The Evolutionary Enlightenment teachings of Andrew Cohen

What is the Relationship Between Love and Truth?

Many people tend to assume, especially when speaking in spiritual terms, that Love and Truth are always synonymous, identical, and ultimately non-different. It’s too easy to assume that Love and Truth are always synonymous, identical, and ultimately non-different. Without looking deeply into the true meaning and significance of impersonal or spiritual Love and without looking deeply into the actual meaning and significance of Truth, how could one possibly have any idea what their ultimate relationship or non-relationship could be? Therefore, before allowing oneself to make such a sweeping generalization about a matter that is so significant, it is essential not to assume anything about what one thinks one already knows about these all-important matters.

What is Love?

The word “Love” is very important to people pursuing spiritual life. Most are extremely attached to this mysterious word and all that it seems to imply, especially when used to indicate a spiritual state, condition or feeling as a goal to be attained, maintained or rediscovered. But interestingly enough, when the word “Love” is used to signify or denote a desired spiritual condition, what is actually meant by it tends to be quite vague.

One way in which the word “Love” could be defined is this: that experience of feeling that is so intensely positive and life-affirming that no other experience of feeling can compare to it in its liberating intensity and fullness.

But because most individuals are fixated on the extraordinary feelings associated with the experience of Love, and endlessly seek to either recreate or recapture them in some way, they usually miss being interested in the most important implications inherent in the experience of Love itself, such as: What are Love’s consequences? What are the repercussions of Love? What are the results of Love?

What is Truth?

The word “Truth” is equally significant in its emotional implications in the minds of most individuals in pursuit of spiritual insight, and equally no less confusing are the differing definitions that are attached to this powerful word. Often it seems when this word is used in religious terms it is meant to imply some kind of static entity that represents a larger whole—some kind of foundation which reality either rests upon or is an inherent part of. As long as we allow the word “Truth” to represent any form or entity of any kind, then there can be no end to the argumentation and disagreement as to the definitive quality by which this ultimate form or entity can be recognized. If Truth, rather, could be recognized as that perspective in which reality is clearly perceived free from any taint or obscuration, only then is there any possibility of final emancipation from form, thought and opinion.

Profound Revelation Reveals the Whole

In the extraordinary and profound experience of spiritual Love, an unusual condition of vulnerability begins to manifest itself within the individual that is intoxicating and delightful. In the midst of this intense happiness and well-being, the individual may experience a sudden shift in perception, free from the normal obscurations of the mind, which can reveal what could be called a startling clarity. In the light of this startling clarity, the individual’s perspective of reality as a whole can shift dramatically, revealing to them—maybe for the very first time—that they do not live in a vacuum, isolated and alone, but have always existed as part of a larger whole, infinite in its magnitude. In this revelation the individual recognizes the fact that they have spent most of their life lost in a painfully narrow and self-centered perception of reality. This revelation, fueled by the surge of intense emotion, often finds the experiencer expressing unbearable honesty, accompanied by an unusual interest in the welfare of others.

The startling discovery of the fact that the individual does not exist in isolation often temporarily generates a natural interest in and sense of responsibility for the whole. This newfound interest in and sense of responsibility for the whole, born from the discovery of the individual’s non-separation from the whole, brings with it the recognition of an inherent relationship with all of life. The recognition of that relationship directly reveals to the individual the extraordinary significance inherent in the consequences of all choices made and all actions taken.

The Price of Transformation—A Complex Dilemma

Final emancipation or extraordinary transformation, however, does not occur in most individuals simply because of an experience of profound Love and/or penetrating insight. In fact in most cases, the experience of revelation is soon obscured by conditioned tendencies of the mind—and sooner or later the individual is faced with what often seems like a complex dilemma. What is that dilemma? That dilemma is the burden of choice. When one has experienced the power of Love and recognized the significance of Truth, when one has clearly seen in oneself and for oneself what the Way is, when one has seen it with one’s own eyes and recognized it with one’s own heart, and when in the light of that recognition the weight of the momentum of conditioning is found to be still alive, what will the individual choose? Freedom or bondage? Heaven or hell? And ultimately, true life or living death?

Indeed, in the face of the momentum of conditioning, most individuals fall prey to the temptation to believe once again in the known or historical relationship to reality rather than the new relationship to reality based on the experience of extraordinary revelation.

Therefore, true depth of transformation can be identified in any individual by the kind of choices the individual makes after the experience of revelation.

Most individuals want to experience euphoric Love and dramatic insights without having to pay the price of transformation. The ecstasy that so many yearn for ultimately demands everything from the individual. If the individual is going to be transformed, then in the midst of ecstatic swoons and profound insights, they must be willing to leave the past and all fear of freedom behind forever.

What is the Relationship Between Love and Truth?

What then is the relationship between Love and Truth?

The relationship between Love and Truth is conscience.

The experience of Love and the perception of Truth do not exist independent of the experiencer or the perceiver. Whether Love and Truth are one and the same, therefore, has only to do with the evolution of conscience within the individual, and is definitely not a given.

That means: The relationship between Love and Truth is determined by how far an individual is willing to go to be an expression of Love. The relationship between Love and Truth is determined by how far an individual is willing to go to be an expression of Truth. The relationship between Love and Truth is determined by whether the individual will have the courage to no longer struggle with the fact that everything that they do always does and always will affect the whole.

It’s not that difficult to taste the kind of experiences described here, but to live up to the implications inherent in those experiences, to allow oneself to be utterly transformed, to be the empty mirror that only casts a perfect reflection is another matter altogether.

The experience of Love and the recognition of Truth reveal the Way to the individual to such a degree that the individual no longer has any doubt that the Way has been revealed to them. The movement from that moment that the Way has been revealed to the individual until the time that the individual actually becomes the Way themselves is the entirety of the process of spiritual transformation.

What Is Conscience?

Conscience is that specific component in awareness that simultaneously sees and feels the living fact of the inherent and natural order of all things. Conscience is that component in awareness that is able to perceive and recognize the existence of that perfect and inherent order, and the emotional or feeling presence in conscience is the discovery of preference based on that recognition.

The evolutionary maturity of an individual is entirely dependent upon their willingness and ability to act on that preference. Ultimately, therefore, it is depth in the recognition of conscience, and the individual’s willingness and ability to act on the preference revealed in the discovery of conscience, that finally determines what the relationship between the experience of Love and the recognition of Truth will be.