B o u t L o V e? Reminders for Being Loving

Embracing the Now 

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W
HAT 
A
BOUT 
L
OVE
? 
60 
Notice What You Love 
 
What do you like most about being alive now on planet 
earth? The song from “The Sound of Music” about 
favorite things (“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on 
kittens… these are a few of my favorite things”) is an 
expression from Essence. When we are in Essence, we 
love the little things, like whiskers on kittens—what a 
miracle! There's so much joy when we are really present 
to life and the miracle that it is. We get joy from the 
littlest things.
This is so unlike the ego, which disparages such 
things. “Oh that—I've seen that before!” is its attitude. It 
wants life to be about 
it
, not about life itself. The ego 
loves whatever makes it feel good about 
itself
, not what 
makes it feel good. This egocentricity is one of the most 
obvious differences between the state of ego 
identification and our natural state, or Essence. The ego 
refers whatever is happening back to itself: What will it 
mean to 
me?
But when we are in Essence, we experience 
Essence's joy at experiencing itself through 
all
of 
creation.

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토
ϧ
Being Loving 
61 
So what is it you love about life? It's so good to notice 
and acknowledge this because doing so aligns us with 
Essence and strengthen our awareness of Essence's 
presence in our life. When we notice those whiskers, 
those dew drops, those beautiful and amazing things 
about planet earth and its creations, we can't help but 
feel Essence's joy. The only thing that gets in the way of 
that joy is not noticing such things, and the only reason 
we don't is if we are busy noticing something else, which 
for most people is their thoughts.
Do your thoughts bring you that same kind of joy? It 
really helps to notice the impact that thoughts have on 
your state of consciousness because when you do, you 
see that they don't give you the same peace, joy, and 
happiness that noticing life more purely does.
Do you love how the clouds move and shift as you 
watch them? Do you love how the stars seem to twinkle? 
Do you love how your dog's chest moves up and down 
when breathing? Do you love the sound of the wind in 
the trees before a storm? Do you love the smell of damp 
leaves in the fall? Do you love the feel of the water 
against your skin when you are swimming through it? It's 
impossible to run out of things to love about life. What a 
wonderful spiritual practice it is to notice and feel 
gratitude for the little things in life. What feels that way 
is Essence. So you see, Essence is very close at hand. It's 

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ϧ
W
HAT 
A
BOUT 
L
OVE
? 
62 
not some mysterious force separate from us, but that 
which lives through us and experiences this precious life 
we have been given.
What a different world it is when, instead, we are 
identified with the ego. Every little experience and 
change has tension around it: Will it be good or bad for 
me?
The ego evaluates everything, even the breeze, even 
the dew, even the whiskers on kittens. It can find a 
problem with anything: The breeze musses 
my
hair, the 
dew makes 
my
feet wet, 
I
need to trim those whiskers. 
That's how the ego sees life. It's always about how 
something affects