David Truman - Love is Everything

David: You know, I came to feel that love is more important than anything. I really was looking at this thing about being a teacher, and I was thinking, "What do I really care about?" I wonder if I care too much about the obedience of my disciples, or their ability to memorize my teaching, or to even to spread it. I came up with the conclusion that personally I'd rather love and be loved, and that the rest of it fades out.

Jesus: Yeah, it fades. I know what you are saying. It's like the rest is all details. It is the love that is the important thing about that.

David: Yeah, it is. It's just a strange dichotomy. The desire to provide useful information that would help a person escape some kinds of prisons is important. The escape is important. But the only reason that any of these are important is love. If a person could escape from prison, they might be able to love. And so therefore, even when you look at the technical aspects of what needs to be taught, communicated, and shown, ultimately, everyone is in it for love or they are in it for nothing at all.

That almost sounded heretical to me, and sometimes even selfish in the sense of wanting to be loved, or wanting to participate in something that would be personally beneficial as well as cosmically beneficial, you know? But what the hell! The love is the unity of all hearts, so who cares?

Jesus: But ultimately, brother, if you think about what world would you want to live in, would you want to live in a world where everybody was perfectly all about extending a teaching and help and salvation to everybody, or would you want to live in a world where everybody wanted to love and be loved?

David: Yeah. You see, what worries me is, I remember that my father was a professor and he had history students, and what for? Well, because they could be history professors, and then they would teach, and then what for? So that their students could teach. And you had the idea that teaching is the ability to convey and then to re-convey or replicate information down the line of generations.

Jesus: It is not. It is not the way it is. It is not that.

David: Yeah, I mean it seems like, "So what?" You tell a person a joke, he memorizes the joke, he tells somebody else the joke. Who cares?

Jesus: It is that something substantial needs to happen, and that is what is important. You know, the most important thing in any spiritual teacher's lifetime that they spend here, any bodhisattva, is what happened between them and the people they knew, mostly. That is what is important, that is what left a real mark.

David: Yeah, the resonance of the hearts of those that got close and how that affected the way that they could be.

Jesus: And they will, as a result of that relationship, BE different people than they would have been.

David: That's good, brother, that gives me a lot of encouragement. I can feel that now -- when the gears just click and I go, "Yes, I understand." That's good, man, thank you.

I went to see the dentist today. Since a number of us come to him, he had heard some things from someone about what we have done in Africa. And he asked a few questions about that as I was leaving. And I said, "We didn't go there to offer them any type of canned thing. No religion. No nothing. We just thought that it would be a good idea to go love some people sincerely. And all we did was we were able to establish a couple of hand-to-hand relationships with a couple of people. That's all we did, and that's all we intend to do." He is a person who is generally a somewhat scientific, cool person, but when he heard this, his eyes welled up, and he made this gesture (touched his heart). And I said, "Yes, THAT." You know. And he was VERY pleased. His heart saw it: You love an individual person, you establish an individual bond. That's it. He SAW it. I was quite pleased with that.

Jesus: (whispering) That is good, brother. A heart is refreshed.

David: Yeah. So that's why I'm becoming more and more convinced it's so little about information. Even though the information can be liberating, in a right dose at the right moment. But I have really repented, walked beyond that now. Never again. You know?

You put yourself in the shoes of a human being, and all of a sudden you see. Like yourself -- put yourself in your own shoes. You see. And then you see that all are like you. No one would relate any different. All they want is love, commitment, and the ability to express that, to give that somehow. Even vocationally.

But still, they will never see value until they see love. They will never believe anything has been done unless love has been achieved, seen, lived. Never. The whole edifice of human enterprise -- who cares, compared to love? A girl who loves you would live with you in the gutter. And she would commit suicide with you, in a palace of unlove.

A wise man said, "Better a dinner of herbs, where love is, than a fattened ox and hatred therewith." Love is the alpha and the omega, and the light in the middle of the tunnel. All of it.

Jesus: It is everything. You know, I wish sometimes people would think, "What would a good heaven be like?" You know? It would not be anything other than a life of love, a simple life of love. It wouldn't be a place full of heroes. Who wants that? It would be sweet. It IS sweet.

David: Yeah, I see. Or even, excellent harp playing, as great as that can be, I'm sure.

Jesus: Yeah. Or high punditism, or whatever. You know?

David: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There are so many different forms of what could be called deviance, useful or otherwise.

Jesus: But most of all, everybody thinks heaven is a place full of heroes. You know? And there is a sense in which that is true, but that's not the essence of life.

David: Or even, what makes a REAL hero a real HERO, if not love?

Jesus: And not just the self-sacrificing love that is, you know, "he who would lay down his life for his friend" in the most heroic sense. But just the love that would make someone a pancake. Smile at someone. Say good morning sweetly.

David: Right, you can't beat that.

Jesus: NOTHING can beat that! You can have ten heroes for friends, or ten sweethearts for friends. You know?

David: Yeah. Yeah. And there are no orders of miracles. And there are no orders of love.

Jesus: Yeah! No, there are not.

David: There is, though, brother, an amazing combination of sophistication. A certain kind of complexity in just the purest simple-heartedness of the great. You know, it must just be the harvest of love that causes the person to want to have, or be able to have, a comprehending mind. They have an idea they would be Santa Claus. In their heart they would be helpful, useful. So they collect these little knowings, like giving candy. You know? They would give this, because they think it would be helpful to someone. So they end up having a certain memory for that which might be helpful to the beloved. Right? I think that's how they end up with a big collection of pearls.

Jesus: Yeah, it is the truth, brother.

David: It's a cosmic and genuinely well-intentioned kind of acquisitiveness. Like a mother who buys socks for her child. As an opportunity she sees that this could be for the child, she buys the socks. She doesn't want him to have cold feet, really.

Jesus: See, that is it, you know? In such things, there is everything.

David: Yeah. You can't proceed from there. There IS no further.

I have this story I always tell. A man is looking for 163 High Street. He comes to the porch of a house. He asks, "Is this 163 High?" The guy says, "Yes it is." He says, "Well, never mind. I'll look further." And the owner says, "Look, you could go here, or you could go there. You can go across the street. But this is, in fact, 163 High Street. There is no more 163 High Street than this."

Jesus: Yeah, you have found it. Quit looking for more. Yeah. Love is love.

David: If you're looking for more you must have had a blind eye to the thing itself as it occurs. You must have.

Jesus: If everyone would get this: what the REAL good life is, in these things, these little things that are everything. That it is not to be a hero. You've got all the spiritual seekers that want to be everything. They want to have a great, most perfect God connection. They want to be a spiritual super-hero.

David: Be a great knower, or something like that.

Jesus: Yeah. They want to be cosmic. But who wants a super-hero? You know? What we need is a bunch of lovers, human lovers.

But I don't want us to get confused. You don't have to be super simple to be the kind of simple I'm talking about. You can be infinitely intelligent, and creative, and wise, and everything. You know?

David: Yeah, everything you want. But it doesn't... none of it is...

Jesus: None of it is the point. You know? There's no sane man who thinks that his wisdom is worth anything, ultimately. He knows that it's worth what it's worth.

David: What it's worth, yeah. That it has a function. But it doesn't hold a candle to what is really valuable.

And as I said, the point of springing someone from jail is so that you can be there and love them. And that they can love. Even if you have something that has some sort of intermediate temporal value, the value IS THAT love is made manifest as a result of what problem it solved, or what pain it relieved, or what liberation it seemed to provide. It would be worthless if it didn't come to love after that anyhow. It wouldn't have done anything. What would be the point? Might as well just stay in prison.

Jesus: Yeah, really. Cause it is just further prison. If the idea is you're going to get out of your cage and then spend the rest of your life just getting everybody else out of their cage, and then they better go spend the rest of their life getting everybody else out of their cages... You know, what kind of life is that?

David: I see, brother. Yeah. You got it. That's really good! This is better than any damned dharma, what we've talked about here tonight. It really is.

Jesus: It is the whole thing.

David: And that idea of what's the use of getting out of prison without love as your realization of your freedom... In some ways, you always come down to the fact that even the technical recommendations for HOW to get out of prison, actually they are ALL love, they all depend on love for their operation. A person has to LOVE their way out of prison, in fact, in the end. No matter what technique or other things could be said. No matter what psychology could be addressed. In the end, still, they love their way out of prison, or they don't GET out of prison really. Isn't it?

Jesus: Yeah, that's the truth. And it is to say, they ARE out of prison when they start loving. You know?

David: Yeah, at that moment. Yeah, yeah, they're instantly out, and completely out. Okay big man!

Jesus: Yes, my brother. I love you, brother.

David: I love you back. Thank you so much for this. This will do the world a world of good.

Jesus: Yeah! You know, they have to be able to imagine a heaven where people would just tell each other a joke or something. You know?

David: Yeah, that it wouldn't be...

Jesus: ...a bunch of pious pundits standing around talking about the meaning of life. I'd run as far as I could from a heaven like that!

David: Love IS the meaning of life. Love BRINGS meaning to anything if it has any meaning. Otherwise it itself becomes meaningless.

Jesus: It is all meaningless!

David: What would I be cooking this meal for? Why would I be writing this book? Why would I be...? You could go on and on.

Jesus: Yeah, what is the USE of wisdom? What is the USE of everything? You know?

David: That's great. We got it!

Jesus: We got it!

David: Oh, brother.

Jesus: I love you, brother.