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the Face of Love

by inX

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Oh, my friends, I weep for us.
For we have turned away from our true love, and
    the anguish
    eats at our hearts.
Our souls-to-be's hearts
    cry out for love's sweet touch,
    but our minds and hearts and bodies serve their own, humiliating, substitute:
    greed.
No matter what we will to do.

When we turned from our true love,
    all we found was pleasure and pain.
I weep
    not for the pain,
    not even for the never-satisfying pleasures,
    but for the true pain
    that few of us dare face
    or even admit to:
    the pain of being forever apart from the Beloved
    Himself.

When I lost my soul's true love,
    I lost my true self;
    I lost the ability to know true
    love.
And now all I know,
    all that is left me,
    is an ill-fitting
    doubleganger
    that I pretend is me.

But it is only my protection against knowing how badly I was hurt
    by saying no
    to all that I truly loved.
I try to protect myself
    by making a self
    that not even I can love --
    who only loves himself --
    and desperately cries out to be loved.

But his heart is filled
    not with love
    but with greed
    for love's pleasures.

And here is the center of my cry:
    he will never know that love is attracted to
    Himself.
The Beloved bears all,
    loves all,
    but can only be known
    by another
    lover.

For when I lost my soul's true love,
    I found an ache,
    a black void
    that cries out to be filled.
And made a personality --
    a mask for my true self to hide behind --
    that tries to fill that lightless hole
    (that takes in everything and gives back nothing)
    with pleasure.
So he uses the pleasures of
    my flesh and blood,
    which he has stolen from me,
    and calls that love...
Until even I cannot tell the difference any more.

But there is never enough pleasure to distract him
    (nor me)
    from the pain of the
    gaping wound
    left me
    when I lost my true love.

So he and I fill long endless days with his pleasure seeking,
    with his petty little gratifications
    that never fully drown my sorrow,
    my soul-to-be's weeping --
Oh where is my true love?

And I weep for those who can
    forget,
    who can immerse themselves
    in the endless thinking and believing and justifying and striving
    that fill their masks' few days --
    but leaves their souls-to-be's hearts empty --
    pining away for the love they never feel
    but always believe is in
    the next caress,
    the next pill,
    the next dollar,
    the next child,
    the next car,
    the next
    and the next...
But never is.

For love is not at the top of a shining mountain of ecstatic pleasures,
    but at the bottomless center of the dark, boundless, protean sea of
    love
    itself, where the mask will never look.

But he cannot hear the call of that sea.

His eyes are filled with
    the toys
    and touches
    and smiles
    of needs
    that he but calls
    ``love.''

Yet, from the depths of that sea our true love --
    the Groom of our soul (His bride) --
    calls to us in all that we
    see,
    hear,
    touch
    and do...
To see only His Face.

I looked for Him in school,
    but no one knew Whom I was asking for.
I could not find Him there;
    nor anyone who seemed to know of Him.
But
    they taught me all about life
    without Him.

They taught me that there was pleasure in learning.
They shared with me their pleasure in
    the arts --
    beautiful music telling of rarefied feelings,
    fine books filled with wonderful stories,
    graceful pictures full of loveliness beyond knowing...
But not beyond appetite.
They praised beauty
    and knowledge
    and implied that should be enough
    to fill the dark void
    where my lost love once was.

But it was only a moment's distraction
    that showed only that
    He was still there, that
    He had been there.
I still could not see Him face to Face.

And they taught me the pleasure of duty.
That I would be well rewarded if I improved my self,
    my imperfect double, my mask;
    and become some one who would place all that I am
    at the disposal of my fellows
    in their guise as society.
And with those rewards
    I could trade
    for the work of others
    and get all the other pleasures I would
    need
    to fill the void left when I
    lost my love;
so I could forget my weeping
    for what I had lost,
and what I had gained
    in its place.

But they couldn't teach what I really longed to know --
    how do I find Him?
He seemed forever lost.

And for a time I lost my own way
    and slipped into despair.

A despair
    so dark,
    so bleak,
    so barren of
    hope,
    that for a short while only the mask
    and his black hole of desire
    was left.
And,
    please forgive me,
    (though I am already forgiven),
    my Beloved --
For a short time I even forget my longing for You.
But You already know that.

For
    the Beloved would not loose His hold on my heart.
He did not forget
    me.
And one day, in the darkest depth of despair,
    He touched my tattered heart
    and I laughed with
    His joy,
    remembering Him.

But still I could not see His Face.

So I went to churches and asked the religious teachers if
    they knew Him.
They just looked at me like I was an alien;
    some strange visitor
    who had forgotten to wear his earth-mask.
I suppose that I had.

The only directions they had to give
    were to their schools
    where I could study words
    about Him.
Words
    which did not fill my need
    nor drown my sorrow
    nor show the way to Him.

And after I had studied enough,
    should anyone ever ask me about Him,
    I could then send them to study the same theology
    in the same school
    where we hadn't met,
face to Face...

But I discovered the pleasures of sexual union
    about that time --
And long did I look for Him there.

I thought I was in love,
    oh my,
    was I in love.
My lust
    filled the empty days of my longing --
for a while.

But my lover left me,
    and then I was in love with everyone --
    with anyone --
    who liked the way I looked,
    the way I touched,
    the way I ``made''
    ``love.''

And I thought that every touch
    would reveal Him
    to me.
That every caress,
    every kiss,
    every giving
    was His...
And any moment now I would see
    Him
    in all His glory.

Finally the day came when my soul-to-be cried out in its longing
    for some way to Him:
knowing how lost I had become.

And one came who knew that way,
    sent by the Beloved that I might not be lost forever to Him.

But still I was deceived by the mask's way
    and continued improving the mask,
    the personality,
    the dying wraith of me that is not me,
    hoping to become one who finds
    love.

And again the soul-to-be's heart
    that was broken
    carried the cry to His ears --
Enough!
And I met His guide,
    His servent and lover,
    who showed the way to His door
    that I might one day see His Face.

And I began to see that this personality,
    my protection from
    my longing for Him, can
    only protect me from seeing His Face --
    that it can
    never protect me from the pain
    of my great
    loss.

And I spent many years learning from that self
    all the ways I had come to be a safe harbor for
    hatred
    for the Beloved --
Who had allowed me to become so lost.

And then He came,
    and whispered sweet words of encouragement,
    endearments,
    in my ears.
And told me of His ceaseless love
    which could never forget me,
    nor would He ever stop loving,
    and longing, for
    me.

But my weeping
    shows the lie in all I have said --
    for it shows the true motive.
And if the motive be false
    it matters not that the argument be true.

For all my
    weeping
    is really for me,
    no matter how it seems.
When I appear to be weeping
    for others,
    it is really
    for me.
For in their forgetfulness,
    they will never be able to truly
    see me,
    nor understand me,
    nor love me;
and my weeping has become his weeping,
    the weeping of the personality
    for all that he desires,
    but will never possess.

And still the soul's true love waits patiently, lovingly,
    for me to become love,
    that We may be One,
    forever.
Waits for the day when,
    wherever I look,
    all I can see is His Face.

When I was young, and first fell in-love --
    everything reminded me of that love.
In every face I saw something that reminded me of my love.

Those eyes --
    aren't they like my love's?
That smile --
    how like it is to his
    when he is happy to see me!

And that little girl (who looks so impatient for the treat mommy buys her);
    how she reminds me of him when he is waiting for me --
    impatient for our embrace that sweetens
    our time
    together.

How then should it be different for the soul's true love?

When I love back
    I see His invisible Face
    everywhere,
    in all that I see with love's
    eyes, in all that I hear with love's
    ears, in all that I touch with love's
    hands.

Look --
    isn't that He I see
    peering at me through her eyes?

When I smile back,
    thinking of Him,
    how it lights up the face He is wearing now!

Well, those days of
    first love
    are long ago,
    long gone.
And I have grown old
    and heart sick
    from the soul's wearying search for
    His love
    in the body's dying search for
    the touch and the pleasure of
    what-it-calls
    love.
And from the disappointment
    that each time I loved I thought it was
    He, in the Flesh --
    and it was only
    another,
    like me,
    frantically,
    desperately,
    searching
    for the soul's true love
    in me;
    and not finding Him,
    yet again:
just another imperfect
    man.

All that I love is He.

And all that I hate is the mask of me,
    where I try to hide from my pain;
the not-me that says,
    ``i don't want Him:
    i know what i need.''

To see You
    I must really look hard.
You are forever hidden
    behind the mask that we have all fashioned
    to hide from You
    and from our true self.
I long to become like You,
    that I might recognize You
    in all that I see.

So I wear black
    in mourning
    for all the false that we have,
    that we possess --
    for all that we have not yet lost --
    all that is
    of love --
    but is only desperately clung to
    without love.

And I wear black
    in praise
    of the true death;
    and to show those few of my comrades
    who have not forgotten their true love
    that the way to Him
    is through the death of all the mask holds dear.

Then can love
    blossom;
become the bloom
    of our souls'
    hearts:
as it has in this heart
    and the heart of many other lovers
    throughout the ages.
To show the way to the door
    which veils the
    Face of the Beloved;
that they, too, may see His Face
    in all they perceive
    with the soul's eyes of
    loving.

For I cannot show
    Him
    to you.
Nor can I speak of His Love.
My tongue is silenced
    on that subject
    lest you mis-hear.
My face is veiled
    lest you mis-see.

For you would only see what the mask desires,
    and hear what it wants to hear.
He can be seen in His
    Works,
    the flesh of His Flesh,
    by another who
    loves His
    Love.
Then may we all meet face to Face
    in a life filled
    with His Joy
    and His Presence
    and His Service.

In the meantime,
    all I can show you is your self
    that hides you from you and pretends
    to hide you from
    Him.
And point out the way to love's door,
    which you must follow yourself,
    which is the way to
    Him.

And the mask still protects
    me from those who
    cannot,
    will not,
    see Him
    with loving eyes,
    but want to possess Him
    in me.
For they look to find Him there
    so they can
    own Him and
    consume Him and
    become Him -- and
    see only another like them -- and
turn away in their disappointment.

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Science of Man's Conscious Self-Evolution