"Question: If love is the strongest force in the world, how do we account for al the suffering that seems to be going on?

You are empowered to make choices... Vast love is always present... To cure cruelty, start working with yourself... It is the joy of the great heart of the universe to offer itself to you."

   Micciah: We know you have organized the questions. Please, Marilyn will you start?

   Marilyn: It’s often said that love is the strongest force in the world. And if that’s so, how do we account for the enormous human and animal and earth suffering that now seems to be going on?

   Micciah: Yes. If love is the strongest force, where dos the rest of this come from? The terrible suffering and cruelty? Well, we know Julie talked about this last week and quoted her teacher; and we have said this before and we will say it again. When you come into this realm (and we want to remind you, you are living simultaneously in this realm and other realms) and that some people are very strongly focused in this realm. And others are focused in this realm, they are living here, they have lives there, and they also have a strong focus in other realms. And sometimes, those are the people to whom you want to say, [snaps fingers] “Are you here?” And some people do a strong focus in this realm and stronger ones in other realms at different times of life. So, that is a sidebar.
   When you come into this realm, you do not come by accident. And you enter into a reality, and you , in this culture, have entered into the dream of western culture. There are other dreamings, other cultures, other beliefs. You enter into a world where one of your chief tasks, if you will, is to learn about choice. To… We want to say “unbind”, is that a word? To loosen the bounds of what would be cultural norms or group mind or what Jung called “race mind.”
   So, why? So that you are empowered to make choices. You move beyond the group understanding of your culture and into the living possibilities of choice. Love. Love that is more vast than you can imagine is always present. It is the strongest force of all. Whether or not you turn to that love – and we are speaking today with that new energy with us, beside us, involved – turning even more strongly, more powerfully to it. It is up to you to turn toward that energy and say, “Yes, that is my experience, that is my truth.” And then to involve yourself as deeply as you can through spiritual studies, through dance, through art, in whatever way you do, with being that love. Being. Being, as in the phrase, the sentence, “Be the peace you want to see.”
   So, first of all, it is always process. You don’t… You come to an understanding that love, to a realization really, that love is the strongest force, and that’s the end it. OK, now you know. No. It is a process of deepening, of addressing the teachings – this is important – the teachings of your personality self. Trungpa Rinpoche said, “Let your life be your guru.” Your personality is your teacher, but not… It is the outfit, it is costume you are wearing to this party. Some of you see it astrologically, may understand it psychologically, in a variety of ways. So it is the costume you are wearing to this party, it is not your core. But the teaching of the personality gives you the ground to meet love, to turn to love and apply it to everything, everything in your life. But, who is in charge of that? Making that choice. Who? This is not a hard question. Who is in charge of it?

   Kathy: Each individual.

   Micciah: Yes, you are. You are. So, if for whatever reason that choice is not made, and it is made in degrees. It is made in degrees. You keep being it and living it and knowing it, and exploring it for lifetimes. If it is not made… [sighs] This is complicated. Or it is made in some way… We want to say wrongly, so, let us explain what we mean.
   “I love my country and I will kill you if you don’t agree with my ideas.” That is not exactly what we mean by love. “I love my country and I’m interested and curious about your country, and your beliefs, and how we can cooperate.” (This is part of what was coming to Julie in her meditations which is complex and we are not going to succeed in describing all of it in the session, by any means.)
   For whatever reasons, early damage that is profound, that the person cannot reverse, but some people do, that that person cannot do, a propensity or a necessity (is that right? Almost.) to be swept into group mind, or a characterological need to be with the crowd. If the crowd is not centered in this way, then you may not find it. It being the core of love. There is no force… (And this is sometimes where the confusion is.) If love is the strongest force, then there is, perhaps, a child sense that it should intervene on your behalf and solve the difficulties, the pain the planet is in. This planet you are on [pointing emphatically to the earth] is in pain. But that’s not the agreement in this realm. If you were in another realm, choice would not be what you were focused on. Here! Here. Here.
   So then, a person, several people, many people, thousands of people have not focused on love in this way, are in psychological pain, are swept together, reinforced together. You can see it in many, many groups where cruelty is [pauses] is the dominating force in the group. Until the individuals say, “This is not for me.” And sometimes, very often, it has cost people their lives. “This I not for me. I’m not participating in this.” The group will go ahead and enact the cruelties. Is love still the strongest force? Yes. And love has existed in the most dire circumstances. Two famous writers who were in concentrations camps wrote about the survivors, the ones who did best were the ones who kept love alive in some way. Even in those circumstances.
   And we know, we have quoted this many times. The Dalai Lama says, “You will have peace in the world when you have peace in your hearts, and not one minute sooner.”
   The more you invite the divine into your life, your life, your own little life, your own magnificent life, the more strongly you experience the love, the more it overflows out of you into your environment, into the environment you all share psychically, into the galaxies. So, love is not the problem. The dilemma lies within each person who incarnates. And there are… (We are not going to get into this further, but you might ask another time.) There are very complicated reasons surrounding both the people who are the ones enacting the cruelty and the people who are the ones enmeshed in those actions as the recipients.
   (You might want to ask about this. We’re not going to go into it further. It is very complicated.) But to respond to the question about love… Do you have more questions about this? Is what we are saying clear?
   [class murmurs yes]
   And where does it begin? Speaking of cruelty. You often, perhaps especially… No not just you. Many people think of it as, out there. [points out the windows] Other people are cruel. But flip the mirror around. This is not in any way to solicit a barrage of bad feelings about yourselves. There’s only one of you, yes? If there is only one of you, the cruel people are not out there. You can look with love and compassion at the cruelty within you, mostly amongst people like you, directed towards yourselves. You say things to yourselves, and treat yourselves in ways you would never consider treating another person. Or, speaking to another person.
   What does that come from? Pain that you have suffered. Ways you have been taught to think about yourself either directly, overtly or covertly. That you are not good. That you are a bad person. That you are stupid. So, when you are in that self-talk that is… What is that? It is a form of cruelty. Start there! Like the Tonglen prayer, “May I be happy.” Not by… (This is a tricky subject, isn’t it?) Not by going into further blame. [hits her head] “Oh! My God. I am a worse person than I had even imagined. I am cruel to myself. How will I ever get out of this?”
   Slowly, with mindfulness and tenderheartedness. Noticing where you are cruel to yourselves, where you do not take care of yourselves. You get the idea.
   And what is that about? A choice. A choice. Sometimes a great deal of psychological material needs to be worked, worked, before you can make that choice to be kind to yourself. You can begin by hearing about it and knowing about it, which you all do. Will this magically change? “Ah ha! Now I understand I am being cruel to myself. Well I’m going to stop that right now.” Unless you have one of those moments of enlightenment it doesn’t, it doesn’t work that way. You work with it. It’s part of the spiritual teaching. “Un huh. Here I am being cruel to myself. Hmm. Might I call on the divine to help me?” If you are going to begin to nourish this pattern even more strongly, ever more strongly. “Help me. Help me refrain from the ways in which I am cruel to myself. Criticize myself.” Put as Stephen Levine said so brilliantly, “Drive hatred into the fear.” [correcting] “…hatred into the pain.” Is what he said. Begin right at home with yourself. A good place to start. Because there maybe a sort of distortion thinking, “Well, I’m not a good person.” But not include the thinking, “But wait. I’m often not really very nice to myself.” Very potent place to begin. And many of you were taught not to be kind to yourselves. So it is an unlearning and a relearning.
   Always asking for help. The great energies are always there, always wanting to help you, to assist you, to support you. You have to call on them. We know, we have said this before. You have to invoke them. “Oh well, it’s just a small problem. I don’t think… I don’t want to  bother them.” So that’s like a child with parents, yeah. We are talking about vast energies of love. It is the joy of the great heart of the universe to offer itself to you.