Evolution of love

INNOCENCE

Three qualities arose in me when I experienced a deep awakening: wisdom, innocence, and love. Although they are actually parts of one whole, this wholeness can be expressed by these three qualities.

Awakening opens wisdom. When I speak of wisdom, it doesn't mean that I suddenly became smart. It simply means that I realized the Truth. This Truth is what I am. This is what the world is. This is what is. The wisdom is the realization of what you are. It is the realization of Truth, the one and only true truth. This Truth is not a matter of philosophy, or science, or faith, or belief, or religion. It is beyond all of that—far beyond.

The second quality born within this awakening was innocence. This tremendous innocence produces the feeling of an ever-present newness in life. Since the awakening, the brain no longer holds and compares, so every moment is experienced as new, just as it would be in the mind of a young child. The adult mind tends to take things in, compare its perceptions to the litany of things that have happened in the past, and basically hold the attitude, "Been there, done that." It is rather arid, dry, and boring. The innocent mind arises when this comparison is no longer happening. This innocence could also be called humility. But I personally like the word innocence because I think it stays closer to the actual experience.

The third quality that arose was love. This love is simply for existence. What is born in awakening is a love of What IS—of everything that is. The fact that there is anything at all seems wonderful because when the insight of awakening goes very deep, there is a realization about how tenuous existence is. I don't simply mean that we could be killed at any moment. I mean we see an unbelievable miracle, we see how unimaginably easy it would be for absolutely nothing to be here. (Actually, there is absolutely nothing, but that's another story.) That anything exists at all is seen as an absolute and utter miracle, and from that seeing there is the birth of so much love simply for what is. It's a different love than when we love getting what we want or we find the perfect partner.

This is a love just for the fact that we have shoelaces or for the fact that toenails exist, that kind of love. A tremendous love arises simply for the miracle that is life, realizing that all and everything is the One.