I listened to an interview about awakening and illness, and was reminded of love, surrender and action and how they are related.
When I find love for what’s here – illness, symptoms, brain fog, fatigue, the words, images and sensations making these up – there is a sense of surrender. It’s a surrender of holding onto identification with all my stories about these things. A surrender of the struggle. A surrender of the appearance of victim, duality, suffering, illness and whatever else is here.
And this, in turn, allows for natural action. A more kind and wise action.
This is also a very practical way of exploring “unconditional love”. I tend to not use that word since it seems a bit grandiose and have some unfortunate associations for many. But that’s really what this is about. As I find love for what’s here – for the pain, discomfort, enthusiasm and the words, images and sensations that makes up any part of my experience – then I am exploring unconditional love. And this is a love for any part of my experience, whether a thought (or image) calls it “inner” and belonging to “me” or “outer” and belonging to “others” or “the world”.
So a very practical approach – finding love for what’s here in immediate experience – is an exploration of unconditional love. It’s a form of surrender (of identifications). And it allows for a more natural, kind and perhaps wise action.
The interview mentioned above was with Karen Richards, done by Conscious 2.