Loving Through the Senses

From Loving Through the Senses, a new section in Nirmala's book Living from the Heart. Read the entire new excerpt

We are filled with love when we give it away, not when we receive it from others. This can profoundly free us from the search for love, as anything is a worthy object of our love. Especially when we realize that love is simply awareness and space, then we can freely give it to everything that appears in our experience. In this way, we are filled to overflowing with the sweet open presence of love.

It is also possible to experience this fullness of love through our physical senses. For the most part we are used to using our senses to take things in. We look at something to get something, such as information. We might look in our wallet to see how much money we have left. Or we look in the fridge to see what is there to eat. We listen to the radio for some entertainment or news. We feel our pocket to see if our car keys are in there.

Other times we try to get even more than information through our senses. We watch carefully to try to feel safe. We stare longingly at a photo of someone to try to be filled with love, or to be satisfied purely by their beauty. We listen to music to try to be filled with excitement or joy. In a sense we have learned to be consumers with our senses. We try to acquire beauty, pleasure, excitement, passion, happiness, security, value and even love by ingesting these through our senses. But just as love from the outside doesn't ever fill us up or completely satisfy us, anything we try to consume with our senses is not ultimately satisfying.

Unfortunately, the experiences we take in through our senses do satisfy a little. Looking at a beautiful woman or man does give us a little bit of pleasure, excitement, and the experience of beauty. However the pleasure and excitement are very fleeting, and never enough. This is actually an unavoidable part of the nature of life and of our Being. The ultimate truth of our Being is pure emptiness or space. So, when we take in any experience, it flows into the inner emptiness of our Being, and in the process, it is dissolved by that emptiness. The inward flow of experience is a flow from form to emptiness. Everything we consume with our senses and awareness returns to its original nature as formless presence.

This is why the satisfaction we get from outer experience is never enough. Trying to fill ourselves up with beauty, passion, happiness, and love from the outside is like trying to fill a leaky bucket. No matter how long you stand there with the hose pouring water into the bucket, it never fills up. No matter how many experiences of passion and beauty and joy you consume, the inner emptiness of your Being is still totally empty. And no matter how much love or attention you receive from others, it's never enough to fill the hole in your heart. As one of my teachers used to say, you can never get enough of what does not satisfy.

Because of this, our attempts to feel good by ingesting or consuming outer experiences can lead to a compulsive or an addictive attachment to outer experiences including fun, beauty, or romance. A basic principle of psychology is that an intermittent reward is more powerfully reinforcing than a constant reward. So the little taste of excitement or satisfaction we do experience from seeing a beautiful person, tasting chocolate, or traveling to Fiji can lead to a slight, or even severe, addiction to the outer experience. People can become addicted to just about anything, including scanning the crowd for a beautiful face or planning ways to maximize fun or pleasure. This can also result in avoidance of or overreaction to things we don't want to experience: We may tighten or withdraw when we see the wrinkles in our lover's face, or we may not eat the healthiest foods if we don't want to taste them.

Fortunately there is a simple solution. It is in the outward flow of the positive qualities of our Being, including love, that we can fully experience the peace, joy, love, and beauty within us. When joy or peace or excitement is flowing from within us, it is moving from emptiness to form. The inner emptiness of Being is the source of everything, including joy, passion, peace, strength, compassion, support, and love. So, it is in the outward flow of awareness and love that we are filled with the experience of these qualities. It's in this movement from emptiness to form that these particular qualities take shape. Emptiness moves into the particular forms of love, peace, joy, etc. with the outward flow of awareness. Surprisingly, the inner empty source never runs out. There's always more joy and love to be found in their true source.

Because of the habit of trying to consume things with our senses, instead of feeling this fullness of Being, we often feel empty, hungry, and incomplete. So we go looking, listening, and feeling for something else to satisfy us. We may compulsively look for a better lover or a better car or a better job, even when the lover or car or job we have is actually quite wonderful. We may develop the habit in the way we watch or listen to the world of always looking for something to take in with our senses that will satisfy us. Of course, many people experience this when it comes to food. We want joy and satisfaction by tasting something, and yet we can never eat enough. Similarly, we want joy and satisfaction from seeing or hearing something of beauty, but we can never see or hear enough to satisfy. Audiophiles are forever searching for a better sounding set of speakers.

There is another way: We can give love through our senses. Instead of trying to see or take in something exciting or satisfying with our eyes, we can shower whatever is in our sight with a flow of love through our eyes. This is as easy as shifting the focus to the outward flow of awareness rather than the inward flow of sensation.

Exercise

Take a moment to look at something in your environment. Start with something neutral or something you find pleasing to the eye. Notice how you are relating inwardly to the experience of sight. Are you trying to get something from looking? Is there an evaluation of what you are looking at? Is it good enough? Is it satisfying enough right now to simply look at this object?

Now allow a fuller flow of awareness through your eyes to the object. Instead of trying to take in the object through your eyes, shower it with a fullness of loving attention through your eyes. Just for a moment, love it for no reason with your seeing. Love is ultimately acceptance and attention, so just give the object lots of attention and acceptance. Notice if you can feel a sense of love flowing out of your eyes to the object. Use your sight to give love to the object instead of to get something from it.

What is that like to feel an outward flow of love through your eyes? Don't worry if you are doing it right or if you are feeling it enough. Just notice how it shifts your experience to whatever degree it does, or just imagine a flow of love through your sense of sight to the object.

Now pick another object and, once again, allow loving awareness to flow out of your eyes to the object. Just for now, allow as much love as you can to flow through seeing to the object. Now move from object to object and shower each of them with love, just for the sake of this experiment. As you get the hang of it, you can even try it with objects you don't like or even strongly dislike. You can also try it with people and pets. Notice how some things are easier to look at this way than others, but then give as much love to each thing as you can.