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Verdant
We begin today with a poem I recently wrote. Initially, the plan was to accompany it with a few comments, or none at all. Something, however, of concern has become clear to me about my frequent use of "love" over the years in writings, teaching, and public speaking. I address this matter. I hope you enjoy the poem. Some of you may wish not to proceed past the poem - it can stand alone.
And, as for the comments - all my writing - I feel like someone living in the plains speaking of something living among the peaks, to which I have never been. I trust I have heard some whispers descending from there, guiding and inspiring us. At least, I have given my life over the last fifty-plus years to share that, as best I can. Yet, readers need to be aware, I am fully aware I share only whispers - we could say, shadows. Can any human do more? I think not. But that does not mean shadows are untrue, only limited.
So, we proceed... and you decide for yourself the value for you of anything I share here, or anywhere. I respect that you can think for yourself. And no one can adopt the truth. For it to be yours, it gestates within and is born from you.
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Sunlight...
rose petals unfurl bright -
so love opens the heart
in darkness, silence waiting
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I have penned and spoken much about love over the last two-and-a-half decades. It has taken a long time for me to see doing that can be misleading - not that it is wrong, not that I regret it, but writing about love is tricky - well, writing or speaking about many things can be. Why is love a potentially misleading subject? Let us venture into this slippery subject, and maybe some clarity will emerge. Of course, the risk is muddying the water more.
Love is the ultimate. The Christian Scripture says, for example, "God is love." It does not say, "God is only love." God - by whatever word - is the supreme expression of every enlightened Quality. We could say, "God is peace" or "God is joy," for example.
Thus, in Spirit, Love is in its absolute state - which is really beyond all states. It is pure, not in the sense of pure as opposed to impure, but in the meaning of being before limitations when entering expression in our lives. So, at times, I have referred to this as Pure Love. Once any Quality manifests in the human realm - form (whether of body or mind) - that Quality - formless - takes upon itself limitation. And beings, human and other, have differing capacities to receive and share that Pure Love - as I will note below.
This all leads us back to my last posting, "Living With Three Eyes" 1.13.26 - reading or rereading that now might help in understanding the remainder of this writing.
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When someone is living from the consciousness "I am a body," Love will be limited to that consciousness. The person might have moments of Love unrestricted by the physical, but it will be brief. The same applies to the consciousness of "I am a body-and-mind" or "I am a body-mind-soul." In the consciousness "I am spirit," Love is in the most unrestricted manifestation. So, again from the last writing: Eye of Flesh, Eye of Mind, and Eye of Spirit, or body, mind, soul, and spirit.
People, after growing to a more subtle, embracing consciousness, can experience the best of prior consciousness, but they will do so differently, for they are different. Again, an example, in Spirit, one cannot locate - retreat, regress to - consciousness marked by experiencing others as only a body. One can enjoy physicality (sex, exercise, food, drink ...), yet they will bring a different consciousness to the experience. The beauty and grace of the physical is heightened for them. Not everyone sees and experiences the same physical world. We see and experience as we are.
Stating this in a way different from the prior posting, but not in conflict with it ... In the understanding of and expression of Love, manifesting as love in relationship, we grow from separation to communion to union. First, one sees love from I-an-object love you-an-object. Then, to love as unity; still two separate beings but relating subject with subject. Experiencing union (co-union). Then, love becomes known as oneness. We can state it this way: "We are not merely two. There is no separation, absolutely. There is one subject, even if still relating-with. The relating-with arises from oneness." The person as "object" is no more. The otherness of the "other" is no more. I have frequently referred to this in prior writings as "pure subjectivity."
Does this mean one does not see the other as another? Does one walk around seeing no one else as else, in some hallucinatory-like state? No. Yet, one sees others differently than before. Your eyes do not determine how you see. As long as we are in the human realm, duality will be part of how consciousness relates with the world. That is a natural "law" of living in this realm. Anyway, would we want to live among others without a sense of sharing with others as others? Oneness welcomes two, three, four, ... The Holy Trinity in Christianity signifies this consciousness of one with three. And Buddhism and Hinduism have like trinities, or triunities. Yet, too, contemplatives of all three know these metaphors go back before - to One.
So, in consciousness, we can relate in different ways. First, prepersonal: object-object. Second, personal: communion can arise out of the limits of separation. Third, transpersonal: still these persons can relate in the previous communion, the unity being an expression of in Spirit.
In Spirit, one does not meet strangers anymore; there is a realized kinship with all beings. This sense of kin extends to the nonhuman species and unseen beings not of the human realm. That in you, which is ageless, spaceless, without a history, the wearer of self but not the self - sees the same in others. Spirit sees spirit. Still, it does not unsee the total self, able to integrate others spontaneously, as all that makes them distinctive in appearance, and they can honor and celebrate the diversifying medley of how God shows up in the world.
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The above, as with all stage models, is more complex (see prior posting, noted above). Yet, it serves the purpose of making a point. The point: we understand, give, and receive love from where we have grown, or have not grown.
Some people are purely instinctive - have not risen to humanness. For them, everyone is an object to be used, ignored, or abused; hence, even their apparent love is purely egoic and self-centered. See, when one sees oneself as an object, how can that person see anyone else as other than an object? Abuse of drugs, alcohol, and some forms of mental illness are examples of how people can regress into this state or get firmly located in it.
Another note about stages. We can see consciousness emergence as a staircase, and we grow by steps. Yet, many developmental lines run through those steps. So, living in a strong connection with Spirit, one might be underdeveloped in any number of areas - communication, for example, and emotion for another. Emotional intelligence development is not the same as consciousness development.
A person living in Spirit might need counseling, for example, or they might need to attend an addiction recovery group. We could have a spiritual teacher or friend who is more spiritually developed than we are, and in other ways less mature. Spiritual practice is not the answer to everything. Sometimes, we might need help and healing to grow in other areas, so as to be a more whole, healthy being. Most of us, if not all, incurred some deep wounding by simply living in this world, and we might need help working with that from a psychological perspective.
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As far as religion ... Almost all religions - I include what some would call spiritualities - are stuck at a mix of separation and communion - mostly the latter; some devotees are more in separation, some live in communion. Still, their 'god-image" is an object, and the relationship is transactional. Spiritual teachers and religious leaders can foster dependency, keeping people from evolving beyond communion. To grow into the Eye of Spirit would mean the leader risks losing the worship given to them as the substitutionary god-image. Also, leaders are hindered unless they have emerged to a "place" where they are well-prepared to guide others there. My experience is many clergypersons - most - cannot do so. In fact, the systems to which they belong do not encourage such growth in them or the laity.
Why would anyone be surprised that egoic, emotionally needy persons would be attracted to religious leadership and the sense of power over others it seems to offer? Why would they be shocked when they hear of pastors, priests, gurus, and such persons sexually abusing others? When lively, transformative movements become rigid, overly protective, dogmatic and ritualistic institutions, or those where justice issues are not grounded in the depth of Spirit, why would anyone be surprised that the leadership and laity do not grow beyond conventional consciousness? Secularism is not the full blame for the decline of religion in the West; the failure of religion to offer something deeply spiritual is as much, or more, the cause. We grow to a point, and the assertion arises: "There's got to be more. I know it." And we ache for more, and the ache is a message, for we have been prepared for more. We were not built to live in boxes. And some among us will go searching, even if it means abandoning previous loyalties - and that includes our religion.
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In Spirit, the transactional drops. One knows pure self-offering, which is sharing the self that is the self of others. This pure self-offering is a teaching of the Passion of Christ. Likewise, the Buddha was reluctant to teach what he had experienced under the Bodhi tree. He hesitated. He knew the challenge it would be. Yet, out of compassion, he yielded to the call and traveled and taught for forty years, until his death. There are examples strewn through history, many of them unknown to us, who lived this life of self-offering. And many are doing so today, most quietly, without receiving notoriety. They can be teachers, parents, grandparents, athletes, plumbers, scientists, artists, musicians, therapists, physicians, bricklayers, ... They may or may not identify as spiritual or religious.
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Transitional expectations can occur in Spirit as in a relationship where shared expectations are agreed upon to enjoy and honor the relationship. If one loves her mate spirit-with-spirit, that does not mean she would say, "I love you unconditionally, so go to bed with anyone you want." Pure love is unconditional, yet its expression is shaped by applying wisdom to our differing forms of relationship. Pure Love is not stupid, reckless, or permissive.
Love is sane. Simply because one loves - or claims to be enlightened - does not mean they are above living in accord with the standards that apply to others and that make the human community a place where all can thrive. Always, when a spiritual leader claims privilege to live above those standards, there is a cult quality to the group, and there is fertile ground for emotional and sexual abuse. And claims like, "Well, you just don't understand, for you're not enlightened like our Master," are nonsense, deceitful, and demeaning to common sense. And devotees enabling such by a religious or spiritual leader is simply disastrous for community well-being.
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So, yes, the Beatles sang "All You Need Is Love." Yet that can mean a lot or nothing at all. Everyone will hear "love" in how they are prepared to. There is one Love, yet its understanding and expression in daily life arises from our individual human development.
And how Love and love manifest practically needs to be accompanied by wisdom. Wisdom is discernment, or insight, in how to share love in particular contexts and with different persons and collectives. And how it manifests can differ notably from context to context, person to person, grouping to grouping, and even time to time.
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Good news! As we grow, this process of loving becomes less thought-out and more spontaneous. In Spirit, love usually flows free of conscious discernment. One does not tend to sit around determining how to love others. They just love others. They do this, for they are that intimate with Love, conformed by Love to Love. They have become a conduit through which Spirit can naturally and effortlessly arise. They rely less on emotion than prior - this is one reason silent, objectless (not guided) meditation is of benefit - learning to relax into those times in the quiet when there are no pleasant feelings. For me, this is more common than pleasurable feelings in meditation. Again, the more one grows spiritually, the less reliant one is on emotion, even feelings one might see as sacred, holy, or enlightened - yes, including what many might call loving feelings.
Additionally, with pure loving, persons may not always appear loving to some. They might not always seem friendly, sociable, or tolerant. Too, they share love more through presence - before saying or doing. Indeed, through what they say and do, they aspire to communicate Qualities, formless, silent; they view their words and actions sacramentally. Things said and done, then, are skillful means to communicate Presence, with all its power to give blessing - blessing that is foremost not of the self, but is Presence itself.
And, again, good news! We can practice this in-Spirit-loving now, and by practicing it, no matter how much we fall short, we are growing more into what we aspire for. The fullness of this Love is already present. Love is already offering itself to you, and offering you to offer it through yourself to others. We do not need to be love-experts. We do not wait to aspire to live in Spirit, we aspire to do it today, and, thereby, manifest it to the degree we can now. There are many small opportunities daily to express love, in many forms, to others, and the little ways can go a long way. In fact, unless we take advantage of little ways, we will only have a theory about it. And Love is not a theory. Love is not a doctrine. Love is not a moral ideal. Love is not a lovely thought. Love is not only sweet, sentimental feelings. Love is not something we fall into, like "I fell in love with her." Love is a Presence, Love is Presence. So, if you want God, or Buddha, or Christ, or the Light ... to show up, love someone, even something. A smile, a kind word, a hug, a small, inexpensive gift, a quiet sitting beside, a phone call, or email, or text, a silent listening to ... can brighten a whole life and a whole world. The Sun can shine through one crack in a wall.
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(C) Brian Wilcox, 2026
*From note to last posting, applies to this posting as well: The three eyes and much of this writing is based on readings from Ken Wilber (The Eye of Spirit, Sense and Spirit, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, A Theory of Everything, The Simple Feeling of Being, An Integral Psychology, One Taste) works I studied over two decades ago and has shaped my worldview since. Hence, while I do not quote him, his thought was key to this writing, for it has been key to my life.
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