posted November 06, 2004 07:16 AM         

Except for a few moments of forgetfulness,
we move in the container of our love
as the river moves in the riverbed.

River of Life

What does it mean: to move in the container of our love?

It means that our love is greater than we are. It is bigger and stronger than we can ever be. It has the capacity to contain us even as we vacillate from one thought/feeling state to another.

Our love is like a mother or father on whom we can rely to keep us safe. It holds us gently, regardless of what is happening in our lives.

It is like the riverbed that has been made over thousands of years by the natural flow of water to its lowest point. Just as the river makes the riverbed and then moves within it, love makes us its container so it can express through us.

We do not know why we love each other. We just know with a certainty that it is so.

People try to rationalize love. They try to break it down into its component elements. They say that love is born of physical attraction, shared values and interests. Yet people may be attracted to each other and share each other's interests and values and still not fall in love.

Or they may fall in love for a month or two and fall out of love again.

But people who share a great love -- people who are truly stronger together than they are apart -- will tell you that there is nothing reasonable or even optional about their love for each other.

Love for them was never a choice. It was and continues to be an immediate necessity.

When you know something to be true, deliberation is not necessary. The choice is so clear that it does not seem like a choice at all.

Truth, after all, is not divided. It is completely whole and indivisible. When tue love comes into our life, we have no need to analyze the situation. We know exactly what to say and do.

There is no need even for thought.

Love does not require persuasion or convincing. It is an absolute fiat. It is a law unto itself.

Those who are seized by the power of love cannot but surrender to it. They are powerless to oppose it, because they have joined with it totally.

How can you oppose that with which you are joined?

It is not possible.

Others may seek to interfere with or pull apart what love has joined, but they will not be successful. Nothing can obstruct or impede that which is effortlessly true. And that which is not fabricated cannot be pulled apart.

It is a gift of the universe. And once the gift has been given and received, it cannot be taken back.

As Rumi says: lovers do not just meet somewhere. They are in each other all along.

Their meeting is merely a recognition of what they know has always been true.

Remember, it is not hard for the river to move in the riverbed. It is completely easy and natural.

The only time it becomes difficult is in times of great draught or flood, times when there is too little or too much emotion. And, at such times, the shape of the riverbed may change to accommodate the increase or decrease in energy.

When we love truly, it is not hard to stay in our love. All it requires is a deep breath, a sigh, a relaxing into what is. All it requires is a sinking into the arms that hold us.

When you love, loving is not complicated. It is not even difficult.

It is complicated and difficult only when you don't love.

Then, you think it requires a lot of work because you are trying to force yourself or another to love.

But force is not part of the language of love. Force is a sign that love is absent.

Force pushes the river over its banks. It destroys the farms that lie along both sides of the river.

That is why the lover must be able to surrender, not just once, but thousands of times. He must surrender his own will to the greater Will. He must surrender his own selfish desires to the greater needs of the relationship.

This surrender is not work. It is a relaxation.

It is yielding up of all that is not whole to that which is whole. It is a trust in the river itself.

Each day the lover surrenders to love as the river surrenders to the riverbank. And each day the lover is carried by the current of love to whatever destination love requires.

He does not know where he is going. Indeed, he knows that he has no choice.

He has stopped trying to choose for himself.

He has learned to let love choose for him.

And his beloved does the same, not because he asks it of her, but because she too has surrendered to love.

When two surrender to love, their relationship is effortless and full of grace. They both have the same changeless goal and they know that the way to reach it will be provided.

Trust is required from both of them for such a love to bloom. Yet they cannot in any way influence who the beloved is or when s/he comes. They can merely recognize the beloved when s/he stands before them.

No vows are necessary for those who mutually acknowledge the beloved in each other. Their love for each other is itself the proclamation of a commitment made in their hearts and it will be witnessed by all who come to know them.

The surrender to life necessarily precedes the creation of true relationship, because only those who know how to surrender to life can surrender to each other.

-- Paul Ferrini, Dancing With the Beloved