Why do we long for love above all else? And what is this longing really seeking? In this concluding exploration of Chapter 7, we discover that the desire for love is not merely a personal preference or emotional need, but an intuition of our shared being calling us home. The experience of being aware, which we explored last week as the one light shining in all minds, now reveals itself as the foundation not only of self-knowledge but also of love itself.
This week we continue from the middle of page 72 through page 77, completing our exploration of ‘The Experience of Being Aware’. Here we encounter the profound relationship of the knowledge ‘I am’, the longing for love, and the moth-like dance of the mind as it approaches its own source.*
*(The page numbers indicated here each week refer to the original publication of the physical book – they may vary slightly from more recent versions, owing to the publisher’s design modifications.)
The Root of Our Longing
We have seen that the experience of being aware is not merely similar in each of us but is the same awareness, one light shining through many minds. What are the implications of this recognition? If your deepest nature is shared, then your apparent separation is not fundamental but superimposed upon it. And if separation is superimposed, then the longing to overcome it, the longing for love, is not a mere preference but an intuition of the truth.
Once we have overlooked our unlimited being and, as a result, believed and felt ourself to be a temporary, finite awareness, then love, the knowledge of our oneness with all beings, is veiled. It is for this reason that all apparently separate selves long, above all else, for love.
Consider the universality of this longing. Regardless of culture, temperament or circumstance, human beings seek love. You may pursue wealth, status, knowledge or pleasure, but beneath these surface desires lies a deeper current. You want to be known. You want to belong. You want to dissolve the boundary that seems to separate you from others and from the world. This longing is not a weakness nor does it arise from a sense of lack; it is the echo of your true nature, the gravitational pull of wholeness on the fragment, the limited being you seem to be, that was never truly severed from the whole.
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