What A Coldplay Concert Teaches Us About Love

Continued from yesterday…

Whenever we talk about the true meaning of love, its link with unity or oneness is unavoidable. For instance, we might think of love as being synonymous with the union between our parents that results in our conception.

Then the nine months of our prenatal existence is spent in oneness with our mother’s womb. In the early stages of our post-birth life, our mothers nursed us, creating a bond—or union—that often lingers for the remainder of our life. We consider this relationship between mother and child an example of love because of the union they share.

A similar bond is also apparent when your dog or cat snuggles up to you. You feel the energy of your union with your furry friends and call it love. Sitting in a restaurant with your friends can be filled with a comparable energy. You feel a sense of belonging, or oneness, with your friends, and again we call it love.

My son, Nathanael, once told me that attending a Coldplay concert at the Rose Bowl was a spiritual experience. The energy was palatable, and he felt a oneness with the thousands of people that sat enraptured by a live rendition of “A Head Full of Dreams.” The experience brought him to both tears and laughter.

The reason is simple: sharing a moment of unity with so many people opened his heart to become conscious of love.

According to our spiritual traditions, marriage is the union of a couple, where two people become one. The success of a marriage is, of course, not guaranteed with the simple signing of a license. Instead, the marital success is a result of the strength of the union the couple shares. When the sense of oneness is strengthened, energy flows from that union and creates positive change around the couple.

When we first met our life partner, we fell in love through a series of moments of accepting each other for who we are. We shared ourselves—emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually—by exposing our flaws, our insecurities, and our weaknesses. Our mutual acceptance silenced the nagging inner voice that told us that we may not be enough. In that way, we became conscious of love.

On the deepest level, love is oneness with God, which creates a union that dispels our fixation with ourselves. What seems to be “out there” is really one with what’s “in here.”

To be continued tomorrow…

Adapted from Section 1 of Awakening To I Am Love by David Youngren