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LOVE AS A SPIRITUAL PATH
Finding God's Love - Chapter Preview
Almost entirely without exception, each of us has assumed some direction or path that we believe will deliver us into the open arms of happiness. The pursuit of happiness is our common human motivating force. The limitless number of paths to happiness that are available to us can be distilled into two categories: the outward path and the spiritual path. Each of us is consciously or unconsciously pursuing one or the other or some combination of the two.
The Outward Path
The outward path is everything that appears to be outside of us. In other words - objects. An object is any item, be it person, place, or thing, that appears to any of the senses. It is anything that can be observed including our own body. This is the path that most of us take in order to find happiness. It is really not a path to happiness because it ultimately leads to disappointment, frustration and depression. We have a deeply rooted belief that acquiring these objects will, in some way, make us happy. However, if we look more deeply into our own mind, we will see that acquiring these objects is a contrived fools-gold happiness and we will find them to be no more than temporary relief from our nagging desires. It is the expectation of relief from the tension of desire that makes these objects appear attractive. It is something like an itching mosquito bite. The itching compels us to scratch and this provides a momentary blissful relief. We are happy because the itch has stopped. Later, the itching returns and we are once again compelled to scratch. For example, we may experience elation in purchasing items. When we make purchases, we are temporarily elated and satisfied but soon the feeling goes away and we are compelled by our desires to chase after another round of intoxication. We pull our credit card from our billfold and reenact our campaign of consumerism. As with all such attempts to find happiness through objects, the purchases must ever escalate in order to scratch the itch. We are faced with a diminishing ratio of satisfaction to objects acquired. In other words, it takes more stuff to get high each time we scratch the itch.
In the following poem, the great Muslim poet Hafiz comments on the illusion of happiness-in-objects calling it a bag of magic tricks. Hafiz frequently uses wine as a metaphor for the intoxication of love for God whom he refers to as the Winebringer.
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