Within each of us there is considerably more than complex chemistry. There is more than mechanistic existence, more than the need, wish, or “instinct” to survive.

No one desires to merely exist in a psychic vacuum.

We wish to survive for something.

What person would be happy spending the rest of his or her days, secure in every physical sense of the word, in a room filled with all the necessary needs for survival, but deprived of other beings whom he or she may love?

One must not only venture out of his or her “room” to explore the vastness of God’s creation, but he or she must also learn to satisfy his or her inner drive to give forth of themselves toward nature and towards others. To rob one’s self of this inner consciousness of giving and receiving love is to distort the human personality in the context of one’s journey through time.

The concept of being loved is not adequate. To be loved is only a preparation to love others.

Being loved is passive, while loving others is active. Where dual love is concerned, the inner dynamics of fulfilment are not so much a give-and take situation as a give-and-give intertwining.

We may react to the surrounding environment with indifference or with love. If we are “tuned in” to love, we can truly partake of nature as we give in return. Walking in the country, we listen, look, touch. A mystic something within our being arises and our steps spring with new life. We react to the call of the wild. Our breathing becomes more energetic.

Nature is demonstrating its beauty by heightening our awareness, but is it not just a passive inbreathing that happens to us. We are aware of life’s impulse all around, and we sense that we wait to be a part of the great stream of life. We wish to make life even more enriching. How do we give impetus to the thought?

Perhaps this can be furthered by being aware of the inner person in much the same way as we recognise and enjoy the beauty of nature. If we pay attention, it is not difficult to see the beauty of the woods, creeks, and bird life. In like manner, if we employ an affirmation of the self and its psychic potential—if we pay attention—we may just see a positive giving power from within that has a beauty of its own.

In this hurry-worry world many of us are not fully aware of own our identity, much less the affirmative power that can come forth from that identity. Instead of reacting to this inner power from within, we tend to react to the stresses from without in spontaneous reflexes. Sadly, these reflexes tend to be negative—they are reminders of hurry, bitterness, or apathy.

How do we react to the people around us—someone close to us? What comes forth? Do we see a person in whom we can exercise our ability to love, the ability to give?

Giving to Others

In many cases, “giving” is listening with a different mind—a patient, understanding, sympathetic mind directed toward the problems of others. In so doing, a strange thing happens. No matter how minute, this greater attention toward the needs of others breeds a change in us. The energy goes out to others, yet it has this wonderful quality of boomeranging back to us, and we begin to know just a little more who we are in the universe. We feel more fulfilled. The concept of survival takes on a little more significance.

We become more aware that survival is just the basis of a greater unfolding existence.

There are many things in the spiritual realm of existence that have conscious reality only if we make ourselves aware of them. We may choose a totally materialistic way of life—the road to apathy. Or we may choose to cultivate the consciousness of love which is the road to abundant living. We are governed psychically by how we think, or rather, how we choose to think. The more that we can be aware of in the way of positive living, the more enriching is our existence.

Satisfaction

Rather than shrugging off that feeling of satisfaction which comes when we plant a sapling in the earth, we should reflect a little deeper upon this feeling. Why do we feel the satisfaction? Isn’t it because we have given forth of ourselves to nature, contributed to life? Nature has given to us, and we give in return. To a degree, the inner consciousness of love has been satisfied.

Need we stop there?

When we ignore the consciousness of love, the impetus to support life, we destroy ourselves bit by bit. When we go into states of revenge, jealousy, anger, we are promoting deterioration of conscious life, a disintegration of meaningful involvement toward psychic fulfilment. To be sure, many have reached the stage where they not only have difficulty visualising that they exist for something, but question inwardly why they should have this urge to exist at all. Some become suicidal.

This trend can be reversed if the individual chooses to adopt a new thinking pattern, and to start reflecting on this latent power deep within.

The way in which we choose to use this power to love is individual—depending on each individual personality. However, the ultimate reservoir of love is one and the same: the Cosmic.

Everything that exists is a manifestation of the giving power of the Supreme Sustainer. The more we incorporate the dynamics of love toward others, the more we become aware of an inner quietude coupled with a meaningful existence.

The power of love and the ability to love exists for each individual who is aware of this consciousness within himself or herself. If a person can see how the power of love is working in any sphere of his or her activity—physical or spiritual—he or she need reflect only a little further to understand that the true opposite of love is not hate, but apathy.

In other words, love is behind all the positive, constructive, creative activity going on in the universe. Love is creative. Apathy—lack of concern, lack of caring—is behind the destructive things we see going on around us. The creative power of love goes far beyond this physical existence because it is spiritual and comes through man’s spiritual nature.

We are part of the Cosmic. The Cosmic is creative; the thought of God is creative. We have this creative power within and we can use it to strengthen our lives and the lives of others.

If we do not tune into this power, we shall in direct degree dwindle toward an apathetic state.

We were born out of creative life, and we spend our life searching for meanings and ways to strengthen our ties with this cosmic love. It is no coincidence that he or she who uses his or her inner power to love—his or her will-to-give—has an exact proportionate vision of eternal consciousness.

The power to love others will extend far beyond what we now know as time. So we ought not deprive ourselves of this power that can spring forth from the consciousness to love. Much depends upon the utilisation of this power if we are to live a life of contentment and fulfilment.

We need to change our thinking pattern and become more fully aware of ourselves, our identity with life. We need to look again at nature, at friends, at family, and then reflect and act on this power to give just a little more of ourselves, even if it’s nothing more than an extra smile.

If you should be so inclined to tune in to this consciousness of love, observe what happens and develop it until that mystic power behind all creation in the Cosmic begins to move in your being and you begin to realise that you are a creature of worth, a person with a toe-hold in eternal consciousness.

Adaptation of “The Consciousness of Love” by B J Graves from the Rosicrucian Digest, July 1979