Love For No Reason: 7 Steps to Creating a Life of Unconditional Love - Softcover

Marci Shimoff

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1847377696 ISBN 13: 9781847377692

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2011

Synopsis

Metaphysically based book that posit improving one's life and general peace of mind by deliberating cultivating unconditional love in one's life. Paperback book of 368 pages. 8.4x5.5x.09 inches. 4 star rating with 70 customer reviews

About this title

About the Author

Marci Shimoff is a celebrated transformational leader and a #1 New York Times bestselling author. In addition to authoring the worldwide bestseller Happy for No Reason, she is the coauthor of six of the top-selling titles in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and a featured teacher in the international movie and book sensation The Secret. President and cofounder of The Esteem Group, Marci delivers keynote addresses and seminars to corporations, women’s associations, and professional and non-profit organizations. Over the past 28 years, Marci has inspired millions of people around the world, sharing her breakthrough methods for personal fulfillment and professional success.

Carol Kline is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and the coauthor of Happy for No Reason and five books in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Often called "the voice of her generation," Marianne Williamson has been lecturing on spirituality since 1983. She is the author of the New York Times bestsellers: A Return to Love; A Woman's Worth; Illuminata; The Healing of America; and Illuminated Prayers. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages. Marianne continues to inspire audiences on a global scale as she lectures internationally in the fields of spirituality and new thought.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

An Invitation to
Higher Love

When one has once fully entered the realm of love, the world—
no matter how imperfect—becomes rich and beautiful;
it consists solely of opportunities for love.
—SØren Kierkegaard, nineteenth-century philosopher

In medieval Japan, the fierce samurai warriors were revered as kings. They carried large swords and were highly skilled at using them.

One day, a famous samurai set out to find an aged monk who was known to be very wise. When he arrived at the monastery, he flung open the door and demanded of the old man, “Tell me, you are learned in these matters. What is heaven and what is hell?”

The monk sat still for a moment on the tatami-matted floor. Then he turned and looked up at the warrior. “You call yourself a samurai warrior,” he said. “Why, look at you. You’re nothing but a mere sliver of a man! I doubt you could cut off the head of a fly with your sword.”

For a moment, the samurai stood gaping. No one talked to a samurai like that! Then, as if someone had waved a red cloth in front of a bull, the samurai’s face contorted in rage. He bellowed, “How dare you! I won’t let you get away with such an insult.” Pulling his huge sword from its sheath, he raised it high above his head, ready to kill the old monk.

Unperturbed, the monk looked directly into the eyes of the furious warrior and said, “You asked what hell is? This is hell.”

The samurai froze, his sword still raised, as the hatred and anger that had consumed him drained away. He looked at the old monk in amazement, realizing that this small, stooped man had risked his life to answer his question.

Lowering his weapon, the samurai bowed to the monk, as tears of gratitude appeared in his eyes. “Thank you for your teaching,” the samurai said humbly, his heart filled with love for the monk’s gift.

The monk smiled at the samurai and said, “And this, my friend, is heaven.”

The book you hold in your hands is your passport to experiencing heaven right here on earth—no matter what your idea of heaven is. Because in the end, heaven on earth is about love—the biggest, most powerful, all-encompassing love you can imagine.

We All Want Love

Love.

What a small word for such an enormous, expansive, exalted experience!

Since the dawn of civilization, humans have been engaged in the pursuit of love. Monuments have been constructed, fortunes made, and treasuries emptied—all in the name of love. Whatever we think we want—more clothes, more friends, more money, more status, more power, more anything—in the end, it boils down to love.

When love flows in our lives, it opens our hearts, our arms, our eyes. We blossom, like a flower in the springtime sun. When love is missing, we wither and close, protecting ourselves against the harshness of life.

Imagine being so full of love that no matter how much you gave, there was always more than enough, and any love you received was just icing on the cake.

Every spiritual tradition tells us to love one another, and we’d all like to do just that. So, what’s the problem?

In a nutshell, we’re handicapped in the love department—both giving and receiving—because we’re disconnected from the state of Love for No Reason, the source of love inside us.

When you learn how to access that huge internal reservoir of love, instead of looking for love outside yourself, you’re able to bring love to every situation. And that’s when your life becomes magical—a whole lot juicier and more fulfilling.

Living in Love

This isn’t just a nice idea. As I discovered in my research, some people are actually living this way. After each interview with a Love Luminary, I would shake my head in wonder. The accounts of living in Love for No Reason were far better than any fairy tale—because they were true. For some the experience of this expansive state came on dramatically and suddenly—in a moment of grace—while for others it was a more subtle and gradual process.

One beautiful example of someone who experienced a moment of grace that changed her life came from Love Luminary Mirabai Devi, an international spiritual teacher from South Africa I interviewed while she was teaching in California.

Her experience of this pure state of love first happened almost twenty years ago, when as a young woman traveling through Europe on her own, Mirabai had an awakening:

It was as if a dam burst in my heart, and the waters overflowed. The love that came forth was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. Like a flood, it was all-consuming and all-encompassing; I could hardly contain it. I felt electrified; my body was tingling all over. I was so in love with the whole creation that I wanted to hug everyone I met. I knew that I couldn’t do that because people would think I was crazy. Still, people could feel it. Everywhere I went they would just come up to me and say, “What can I do for you?” “Can I help you?” “Can I give you a ride?” “Can I get you some food?” “Can I ... ?” They just wanted to be around me.

All I wanted to do was make humanity feel how loved it was. To let them know that this love was everywhere, and available to everyone. Nonstop I just sent it out to all people, all beings, and all life forms. I sent it to all those who were suffering.

Traveling through Holland one afternoon, I stopped on the side of the road and looked at a field of cabbages. All the cabbages were filled with this iridescent, luminous light. My heart was bursting with love for the cabbages.

I felt union with the whole creation. Everything was the creation of love. Everything was pulsing with love. It was everywhere, in everything. It was in the walls and in the trees. It was as though it was coming through the sky.

I saw that everything is connected and everything is one. And everything is radiant with this exquisite, ecstatic love.

That was the beginning of Mirabai’s experience of living in an ongoing state of Love for No Reason. Today she travels around the world, speaking and teaching others about love.

In interview after interview, I heard more than a hundred variations on this theme. I thought, If so many people, from all different backgrounds and all different walks of life, experience this, it must be possible for me and anyone else.

My question became: How did this awakening of love happen for Mirabai and the others? And what are the conditions that you and I can set up to invite this experience of love into our own lives?

The Three Love for No Reason Themes

We are made by love, we are made of love, and we are made for love! Everything is love anyway. Our hate is love turned sour, jealousy is love turned bitter, our fears are love standing upside down, greed is love gone overboard, attachment is love gone sticky.

—Khurshed Batliwala, blogger

The starting place for inviting more love into your life is to understand the perspective of people who are already living this way. After listening to more than 150 hours of interviews with my Love Luminaries and reading through six thousand pages of transcripts, I saw three main themes that stood out in neon lights.

Love Theme #1: Love Is Who We Are

All the Love Luminaries told me that love isn’t just something we feel for others, it’s who we are. Love is actually the substance, the building blocks, the essence of everything in our lives. We’re made up of love. Our molecules are formed from love. We are love.

I know that when I first heard this, I rolled my eyes, thinking, I’ve heard this all before. But at the same time I realized, I have no idea what that really means.

We think of love as a stream of emotion flowing between two points—between us and whatever we love. But in fact, love is more like an ocean that’s inside and all around us.

We walk around with our little cups, begging for a few drops of love from others, when actually we’re the huge ocean of love. This is why I say that when you experience Love for No Reason on an ongoing basis, you stop being a “love beggar” and become a “love philanthropist.” Instead of looking at every interaction as a potential source of love—something to fill you up and make you feel good—you come to every interaction radiating love. You’re overflowing with love because you are the source!

Having great relationships doesn’t depend on finding the right person or circumstance; it depends completely on your capacity to love. Unconditional love for others is based on “being the ocean of love.”

Experiencing that you are love is the ultimate form of self-love. It’s not love of your small self—your personality. It’s not about loving yourself because you look good or you did a great job or because you’ve gained a certain status. It’s the love of your big Self—your essence. It’s the love that comes from waking up to who you truly are.

Love Theme #2: The Purpose of Life Is to Expand in Love

Why are you alive? The Love Luminaries say that our ultimate purpose is to grow in our ability to give and receive love. In other words, love is our job here on earth!

So if love is your job description, the most important thing you can do is to find that ocean of love within you and bring it to the world—to yourself, to your loved ones, to strangers you pass in the street, to everyone and everything.

Now that doesn’t mean standing on a street corner with a sign that says Free Hugs (although that might be fun!). What it means is that you live your life in a context of love, seeing that everythin...

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1847377696
• ISBN 13: 9781847377692
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368