I don’t have problems with complex processes. Complex means multifaceted and differentiated. Complex does not necessarily mean, that something is complicated. Nevertheless I love to make things as easy as possible and make a point. Here is one of them:
The main goal of any spiritual path is simply Love!
Let´s have a look at the 3 primary obstacles on the path of Love.
These obstacles are very easy to comprehend, but we overlook them sometimes and lose ourselves in philosophical discussions instead.
- Your overstimulated nervous system
It´s no secret. We live in times of information overflow. News, facts and emotions are flooding our consciousness, and they need to digest them - like any other food we swallow.
Our brain and nervous system are bombarded by information and it´s their job to filter them. Our cells and our DNA provide the frame for this filtration process. What is important for us and what’s not, is decided by these filters.
If we don’t know them, then they will do their job automatically and on an unconscious level.
The primary function of the nervous system is to provide us a feeling of safety. This very basic level of security grants our survival.
Our inner innocence/inner child is always struggling to regain this safety.
If we react out of old patterns and filters, this path often becomes destructive. The result of this, is something that is commonly called an „Ego“. Ego is just another word for „overstimulated nervous system“.
What’s the solution for this problem?
The first step is very simple (and therefore often disregarded):
Relax your body!
Breathing deeply into your belly - breaking the hectic breath pattern of the overstimulated nervous system - brings back the basic safety you inner child longs for. Without this feeling of safety, you cannot love.
Relaxation is the basis and the first step on any spiritual path.
- Your distracted attention/consciousness
The second obstacle on the path to Love - directly resulting out of the overstimulated nervous system - is your distracted attention and consciousness, that tries to grab a hold in the world.
Sometimes it seems, as if we can find something solid to hold on to in philosophical, religious or spiritual concepts, teachings, books, groups, methods, relationships, work, alcohol, drugs - just to realize later, that it didn’t work out.
The innocent inner child tries to find safety through many things, just to bring order into the chaos and in doing so, distracts our attention and consciousness.
Since we decided to walk the path of Love, the solution here is also very simple: Make your heart the central focus in your life!
For our mind, this sounds too easy to be true. All these teachers and methods on the psycho-spiritual market teach endless techniques on mindfulness and „the power of now“, and the more you listen to all these different teachings, the more your nervous system gets overstimulated again. Once you think, that you have found „the final truth“, tomorrow it´s a different one….
It is so simple! You become, where you direct your attention.
If you direct your attention on your heart, you become Love.
- The way you are talking to yourself
The third obstacle on the path to/of Love is the way you talk to yourself.
What does the inner voice in your head tell you?
The more „advanced“ we are on our spiritual path and the more insights and concepts we accumulate, the easier we oversee this simple and basic happening.
Another way of asking this is: How do you speak with your heart_your innocence_your inner child?
All these sentences have a direct influence on your nervous system too.
They are also information, that has to be filtered and digested.
What do you feed yourself?
Here again, the solution is simple and the important point is to really do it!
Just say these 3 magic words - over your whole day - as often as you can:
„I love you“
It´s as simple as that. It´s free and you can start right now!
In case you are wondering, why you don’t feel Love when you say these words to yourself: You are doing it right! Don’t worry! Because:
Love is not a feeling!
Yes, there is also a feeling that is called „Love“, but this is just a romantic feeling produced by hormones and neurotransmitters in your body.
That’s not the Love we are speaking about here - not at all….
The Love we are speaking about is simply the endless and infinite space of „no attachment - no aversion“ to whatever arises. Letting arise whatever wants to arise - letting subside, whatever wants to subside.
That leaves us with the final question:
Are you ready to walk the path of Love?