three ELEVEN ~ Daily Dose of LOVE

"Nothing is really more inhuman than human relations based on morals.  When a man gives bread in order to be charitable, lives with a woman in order to be faithful, eats with a minority in order to be unprejudiced, and refuses to kill in order to be peaceful, he is as cold as a clam.  He does not actually see the other person.  Only a little less chilly is the benevolence springing from pity, which acts to remove suffering because it finds the sight of it disgusting.

But there is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love.  It cannot be copied.  You cannot talk yourself into it or rouse it by straining at the emotions or by dedicating yourself solemnly to the service of mankind.  Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself.  This conviction will not come through condemnations, though hating oneself, through calling self love all the bad names in the Universe.  It comes only in the awareness that one has no self to love."
--Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity, A Message for an Age of Anxiety

I shared with a friend yesterday that I've never really felt seen by him.   He jumped to the defense in response because he thought I was judging him as being incapable of seeing me due to his self-absorption. "I do not think you are any more self-absorbed than I am," I assured him. "I don't feel seen by you because I don't believe that you see yourself."  He didn't understand what I meant.  It wasn't until he was expressing his exasperation over being judged by others that I was able to point out what I was trying to convey.  "Others throw shit at me often," I shared. "Evil, unhappy, jealous, controlling, monopolizing - I could go on with the words that are leveled in my direction.  But I know who I am - I KNOW MY ESSENCE."  Hence, such attempts to knock me off of my balance have little effect.  Besides, we are quick to point out in others the perceived "flaws" that we have yet to accept in ourselves.

So, I am posting my new friend Yoshi's music video above because what I really appreciate about this man is his HUMILITY.  He's talented, fresh and got 6,000 views for this video alone, yet I have danced with him - both on and off the dance floor on numerous occasions now - and he has yet to say, "Don't you know who I am?"  He hasn't pitched his self or his offerings.  He is just bee-ing - a divine instrument, allowing the Universe to flow through him.  And, I am sure that he is human too and that, just like the rest of us, he gets caught up in a sense of self, ego and identity.  Yet, what his actions have attested to is a true balancing act of our duality within (aka masculine & feminine, light & dark, etc) - each of us are the center of the cosmos, we are everything yes, and we are nothing, too.  As my main man Rumi said, "YOUR ESSENCE IS HIDDEN IN DUST.  TO REVEAL ITS SPLENDOR, YOU MUST BURN IN THE FIRE OF LOVE."