The question of the ages is where we find love. It has been written and sung about since ancient times. It is obvious where we find what the body needs. In centuries past you hunted for your food and clothing and you built a structure to protect you from the elements. Now, we go to the grocery store, the department store, and we buy a house or rent an apartment, but the principle is the same. So satisfying these needs is self evident. However, with love, if you asked one thousand people where you go to find love, you would probably get one thousand different answers. Someone might tell you to find love in your soulmate, your children, your best friend, or in a puppy. Someone else might say to look for love at a bar or in the classifieds, the best looking person, the smartest person, or the funniest person. Others will tell you that love will be found in the activity you enjoy most, maybe your job or your hobby. Many will describe power over others, even evil, as their love, while a large number will tell you love is found in their addiction --- their next drink or fix, spending hours on the internet, or acting like a victim. Those in despair may tell you love does not exist.

If you asked those same people what is the meaning of love and what love would do for them once they found it, then you would probably get a thousand different answers again. So what is the truth? Is love so variable that it can be open to so many interpretations? Human love is that variable, because our belief about the meaning of love and what it can do for us changes as we experience the world. We walk through the world with rose colored glasses. Each of us has a different set of glasses, because our belief system and how we view the world is based on our own past experiences and future expectations. We project our belief system out to the world, and this is what is brought to us and what we see. If your father had a red beard and he told you as a child that you could not do anything right, you probably have a hidden belief that all men with red beards are the same way and should be avoided. Of course this belief is wrong, but if you have not brought this belief to the light and released it, then it acts as negative programming of which you are not aware. You will be given many opportunities to uncover and release your false beliefs, because you are here to remember and return in your recognition to God, and the universe continually brings you those situations (encountering men with red beards) which will enable you to fulfill your purpose here. A large part of the journey is releasing those false beliefs which block your awareness of God’s Love.

The reason human love is so variable is because it is based on belief, and beliefs change constantly as they rest on a foundation of sand. Look at how you change your view of a situation as more information is revealed to you. How do two people who have been through a similar experience have totally different views of it? So our belief about love changes constantly as we experience the world. Each of us puts a different spin on love, and each of us believes that love should look a certain way. There are expectations we have of others which need to be met for us to accept and give love. We want it to fit in a nice neat box that we have constructed. The box is created from our experiences (our rose colored glasses,) and it is constructed so that we can control what goes in it and what comes out. If we have control, our fear is alleviated, or so it seems.

Because we are One with God, we are also Love, as God is Love. I capitalize Love to distinguish it as divine Love, which is a far cry from the human love described above. Human love has conditions, while divine Love does not. One of the biggest falsehoods about God and His Love is that He acts like a human parent would, that he punishes you for your mistakes (sins) and rewards you for your praise and worship of Him. Do you see how conditional that love is? But those who are lost in the dream and have not taken a higher perspective will continue to see God based on their belief system. If their parents, especially their father was judgmental and harsh, they will see God in the same way. Divine Love is both power and gentleness. When Christ’s true teachings were replaced with the orthodoxy of Christianity, we lost the feminine aspect of God. We lost the gentleness, the acceptance of what is without judgment, and the comforting or sweetness aspect to God’s Love. We became so distant in our recognition of our Oneness with God and His Love that we actually believed that God, a God who is Love, would require a blood sacrifice to atone for our sins and to keep his wrathful vengeance at bay.

Since most of us believe that we are separate from God, that we live in bodies and this dream is real, we search for a return to divine Love by trying to find it in the world through human love. As the lyrics of the song go, we are looking for love in all the wrong places. Society, especially in the West, has this grand, romanticized notion of love. Everything from perfume to romance novels to advice on sex surrounds us, and we are told to look for that one special person, our soulmate, who can show us what love is. But when we find that person and the adulation period wears off, we start to see their flaws and they no longer meet our expectations. So it is off to the next person, and we start a search which has no end. We are searching to be fulfilled by human love, which is impossible.

Each of us must break out of this herd mentality, out of the dream, if we want to discover what true Love is. The reason that the search has no end is because the search is unnecessary. By definition, if we search for something, we are looking outside ourselves. When our focus is turned inward, we find the diamond we have been searching for. God is within. His Love for you and your Love for yourself are one and the same. When you return to that Love, you return to your Self. When you live in and as that divine Love, it flows from you as an endless fountain to all you encounter. You are giving that Love to yourself, as we are One. There are no levels with divine Love. Human love has differences. Someone may say that they love their spouse more than a stranger, but this cannot be true Love. If Love could be applied randomly, if Love could be applicable only in certain situations, it cannot be Love, for Love is indivisible. God is One. There may be certain people who resonate more with you because they are expressions of God that you have been with before, but it is impossible that you Love them more than another expression of God.

So where do we start? How do you find that Love within yourself? While human love cannot take us there, our relationships can be the basis for helping us to remember who we really are. When we see the flaws (sins) of anyone but especially those closest to us, we are projecting on to them the flaws we see within ourselves. If we can bring that projection back within, we can begin to break down our false belief system. When the false falls away, all that is left is God. Human love can be the conduit to find the divine Love within. Instead of running away when the illusion of human love is revealed, if both people stay present and see their issues from a higher perspective, they will see that they are gifts to each other. They have previously agreed to come together to help the other see that they are Love. So what the world sees as problems in a relationship become gifts of Love. God is awakening to Himself. He created us out of Love so that He could have an experience of Himself as Love. As we remember our Oneness with Him, Love awakens to Itself.

Lawrence Doochin is the author of I Am Therefore I Am, Finding God In Our Heart. You can read his blog and contact him at www.lawrencedoochin.com