Easternlighter
New member
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2014
- Messages
- 3
I though I would share my thoughts and experience on love in a hope to help raise awareness for those that missed the boat.
When experiencing love you are also experiencing peace and happiness which you think would be everyones aim but if so,why is there so much hatred and cruelty out there? The answer to this is because this hatred and cruelty is stronger in the minds of some people than love,kindness and compassion is. So it becomes apparent that making love stronger than hatred withing yourself is the answer and to do that it takes training the mind.
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Imagine 2 people having to complete a physical task, one is fit and the other is unfit. The fit person has enough energy to complete the task easy while the unfit person will soon struggle due to lack of conditioning.
It is the same with love and hate,someone with a loving mind will remain calm and peaceful in an [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]unpleasant[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] environment while someone with a hating mind will soon become agitated and angry in the same situation. I will now offer a technique to train your mind to become loving.
Start by finding somewhere peaceful and quiet and make yourself comfortable. Now close your eyes and focus your attention to the area of your heart. Cultivate the feeling of love from your heart and direct this feeling of love towards yourself. If thoughts of lack of self worth arise,banish them immediately, you are only feeling here, not thinking at this stage.
Let the feeling of love spread from your heart to all over your entire body,when you reach this stage you are ready to spread this love outwards.
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Now think of the people that are closest to you,this maybe family members or friends.Think of each person and spread the feelings of love towards them one at a time.
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The reason the people close to you are chosen first is because they are the easiest people for you to [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]spread[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] your love to.
Now think of neutral people that you know,people that are not close to you but are also not your enemy. Spread your love to these people the same as you did to the people that are closest to you one person at a time.
If you are successful at spreading love to the neutral people in your life,now try and spread love towards your enemies. If thoughts and feelings of hatred arise towards these people,cease trying and return to spreading love for yourself and the people close to you.
To return to the analogy of physical fitness,if you got an unfit person to try and run a marathon,they would soon run out of energy and collapse.But the same person could probably be able to run half a mile or a mile to start off with and with regular training build up to longer and longer distances.
The same is true with the mind,spreading your love to the people closest to you is like running the shorter distances,spreading your love to neutral people is like running the middle distances and spreading your love to your enemies is like running the entire marathon .You have to train to your own ability,pushing too far wont help you.
Once you have a loving mind, life becomes euphoric and blissful.When thoughts and feelings of hate arise,you realize how damaging these thoughts are.To compare with physical fitness once more,hatred is like stopping exercising and the body soon becomes unfit again.
Hatred brings you down from such sublime states that you want to return to them and the only way to do that is to eradicate the hatred by replacing it with love.
I hope what I have written here will help some people on here towards peace, love and happiness.
When experiencing love you are also experiencing peace and happiness which you think would be everyones aim but if so,why is there so much hatred and cruelty out there? The answer to this is because this hatred and cruelty is stronger in the minds of some people than love,kindness and compassion is. So it becomes apparent that making love stronger than hatred withing yourself is the answer and to do that it takes training the mind.
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Imagine 2 people having to complete a physical task, one is fit and the other is unfit. The fit person has enough energy to complete the task easy while the unfit person will soon struggle due to lack of conditioning.
It is the same with love and hate,someone with a loving mind will remain calm and peaceful in an [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]unpleasant[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] environment while someone with a hating mind will soon become agitated and angry in the same situation. I will now offer a technique to train your mind to become loving.
Start by finding somewhere peaceful and quiet and make yourself comfortable. Now close your eyes and focus your attention to the area of your heart. Cultivate the feeling of love from your heart and direct this feeling of love towards yourself. If thoughts of lack of self worth arise,banish them immediately, you are only feeling here, not thinking at this stage.
Let the feeling of love spread from your heart to all over your entire body,when you reach this stage you are ready to spread this love outwards.
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Now think of the people that are closest to you,this maybe family members or friends.Think of each person and spread the feelings of love towards them one at a time.
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The reason the people close to you are chosen first is because they are the easiest people for you to [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]spread[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] your love to.
Now think of neutral people that you know,people that are not close to you but are also not your enemy. Spread your love to these people the same as you did to the people that are closest to you one person at a time.
If you are successful at spreading love to the neutral people in your life,now try and spread love towards your enemies. If thoughts and feelings of hatred arise towards these people,cease trying and return to spreading love for yourself and the people close to you.
To return to the analogy of physical fitness,if you got an unfit person to try and run a marathon,they would soon run out of energy and collapse.But the same person could probably be able to run half a mile or a mile to start off with and with regular training build up to longer and longer distances.
The same is true with the mind,spreading your love to the people closest to you is like running the shorter distances,spreading your love to neutral people is like running the middle distances and spreading your love to your enemies is like running the entire marathon .You have to train to your own ability,pushing too far wont help you.
Once you have a loving mind, life becomes euphoric and blissful.When thoughts and feelings of hate arise,you realize how damaging these thoughts are.To compare with physical fitness once more,hatred is like stopping exercising and the body soon becomes unfit again.
Hatred brings you down from such sublime states that you want to return to them and the only way to do that is to eradicate the hatred by replacing it with love.
I hope what I have written here will help some people on here towards peace, love and happiness.
