From the work in progress Life: A Book About Learning to Live
By Jim Rosemergy
The love I feel is the love that pours from within me.
If you had a choice of either saying to someone precious to you, “I love you,” or hearing that person say to you, “I love you,” which would you choose? Which supposed expression of love would fill you with the greater joy? Regardless of the answer given, the behavior and actions of most of humanity declares that it is more important to be loved than to love. This is what we believe, and it is one of our greatest forms of self-deception.
We think we need love because we believe ourselves to be empty of this most desirable of gifts, and what we lack, we must have. It is deception once more. We are not empty, nor do we lack love. Love is a divine essence that is not experienced until it is given away. This is part of love’s mystery. The truth is that love experienced is not received; it is expressed.
Children love their stuffed animals. They hug them and when they do, the children know love. They think the stuffed bear loves them, but it is not capable of love. It is a toy. And so where does the love experienced by the child originate? The answer is simple and profound. It comes from within the little one. As love is expressed, as it escapes like an imprisoned splendor, it is experienced.
We may think we want to hear the words, I love you, but if this is true, we want to hear the words escape from our own lips. Why is this true? Because we are made in the image and after the likeness of God, and God is love. Love is our nature and only through expression do we experience our essence.
Have you noticed how painful it is when you are separate from whom you love? As the years march by, Nancy and I yearn to be with one another continuously. My weekend speaking engagements are more difficult than before. The reason… Love is oneness. To love is to be one with, and ultimately the oneness is so great that the with disappears. You see, in true oneness two do not merge. Each is known to be the other. Each is known to be the whole. Each is not a part of the whole; each is the whole. There is only one. This is the realization that love brings.
Love is the offspring of oneness. It is the natural result of the great spiritual truth that all are one. Love may seem like attraction, but this is only because we believe we are separate. At its worst, separation is fear; at its best it is attraction. Both the fear and attraction sever our bond and hide oneness from us. Where there is love, there is no fear. Where is love, attraction gives way to oneness, to unity.
It is better to say I love you than yearn for someone to whisper in your ear, I love you. This is now clear, but is it possible for us to hear God say, I love you? Surely, it can be argued that God is perpetually whispering in our ears and in the ear of Its creation, I love you, but it is probably more true to say that God is whispering, I love…
Human love tends to say, I love you. Love expressed by one of us generally has an object; divine love has no object. It is unconditional. It is love expressing like the light of the shining Sun. If the Sun could speak it would not say, I shine upon you; instead, it would radiate the words, I simply shine.
The choice remains. Would you rather hear the words I love you or would you rather speak the same three words of affection. The decision you make either brings you closer to loving like the shining Sun or simply delays the time when you live in oneness.