Part Four of Unconditional Love - the 24hr Challenge
Living Unconditional Love is the result of mind training. Mind training is as simple as being alert to our toxic thoughts and being willing to let them go. Willingness is the key. The only real true love is Unconditional Love because it flows through us and for us from our Inner Source, where peace of mind awaits us. Yes, I am speaking to you about abstract things, and where else is Love but in the abstract realm of our Self, in our heart. I am not speaking about the ‘muscle' of the heart, but that experience we locate in the middle of our chest. You can't ‘touch' Love, or save it in a box. Unconditional Love is an abstract experience that reaches us when we have been willing to allow it to be what it is already. It occurs when we have been willing to stop resisting its call.
If I took the chance and said that willingness is the key to happiness, would you agree? Here is a simple exercise, for you. Follow it carefully and just notice what happens in your mind.
A meditation l A mental exercise (5-7 minutes)
- Think of someone you do not like, who seems to irritate you. One you actively despise or merely try to overlook. You probably already know.
- Close your eyes and see this person in your mind, look at him/her for a while, observing/feeling the irritation. Next, try to perceive some light in this person, somewhere; a little gleam which you had never noticed. Try to find some little spark of brightness shining through the ugly picture that you hold of him/her. Look at this picture till you see a light somewhere within it, and then try to let this light extend until it covers him/her, and makes the picture beautiful and good. A beaming circle of light.
- Look at this changed perception for a while, and then turn your attention to one you call a friend, perhaps someone you love dearly and would forgive anything that came from them. Place one image beside the other and try to transfer the light you learned to see around your former “enemy”, to him/her. Perceive him/her now more than a friend to you, for in that light completeness presents itself.
- Now, both –friend and former enemy- share the same light because you agreed to it in your mind.
- Let them offer you the light you see in them and allow “enemy” and friend to unite in gratitude for what you gave. Now the three of you are in one same light.
- Now you are one with them and them with you. Now have you been forgiven by yourself. Inspired by Lesson 121 from the book A Course in Miracles
How do you feel now? Perhaps you couldn´t do the meditation. Perhaps you followed every step and it was easy. Every reaction is correct because it tells us individually about our own state of mind and our own willingness to Love without conditions. It's intimate information.
Now imagine we could practice this mental exercise every time our mind went into conflict and had a ‘special love' or ‘special hate' thought. This is the 24h Challenge for you. We've just ‘installed' an alchemy lab in your mind. It is aimed at the attainment of Unconditional Love as its most precious treasure using the Intelligence of the Heart (YouTube Video)
Very little is requested; willingness and taking responsibility for your own thoughts and your own ‘List of Conditions'. First, for our own sake, we need to allow ourselves to ‘let go' of the miserable image we made of others. As we discover that the love that we are seeking is actually hidden behind our judgmental mind, we will begin to make choices that favor Unconditional Love and the experience will reach us, effortlessly.
Finding light in all is truly a joyous practice and a 24h challenge. Many times you will think that the light could not be found in someone. If you do not believe that thought, The Shift will happen and you will discover that there is another way of looking at the world.
Carolina Corada is the woman behind the very successful Ibiza Enlight Festival, October 2013 and invites you to join her at the forthcoming 6 Night Easter Enlight Retreat, Ibiza (15th - 21st April, 2014)
