The Way of Freedom allows Real Love, but does not cling to it

The Teaching may at times challenge the mental faculties, or may seem too intellectual to some readers. However, I use the mind to Lead the reader to that intuitive understanding which transcends but informs the mind, and upon which the real living of The Way is based.

The Way of Freedom is not a mind-only Path, and is far from sterile and cold. The Way involves the entire being and life, and is mainly always about God. The Way of Freedom is not sterile and cold, because The Way is always about God, and God is certainly not sterile and cold. One Quality of God’s State and Presence is Love, real Love. The love commonly found in human culture and relationships is not the Love of which I Speak. Ordinary human love is mere investment, clinging, ownership, selfish expectation, and control. Ordinary human love is no more than the feeling underlying the business-like contract implicit within common human relationships.  The warm-fuzzy of ordinary human love says, “Let’s be nice to one another, so that we can use one another to get our needs met.”. Ordinary human love is, therefore, conditional and further-limiting, and thus suffering-enhancing. The Love of God, however, is Of Freedom, and is Unconditional Goodness, Benevolence, Peace, and Bliss. The Love of God asks nothing in return, and is Love for the sake of Love in a world bereft of God and His Way.

God, His Love, and His Way of Freedom are not other-worldly, and are not away from life and human relationships. In fact, God, His Love, and His Way Inform, Permeate, and Guide the entire being and life, including the relationships, of the serious follower. It is the Pure Love of God that can Heal human hearts, minds, lives, and relationships. Upon Incarnation, God’s Love is indeed Unconditional, however, His Response, Intervention, and Help are not without conditions. Because of His Utmost Goodness, God does not Impose Himself and His Way where He is not wanted. God’s Love Is Unconditional, but for God to Help an individual, he must be truly and deeply inviting and allowing God and His Way, through his sincere and deep attempting to walk The Path of Freedom. Out of Love, God does not “capture” followers, but Allows all to choose or reject Him and His Way. God can Love without Helping.

The popular idea that, because of His universal Love, God is equally Involved in the being and life of every person, is simply false. God is not like a human parent, who cares equally for the needs and wishes of his children. To generate a feeling of connectedness and safety, people tend to ascribe parental attributes to God. However, the true follower learns to take full responsibility for his inviting and allowing of God, and does not sit passively waiting for God to Heap Blessings upon him. God’s Love Allows every person to choose Him and His Way, or not. And, people are Recognized by God as choosing Him and His Way, when they are truly and deeply attempting to live His Way of Freedom. People may live any way they choose, but they should not expect God to Run to their aid when egoically-unpleasant accidental and karmic events unfold for them. If nature is your lord and master, then, realistically, you should look to nature, and not God, for the little aid and comfort it can provide.

The real Love of God can bring a sense of Fullness, Peace, Contentment, and Light to the follower. It can also profoundly Change his mind and heart, and can cause him to act according to that Love in his interactions with others. God’s Love can make him feel and act better. However, the advancing follower remembers to not become attached to any feeling-state, even including the Love of God. God’s Love is simply a Quality of God’s Presence in three-dimensional space, and that Presence is Given to the follower Through the Incarnation, and is not generated or owned by the follower.

Clinging is clinging, and even trying to cling to God’s Presence maintains and strengthens the state, stuff, and ways of limitation and suffering. There is no Higher clinging; all clinging is of the natural way, even the clinging to God. All clinging shuts-out God, and the attempt to cling to God shut-outs the very God to which one is trying to cling. The reader is perhaps closer to understanding why I use the phrase “allow God”, when describing the follower’s Sacrificial and Faithful participation in The Way of Freedom.

Spiritual paths and practices involve generating, clinging to, and wallowing in, various experiences and feeling-states. The Way of Freedom is, however, no spiritual path or practice. The Way allows real Love, but is always about Freedom in the very midst of existence and relationships. Love is a Quality of God, but from the follower’s perspective, God is most essentially Freedom, so His Love should not be confined or perverted by clinging, preference, or aversion.

by Sri Dava Prakasha