This Namasté celebrates love in all its expressions and invites you to shift the world to a more loving place simply by loving yourself a bit more. You can begin right now by smiling and saying “I love you” to yourself. Try it. How does that feel?

The next time your viewpoint is challenged – express love to your challenger. The next time you feel anger towards someone – give them a hug. The next time you are about to lash out – understand that the person could benefit from compassion. And most important, the next time you are about to blame yourself or beat yourself up for feeling “less than,” remember that you are worth all the love in the world – give yourself some credit because YOU ARE LOVE.

Regardless of whatever else is going on in your life right now or whatever regrets you have, you are a pretty remarkable being . . . divine in design, and universal in spirit. It took you years to create the patterns that make you who you are. It can take but a few seconds each day to begin the shift back to the whole, sweet perfection from which you first entered the earth plane – to a state of pure love.

Love expresses itself in different ways, based upon one’s internal reference. When our physical body is the focus of identity, our seeking of expansion and unity comes through affection and sexuality. When people are engaging sexually, the boundaries of individuality become blurred and there is the temporary expansion of self through love making. When our subtle body, consisting of mind, intellect and ego, is our internal reference, we seek expansion and unity through revealment. Emotional love derives from nonjudgmental sharing of the intimate aspects of our life experience with others. We feel more connected and accepted when we are able to openly accept the ambiguities of being human.

Adding silence to emotional love enables us to move into compassion. Meditation guides us to the recognition that the infinite space within and the infinite space beyond are both expressions of the same underlying field of creative intelligence. As our sense of self expands through quieting the incessant thought-traffic of the mind, we recognize that all beings are disguises of One Being. Our love takes on the qualities of the sun―radiating in all directions without discrimination. As you’re sunbathing this summer (wear your sunblock), remember the words of the great Sufi mystic Hafiz,

“Even after all this time
The Sun never says to the earth,
‘You owe me.’
Look what happens with a love like that.
It lights up the whole sky.”

 [ send green star]

Adapted from The Way of the Wizard, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 1995).

 [ send green star]