Q: I think it is really scary to live in a world where you feel very open and loving—and you feel that space come up often and you act on it, or you be it, and then that which you see around you does not always reflect it. And it seems too normal …and I have a sense that Los Angeles itself is a heck of a place. I mean, coming here recently, it is a heck of a place to be.
A: So even the voice that says, “I am in a space of lovingness, but the city does not seem to match that; there are other things going on that make me vulnerable, and it’s kind of dangerous”—even that statement is a conditioned statement. So what you have to watch out for, in my view of things, is that kind of subtle judgment that says, “Here is where I am, and here is the rest of it.” That is dangerous because it is felt to be valid, it is felt to be a real situation. It is actually not; it is actually a mind-created illusion. Because if it was real, if the “being love” was, in fact, not an idea, was an actual fact, then you would feel vulnerable without being afraid. The fear is the clue that there is something going on that is not quite accurate to what the reality is. Because love—real love, love that takes you over, that is involuntary, that is coming from the real heart of hearts—does not tend to fall into evaluating whether it is dangerous, or whether it is scary, or how it feels. It really (interestingly enough) has almost nothing to do with feeling. So when feeling comes along, that is kind of a cue, kind of a clue, that there is a mental idea going on. And the mental idea that you are talking about is really a kind of a looking over your own shoulder and saying, “Ah, now I am feeling the lovingness, now I am in trouble, because I know I act on it and things happen that may not be that good for me.”
The real lovingness does not think that way. The real lovingness is not evaluating how things are working out. So I am giving you unsolicited advice, to be careful about fooling yourself. Because I believe you. I think you are sincere; I think you want what is real. So when somebody is like you, if somebody wants what is real, they have to be willing to develop a kind of a vigilance to ferret out when your own mind tricks you into kind of elevating yourself and lowering everybody else, and saying, “Well, here is what I think is going on and I am doing this, and everybody else is doing that and…” That is not how love thinks.