Love is never absent from our lives. We do not have to find it. We are it. The problem is not that we don't know how to love, or whom to love in what way. The problem is that we are afraid of love, because love consumes us. We dissolve into love like salt dissolves in water. We disappear into love. We are overcome by love. Love does not disappoint us. We disappoint ourselves because we resist love; we are afraid of disappearing into love. And so we are confused about love. It eludes us. We can't quite grab hold of it.

We don't mind having the experience of love, but we don't want to lose ourselves. We only want to stand at the shore of love, dip our feet in, get a bit wet. But love wants more. Love wants us in all the way. Nothing short of drowning will be enough for love. To experience love, we have to lose ourselves. But if we disappear into love, our reasoning brain will protest. What will become of us, how will we manage? Don't get carried away, we could get hurt.

We don't find the love we are looking for because we are afraid of losing ourselves to love. We sit safely behind our emotional seawall where the ocean of love can't touch us, dreaming and imagining things, pretending that we feel love. This is fantasy love, thinking that love is an experience we have sometimes, under certain conditions. And the stress of trying to create the conditions we think will produce love is the very thing that defeats us, time and time again.

Love is not infatuation, excitement, or hopeful anticipation. Love is an inner ecstasy, an intoxication, a drunkenness. Love is the soft music that flows from life itself. Love is friendly to everyone. Love joins us together and connects us with everything. Love knows no fear or hurt. Love wants nothing because it is in itself full and complete. In this love there is no seeking love. In this love we know we are love. We feel this love flow from our veins to the farthest galaxies and back again. In silence, we know that we are love: our core is love. Love is within us.

We have to serve love, not use love, and stop trying to find love, to get love, to own love. When we realize that we are love, we become human. We go on living our lives, sipping from the cup of love, stumbling with drunkenness. Love is never absent from our lives.