Crazy Little Thing Called Love

I have been a huge fan of American Idol since the very first year when Kelly Clarkson first appeared in the spotlight. It’s probably the inner rock star in me that draws me to this show but I am seriously addicted to it and get surprisingly attached to the highs and lows of each contestant’s journey.

A recent show featured the music of one of my favorite bands of all time – Queen – who quite likely started making music before the parents of some of these contestants were born! Watching a very talented young singer named Joshua Ledet take on the Queen classic “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” got me thinking about how powerful love really is – how it really is the answer to all problems and the pre-requisite condition for all healing.

Now I’m not talking about romantic love or the love of material possessions. I’m talking about unconditional love. Love that is pure and unencumbered. Love that is trusting and without fear.

Bonnie and I went to a beautiful wedding in Long Island recently and one of the readings during the service was the Bible passage from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a which says:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

That’s a pretty high bar to set, but it is one we should all work daily to achieve in our lives – not for a specific person – but for everything – for the Universe – for our very existence and the existence of every other being.

The only being I can think of readily who has probably achieved this level of enlightenment already is my dog Mickey.

I can tell in his eyes when he looks at me that his love is without condition and totally trusting. His tail wags with excitement when he sees me (and pretty much when he sees anybody!). He has no expectation other than happiness. He is just excited to be alive and to be part of this wonderful world. He will live a long, healthy and happy life in this condition. Imagine yourself feeling this type of emotion whenever you gaze in the mirror. How wonderful would that be to know yourself and your personal beauty that well?

How ironic is it that with the passing of the enormously talented and tragically troubled vocalist Whitney Houston, we are forever reminded in the echoes of her voice that "Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all".

If only Whitney had been guided to meditate on that sage advice and manifest it in her own psyche! Amazing personal healing would have been sure to follow, and after that, with the gift of her celebrity platform, the healing she could have shared with the world would have been limitless. But perhaps it is the lesson we can learn from her tragic demise which is her greatest gift to us. Maybe that was her task in this lifetime.

Part of my own ongoing pathway to enlightenment has been the crystal clear realization that negative thoughts will prevent healing. They won’t just slow it down or make the journey more difficult. They will prevent the healing from occurring. If you put negative energy into the universe in the form of your thoughts, that negativity will return to you in some form. The mission, and it is certainly far easier said than done, is to replace ALL negativity with love. I am certainly not there yet but I am honestly trying every single day.

We all need to consciously and deliberately strive to be an instrument of healing spirit. Whenever you find yourself harboring a thought containing any negativity towards anyone or anything, immediately entertain the exact opposite thought. If you find yourself feeling anger, reverse that anger to love, empathy and compassion, sending energy for complete healing to the person or situation that is the focus of your anger. Do not allow negativity to reside in your being. In the words of Mikao Usui: “Just for today, handle anger appropriately.” Healing will follow.

This will take tremendous work, but as Usui told us in the fourth Reiki precept: “Just for today, do your work honestly”. Don’t just give this lip service. Be completely honest with yourself in your efforts to release negativity. Don’t mislead yourself to rationalize that some negativity is justified. Any negativity will always come back to undermine your healing.

Early 20th century author Kahlil Gibran tells us: “Work is love made visible. And if you can't work with love, but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of the people who work with joy”.

Gibran recognized that work without love is fruitless. The synonym he uses for negativity (distaste) undermines the entire effort.

Recognize that you alone are the captain of your ship. Your healing and enlightenment depends only on yourself. If you do not start your journey with unconditional love and gratitude for yourself, your journey will be long, arduous and unsuccessful. You will be lost at sea, wandering aimlessly in unfocused directions. Remember that YOU are the boss. You are the captain. Handle this responsibility well and with unconditional love and you will reap the benefits. Take it lightly or ignore it and you will likely fail to thrive.

In his wonderful novel Captains Courageous, British author Rudyard Kipling shared with us the simple yet profound thought that "An angry skipper makes an unhappy crew". You are the skipper – your world is the crew. Consider the impact.

We have had this knowledge for a very long time but the work to implement the surprisingly simple concept is difficult so the journey is long. We will get there. Keep positive energy flowing. Follow the advice of another troubled yet amazingly talented singer and songwriter, John Lennon, who told us to simply: “Imagine all the people living life in peace”. Do this daily and be the change. Put unconditional love for everyone and everything into the universe and let it flow back to you.

I’ll close with a 2,500 year old reference to this topic from Lao Tzu, who gave us the eternal wisdom of the 81 verses of the Tao.

Tao Te Ching Verse 28

Know the masculine, but keep to the feminine: receive the world in your arms. Be a valley under heaven; if you do, the Tao will never leave you and you will become as a little child.

Know the white, yet keep to the black: be a model for the world. If you are a model for the world, the Tao within you will strengthen and you will return whole to the infinite.

Know the personal, yet keep to the impersonal: accept the world as it is. If you embrace the world with compassion, then you will live a life of abundant virtue.

The world is formed from the void, like utensils from a block of wood. The Master knows the utensils, yet keeps to the block because of its limitless possibilities. When the unformed is formed into objects, its original qualities are lost. If you preserve your original qualities, you can use all things.

There is wonderful insight and guidance to be found in every phrase of this verse, and it is a wonderful verse on which to meditate, working through it in your mind, but for the purpose of this article, I would like to extract from the first stanza the incredible advice: “Be a valley under heaven; if you do, the Tao will never leave you and you will become as a little child.”

Imagine yourself as that valley under Heaven, capturing the wonderful nourishing gifts that fall to us in the rain, and then allowing them to flow through you on their path to healing the world. It’s a powerful image and it is perfectly congruous with the Reiki mechanism of opening yourself as a channel to flow healing energy to others.

So remember…your mission, should you choose to accept it (apologies to Mission Impossible), is to consciously, honestly and diligently work to reverse every negative thought that you have, replacing those thoughts with unconditional love.

Love conquers all.

Blessings,

Bob