What the World Needs Now
by Susan Scharfman
"Grace is like a cool breeze whose time of arrival cannot be predicted. All that you can do is to wait for it at your window. You enjoy the breeze when it comes, so is it with grace. Yours is to pray and wait. And when grace does reach you, accept it with humility." – Sri Amma, Oneness University
"Love Has No Other Desire But to Fulfill Itself." – Kahlil Gibran
Did you know that simply thinking about love releases endorphin from the hypothalamus of the brain into the bloodstream? Chemical magic happens that makes us feel good. Successful authors who write about love go to great lengths to be original–watch out for those clichés! Don’t sound too syrupy or corny! But aren’t there times when corny is pleasantly wistful, and cool is often flippant and mean spirited?
Romance
Today romance has a hard time keeping up with gross and violent in competing for ratings in American pop culture. And I’m old enough to remember romance like ‘you and the night and the music.’ Though romance novels are not my personal preference, you can’t argue with the most successful author of the genre alive today, Nora Roberts. The Romance Novel is one of the largest and still flourishing niches for writers like Roberts who create them to the delight of millions. Unlike bodice-rippers, they are love stories with guts, mystery, history and suspense. Publishers pamper these authors. Their fans adore them.
Women in particular want romance in their lives. Equating it with love, when they don’t have it they look for it in fiction. And, as medical science confirms, when endorphin are on the march, they send powerful euphoric messages like shooting stars across the universe. Nevertheless, fiction isn’t reality.
Love is Endless
I wrote a short story about three people in the Sahara Desert. Two are lost in a failed marriage; the third, a young hitchhiker, becomes the catalyst for reawakening their love. Granted, it’s a romantic setting, but without spiritual guidance from an unlikely stranger, the misfortunes that befall the couple in an unforgiving environment would destroy rather than renew them. Each has to discover who they really are on the inside before they can begin to trust and love, and trust love.
The movie, “Endless Love” was endlessly forgettable, but the title is truth itself. Romantic, spiritual or familial–love is endless. Love exists only to express itself. In a crowded room, two people in love are aware only of each other (see South Pacific). When we love our pet we feel the animal’s love in return. When we love an infant, we feel that baby’s love in return. When we give love we get more than we give. Clearly, something miraculous is happening here. Called the reward pathway by scientists, a neural network in the middle brain reacts immediately to happy feelings like quenching our thirst or having good sex.
According to research anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher at Rutgers University, “love activates a region of the brain rich in dopamine, associated with rewards." Fisher and her colleagues found that “love is a long-term all-consuming and powerful unconscious state, not necessarily cognitive." I think Margaret Mead would disagree.
Love is Consciousness
Love with a capital L is more than lust or sex or the physical neural network. Love is absolutely long-term and powerful. But love is not unconscious. Love is consciousness itself. Everything you have just read is an explanation by way of thought forms expressed in written word forms. That’s the best we can do in the world of form. But Love is the all consuming, omnipotent consciousness that has no form. Love exists everywhere and in every thing. “Within You and Without You.” You have only to stop and be aware. If you can’t go to a Grand Canyon or other spectacular environment, feel Love in the stillness of the world around you–leaves fluttering in the wind, the bird on a branch. Ann Frank felt it peeking at a treetop through the prison of her tiny window .
In the silence of prayer or meditation, when you commune with God, or the higher power, or whatever entity or Deity you are comfortable with, you’re having a deep personal connection with Love. This is pure consciousness. It might be a wisp of a moment, or expansive as the universe. It is what you are absolutely.
The more we are aware of the sacred presence of love, which is our essence, the more expansive it becomes. Those who live in this state all the time are the messengers of love and peace in this world, the golden age of our new earth.
"Grace is like a cool breeze whose time of arrival cannot be predicted. All that you can do is to wait for it at your window. You enjoy the breeze when it comes, so is it with grace. Yours is to pray and wait. And when grace does reach you, accept it with humility." – Sri Amma, Oneness University
"Love Has No Other Desire But to Fulfill Itself." – Kahlil Gibran
Did you know that simply thinking about love releases endorphin from the hypothalamus of the brain into the bloodstream? Chemical magic happens that makes us feel good. Successful authors who write about love go to great lengths to be original–watch out for those clichés! Don’t sound too syrupy or corny! But aren’t there times when corny is pleasantly wistful, and cool is often flippant and mean spirited?
Romance
Today romance has a hard time keeping up with gross and violent in competing for ratings in American pop culture. And I’m old enough to remember romance like ‘you and the night and the music.’ Though romance novels are not my personal preference, you can’t argue with the most successful author of the genre alive today, Nora Roberts. The Romance Novel is one of the largest and still flourishing niches for writers like Roberts who create them to the delight of millions. Unlike bodice-rippers, they are love stories with guts, mystery, history and suspense. Publishers pamper these authors. Their fans adore them.
Women in particular want romance in their lives. Equating it with love, when they don’t have it they look for it in fiction. And, as medical science confirms, when endorphin are on the march, they send powerful euphoric messages like shooting stars across the universe. Nevertheless, fiction isn’t reality.
Love is Endless
I wrote a short story about three people in the Sahara Desert. Two are lost in a failed marriage; the third, a young hitchhiker, becomes the catalyst for reawakening their love. Granted, it’s a romantic setting, but without spiritual guidance from an unlikely stranger, the misfortunes that befall the couple in an unforgiving environment would destroy rather than renew them. Each has to discover who they really are on the inside before they can begin to trust and love, and trust love.
The movie, “Endless Love” was endlessly forgettable, but the title is truth itself. Romantic, spiritual or familial–love is endless. Love exists only to express itself. In a crowded room, two people in love are aware only of each other (see South Pacific). When we love our pet we feel the animal’s love in return. When we love an infant, we feel that baby’s love in return. When we give love we get more than we give. Clearly, something miraculous is happening here. Called the reward pathway by scientists, a neural network in the middle brain reacts immediately to happy feelings like quenching our thirst or having good sex.
According to research anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher at Rutgers University, “love activates a region of the brain rich in dopamine, associated with rewards." Fisher and her colleagues found that “love is a long-term all-consuming and powerful unconscious state, not necessarily cognitive." I think Margaret Mead would disagree.
Love is Consciousness
Love with a capital L is more than lust or sex or the physical neural network. Love is absolutely long-term and powerful. But love is not unconscious. Love is consciousness itself. Everything you have just read is an explanation by way of thought forms expressed in written word forms. That’s the best we can do in the world of form. But Love is the all consuming, omnipotent consciousness that has no form. Love exists everywhere and in every thing. “Within You and Without You.” You have only to stop and be aware. If you can’t go to a Grand Canyon or other spectacular environment, feel Love in the stillness of the world around you–leaves fluttering in the wind, the bird on a branch. Ann Frank felt it peeking at a treetop through the prison of her tiny window .
In the silence of prayer or meditation, when you commune with God, or the higher power, or whatever entity or Deity you are comfortable with, you’re having a deep personal connection with Love. This is pure consciousness. It might be a wisp of a moment, or expansive as the universe. It is what you are absolutely.
The more we are aware of the sacred presence of love, which is our essence, the more expansive it becomes. Those who live in this state all the time are the messengers of love and peace in this world, the golden age of our new earth.