Knowledge, Commitment and Freedom

"Only true knowledge of a person makes it possible to commit one's freedom to the other."
--Karol Wojtyla

"Love," says Christian theologian, Wojtyla, 'consists of a commitment which limits one's freedom-- it is a "giving" of the self... to limit one's freedom on behalf of another. Limitation might seem to be something negative or unpleasant, but love makes it a positive, joyful and creative thing."

If this freedom is not engaged by the will, it becomes negative, and gives to human feeling, a sense of emptiness and unfulfilment. Yet love commits to freedom and " imbues it with that to which the will is naturally attracted-- the element of goodness. Thus the will then aspires to the good; freedom is the providence of the will, existing for and because of love; it is the way of love in which human beings share most fully in the good. "Human freedom then is one of the highest in the moral order of things," says Wojtyla. This order encompasses the spectrum of man's longings and desires; his growing pathways of awareness of the life in the spirit. But man longs for love more than he longs for freedom. In choosing, there is an affirmation of value in response to natural, sense perceptions, to sentiment. "Sexual values [as an expression of the appetite] tend to impose themselves," regardless of the choosing of the possible values of a whole person.

For this reason, a man, especially, one who has not succumbed to mere passion, but preserves his interior innocence, usually finds himself in the arena of struggle between the sexual instinct and a need for freedom, or liberty to do as he otherwise wishes. This natural instinct, this drive of Eros cannot be underestimated; it is a powerful, yet limited drive. Eros can, and often lays siege to the will itself, clouding the other values with sensual intensity. Through a perception of sentiment, however, the will may be freed of the vice-like hold of a conscious, lusting desire, of a consumer view; rather it is transformed by sentiment, and the action of the will to a longing for a person of the other sex, for a possibility of wholeness.

It is love, finally, when the will enters into the equation, providing a conscious commitment of one's freedom in respect to another person, in recognition and affirmation, providing a creative contribution of the love that develops between the persons. Thus love is between persons, existing in a space that is neither one or the other, is created, and not possessed. So then in love, in freedom, there is a conscious will for another person's good, an unqualified good, a good unlimited, that is a person's happiness.

"Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward in the same direction. " -Antoine de St. Exupery

We desire moreover to make the beloved happy, to please them and see to their good. It is this precisely that makes possible for a person to be re-born in love, to become alive, aware of the riches within himself, of his creativity, his spirituality, of his fertility. The person, in love, compels belief in his own spiritual powers; it awakens the creativity and the sense of worth within the individual. And yet for all its lofty abundance, human lovers must learn to translate their highest impulses into the everyday world.

Long Term Commitments Can Be Dangerous

"Our faith must be alive; it cannot just be a set of rigid beliefs and notions."
--Thich Nhat Hanh

Hanh writes, "In the beginning we might have embarked upon the path of Buddhism thanks to a belief in re-incarnation." However, he continues by noting that as the world in its impermanence moves, so must we. Continuing our practice and touching reality as it is, we may find that our beliefs change. Perhaps they are more defined, more refined; perhaps the change is more radical.

Yet we need not fear change because as we find our way through practice, through experience with the reality of the world flowing ourselves to that acceptance, realizing the Amida Buddha more and more deeply, we find a confidence and security that we may have not known before.

Our ideas are more solid, reflecting our core senses. When we form our ideas and beliefs in response to our own experience, more so than the experiences of others, we may for the first time, perhaps, find our voice, our way, our joy. In this state, no one can easily remove our belief from us.

"Making a long term commitment [can be] dangerous." If years and time pass without our continued practice, a continued commitment to living the results of our experiences, one day we may come to discover that we cannot believe as we once did. A great revelation, an epiphany may come over us informing us that our usual beliefs, our usual way is no way. We are plunged into fear, panic, darkness.

"Faith must be alive; it cannot just be a set of rigid beliefs and notions." Open to change, to experience, we open ourselves to the fruit of all--peace, joy, a spacious freedom and love. Sometimes we may think that "faith" is only thinking, only notions. Yet it is more. In our prayers, our meditation, we must put our whole self into action; we must live those actions. Merely thinking, sitting meditation is not enough.

Our actions may be modeled after those of the Buddha, a guiding example. Deeply thinking, deeply seeing the world as it is, the goodness of change will lead to us to our share in creating a more harmonious, peaceful world.

Dharma in Love

"My soul glowed from the fire of your fire. Your world was a whispering water At the river of my heart." --by the poet Rumi

While in love we often fear, often unconsciously fear, that another will subsume us, that we will drown in relationship, and to some extent this is true. The ego must move aside for the opening to the path to love. Love and the soul however will not be lost or drown in another. Rather these are our immutable essences; they cannot be lost or drowned, and yet ego strongly fears this fate. Our sense of self-protection that is ego rapidly assesses any situation in which we must potentially yield to be a threat.

There is a fundamental mystery to the soul, however, writes Deepak Chopra in his book, The Path to Love. He writes further, "its integrity is not violated by merging with another person. The blending of two spirits brings more to the union than each partner started with. The process of soul-making that used to be [for me alone] "me" is now for "us." The poet Rumi expressed this thought with these words:

My soul glowed from the fire of your fire.

Your world was a whispering water.

At the river of my heart.

With the growth of spiritual realization is the awareness that two can be as one; that the multiple aspects of the Dharmakaya are are work; that the Christian idea of a triune relationship within the soul of a great spirit, communing with God are all infinite and possible. While in the state of ego, on the other hand, persons remain isolated and self-protected as if in a siege mentality. There then is no room for the other; often a feeling of isolation and a vague, undefined loneliness results. Yet spirit calls to us powerfully, first, in romantic love. 

We fall in love and for the first time as Rumi passionately writes, we have the opportunity to engage our self into self as an expansion of identity. The Spirit uses relationship as its vehicle. No man is an island; spirit calls to us to overcome our fears such that love may be its replacement.

Once in relationship, however we gain a foothold over ourselves despite the passion, despite the growing self awareness, and ego often returns to us with a vengeance. Falling in love is delightful; it is passion, and a glimpse of the spirit itself. Being in love, love itself entails commitment, and a certain struggle. Many who come to this place in their spiritual journeys feel a sense of loss, and fear what is to come next. 

Relationships have consequences. While they give to each person a sense of belonging, friendship, security and compassion, love also demands something from each partner. Things like patience, devotion, persistence are part of the work and struggle to be realized along the path. Sometimes relationship is hard and painful. Resolution brings joy, and it brings disappointment. "The only real difference between romance and relationship, spiritually speaking, has to do with surrender. Surrender comes naturally to two people when they first fall in love." Love's first flush gives us the courage to do that, to be fearless and act under its protective power. Spiritually, surrender is a solution to the paradox existing between ego and spirit. 

Yet persons who love, who are intimates, over time often find that the ego, now returned carries them on its own agenda. Lovers play games to test one another, they withhold themselves; they are unwilling to give to spirit, and they are unwilling to give to and serve one another. Surrender now must be conscious. It must be an act of free will, of choosing this as your path. Chopra writes, "this isn't to say that surrender isn't hard work; it is conscious work. As such it can bring the same joy and delights as falling in love, the same sense of play which relieves lovers of the ego burdens." 

The British writer and poet, D. H. Lawrence wrote, "That is the crystal of peace, the slow hard jewel of trust, the sapphire of fidelity. The gem of mutual peace emerging from the wild chaos of love."

A free loving commitment of the will made to another is the realization over time of: peacefulness, a companionship and a trust made by the Spirit to another which is, and is not self. "When they are fully committed... they see God in each other." On that basis, they are able to surrender, not to one another so much, as to surrender themselves to the God in each other, and to the God, the Dharmakaya in all things. Dharma is an ancient idea. It means perhaps most fully, sacredness. In its Sanskrit origin, dharma means to sustain or uphold. 

Thus what upholds, honors, or respects another's life is in keeping with dharma. It is, for example in dharma not to tell lies, to deceive oneself or others. Dharma looks to the sacred, it is tied to and intimately guided by spirit. Dharmakaya, likewise, is Karuna, love; love then is a guiding force emanating from the great being, the Dharmakaya. Thus surrender in relationship is surrender to spirit, to dharma. In the Way of the Beloved, the dharma is "a vision of spiritual equality; when you perceive life through this vision, separation ends."

True Faith is Alive

"Our faith must be alive; it cannot just be a set of rigid beliefs and notions."
--Thich Nhat Hanh

Hanh writes, "In the beginning we might have embarked upon the path of Buddhism thanks to a belief in re-incarnation." However, he continues by noting that as the world in its impermanence moves, so must we. Continuing our practice and touching reality as it is, we may find that our beliefs change. Perhaps they are more defined, more refined; perhaps the change is more radical.

Yet we need not fear change because as we find our way through practice, through experience with the reality of the world flowing ourselves to that acceptance, realizing the Amida Buddha more and more deeply, we find a confidence and security that we may have not known before.

Our ideas are more solid, reflecting our core senses. When we form our ideas and beliefs in response to our own experience, more so than the experiences of others, we may for the first time, perhaps, find our voice, our way, our joy. In this state, no one can easily remove our belief from us.

"Making a long term commitment [can be] dangerous." If years and time pass without our continued practice, a continued commitment to living the results of our experiences, one day we may come to discover that we cannot believe as we once did. A great revelation, an epiphany may come over us informing us that our usual beliefs, our usual way is no way. We are plunged into fear, panic, darkness.

"Faith must be alive; it cannot just be a set of rigid beliefs and notions." Open to change, to experience, we open ourselves to the fruit of all--peace, joy, a spacious freedom and love. Sometimes we may think that "faith" is only thinking, only notions. Yet it is more. In our prayers, our meditation, we must put our whole self into action; we must live those actions. Merely thinking, sitting meditation is not enough.

Our actions may be modelled after those of the Buddha, a guiding example. Deeply thinking, deeply seeing the world as it is, the goodness of change will lead to us to our share in creating a more harmonious, peaceful world.