Jeff Carreira – The Path of Love
Oct 15, 2022 10:00 AM Mountain Time (US and Canada)
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When: Oct 15, 2022 10:00 AM Mountain Time (US and Canada)
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What about the path of love? Because, I guess, that’s actually a path of doing. That’s a path of effort in one way, and then in another way it’s not.
I guess what I would say in terms of the path of love is it really builds right on to what I was just saying. It’s the path of surrender to the divine. Because, as I see it, the goal is for me to be in continuous worship of that which I love. Right? And the way that I’m in continual worship of that which I love is by being a vehicle for her.
So what the divine wants to pass through me, whether I understand it or not, whether it’s personally what I want or not, is not the point. The point is: I want to show my love for divinity. Express my gratitude for being by being available to her in whatever form she wants.
Ultimately, I was on a Jñāna path. It was a path of wisdom. It was a path of penetrating insight. It was a path of seeing through the facades of the separate self to one of wholeness. But more than that, I was on a Bhakti path. I got into this because I was in love with my teacher. I was in love with the path. I was in love with god. And it was the love that was the energy that kept me going through some very very difficult times. I just kept doing it because I was doing it for what I loved.
I don’t think you can progress very far on the path unless you’re driven by love.
It’s hard for me to imagine that intellectual curiosity would hold enough power to keep you persistently on the path. Ultimately, it’s the love.
Ramana Maharshi and the Advaita tradition always talked about how, in the end, the Jñāna path and the Bhakti path (which is the wisdom path and the love path) they need to become one. Because the Bhakti needs to realize that they are that which they’re in love with, and the Jñāna needs to fall in love with the true self. And so one path may be your doorway in, versus the other, but in the end there’s a merging and they need to become one.
So, thinking that they’re separate at all is just not useful
They’re separate at one level but to me the way to think about it is: having a preference between them is useless. In manifestation things manifest, this moment this way, that moment the other way. But We’re available.
I always say the ultimate stance is availability. I’m available. I’m available to make effort. I’m available to not make effort. I’m available for the path of wisdom. I’m available for the path of love.
Every moment will dictate how my availability manifests, but I’m available.