#2 - Love is at the center of everything
Jesus and eastern teachers tell a very similar story
In Matthew 22.37-39, Jesus says: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself”. To me this means:
Love your God—not only respect or fear him. Love him for the fact that he created you and the entire universe. Think about that for a moment and feel the deep gratitude and joy that come from that realization!
Love yourself in order to be able to love others. If you cannot love yourself and your body (which is a great gift from God and the vehicle for your life), you cannot truly love others! This is probably the most difficult task of all and a life-long struggle (at least for me so far). But true awakening cannot happen without reaching a state of calm and unconditional love. We have to work on this!
Love your fellow humans (and all other beings). If you learn to love God and yourself, you will find it easy to love your neighbor as well!
If you develop this unconditional love, you will be transformed and you literally live in heaven at all times—live becomes meaningful and blissful. This is how I interpret Jesus and this is what I have experienced in my life, at least in those moments when I managed to live points 1-3. The struggle here is to become more and more consistent.
Although far eastern teachers have developed a set of philosophies and techniques that often look very different compared to the Christian teachings, I find a strong connection between them when it comes to the concept of love.
The picture below shows the heart chakra (Anahata) which plays a central role in one of the oldest spiritual systems in the world—yoga.
The heart chakra is believed to be the energy center in the middle of our body and it is absolutely central for our spiritual development. It has the colour green and it is connected with the topics of love, compassion, openness and tolerance. If we strengthen the heart chakra so that it spins freely, it energizes the other chakras above and below it and helps us to develop all of them on our way of transformation.
I personally work on my heart chakra through meditation about love and the practice of breathwork. At the same time I try to follow Jesus on what he teaches about love. It has changed my life!
What do you think? Do you agree that the Christian and the eastern concepts are very similar and that love is the central element of our spiritual development? Do you agree that we need to work hard to improve ourselves in order to live in heaven on earth? If you want to learn more about my experiences with meditation, breathwork and other methods to open the heart chakra, please reach out!
With love :-)