Bede Griffiths

The Mystery of Love

"We become more ourselves as we enter more deeply into relationship with others. In our ordinary consciousness we are all separated in time and space, but as we go beyond the limitations of time and space we experience our oneness with others. We do not lose ourselves, but we lose our sense of separation and division and discover our integral oneness in the One Reality.

This is essentially a mystery of love.

When two people love one another they do not lose their distinction of person, they become more fully personal. The whole process of evolution is a process of personalisation.

The ultimate goal of humanity is a communion of persons in love"

Apicella

Unconditional Love

"Love is the harmonising principle of the Universe.

As a musician or an orchestra tunes to a note or chord to bring themselves into closer harmony with their instrument or their fellow players, so we may use unconditional love to bring ourselves into closer harmony with ourselves - and everything else"

Rumi

In the Sea of Love

"In the sea of love, I melt like salt, Faith, Doubt - they both dissolve. A star is opening in my heart, The worlds turn in it.

With one silent laugh you tilted the night, and the garden ran with stars.

You burned away my last illusion. The world and I died together. I woke a ghost smiling among ghosts, Unreal and gentle in a world of You.

I thought the world real until you laughed, Walls fell, then reared again. Transparent now, soft dancing fans; You shut and open, when you want.

So often I put up my hands to shield my eyes from you, Wild hilarious miracle! Your Light shines through my bones.

Sometimes in all this talk I find a word with your mark on it, In the blood of love. And the worlds go quiet.

Each being is your gold, walking; Love, the eyes that see the gold. Last night I touched your beauty, Woke an alchemist.

We were green, we ripened and grew golden. The sea terrified us, we learned how to drown. Squat and earthbound, we unfolded huge wings. We started sober; are Loves drunkards.

I watch you dancing in all my actions. Without using eyes, I spy you at play. My old eyes wore thin, I threw them away. Vision grew in their sockets like grass.

I know nothing; pass away; only you live on, Passing my moods like masks before your face, Dancing through my skull your wordless secret, Rattling its jewel in this bowl of bone

The truth so simple; The mind explodes, To meet itself, Running back in all things."

CG Jung

One

"We shy away from the word 'eternal', but I can describe the experience only as an ecstasy of a non-temporal state in which present, past and future are one. Everything that happens in time has been brought together into a concrete whole. Nothing was distributed over time, nothing could be measured by temporal concepts. The experience might best be described as a state of feeling, but one which cannot be produced by imagination. How can I imagine that I exist simultaneously the day before yesterday, to-day, and the day after to-morrow? There would be things which would not yet have begun, other things which would be indubitably present, and others again which would already be finished and yet all this would be one. The only thing that feeling would grasp would be a sum, an iridescent whole, containing all at once expectation of a beginning, surprise at what is now happening, and satisfaction or disappointment with the result of what happened. One is interwoven into an indescribable whole and yet observes it with complete objectivity."

The Party Imperative

Now more than ever it's essential to remind ourselves that there's SO much more that unites us than divides us - in these uncertain times coming together to celebrate our common humanity is not just life affirming and fun, it's our sacred duty!