When my guru Maharaj-ji looked at the other devotees and myself, we felt complete and total acceptance. We felt loved so intimately that it was scary sometimes. It wasn’t something that I’d ever tasted before. Where I came from, love was conditional: “If you’re cool to me, I’ll be cool to you. I won’t love you anymore if you don’t . . .” That’s not what it was about with him. He knew who we really were. He knew what we’d done in our lives, and it didn’t affect his love. He could see right through our personalities, right to God inside of us, right to our own true Being. And the power of his seeing allowed us to let go of our stuff and enter into that love.

The second he looked away, I crashed. Then he’d look back and go, “Hee hee hee.” It’s terrible to be such a fool. A fool for love. I couldn’t protect myself against that because it was everything I ever wanted. My wildest desire of how it was going to feel when it was exactly the way I wanted it to be is the way it was sitting with him. Forget about being cool, I just ran for it. But what was really scary was to see how I closed down every ten seconds. There I was, sitting with this guy who was loving me beyond belief, and I couldn’t hold on to it. I tried, believe me, I tried.

If you’ve ever seen hummingbirds at the sugar drip, you know they don’t go too far away while there’s sugar available. Similarly, let’s say that you went to a party and met that perfect someone. You’re thinking, Wow! Then somebody introduces the two of you and you have a little conversation, and that person’s looking at you like you’re looking at her. Double wow! You get up the courage to ask for her phone number—and she gives it to you! “Oh thanks, yeah . . . I’ll call you . . . okay, sure.” You go home that night, but you can’t sleep much. You wake up at six in the morning, but it’s too early to call. So you wait. Finally, it’s the appropriately cool hour to call—not too early, not too late. You call and she says, “Oh wow, I was just thinking of you. You want to come over?”

“Oh yeah, sure!” Are you going to walk across town? No way. You’re going to rent a helicopter to drop you at her house. Why? Because you know she (or he or it) is there waiting.

It’s all here waiting for us inside, but we got the phone number wrong. So we’re dialing every number, every combination of those numbers, trying to get it right. One day we’ll say the Name right once, wholeheartedly, and the connection will be completed. Chanting the Name takes away those thoughts that tell us, Ah, it’ll never happen. I can’t do this. I don’t deserve this love. I’m not enough. I’m not tall enough. My hair’s not curly enough. Whatever. All of the stories we tell ourselves that turn us off—that’s what we can let go of through doing practice. And what’s left is what’s already always here.

Lama Surya Das has said, “Enlightenment is an accident. We spend our whole lives trying to be more accident prone.” We long for these accidental moments of love. At such moments, finding ourselves in that love, we see ourselves as beautiful through the eyes of love. Of course, the whole point is that it’s possible to feel that way always. When we develop the eyes of love, then we see everything and everyone, including ourselves, the way Maharaj-ji saw us.

It’s easy to imagine what it’s like when we love somebody else. When we’re in love, when we feel loved, we go through the day in a different way. It’s simple. Lightning doesn’t shoot through the sky; we just start to feel better regardless of what’s happening. But what if that somebody we love is us? How would that feel? It’s very difficult to imagine, isn’t it? We see ourselves so harshly and judge ourselves so incessantly about everything. Practice is a time when we’re specifically dedicated to letting go of those kinds of patterns.

During one of Joseph Goldstein’s metta (lovingkindness) meditation retreats, a man who was having difficulty offering himself lovingkindness said, “I want to be the guy my dog thinks I am.” Can you imagine if that’s who we thought we were? It would be amazing!