All you need is. . .

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Hi All,

A conventional wisdom holds that all you need is love. This notion sometimes is treated as a truism, it's the sort of thing that's taken for granted without much examination. Just to be clear, my own view is that love is akin to the glue that holds the universe together; indeed it could rightly be described as an integrating factor. (Perhaps in the way fire is not possible without oxygen.) But what is it that gets integrated? Are there co-equal factors whose function is optimized by love?

One approach to answering these questions is to look to the yoga systems. There is a yoga of love. It's called Bhaktiyoga. Typically it's thought of as a part of a triumvirate by its linking with the yoga of action, or Karmayoga; which in turn is linked with the yoga of understanding, or Jnanayoga.

These three taken together can easily be covered under the rubric Integral Yoga. But this is not just theory. Here is the simplest example i can think of: washing a china dish. Once we're past the learning curve and can be considered to be accomplished dishwashers, what really happens? And what does this have to do with love and understanding? Why do we wash dishes in the first place; obviously it's because of sanitary reasons, where failure to do so can produce harm in those including ourselves who might later use them. And if we care about ourselves and others, we will tend to do a better job. And if our understanding expands to include to the negative effects of various gastrointestinal problems that could result from faulty dishwashing, will tend to do a better job. (And if we drop and break the dish, and have the willingness and insight to trace back where we were -in consciousness- at the moment of dropping, we will find it to be a place where either or both love and understanding was missing.)

However, it doesn't matter where we enter this self-reinforcing triangle of work, understanding, and affection. What really matters is that these three coequal aspects, have a capacity to produce results superior to any approach that puts emphasis on one aspect at the cost of the others. To do so reminds me of the phenomenon called infatuation, where one aspect of a situation is treated as if it is the whole, instead of a part.

It's difficult for me to conceive of any form of skillful means that does not employ these three coequal aspects. Here is a personal anecdote that speaks to the point i'm trying to make here.

I was born into a family with an older brother, about 17 months my senior. Now as you might suspect i was a bit precocious as a youngster and i began to notice that mother often treated my brother better than me. (I know this sounds like Tom and Dick Smothers, but it was a real phenomenon not just imagined.) In spite of being precocious i was also naïve; i began to suspect that the reason mother a loved John better than me, was due to some flaw or fault in my character and being. This had a very negative effect on me, based mostly on the notion that if your own mother fails to love you (due to un-lovability), it could spell serious trouble in a lifetime ahead.

It took me years to transcend this bit of sibling rivalry; something that only came about through increased understanding. Here's what really happened. John's birth was breech and very difficult, and in his early months there was some concern over his viability -his very survival. By contrast, i was a robust infant, full of vigor, if not gusto. So while my analysis that mother loved John better than me proved to be accurate; i had completely misread the reason why it was so, getting it exactly backwards. Mother's view was that he needed her love more than i did. The flaw was not in me, it was in John's physical body. At the time this was something incomprehensible to me, because from my limited junior view he always seemed much more capable than i was.

Imagine for a moment, if mother in addition to loving me, had also understood the negative effect on me (both real and imagined) of being the lesser recipient of her love. Just a few skillful words from her at the right time and place would've done the trick.

(BTW -I love my brother John. Once he actually saved my life.)

Warmly,

Charles

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