"Soulmate" is a verb

Many years ago, I was introduced to the Kabbalistic notion - made popular by David Cooper's 1998 book - that "God is a Verb".

To my mind at the time, having been raised in traditional religious structures yet always intuiting a higher truth, this really made a lot of sense.  The divine was not something you could fixate, it was a continual unfoldment of divine activity - one does better to say "to God", than "God".

The idea of "soul-mates" has been on my mind for many years, and I think that it comes up for many of us, whether we identify as more mainstream, or more new-age in our beliefs.  The biggest way I hear about this is the continual questioning from people searching for relationships: "will he/she be THE ONE?!?".

The idea of soul mates maybe goes back to Platonic philosophy of ancient Greece - which proposed that souls were once a union of male and female parts, which were then divided before coming here to earth.  This division leads to the sense that many of us are constantly seeking our "other half".

When I first heard about this philosophy, I thought it was beautiful - and in many ways, I still do.  But at the same time, in most cases it only seems to cause trouble.  I think this is because "soulmate", like "God", is something that one does, not something that one is.

So, where's the problem here?  I think it involves a kind of either/or thinking that doesn't actually correspond to reality!  Is the person or is she not your "soulmate" is a question whose answer might change from moment to moment or day to day.  Instead, what if we could ask: "can I soul-mate with this person?"

mate¹

māt/

noun

1. 1.

   each of a pair of birds or other animals.

   "a male bird sings to court a mate"

   synonyms:

   match, fellow, twin, companion, other half, equivalent "this sock has lost its mate"

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2. 2.

   a fellow member or joint occupant of a specified thing.

   "his tablemates"

   synonyms:

   partner, life partner, husband, wife, spouse, lover, live-in lover,significant other, companion, helpmate, helpmeet, consort;

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   • 
     
3. 
   

   • 
     
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verb

1. 1.

   (of animals or birds) come together for breeding; copulate.

   "successful males may mate with many females"

   synonyms:

   breed, couple, copulate "pandas rarely mate in captivity"

   • 
     
   • 
     

2.

connect or be connected mechanically.

"a four-cylinder engine mated to a five-speed gearbox"

As we can see, the word "Mate" has many implications.  When defined as a noun, we have to ask questions like "is this my other half?", or your "equivalent" - like a sock who's lost its mate!  The second noun definition gets a little better, but to fixate it into either/or still feels a little stagnant to me somehow - when we're talking about the soul.

When we get to the verbs, though, that's where things really heat up!

First, "to connect or be connected mechanically."  I think that the major implication of soul-mating is that two souls connect - that you connect on the level of your deepest inner being, or "soul".  So, on the level of a committed intimacy, this makes something wonderful happen YOU GET TO DECIDE WHETHER THIS IS YOUR SOUL MATE - in each moment!  You make this decision by deciding whether you can connect with them on the level of your deep inner being.

A sufi said that any moment spent in the full remembrance of the Divine is virtue, and any moment spent out of connection with the Divine is sin.  I think it's this way with soul-mating.  When we our connecting on a deep level, our souls find a way to match each other, find a way to couple together and compliment.  In any moment where we feel that this is possible from our side - that we can stay connected to the other's heart, that we can remain open to the possibility of serving each other's inner- most being, we will feel like we are in contact with the divine.  We will feel like we are present with a divine partner and something very important is taking place.

On the other hand, any moment we imagine that there is no way we can connect with this being, we will feel alone, and that the interaction is without meaning.  We will begin to cast the notion on this other that they are not important to the development and expression of our soul.

The other meaning I find useful is "come together for breeding; copulate."  Well, there's the obvious usefulness of this definition!  But I think something even deeper is possible than physical procreation.  What does it mean to copulate with the soul?  What would it mean if our deepest being were to bring forth new life with another?


I think perhaps this is the true meaning of "soul-mate" as a verb.  To soulmate is to unite on the deepest level, and to bring forth something new from your union.  In the higher teachings of Daoist yoga, this is the only reason to take a partner - each being is complete unto her/himself, unlike the old greek stories - but it is seen that only through uniting together, can something brand new be created!

I once heard a Tibetan Buddhist teacher talk about "consort practice" - in which one, rather than remaining monastically celibate, engages in spirituality through relationship.  What struck me most from this teaching, though, was the notion that at the highest levels everything becomes your "consort".  This is not some mystical version of swinging!  Rather, it is placing the responsibility for soulmating squarely in your own hands.  You are bringing forth new life through every interaction you have - but you can choose to see this as deeply meaningful, you can choose to bring forth those creations in alignment with what is alive as your essential being.  Or you can choose to continue to create new life as if such a thing as a "superficial" relationship was possible.  The choice is up to you!

Karmic Debt (Sutras on Longing - Vol 10)

it’s the feeling that something remains undone.

Traditions call it “karmic debt”

we could use that term too…

But people just steal these well-intentioned words and use them shore up their egos - by hating themselves and enjoying the feeling of guilt.

Let’s say it again, it’s not about you.

If you are dwelling in guilt, you are working on a “me project”.  You are making a stronger sense of “me” that doesn’t help you be any happier, and it doesn’t help you serve others.

This may be radical, the notion that you shaming, blaming, or criticizing yourself is not somehow helping others.

Perhaps you were told often enough “to say you’re sorry!” or “you should be ashamed of yourself” that you finally internalized this sentiment.  Perhaps you finally came to believe that somehow by inflicting pain on your own heart, you can save the hearts of others from pain.

But it just doesn’t work that way!

If you don’t heal from the shame that constantly bears you down, you can co-opt any truth into ego-buliding.

But we’re not here to talk about healing. 

We’re not?

No.  Because healing only goes so far.  Healing, by itself, is the same dead-end as any other “Me”-centric aims.

It’s not that if you focus on your self, God or someone is frowning at you.

and it’s also not that this type of healing is useless.

It’s just that eventually you’ll notice that there’s always something else to heal from.

The healing trap is only a trap because we think that one day we can actually, finally be healed.

Upon realizing that the ultimate and final healing is likely not coming, Some of us reconcile our disappointment by saying that “the destination is not important, it’s only the journey that matters”

and this is comforting…. but to some of us, it also feels like giving up.

It’s a subtle self-trick, this one that says, I can’t control anything else, like whether “I finally heal” - but I can control whether I think about the journey, or the destination.

But if we’re honest, we are not in control of our minds either.

We want to think we are in control of our minds, because we need at least one thing that’s not totally random in the world.

If we look at how often our minds fail to act in accord with our long-term wishes, or in alignment with what we know to be true or ethical, if we asses how often the mind can stay on the object of our choice, rather than fluttering off to something else on it’s own, we will realize that the mind is even LESS consistent than something like “healing”.

We like to think that inner things are controllable, even though outer things prove themselves to be fickle and effervescent.  Because we have evidence?  Not really, just because it’s more comfortable (i.e. less terrifying).

Great, well now that you know it’s all hopeless, have a nice day!

Just kidding.  There is hope, it’s just not in any of the places that we usually look for it.  And it has to do with this “karmic debt” thing.

The hope is the nature of your mind.

The nature of your mind is plastic

It is a receiver and projector of impressions

If you meditate on where exactly sensation stops, and perception starts

Things get weird real quick.

because you may find that “you” and the “world” 

Lack distinct boundaries.

And the nature of mind is all wrapped up in this love and compassion business.

Specifically, it is formed of its own habitual tendencies.

Bottom line.  Your own happiness really only comes from the happiness you give away to others.

There’s a type of agency here.  Just not the usual control we all long for.

It’s not that we “give up control” in some sort of haphazard way of life where we don’t care who we hurt, or what the consequences of our actions are.

No. 

We realize that we never made ourselves happy by trying to make ourselves happy

When happiness came, it seemed to come randomly.

We cannot try ourselves into a better condition

But we can, at this time, to the best of our ability, choose to love.  

We can’t even know for sure that we’ll be able to choose it tomorrow, or in an hour.  We can only know whether or not we are choosing it right now.  

You have that much control, and not a single drop more.

And because the nature of mind is that it is cumulative, habitual, reflective,

If we choose to love in this now.  We must receive the ripples of that love flowing back to us.

Truly, no goodness ever goes unrewarded.  We cannot control how exactly things will manifest or reflect back upon us, but we can know this - that feeling ourselves alive as love is the only true cause for feeling ourselves alive as love. 

And this is all the reward we actually need.

We just long to be ourselves.  Our blissfully loving selves.  But in the search for this “self” we get all caught up into trying to reify it into something conveniently solid, comfortingly controllable.

And the world turns dark and uncaring.

And the more of this we have habitually indulged in, the more we will feel weighed down.

Maybe not all the time.  Sometimes we’ll feel joyful.

But when the joy wears off, some nagging uncertainty creeps back in.  Some incompleteness.

this is the somatic manifestation of your ‘karmic debt’.

this debt is nothing other than the years or millennia that you have deprived yourself of the nourishment of being who you are, and doing what you were always meant to do.

It is a debt you can pay in a single instant.  The moment that you are alive as your true nature, you are liberated from all bonds, contract, and interest.  

Karmic debt is a hole with no bottom, but there are infinite resources available.  YOU are an infinite resource.

You cannot hold on to what you really are with the containers you build in your mind.  You have to let go of being small like that.

When you feel into the hearts of all other beings, you are as wide as the universe itself.  At that moment, all deficiencies are filled.  You will not be able to open like this “in the future” any more than you’ve ever done it in the past.  But you can do it right now.  Lets do it.  right now.

It's not "me" you want (Sutras on Longing vol 6)

It’s not “me” you want

The feeling of love is the most powerful thing in the universe, and perhaps that’s why it’s also sometimes the most painful. 

Every so often, someone stirs in us this feeling of love and it is more intense than anything else we go through in this life.  We can stay up for hours, we are inspired to poetry and art, even physical pain and illnesses decrease.  

When we are in love like this, we have been given a free gift of the ability to meditate like the highest masters.  How is this so?  Because the highest masters completely forgot themselves.  They forgot to keep saying “me, me, me”.  

The “me” they go beyond is a fixed sense of who they are.  This kind of “me” can always only feel stale, because it is always behind the times.  The moment you reify some “self” -  in that very moment it has already become out-dated, obsolete.  The wisest meditators have seen this happening.  Their minds are so sharp, their laboratory equipment so advanced, that they can slow the process down and see it in real time >”I think I am a self”<  >zoooom, in comes the too-tight identity-construct to paste itself on my experience<   >”OUCH this feels terrible!”<

After witnessing this pattern play out again and again, the wise yogi makes a conscious decision to stop doing it (does it hurt when you do that?  STOP doing that!).  The person in love gets a freebie.  The glamour they see shimmering from the object of their affection has the power to completely obliterate the capacity to think about oneself.  Even a moment of stoping thoughts of “me” is powerfully refreshing.  It kicks out the stale and outmoded and plunks one straight into the cool depths of Now.

The only distinction between the infatuated and the mystic is that the one who thinks they are “in love” is having an experience that they didn’t choose.  They haven’t learned to release the grip of “me”-grasping on purpose, they are practically forced into it instead.  That means that the freshness they feel will be only temporary.  There’s a type of addiction here.  You have to get your fix from out there because you don’t know it’s coming from in here.

Something about the Beloved blasts you out of the realm of the known.  That familiarity you’ve worked so hard to build up has completely stifled you, and along comes this amazing, wonderful, super-hot being and BOOM rips the familiarity away.  But inevitably, they will leave you.  And when they leave you, unless you are very lucky, you will cling even more strongly to the familiar feeling of “me”.  

When you are in their presence, something about the magnetic property of the other siphons off the energy you could use to grasp to yourself.  But when you are away from them, all you know is that some “you” was able to change that way this “me” felt.  You don’t know that it was a release from the stagnation of self-clinging, you think the freshness came from them.

Worst is when the Beloved finally becomes familiar to you.  Because once they are familiar, no longer a mystery, they lose all power to transport you outside the realm of the known.  When the other no longer consistently gives us a fix, we get angry, sad, deprived.  Our addiction is not being served.  They were there providing the light of God to us, and now that has somehow stopped.  We are tossed straight from heaven to the depths of hell.

How simple things could be if we recognized that it’s not “them” that we want.  Wanting “them” is just a sneaky way of wanting “me” - and “me” is something we’ve already got too much of.  The beloved looks like the light of God because for some reason we are able to see the Divine in them easily.  This divine which is none other than a feeling of Communion.  This is the mystic’s secret.  Not forgetting the stagnant self in some sense of empty bewilderment or darkness, but a surrender of that self to the divine feeling of love and unity.  This feeling is available in a mountain cave, and it is available in our own families.  People have had a love affair with God while dying and others have while tending to the sick.

God is better in bed than any human mate you’ll ever find, and you can have her/him 24 hours a day, seven days a week - constant bliss.  Because the secret is that we kept waiting for someone to come along and give us that pleasant refreshment we always longed for.  But the thing seeking was the thing we sought - the minute we give, and let go of attachment to an outdated “me”, that minute we are free, blissful, and fresh.

Do you want the youthful strength of a teenager - vibrant, alive, inspired?  Have a crush on all beings, Fall in love with everything. 

Disgust (Sutras on Longing vol 5)

Disgust

Some days the world will feel totally disgusting to you.

You’ll wake up and you’ll say “What the f@ck is the point of all this?!”

You’ll look around and notice that nothing ever works.

Sure, things work sometimes, but other times, they just let you down.

And the horrible part is, you never know which one it’s going to be today.

Will this relationship be the one that works out, or will it be the one that crashes and burns, leaving you feeling like an empty wretch?

Will this meal be the one that fills you and leads to delicious post-consumption languor, or will it be the one that gives you food poisoning?

One day, it may well be that the wonderful things we rely on for pleasure, or to nourish our lives will be the ones that bring our death.

Elements as innocuous as water, fire, earth, air - all required for the nourishment of beings - all of them equally murderous.

Is it any wonder that some days you will awake and hate the life you are living in?

If you tell this to your psychologist, they will quickly give you a remedy certain to cover up these troubling feelings.

The problem is, on these days, you might be right.

This is not an encouragement to go out and get depressed.  Depression is the belief that these days where you see that nothing works, these moments of pure disgust, are more right than the moments when life looks just fine.

They are not more right, but neither is the conspiracy of false joy we perpetuate upon the world - seeking out discomfort and attempting to shield ourselves from it in every moment.  This campaign of division, between the "acceptable" emotions and insights, and the "unacceptable", can lead only to greater suffering because it denies an entire facet of the truth.  This life is disgusting, and it is also totally pure.  Somewhere at the meeting of these truths is beauty, art.

What art knows, or, what is known through art, is that beauty is not a thing of sharp distinctions between “good” and “bad”, “correct” and “incorrect”, “acceptable” and “unacceptable”.  Beauty is the dance of seemingly irreconcilable opposites.  

They juxtapose each other in countless ways, and every so often they merge, in a flash of light, or in a mysterious dissolution (barely noticed).

The ancient ones understood disgust in ways many of us have rarely glimpsed.  They knew that any object, thought, or feeling that hampered the ability to give one’s heart away totally was doom, death.

To these vast warriors, nothing could be put higher than Love - no images to veil the face of the divine - and so if a physical pleasure caused a contraction toward “me” vs “you”, they renounced it utterly.

But don’t imagine some sour faced oldster swearing off physical affection forever because he was burned by it once.  That’s not caring, that’s contraction too.  Think more fluid, think of catching yourself in the act of letting pampering distract you from another’s heart - and then think of expanding - immediately becoming something much greater than the one who could feel deprived.  

This will give you a small idea of the every-moment practice of the Masters.  There are no fixed decisions that will apply “forever” - that kind of safety is anathema to such a being.  There is only each moment being guided by the Heart’s true compass.

The feeling of disgust becomes a welcome friend, a trusted guide.  It tells me “I’m contracting in fear - I want to force the world to work for me rather than opening myself as a gift to the world”.  When this feeling arises, don’t be afraid to clean out your closets, gut your schedule book, and throw “safety” into the wind.  You never had any safety to begin with.  Letting go of its illusion is liberation, not a problem.

The ways we keep ourselves “safe” are shackles on the heart - a sky dragon kept in a small box and stunted.  Set it free. 

Consumers and Communers (Sutras on Longing vol 4)

Consumers and Communers

Put simply: you are not here to shop.

The sooner you recognize this fundamental truth, the sooner you can stop being miserable.

Young people are mostly cute, and sometimes annoying.

The most troubling part of working with someone going through their “terrible twos” or someone in their teenage years is that they think the point of life is to serve what they want.

The worst part is not that they cry or throw tantrums, though they do that too.  No, the worst part is you can see how much pain they are in all the time, trying to bend the world to their desire.

It’s like they make a bargain…. If I get frustrated enough and throw enough of a fit, then life will have to give me what I want.  And it’s sad, enough people do get what they want that others think generating upset is the way to do it.

We gotta make sustainability hip.  You see, consumers are operating on a system dependent on non-renewable resources.  It’s a give-and-take mentality, and underneath that is always the assumption that someone must eventually be deprived.  “Eventually, the available love, presence, and whatever else I need will run out,” we think, so we must consume all we can now.  It is very insecure.

The communer, though, is operating in a totally renewable fashion this being understands that their purpose here is not to consume value, but to generate it. 

We all actually have this understanding already , but it resides at a deep level of the mind, below conscious awareness.  It’s like there’s an ongoing tally showing what you have taken, and what you have given to the world.

For every gift, the heart softens a bit, and one experiences deeper ease.  For every act of taking, the heart constricts, and one experiences deeper discomfort.

Don’t mistake me here - when I say “ease”, and “discomfort”, I’m not talking about “success”.  There are lots of people making their way just fine in the world, apparently, who are not at all concerned with generating value.

Some of them even appear to be genuinely happy.

They, though, are missing the blessing of the mystic’s heart.  

Many mystics have cursed their master’s names for awakening them to deeper feeling.  You can only really engage in conventional worldly success if you’ve got good and hefty armour.  Disarm the heart just a little bit, and you will begin to grow sick with every act of taking.  

Have no illusions about it, this disarming is confusing and painful.  To feel deep sadness and not know why, to know that there’s something deeply wrong with how things have always been done, but not be quite able to put your finger on it, this throws the heart into turmoil.

But the same mystics who have pushed their masters away because of the pain, have also sung them praise-songs of gratitude.  They sing these songs because their heart has been awakened to the Real.

The soul slumbers and sleeps, waiting for a touch of sunlight, and this is the awakening Grace of the Teacher.  Your teacher doesn’t need to be a person.  They can be a dog or a flower, a river, or snatched piece of music on the wind.  

What makes them a Teacher is that they awaken you.  

When this grace touches the heart, the soul sees it’s own face.  It’s like the inherited knowledge of countless lives is granted to one - she sees what she has always known, and yet somehow forgot that she knew.

The soul recognizes herself as pure giving.  Well, this is almost the right term.  “Giving” seems to imply that theres some opposite, or that someone will be deprived.  The truth is that Giving is also a Gift for the Giver.

So perhaps we should call it “communing”.  When you eat a meal from a mind in harmony with LIFE, you are not taking, you are sharing.

If you look at all the ills in the world to day, it comes down to a lack of sharing.

Someone is depressed, because they wish they could share their heart with another

Someone is at war, because they cannot share their resources.

Someone is anxious, because they don’t know if other’s will share their burden.

We each live as lonely islands, and fail to recognize that it is we who made the boundaries.

Don’t go on some self-deprivation trip because you are trying to learn to be a “giver”.  That’s just another way to try to make yourself special and different.  You get farther away from what you want that way.

Live a normal life, but everything you do, do it to serve.  Never compromise your values - you can’t think and say you are serving, while using a product that harms another creature or the earth, it won’t work.  But just go along, don’t refuse the coffee someone offers you - accept it as a way to offer them your presence.  You can offer them the gift of seeing themselves give.  The gift of a tiny moment of connectedness in a lonely lonely world.

You can commune with the coffee - accept its gifts of aroma and savor, sweetness and bitterness.  Pull good food straight out of the dirt, accept its vitality into your own life - this is not taking, it is communing.

And go ahead and give. You can give your listening, you can give someone a ride.  You can give the special wisdom only you have.  You can give away that which you want most deeply.  You can give your very life.

You don’t know it yet, but this is actually what you’ve been shopping for.

You’ve gotten so used to the taste of aspartame, when someone offers you honey, you are not sure its right.  Something is too rich, to earthy, to “natural” about it.  But give it a minute.  Detox yourself from that which tastes sweet but offers no nourishment.  Let the richness of communing’s honey work on you.

Open yourself to the riches of the world.  That means joy sometimes, and sometimes that means pain, but it means that you will finally feel real.  You were not made to keep seeking, constantly on the prowl.  You were made to recognize that you are complete, and to affirm your completeness by offering it totally to Life.

They can never steal your destiny (Sutras on Longing vol 3)

They can never steal your destiny

The good news is that in all the universe, there is no power that can steal your destiny.

The greatest good in any person’s life is a sense of meaning.  The felt knowing that you are part of something greater than yourself.

The Warrior of Love strives to make that which they are a part of ever greater.  They don’t settle for being part of some little tribe or country - to the exclusion of others.  They find where the boundaries are, and lovingly transgress them.  An ever widening circle of inclusion.

To a hero of this sort, the only destiny is care, and ever deeper care.  This means that it can never be taken or obstructed.  

If your destiny was to have a child, many forces could keep you from actualizing meaning in your life.

If your destiny was to sail a ship, there are countless ways that this life’s essence could be missed.

If you thought some specific person was your destined mate, there’s no telling how that might turn out.

Even “spiritual” callings, like teaching, healing, becoming a clergy member, and the like are all subject to the whims of the world.

Sometimes even the weather can smash your supposed life’s-purpose to bits.

But if you find your purpose in Love, your purpose can never be conquered.  For love is like water flowing downhill.  If it hits an obstacle it just flows around.  That obstacle becomes part of the path that love takes.

When you base your sense of purpose on some exterior attainment, you must forever live in fear.  You have no agency at all.  “What if I cannot find a partner to have my child with?”  “What if I never afford a sailing ship?”  “What if no one likes me as a spiritual practitioner?”

If these and other attainments are the basis of meaning in your life, then you are continually being dangled over a pit of annihilation.  You are one accident away from a meaningless universe.  And thus, the dark longing grows and abides, just below our everyday consciousness.

If you make it your destiny to love, and love ever more deeply, the power of meaning is completely within your own hands.  Nothing can conquer you, because even if you fail, if you did your very best, if you gave your all, you have been a hero of love.  Every circumstance then becomes a teacher, like a guru guiding you toward a greater heart.

You cannot find a mate to have a child with, and the heart softens through sorrow, your capacity to care becomes wider.  Your sailing boat sinks and you learn that you can survive without it, because something deeper lives in you.  Your spiritual calling flounders, and you find a spirituality that does not depend upon acclaim, and accoutrements.  

Happiness also holds no power over you, because you are alive as a source of joy deeper than ordinary happiness.  When good things come, you accept them, with the understanding that they will pass.  But just because they will pass, you do not disregard them.  They are each one a tiny thread in the fabric of your life’s meaning.  Because your life’s meaning is an ever increasing force, there is infinite room to welcome every experience.

Super Heroes (Sutras on Longing, vol 2)

Super Heroes

The world is obsessed with super heroes

This one can shoot lightening, that one’s egotistical

This one is allllmosst invincible

That one is dreadfully vulnerable - BUT A GENIUS!

Every hero ultimately has but one quality that makes them a hero.  They give up all hope for themselves.  

People are not as obsessed in the world with Grandmothers and Dads as they are with super soldiers and power-mutants.  And yet, Grandmothers and Dads get called heroes too.

But never was there one who thought more about themselves than others, and who was also called a hero.

One cannot keep firm hold on the tiny persona, and place that above all, and expect to gain the stature of myth.  To be a being of mythic proportions is to have a mythic heart.

Every hero’s journey is inspiring, because it is our own journey.  And every hero’s journey is difficult in direct proportion to how much they are attached to their own lives.  

To the degree that they have to question “when is it my turn”, or “what about me”.  To that degree, they suffer.  Most heroes are tempted - by the arch-enemy, or by random circumstance - to take up the power the wield and use it for their own gain.

When a mythic being overcomes this temptation, our hearts leap, because a deep seed within our souls sees something familiar.

it sees the test that we are each facing every day.  Will I live for “me”, or will I use the powers I’ve been given for good?

Most of us don’t know we have powers.  We don’t know we are heroes.  And yet, consider again Grandma, Dad, a counsellor, a lover who rescued your heart, a therapy dog or cat.  They wear no cape, and yet have saved lives. It only took a moment of selflessness.

One who thinks that they are a “self” and places that self first becomes dense and opaque.  Not much light can shine through them.  But one who has lessened the torture of “self” and has reached out with their heart to others becomes like a beacon.  When you are with them, something is just different.

We are each a spark of that same light, eternally shining.  We are each born to be a super-being.  We think it’s the cape, or the powers.  We think it’s something in the voice, or the bank account, or the intellect.  It’s some genetic inheritance, or lucky timing, or even stupidity.  None of these are the essence of heroism.  The essence of heroism has only ever been love.

The heroes of old were chosen by Divinities.  They were servants of the divine.  But the divine is just the light of love in many faces and forms.  The heroes of old were all the emissaries and warriors of love.  You too can be this warrior.  You too can feel this strength and honor.  All you have to do is reach out.