Love for the adept, is the earth.
This question was asked by you on another thread and when I asked you what your answer to this question is u replied:
No, I don't have pat answers, and I don't feel there are pat answers. I see these questions in some way plague any traveller of the Path, let alone an adept.
Here's Genero's love for the earth, from "tales of power" I have underlined a portion with a comment from me at the end.
"It's almost time for us to disband like the warriors in the story," he said. "But before we go
our separate ways I must tell you two one last thing. I am going to disclose to you a warrior's
secret. Perhaps you can call it a warrior's predilection."
He addressed me in particular and said that once I had told him that the life of a warrior was
cold and lonely and devoid of feelings. He even added that at that precise moment I was
convinced that it was so.
"The life of a warrior cannot possibly be cold and lonely and without feelings," he said,
"because it is based on his affection, his devotion, his dedication to his beloved. And who,
you may ask, is his beloved? I will show you now."
Don Genaro stood up and walked slowly to a perfectly flat area right in front of us, ten or
twelve feet away. He made a strange gesture there. He moved his hands as if he were
sweeping dust from his chest and his stomach. Then an odd thing happened. A flash of an
almost imperceptible light went through him. It came from the ground and seemed to kindle
his entire body. He did a sort of backward pirouette, a backward dive more properly speaking,
and landed on his chest and arms. His movement had been executed with such precision and
skill that he seemed to be a weightless being, a wormlike creature that had turned on itself.
When he was on the ground he performed a series of unearthly movements. He glided just a
few inches above the ground, or rolled on it as if he were lying on ball bearings; or he swam
on it describing circles and turning with the swiftness and agility of an eel swimming in the
ocean.
My eyes began to cross at one moment and then without any transition I was watching a ball
of luminosity sliding back and forth on something that appeared to be the floor of an ice-
skating rink with a thousand lights shining on it.
The sight was sublime. Then the ball of fire came to rest and stayed motionless. A voice
shook me and dispelled my attention. It was don Juan talking. I could not understand at first
what he was saying. I looked again at the ball of fire. I could distinguish only don Genaro
lying on the ground with his arms and legs spread out.
Don Juan's voice was very clear. It seemed to trigger something in me and I began to write. "Genaro's love is the world," he said.
"He was just now embracing this enormous earth but
since he's so little all he can do is swim in it. But the earth knows that Genaro loves it and it
bestows on him its care. That's why Genaro's life is filled to the brim and his state, wherever
he'll be, will be plentiful. Genaro roams on the paths of his love and, wherever he is, he is
complete." Don Juan squatted in front of us. He caressed the ground gently.
"This is the predilection of two warriors," he said. "This earth, this world. For a warrior there
can be no greater love."
Don Genaro stood up and squatted next to don Juan for a moment while both of them peered
fixedly at us, then they sat in unison, cross-legged.
"Only if one loves this earth with unbending passion can one release one's sadness," don Juan
said. "A warrior is always joyful because his love is unalterable and his beloved, the earth,
embraces him and bestows upon him inconceivable gifts. The sadness belongs only to those
who hate the very thing that gives shelter to their beings."
Don Juan again caressed the ground with tenderness.
"This lovely being, which is alive to its last recesses and understands every feeling, soothed
me, it cured me of my pains, and finally when I had fully understood my love for it, it taught
me freedom."
He paused. The silence around us was frightening. The wind hissed softly and then I heard the
distant barking of a lone dog.
"Listen to that barking," don Juan went on. "That is the way my beloved earth is helping me
now to bring this last point to you. That barking is the saddest thing one can hear."
We were quiet for a moment. The barking of that lone dog was so sad and the stillness around
us so intense that I experienced a numbing anguish. It made me think of my own life, my
sadness, my not knowing where to go, what to do.
"That dog's barking is the nocturnal [* nocturnal- belonging to or active during the night]
voice of a man," don Juan said. "It comes from a house in that valley towards the south. A
man is shouting through his dog- since they are companion slaves for life- his sadness; his
boredom. He's begging his death to come and release him from the dull and dreary chains of
his life."
Don Juan's words had caught a most disturbing line in me. I felt he was speaking directly to
me.
"That barking, and the loneliness it creates, speaks of the feelings of men," he went on. "Men
for whom an entire life was like one Sunday afternoon; an afternoon which was not altogether
miserable, but rather hot and dull and uncomfortable. They sweated and fussed a great deal.
They didn't know where to go, or what to do. That afternoon left them only with the memory
of petty annoyances and tedium, and then suddenly it was over. It was already night." He recounted a story I had once told him about a seventy-two year old man who complained
that his life had been so short that it seemed to him that it was only the day before that he was
a boy. The man had said to me, 'I remember the pajamas I used to wear when I was ten years
old. It seems that only one day has passed. Where did the time go?'
"The antidote that kills that poison is here," don Juan said, caressing the ground. "The
sorcerers' explanation cannot at all liberate the spirit. Look at you two. You have gotten to the
sorcerers' explanation, but it doesn't make any difference that you know it. You're more alone
than ever, because without an unwavering love for the being that gives you shelter, aloneness
is loneliness.
"Only the love for this splendorous being can give freedom to a warrior's spirit; and freedom
is joy, efficiency, and abandon in the face of any odds. That is the last lesson. It is always left
for the very last moment, for the moment of ultimate solitude when a man faces his death and
his aloneness. Only then does it make sense."
Don Juan and don Genaro stood up and stretched their arms and arched their backs, as if
sitting had made their bodies stiff. My heart began to pound fast. They made Pablito and me
stand up.
"The twilight is the crack between the worlds," don Juan said. "It is the door to the unknown."
He pointed with a sweeping movement of his hand to the mesa where we were standing.
"This is the plateau in front of that door."
He pointed then to the northern edge of the mesa.
"There is the door. Beyond, there is an abyss and beyond that abyss is the unknown."
Don Juan and don Genaro then turned to Pablito and said good-by to him. Pablito's eyes were
dilated and fixed; tears were rolling down his cheeks.
I heard don Genaro's voice saying good-by to me, but I did not hear don Juan's.
Don Juan and don Genaro moved towards Pablito and whispered briefly in his ears. Then they
came to me. But before they had whispered anything I already had that peculiar feeling of
being split.
"We will now be like dust on the road," don Genaro said. "Perhaps it will get in your eyes
again, someday."
Don Juan and don Genaro stepped back and seemed to merge with the darkness. Pablito held
my forearm and we said good-by to each other. Then a strange urge, a force, made me run
with him to the northern edge of the mesa. I felt his arm holding me as we jumped and then I
was alone.
Michael, I was looking forward and then followed your blog trip to india. At the beginning you spent some time
on the beach. While there you complained about how the beach had changed from what you thought it should be
and how the wind surfers etc were not to your liking. My thought at the time was I would never complain about
where I was like that, and to complain as you did showed me that you did not know what I know about what thoughts
like that can do, especially with the emotional charge of disapproval behind it.
Before you left we discussed Kashmir, and I spent some effort at the time explaining that there is not a fixed Kashmir, and your beliefs would determine which Kashmir, in an infinite pool of Kashmirs you would engage with, if you went there.
This boils down again, to the question "how many earths there are in your view?"
Having said that, this love for the earth, you give as your answer to what love is for an adept, is borrowed from this passage above. In action though on a very deep level you have not grasped the unconditional aspect of that love. You seem more at odds with the earth, than the profound love for it that Genaro displays.
