Falling in Love with Love: A Primer for Enlightenment
by Susan Scharfman
“I could never understand why Jesus would retreat into the desert when he lived in the desert. The thought of trading in one patch of sand for another never seemed appealing to me, until I began to facilitate this work.” – Panache Desai
Looking For Shanti
Unique to Saharan dwellers, the young Bedouin made his way across the shifting dunes of Merzouga in an undulating motion like a dhow navigating the waves. Barefoot when he stopped a few feet in front of me, he held his pet iguana in his arms. We stared at each other while the sands burned through my desert boots. The crumbling relic of a French Foreign Legion fort loomed in the distance. The question was not what the boy was doing in that place. He knew exactly who he was and where he was going. But what was I doing there?
Seekers go to the ends of the earth for the one thing they think will make them happy. The next mountain, the next lover, the next guru, the next extreme experience or the next mystical one. Often I found myself in desolate regions where perhaps I’d discover the source of inner tranquility, the amorphous thing that looked out at me through that boy’s eyes. I didn’t know then that it was me looking at me. In India it is called Shanti, the peace that resides within.
The Unfathomable Source Within
"All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness." – Eckhart Tolle
Hollywood actress Michelle Williams was asked by Time Magazine how she managed to convey so much realism in her characters. Where did all that raw emotion come from? She replied, “The truth is, I don’t know. I find that when I’m doing my best work, there’s a kind of forgetfulness that happens, and the source of where something is coming from is unknown, even to me…”
In the Gospel According to Matthew, Lord Jesus says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is Within.” But what does that mean? It’s incomprehensible unless you experience it. The mind can only comment on the outer world of form. It cannot answer this question.
Eckhart Tolle says the moment you name the subtle eternal aliveness within you, it becomes a thought form, which diminishes it. So even if I say that my experience of oneness with the unknown source within is indescribable bliss and love, it means nothing to the listener or the reader. The one entity all humans have in common can never be expressed in words, yet it is our very essence, the thing that connects us to each other and the universe. Falling in love with love is loving one’s self.
Gautama Buddha, Lord Jesus, the Prophet Muhammad, and every God-realized being throughout history has found his way to God by looking in the right place–within. To quote Albert Einstein, “He who experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest...is a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.”
Alive and Well In Our Time
Enlightened beings have their own unique methods of communicating the same truth. His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi made me a teacher of transcendental meditation in 1974. From the time Maharishi brought TM to the west in the 1960s to this very day, his scientific approach to and practical teachings of meditation continue to bring immeasurable benefits to thousands of people from ashrams to boardrooms all over the world. Throughout his life as a spiritual master, the late Swami Muktananda had these words posted in his Siddha Yoga Ashrams: “God Dwells Within You as You.” His successor, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda continues his work. She once told her disciples, "You will leave me, but I will never leave you." Ergo, she and Muktananda are alive in my heart.
In our time, hip young contemporaries like Panache Desai, Jeff Foster, Adyashanti are a few among many who have come to know the self and enlighten others. They each bring their own uniqueness to the art of falling in love with love.
Dynamic spiritual master, and master of the art of presentation, Panache speaks candidly when he says, "There is nothing wrong with you: nothing to do, nothing to fix, nothing to change. You are perfect just as you are.” And that is how he sees you. Jeff Foster and Adyashanti each share their profound insights about awakening and non-duality in their own compelling and informal styles.
Avatars Sri Bhagavan and his wife Sri Amma have established a spiritual school in Chennai, India called Oneness University. Sri Bhagavan says: "The dawn of this new civilization, which we may call the Golden Age, is the single most explosive fact of our lifetime. We have a destiny to create a state of consciousness that is oneness with all that is.”
From the island of Jamaica comes the cool refreshing breeze of a fully realized master who speaks to me in the language of the heart. Anthony Paul Moo-Young, known affectionately as Mooji radiates the direct experience of love, joy and liberation in an irresistible fusion of passion, humor and playfulness. His message: "Stay in the awareness…Say yes to life."
The exemplar of stillness, Eckhart Tolle, tells us, "Always say yes to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? Surrender to what is. Say yes to life, and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you."
“I could never understand why Jesus would retreat into the desert when he lived in the desert. The thought of trading in one patch of sand for another never seemed appealing to me, until I began to facilitate this work.” – Panache Desai
Looking For Shanti
Unique to Saharan dwellers, the young Bedouin made his way across the shifting dunes of Merzouga in an undulating motion like a dhow navigating the waves. Barefoot when he stopped a few feet in front of me, he held his pet iguana in his arms. We stared at each other while the sands burned through my desert boots. The crumbling relic of a French Foreign Legion fort loomed in the distance. The question was not what the boy was doing in that place. He knew exactly who he was and where he was going. But what was I doing there?
Seekers go to the ends of the earth for the one thing they think will make them happy. The next mountain, the next lover, the next guru, the next extreme experience or the next mystical one. Often I found myself in desolate regions where perhaps I’d discover the source of inner tranquility, the amorphous thing that looked out at me through that boy’s eyes. I didn’t know then that it was me looking at me. In India it is called Shanti, the peace that resides within.
The Unfathomable Source Within
"All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness." – Eckhart Tolle
Hollywood actress Michelle Williams was asked by Time Magazine how she managed to convey so much realism in her characters. Where did all that raw emotion come from? She replied, “The truth is, I don’t know. I find that when I’m doing my best work, there’s a kind of forgetfulness that happens, and the source of where something is coming from is unknown, even to me…”
In the Gospel According to Matthew, Lord Jesus says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is Within.” But what does that mean? It’s incomprehensible unless you experience it. The mind can only comment on the outer world of form. It cannot answer this question.
Eckhart Tolle says the moment you name the subtle eternal aliveness within you, it becomes a thought form, which diminishes it. So even if I say that my experience of oneness with the unknown source within is indescribable bliss and love, it means nothing to the listener or the reader. The one entity all humans have in common can never be expressed in words, yet it is our very essence, the thing that connects us to each other and the universe. Falling in love with love is loving one’s self.
Gautama Buddha, Lord Jesus, the Prophet Muhammad, and every God-realized being throughout history has found his way to God by looking in the right place–within. To quote Albert Einstein, “He who experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest...is a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.”
Alive and Well In Our Time
Enlightened beings have their own unique methods of communicating the same truth. His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi made me a teacher of transcendental meditation in 1974. From the time Maharishi brought TM to the west in the 1960s to this very day, his scientific approach to and practical teachings of meditation continue to bring immeasurable benefits to thousands of people from ashrams to boardrooms all over the world. Throughout his life as a spiritual master, the late Swami Muktananda had these words posted in his Siddha Yoga Ashrams: “God Dwells Within You as You.” His successor, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda continues his work. She once told her disciples, "You will leave me, but I will never leave you." Ergo, she and Muktananda are alive in my heart.
In our time, hip young contemporaries like Panache Desai, Jeff Foster, Adyashanti are a few among many who have come to know the self and enlighten others. They each bring their own uniqueness to the art of falling in love with love.
Dynamic spiritual master, and master of the art of presentation, Panache speaks candidly when he says, "There is nothing wrong with you: nothing to do, nothing to fix, nothing to change. You are perfect just as you are.” And that is how he sees you. Jeff Foster and Adyashanti each share their profound insights about awakening and non-duality in their own compelling and informal styles.
Avatars Sri Bhagavan and his wife Sri Amma have established a spiritual school in Chennai, India called Oneness University. Sri Bhagavan says: "The dawn of this new civilization, which we may call the Golden Age, is the single most explosive fact of our lifetime. We have a destiny to create a state of consciousness that is oneness with all that is.”
From the island of Jamaica comes the cool refreshing breeze of a fully realized master who speaks to me in the language of the heart. Anthony Paul Moo-Young, known affectionately as Mooji radiates the direct experience of love, joy and liberation in an irresistible fusion of passion, humor and playfulness. His message: "Stay in the awareness…Say yes to life."
The exemplar of stillness, Eckhart Tolle, tells us, "Always say yes to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? Surrender to what is. Say yes to life, and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you."