Relationships are all around us.
We are in relation with many things,
At all times,
Like family,
Friends,
Others,
And ourselves.
Our relationships also extend to what we think and feel.
We are deeply connected to the inner workings of our being.
It is what we know best,
But yet this relationship seems so foreign to us at times.
In this pillar,
We wanted to go over the dynamics of relationships and how we rise in love.
As beings,
We've come across various ways to be in relation.
Relationships arrive in many different forms.
Relationships with yourself,
Family,
Friends,
Community,
Work,
Objects,
And many more.
How do we become in relationships with our love and granted access to rise?
So listen,
When I read this,
I wouldn't,
Again,
Thanks David for these amazing questions though.
And I go back and forward,
Try to grasp about this.
The first thing that come in my mind is my understanding of what is my relationship with love.
Let's start there.
My personal relationship with that particular emotion.
And what does that mean in my personal life?
I'm going to talk to be personal a little bit.
I grew up in a house where they were really cold.
They would never say I love you between each other.
It doesn't mean that my parents don't love me.
I mean,
I knew that they love me,
But it was not a place where we benefit each other love.
So personally to me,
I didn't saw nothing wrong with that.
But to my sister,
Probably she probably will have a completely different opinion about that.
So my understanding in that relationship that I have with love,
He might be different with all different aspects.
Now,
Later in life when I became more mature and start understanding,
I became aware of self-love,
Which is love to myself.
But that was a process.
That was not as a teenager,
As a young man.
I didn't thought about those things.
And hopefully all human beings go through a process where really understand what self-love mean.
Because later in life,
I understood that that was like the foundation for me to love everybody else and everything else.
Including all the different aspects of love.
So here we go,
I come from a family that is very cold.
They never hug each other,
Say I love you between each other.
Me personally,
In my personal journey,
That aspect didn't affect me too much.
But to my sister would be a completely different story.
Or to my brother too.
But at the same time,
It took me a couple of years to really understand what was my relationship with that particular aspect or emotion of love.
You know,
And how much love influence in my life.
You know,
The love for a couple.
You know,
I don't want to be influenced and be like a little puppy behind something and an emotion that it doesn't allow me to snap out.
I went through a process of maturity to really understand what is that.
And I'm still not done.
I think it's that much complex.
And somebody want to help me here in this conversation.
But this is my personal experience with love coming from a cold family.
It was an interesting one.
And it's been a process.
It's been a long journey.
I think to have a real relationship with love,
I think you definitely have to love yourself first.
I think a lot of people look for love on the outside and then they kind of get beaten down by it.
Because they're looking for someone to fulfill some part of them.
Or to fulfill a need that they have.
Or they're just searching for it outside of themselves.
And I think it never really works out right.
Because you get certain things out of people.
They let you down.
I mean,
People let each other down.
That's a part of the human experience.
And then you think you might feel like they don't love you anymore.
But I think when you can go to the real source of love,
Which is inside of you.
Then you access the ability to be able to rise in love.
Because that external love where you're looking for something in return.
It's going to lead to you getting hurt in some way,
Shape,
Or form.
But if you can access the love within you.
That true universal spiritual love.
Then you have a better relationship with love.
And how it goes between you and other people.
And other things.
And between you and yourself.
And then you can start to rise in it.
Once you can really tap into it.
And define what it is.
And feel what it is.
Yeah,
Just to build off of what Ali was saying.
Me and him are brothers.
We have the same teacher.
Our godfather.
We called him Uncle Will.
And what pops up in my mind.
Is when he was trying to teach us about the light within ourselves.
And like Ali was saying.
Once you find that light or that love of self.
It's a process or a practice called Bhakti Yoga.
Where one of the aspects of it is respect.
And if you break down the word respect.
It's re-inspect.
Where re is again.
And spec is to look like spectacles.
So his,
I guess,
Philosophy.
Or not his.
Just the way that he taught us this aspect of Bhakti Yoga.
The whole respect thing.
Is when you see someone or something.
You see their physical appearance.
But when you look again.
You see that light.
That's the same light that you have.
That's the same light that everyone has.
That unity within all beings.
And if you see that commonality between yourself and everything else.
You'll want to uplift them.
Strengthen them.
Love them in the highest form possible.
And that is how I think it's easier way to love people.
Even if they do stress you out.
Make you angry.
Piss you off.
And it's easy to love those people that lift you up.
But those people that stress you out or make you angry.
It's very hard to.
But with this practice.
It makes it relatively easy.
It's not a perfect.
So you may mess up every once in a while.
It's a practice.
So when you find yourself in those situations.
Where people are causing frictional energy within you.
You take a second.
Take a pause.
Go inside of your light.
And then look at that physical person or thing.
And see their physical appearance first.
And look deeper.
And see that light.
And another thing that pops in my head.
Is my dad used to say this quote.
Don't fall in love.
Rise in love.
Because a fall is a fall is a fall is a fall.
And every time that I reflect on me falling in love with somebody.
Or what I thought was love.
It was just more like a physical attraction.
Lust or something like that.
Where when you're rising in love.
Once again you're seeing their light.
And you want to make their lives as easy and harmonious as possible.
And you know that's the most beautiful form of love.
Is being of service to yourself.
To others.
To planet.
To mother nature.
To animals.
Whoever needs love.
Which everyone does.
Be of service.
Yeah I just want to piggyback on all of the items that the gentleman mentioned.
You know love is a process.
And I think when you love yourself first.
It's almost easy to say it.
But it's actually very difficult to do it.
You know not many people know how to find it.
It takes a long time.
It takes acceptance.
It actually takes understanding of yourself and one self.
It's almost a mindset.
It's a mind shift.
You have to almost understand your own person and your own being.
You know if you have two broken individuals.
Or say not whole individuals coming together.
It's not going to work what Aldi said.
Right?
And because you're coming in already not a whole person.
You're coming in finding something outside yourself to make you happy.
And I've done that many times in my life.
Right?
You're coming in into a relationship where you're saying.
Okay this person will make me happy.
Or this thing or item I get will make me happy.
And when you do get that person or thing.
It doesn't make you happy because you find out that you're not happy yourself.
So I think not only loving yourself is one thing.
Finding yourself and these practices and processes that we're talking about will help with that.
It's almost like a solid confidence that you have when you do love yourself.
You know when we are born.
The source and the creator and the origin has already given us everything we need.
And Juan you mentioned coming from a family where it's unspoken.
Yeah.
Asian family is the same way.
Unspoken.
Right?
They don't say love or these words.
However,
Remember we are born into love.
Our moms carried us for all these months.
Loving and nurturing and caring for us.
And making sure that we survive through that birth.
Even though it's unspoken.
It's there.
And you feel it.
And sometimes that feeling is all you need.
So anyway.
You know I think it's a process.
And I think one of these pillars called rising in love and all other pillars.
It will show you how to love yourself first.
So I guess love is a practice that it can be learned.
So people can rehabilitate themselves with love.
That's what I'm getting.
Yeah.
I'm what you want.
And I think it does have to be learned.
I think people have to experience love to know what it is.
I don't think it's something that you can just pick up.
I really think it's something that you do have to experience somewhere at some point.
Or see being embodied or see being modeled to know what it is.
I think everybody has the capacity for it.
I think you're born with the capacity to love humanity and love the planet.
And love all these things and love yourself.
But I think it has to be learned.
It has to be seen.
It has to be cultivated.
Just because I feel like there's so many things around that can.
Children are born loving.
You know what I mean?
They're born happy.
They're born in a certain pure way.
And I think the world just beats it out of them.
Just steals that love,
That joy,
That light,
That imagination in a lot of different ways.
It definitely takes some effort in this human experience to remain loving.
Because a lot of things can happen that can make you cold.
It can make you walled off.
It can make you not want to connect with people.
It can make you put up those barriers.
So I think it's something that constantly takes effort.
But it's worth it.
Those people that are full of love,
They're genuinely happy.
They're not looking for anything from anyone.
They're not looking to get gratified by things outside of them.
I'm sure everybody knows at least one person like that.
Those are the people that are happy.
And those people that don't have love in their life are miserable.
They're miserable.
They're unhappy.
I feel like most of their stuff is based on things.
And it could be for a lot of reasons.
I'm not judging people.
I'm just saying people who don't have that love aren't as happy.
They don't really know genuine happiness because it's something that,
For whatever reason,
They might not have experienced.
They might have had a traumatic experience.
Or they might just be walled off and not want to connect with themselves
Or connect with other people.
I think that love has to be cultivated in your inner environment
And outward environment when possible.
As far as your inner environment,
The path that I cultivated is through yoga,
Mindfulness,
Meditations,
And stuff like that.
And there are many different paths to that same goal,
Whether it's doing martial arts,
Whether it's gardening,
Whether it's walking in nature,
Just different practices that can get you present and grounded.
And then if you are blessed enough to have space in your residence,
Creating that loving space,
Whether it's just a place that has an oil diffuser,
Has Himalayan salt crystals,
A fountain,
Different things like that where if you are going through a hard day,
You can go there,
Drop in,
And cultivate that love
Just from the outward environment that you're in.
And if you aren't blessed with having space in your house,
Once again,
You can go out into nature,
Do a walk in the woods or in a park or something like that,
And that is changing your outward environment to be love
And being in harmony with it.
So I definitely think that,
As Ali was saying,
It definitely has to be cultivated not only on your inner environment,
But your outer environment as well.
