by Patty Paulsen • We’re each existing in our little spot on a tiny part of planet Earth, and all around us is space. As far as the mind can envision—even to the farthest of galaxies and the deepest of seas—Divine Consciousness is there. It’s everywhere, in every space, in every atom, and inside of us too. The kingdom of God is within us.
It’s easy to think of love in our own life, in our little circle of friends and loved ones. We learn a lot in those relationships, in that sharing, in the sacrifices and compromises we make for love. If we take a moment, we can realize how expansive love really is, this amazing, immense ocean of life, of love, of God. We can tap into cultivating divine love. We are very much a part of this ocean of love. We swim in it, yet sometimes feel separate from it,
There have been many saints and teachers, enlightened ones who have realized this love. Either in the body or out of the body, they still live in this ocean of love. They’re awake and ready to hear our call and our prayers, for they live in divine Love and in the joy and bliss of Spirit. To know that they are alive as we call them in, to join us in our meditations and be present with us on our journey is a real blessing.
This brings me to the teachings of Jesus. His whole message came from divine love and his great commandments to love God with all your heart, all your soul, mind, and strength. And, he said to love one another. He was aware of how powerful the heart is. Not just the physical heart that keeps us in this body, but the energy field and the astral center of the heart. The mind and the heart are very much connected.
I know for myself I had a blessed relationship, a marriage for many years. In our relationship, we always knew God was in the midst of us. There were three in our relationship at all times, as one. When my husband had to leave the physical plane, his love didn’t leave. It is as present this moment as it was then. Love is what gives us the joy of waking up every morning. If there was no love, what would we want to live for?
Yogananda speaks of cultivating divine love saying, “The world as a whole has forgotten the real meaning of the word love. You have to taste the fruit to know its flavor. So it is with love. All of you have tasted love in some form in your hearts. Therefore, you know a little about what it is. But have you understood how to develop love? How to purify and expand it into divine love? A spark of this divine love exists in most hearts in the beginning of life, but is usually lost because one does not know how to cultivate it. The satisfaction of love is not in the feeling itself, but in the joy that feeling brings.”
Consciously invoke the Divine in the temple of silence, and in deeper mediation find Him in the temple of bliss. The kingdom of God is just behind the darkness of closed eyes, and the first gate that opens to it is inner peace. Peace and joy are the voices of God that have long been ignored and forgotten in the din of human passions. Through meditation, we still our restlessness, focusing our attention at that point between the eyebrows. Thoughts, like clouds, begin to dissipate without distracting us anymore, and we remain focused on this presence of peace. It’s in this daily practice that we begin to cultivate divine love.