We’ve Known This Love

What is our objective in life? Mystics tell us we are given a human body to connect with the divine. Relationships, achievements, pleasures of the senses – we have experienced these in countless lives and life forms. We are caught in the cycle of eighty-four, attached to the ephemeral objects and pleasures found here, and deluded into thinking that we can find deep and lasting happiness on this physical plane. Continuously searching for fulfillment in the things of the world, we never satisfy the deep desire within. We sense the loss of something, and long for what is missing in our life. The saints tell us that the yearning we feel is that of our soul for its creator. We search for what we once knew and now have forgotten – lasting love, joy, and peace.

St. Francis of Assisi tells us we are all in mourning for our forgotten essence.

What is there to understand of each other: if a wand turned the sun into a moon would not the moon mourn the ecstatic effulgence it once was? We are all in mourning for the experience of our essence we knew and now miss.
_{Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, translated by Daniel Ladinsky}

We do not remember what it was like to be immersed in the Ocean of Love. Yet beneath heavy layers of the mind and karma, our spirit has not forgotten. It longs to reunite with the One who loves us and to whom we belong. As human beings, we are an emanation of God, created in his image, sharing his divine qualities, and containing the entire cosmos within our mortal frame. But we are trapped here, in this dark physical region, caught in the net of worldly concerns, ignorant of our spiritual heritage, unaware of our past actions yet responsible for our misdeeds, including all those we’ve committed in past lives.

Maharaj Sawan Singh describes the unalterable laws of the universe that keep us imprisoned here:

This universe is a huge prison house which may be called a labyrinth for it contains thousands of doors that are so confusingly indistinguishable that one can never get out of it once one gets inside…. [The maze] in which man is lost is the vast Labyrinth of Eighty-four, in which he keeps moving age after age, from birth to birth and death to death….

In this labyrinth, the forms move up and down the ladder of evolution. No one – not a single creature living in this region of darkness and sorrow, not even a god, – is safe from the cycle of births and deaths….

After wandering for an almost endless length of time in inferior kinds of bodies, the soul incarnates at last as a human being.
_{Discourses on Sant Mat, Vol. I}

In our current birth, we find ourselves at the top of the ladder of creation. We need only one more push to become free. We are told that our human life is given to us for the purpose of creating a relationship with the divine. Rather than use it to contact the Lord and escape from this labyrinth, however, we waste it. By remaining caught up in the transient, fleeting pleasures of life on this plane, we will be forced once again to take on a physical form to work out our karmas.

So, how do we build a relationship with one who is beyond our conception, who is unfathomable? To enable us to relate to God and find our way back to him, the Lord sends a messenger to live among us. When the Lord wills it, the seeker is pulled into the company of a true living master, one who is in continuous contact with the divine. At initiation, the master reconnects the initiate’s consciousness to the Shabd, the divine energy of the Creator that reverberates within everyone. Although the Shabd enlivens every pore of our body, we have lost awareness of it due to the layers of karma accumulated over innumerable incarnations.

Listening to the cleansing vibrations of the Shabd enables us to become reacquainted with the Lord. By focusing our attention on this sound current, we let go of thoughts of the material world and surrender ourselves to the one who loves and supports us. In the love that grows with our meditation practice, we become aware of the divine presence that resides within us.

Sheikh Fakhreddin Eraki writes that he kept searching for his beloved outside until he learned to take his consciousness inside:

Why do I keep searching for water
when I float on life-giving waters?

When my Darling is always with me
why do I run left and right?

I looked within and saw only You –
this is what happens
when one learns to look within.
_{The Face in Every Rose}

The relationship we establish with God is not new to our souls. We are reestablishing a connection with one who has always been with us, who has been our closest ally and friend and has given us everything. The key to discovering our lost love and escaping from the labyrinth of this world lies in listening to the creative power of the Shabd.

Meister Eckhart, a 14th-century Christian mystic, refers to the Shabd as “the wind.” He tells us that in our present state of ignorance we can refuse to believe in the beauty and wonders of the spiritual worlds. But one day the Shabd will remove the darkness from our vision, and we will see God with perfect clarity.

A man born blind
can easily deny the magnificence
of a vast landscape.

He can easily deny all the wonders
that he cannot touch, smell, taste, or hear.

But one day the wind will show its kindness
and remove the tiny patches
that covered your eyes.
and you will see God more clearly
than you have ever seen yourself.
_{Love Poems from God}

That day is approaching when the celestial sound of the Shabd will lift the veil of ignorance and our search for truth will end. All our effort and struggles in meditation will be rewarded beyond our imagination. From the light within will appear the Radiant Form of the Master. Before us will be the one whom our soul has longed for since its separation. The Shabd, enveloping us in love, will lift us out of our tiny, lonely selves and reunite us with our Creator. The purpose of our life will then be fulfilled.