The Elven Star Interpretations

Mystery 3: Deepening Values to the Level of Love

Course Introduction
Use your third Sabian Symbol
​to study the word Thanks
There are many meanings attached to the word ‘Love’, so many in fact that a great deal of ambiguity has arisen about whether the various interpretations are all pointing to the same thing. Parental duty, lust, and national chauvinism are all called love, yet they are so very different in feeling. Here we use the word ‘Care’ to indicate a feeling that expresses as kindness and consideration. Its foundation lies in appreciation, and reaches its culmination as a fullness of joy in the heart.
Elven Star Mystery 3

Deepening our Understanding of Love

With the 3rd point of the Elven Star, we begin to deepen our sense of what love is. This study is aligned with the word Thanks and has to do with what we value, what attracts us and what touches the feelings in the heart centre.

So very many types of experience are called love: sexual attraction, parent for child, child for parent, pride of nationality or tribal belonging, friendship, sibling familiarity, fondness - for a type of experience or a place or even a food - or appreciation of beauty. All of these vastly differing feelings are lumped under the one heading! What they all have in common, the unifying principle, is that we are attracted by what we love. Love if the force of attraction, the centripetal force of the universe that tends to bring things closer together. 

Rather than looking at each one of these expressions of love, we will study the core of it, the essential energy itself. We do this in the understanding that it cannot be grasped with the mind - for how could Mind reveal the secret of Heart? We need this to be known as a feeling in the heart, or we do not know it.

There is a sound-formula, a spiritual practice, which we will study in depth in order to awaken a more subtle, deeper experience of love. When this mystery is awakened then all expressions of real love will be enriched; all false love will become unattractive.

There are in fact many mantras that can help us to deepen our knowledge of love. I am using this one because it works well for me and I have used it as a daily practice for some 30 years or so. If you have a better one then use that. It is no great matter to me whether this would be Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or whatever, it happens to be Islamic, although the root words are also found in languages other than Arabic. If I offend anyone with my inadequate explanations or poor pronunciation, then I apologise. 
This video is a heart-centred meditation.
​
In the first part it explains the linguistic roots of the phrase Bismillah irRahman irRahim and in the second offers a 10-minute musical meditation for you to join in with.

​Watch the video

Primary Word: Thanks 

Do friends & associates often thank you for your kindness?
We get out of life what we put into it, so a good way to find out how well we express appreciation is to notice how much we receive. It costs so little to show others how much they mean to us yet so often we forget to make those small gestures that let them know. Kindness is a powerful agency of the heart that can resolve problems, avoid obstructions, soften emotional pain and promote harmony and happiness. Ingratitude can leave a stain on the heart that poisons the mind and robs us of joy.

Do you often give gestures of appreciation?
How frequently should we be kind? Is twice a year appropriate at Christmas and on birthdays? Perhaps such institutionalized rituals of giving are important as a base line below which we do not fall – yet surely a smile, a word of thanks, a gentle touch or a grateful glance can be offered more often. It’s the thought that counts, not the monetary cost. A spontaneous bunch of flowers can mean more than an expensive ritual gift.

Do you easily win children’s confidence?
Kids usually know whether an adult has a warm heart. It takes gentleness, sincerity and a soft tone to win the trust of a child, so if we can learn to feel in tune with children then probably we have learned the secret of heart-centredness. Simply focusing attention on our heart feelings is enough to develop a greater depth of rapport – which actually is appreciated by adults too. Healthy, mature adults are not afraid to play children’s games; from time to time it’s good to be vulnerable and let go of the serious grown-up image.
Appreciation is the act of raising the value of a thing or person. It is very exceptional indeed for anyone to lack the capacity to feel and show appreciation for things – possessions, performances, social groups, music, Nature, and animals are some obvious examples. It is a greater achievement and entirely normal for us to feel and show appreciation for people. Saying Thank You is an art. Whom we appreciate speaks volumes about who we are; so too does how we show it. If we notice whom we appreciate and how we show it, then we can learn what is of greatest value to us.
The word Giving is very often misused. It is used at Christmas to describe an exchange of presents; it is used in politics where Gift Aid is a politically correct term to describe one of the enslavement processes of economic hegemony. A person who works very hard for a thousand hours to develop a talent is told they have a ‘gift’. Even what appears to be altruistic charity is not often untainted by a need for recognition and appreciation as a condition of the charitable act; anyway giving is not cold.
Certain people and things are worth more to us than others. For some reason we value them as more important. This may not be in accord with poorly understood or entirely misconceived religious ideals such as that ‘we are all equal in the eyes of God’, but it is the case, and indeed so it should be. It is our own eyes that we look through and here on Earth we have our own needs and preferences, which are the motivations that inform our choices.
Mystics teach that all comes from God and that love is the magnetism of yearning to return home. On a cosmic, physical scale, what keeps the dynamic order of the universe is a binary polarity between centrifugal and centripetal forces. The centrifugal force of division and separation has its counterpart in fear; love is the centripetal force of the cosmos.
The Sabian Images on this site are by Ruby Fumizki