What does it mean to be a lover in this world? My dear friend and spiritual teacher David Truman offered a tremendously moving explanation ten years ago. In my mind, that talk remains to this day an unparalleled description of what love is. He recently posted two video clips from that talk in his blog, “What Love Is!”. If you want to love in a way that really makes a difference, it will help you.

Here is a very moving story from it (just to give you a taste; there's much more in the blog):

“The greatest guy in all Olympic history was the time they set up this incredibly diabolical course that everybody remembers as being the worst marathon course they ever set up, because the stadium was on top of a big hill. And so it happened that you got to run 26 miles and then you went up this long grade. Climb, climb, climb, climb at the very end. So this one guy comes through.

Did you see this documentary movie of this Olympic event?

This one guy comes through and there’s a tunnel, like where the football players come out. They come out through the tunnel into the stadium. This guy comes through the tunnel into the stadium and he’s so tired that he gets disoriented. So he starts running in random directions. All he has to do is go one lap around the official track in the stadium to complete the 26, but he can’t do it, because he doesn’t know where he is. So he starts running randomly. And, if you touch him, he’s out. You can’t assist a runner in a race, or he’s disqualified. So nobody could do anything, but watch him run back and forth without knowing where he was.

So, what happened? He ran around a bunch, and then he fell down. And then he got up, and he ran around a little more, and then he fell down. And a little more, fell down. Pretty soon you saw that he could not finish the race.

This guy is the champion of all time, and he lost the race and he never even finished the race. But he ran until he couldn’t run any more. Nobody else did that! What a runner! This guy is a national treasure. And throughout all history, as long as there is a copy of that film, everybody ought to know — this guy is a runner. This guy is the all-time champion of all Olympic champions, because he’s the only one who ran till the end. His end. His.”

Also, you can get some fabulous, everyday ideas about loving from this article on the Soul Progress website: “How to Buy Happiness… By Being 100% Committed.”

Love,

Sara

The day before yesterday. I stay up all night often. When I am doing something that someone needs, something that will really help people (which is most of what I do, everyday), I get a real creative "wind" and I have lots of energy.

I am very low in my desire for sleep, although I do need it like everyone else. At a certain point of staying awake, my mind starts to be tired — less clear, less quick — and I pretty much have to turn in then. My body's tiredness is less persuasive to me; I can get second, third, fourth winds and keep going.

I aspire to reducing my need to sleep, and I'm "in training" for that. My training consists of gradually reducing my "normal" night of sleep; meditating daily and consciously relying on heavenly sources of energy; periodic exercise; healthy diet; maintaining complete lack of concern about when and how long I sleep; loving respect for my body (when it says it needs rest, I nap).