If it is not about love then nothing means anything
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If it is not about love then nothing means anything
Already as a child and even stronger as a teenager, I had the feeling that something was missing, that this couldn’t be it, it made no sense, i.e. the way life presented itself to me, the way my family, neighbours, teachers, friends and actually everyone including myself were living, was lacking the one ingredient that would give life true meaning and fulfilment.
I couldn't put my finger on exactly what I felt was missing, but the feeling was clear and strong. At times I felt quite alone or separated as I looked at people and couldn’t understand why they were doing what they were doing without having the same bewilderment or disturbance I had.
Growing up with a Catholic education I felt somehow drawn to Catholicism, but at the same time baffled by the emptiness of the whole rigmarole during Mass, in the preparation lessons for Holy Communion at the age of nine, Confession, and especially those people who were most strict about the rules but didn’t live the loving and fascinating life that Jesus or the other figures in the parables had lived.
In my teenage years I got to know ecumenical Christianity; that felt a bit more open but still missing what I was feeling. At 16 I embarked on what today, I would call my spiritual journey or search and I came across several religions, schools, teachings and teachers from the East and the West. They all contained aspects of what I felt was the missing element, but never was the whole package, the true thing. Nothing reflected a way of living that truly brought into being what I deep inside knew life to be.
So I stopped looking, willing to settle for the mediocrity of a comfortable mundane life just like everyone else.
For quite some years following, I remember myself having that repetitive inner conversation: “If it is not about love then nothing means anything. Then it wouldn’t matter what one does, there wouldn’t be any universal or divine order, everything would be arbitrary and meaningless.”
It was not that I needed or wished it to be about love, but that I actually already knew that it was all about love, only that I could not see that fact being lived and reflected anywhere. What I was no longer actively but nevertheless relentlessly looking for, was a reflection of what I already knew to be true but didn’t know how to live.
One day I got that reflection, and to be honest, I didn’t recognise it with the clarity and awareness that one might expect I should have had. Just then I had to face all the mistrust and disappointment I had accumulated throughout time from all the seemingly true but actually false teachings and teachers. The one good aspect of my acquired scepticism was that I was not willing any more to simply believe or take on anything out of need or hope but to put it to the test, i.e. to determine if what was presented would coincide with my inner truth and if it would be an absolute truth that could be lived equally by everyone.
This truly religious way of being is today known as The Way of The Livingness and by its very nature and name is true by its livingness and not by any beliefs, ideals, dogmas, commandments, bestowed titles or institutional structures or hierarchies. Free-Will and equality are essential pillars of this religion of love and universal truth. And what I announce here as a general statement is a way to be lived very practically every day in the simplicity of family life, work, daily chores, friendships, email writing, walking, speaking … and simply everything.
My life is simple and ordinary, on the outside not different to everyone else’s life, but extraordinary on the inside, in expression and in relationship with others.
God is love; hence life is all about being love.
Religion is my direct relationship with the love we come from and are forever part of. Love is not something to aspire to, not a pursuit to be or do good, but much more who we are in our inner-most, a being-ness that we can choose to live by allowing ourselves to just be and let go of all the ideas that we are made to believe and adhere to.
The reconnection to myself in essence, to the love and deep knowing inside and the expression from that inner-most are my everyday religion – being loving with myself and with others equally so.
No longer do I feel the emptiness but fulfilment: there is purpose and meaning to life, relationships continuously deepen, my body feels more vital and at ease and with every day I am expanding the love and interconnectedness with myself, God and all others. That is the simple way I am living – The Way of The Livingness.
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Religion, God, Testimonials, Livingness, Love
