relation to the lover through conflict, turmoil or break ups. Some couples go through cycles of love and hate, with highs and lows that have to do with sexual or emotional dependence and a deep rooted fear of loss or abandonment of the lover. For many love relationships become a search to fulfill unmet needs - a need to be validated, a need to be important, a need to be attractive, a need to be adored, a need to belong, a need to be physically loved, a need to be heard.....etc. After a period of time, most lovers will find that their needs are not met in the love relationship,  in fact they are constantly finding fault and blaming each other for their lack of satisfaction in love.

For those who are working on conscious love, or spiritual awakening in relationships, love begin to reflect a sacred opportunity to transform, grow and experience enlightenment. It is no longer about fulfilling some sort of need or wants of being loved and accepted .  It becomes about reaching a place of inner peace and understanding  dictated by a desire to Love.  In this kind of enlightened love,  there is a deep honoring of the other. Lovers share a connection without attachments . They share a pure love without conditions and reach a point of full acceptance of the other as they are. Loving consciously is liberating as it does not stem from ego, it comes directly from the soul.  It is a state of higher consciousness, where lovers become aware of each others feelings and needs without speaking, where the merging becomes on a level of the soul.

In the Power of Now,  Eckhart Tolle, speaks of enlightened relationships as the future. He envisions relationships without pain and suffering, that are founded on mutual respect and higher love. These relationships can be sustained by working on presence with each other, working on a spiritual connection through Love. He writes " Love is a state of being. Your love is not outside, it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. it is not dependent on some other body, some external form. . What is love ? To feel the presence of that one Life deep within yourself and within all creatures...." .  In the moment of presence,  we can all connect to our soul, which can recognize any other soul with Love and compassion. This sacred part of us does not see separation or lack. It manifests during inner stillness, presence and full acceptance of all that is in the moment. The realization of union and oneness with all, is the realization of the state of Love. From that place we can choose to be in an enlightened relationship and feel the love as an exchange between two lovers or stay in that state without a partner connecting to all beings through loving kindness. Ultimately in a state of enlightened or higher love,  we become containers of a pure energy that can be collected and maintained with intention and effort to live in the now. We can be present to ourselves and our beloved. There lies the possibility  - We can stay in Love indefinitely !

Rilke and Salome

Rainer Maria Rilke was a great German poet, mystic and philosopher who wrote about the journey within, and the importance of Love in a man's life. He was influenced by his love for Lou Andreas Salome. 

Some of his famous quotes on Love:

".... believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it."

"Love is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world for himself for another's sake, it is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things." 

"We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it." 


"It is part of the nature of every definitive love, that sooner or later it can reach the beloved only in infinity."

In his love letters to Salome, Rilke writes:

Then your letter brought me its gentle benediction

And I knew there are no distant places:

From all that's beautiful you come towards me

You my spring breeze, my summer rain,

My June night with its many thousand paths

None before me was blessed to tread:

I am alive in you !

From a poem dedicated to Salome:

For I don't think back; all that I am
stirs me because of you. I don't invent you
at sadly cooled-off places from which
you've gone away; even your not being there
is warm with you and more real and more
than a privation. Longing leads out too often
into vagueness. Why should I cast myself, when,
for all I know, your influence falls on me,
gently, like moonlight on a window seat.

Stay in Love

In the realms of sacred Love, there is not space for feelings of attachment, no space for fear or doubts, these feelings are part of the human nature and create limits to the evolution of Love.

Surrendering, accepting, detaching ... no thoughts about the future or about the past, only gratitude for the Higher Energy that comes when in Union with the Beloved … that is the fuel that our souls need to reach the Highest Realms and stay in Love.

By Invitation from Venus

I enter the Temple of Love, a solitary traveler

By Invitation from Venus

I am beckoned to come forward

to kneel beside her and offer my heart

I am lead through a maze of halls

with dazzling lights, and gentle whispers

Souls of lovers speaking words of love to each other

I am melting in bliss

I anticipate the calling to my Beloved

At then end of my walk, guided by Venus

I enter A space with Cathedral ceilings

Open windos with streaming sunlight

Doves flying freely, silence

My heart is racing, overflowing with Love

He is there waiting for me

Dressed in white, glowing with light

He does not speak

His eyes convey love and tenderness

I am weak, almost defeated by this Force of Love

My heart is bursting in flames as I approach him

He smiles at me and extends out his hand

I reach for him and our fingertips touch

A shock of electricity enters my body

I feel dizzy with Love

Our lips touch and our bodies disappear into light

Melting into each other, each cell merging with each other

We become one Light dancing in a spiral towards the Heavens

Our Love Becomes One Being of Light

We rise towards the Kingdom of God

as One Force of Light

Merging with the Stars, the Galaxies, with Eternity

There the Collective Love of Other Lovers 

Is Like a Limitless Ocean, We are All Together

United in Ecstasy There is no longer I or Him

or Them, We are inside God. Inside the Love of God.