“There is a natural warm, inclusive feeling that arises when you are in touch with your heart energy. Think of this as your foundational, or basic love”
Dear Integral Meditators,
This week’s article looks at Love as a gateway to Non-Dual meditation. If you enjoy it you would be welcome to join us for the Tuesday & Wednesday, as well as the Saturday sessions this week, where we will be working with this meditation directly.
Final reminder also of the Liberation & creativity through the observer self (Finding freedom in your roles) mindfulness masterclass that I will be doing at two times over the next week.
In the spirit of Love,
Toby
This week’s article: All you need is Love – Contemplative Non-Duality
You could think of it as there being three gateways to Non-Dual or unitive meditation:
- Through the Mind (and/or) head, using the witness or observer self
- Through the Heart using the feeling of being, and of love
- Through the senses (and/or belly), using non-conceptual sensation
This article focuses on the heart and feelings of love. It includes three meditation positions, all of which ‘work’ by themselves, but if you put them together sequentially, it creates a step-by-step movement from everyday awareness to Non-Dual awareness.
Basic warmth and the simple feeling of being
The first object is the simple feeling of being. Notice how, at the centre of each moment of your experience is a sense of being-ness. Notice that if you drop into that feeling within your heart-space, there is kind of a natural warmth to it, and that the warmth is naturally a friendly, inclusive kind of feeling.
Think of this natural warm, inclusive feeling within your heart as your foundational, or basic love.
Since this is a Big Love meditation, if you like you can imagine this feeling of love as a light within your heart, perhaps with interweaving colours of gold, green, pink and red. After a little practice it should feel like it is quite a natural, easy state to drop into. Tune into your own simple feeling of being, and the warm love within it,
Enhancing using the three types of love
You can enhance this simple feeling of loving warmth by bringing to mind a feeling of love that you have in a relationship. Broadly speaking you could focus on one of these three:
Eros, or romantic love – This put simply is the creative spark that arises between two people or between ourselves and something that we love. This is most often thought of as the romantic love between lovers
Agape – One of the archetypal images of agape is the mother and child (eg: Mary with the baby Jesus), but more broadly speaking agape is empathetic or compassionate love, it embraces its subject ‘parentally’.
Filia – Filial love is classically the love between siblings, but it is also a common way of bonding between friends.
Recall one of these types of love, perhaps the one you find most powerful presently. Breathe that love in and out of your heart space, using it to make your basic loving feeling more powerful and visceral.
Expanding the love outward and inclusively
Reflect that the very same simple feeling of being, with its attendant love lies within the heart of all living beings, human, animal, plant or otherwise. Feel and sense it to be not just in your heart, but all pervasive, everywhere in the landscape around you, in the World and in the Universe. Let your heart expand to include everyone and everything in its embrace. Feel your personal love (agape, eros or filia) becoming an all embracing One Love. Feel all separation and fear melting away, dissolving into this feeling of One Love, One Universal Heart, one All Loving Being.
The final stage is then to view the diverse appearances of all living beings as manifestations or expressions of the One Love you are meditating on, like two sides of the same coin. One Love appears as the many, and the many is a manifestation of the One Love.
Reading through these stages intellectually, it might all seem a bit far-fetched. The key here is to get into the practice of it and let your Love start to feel juicy and embodied enough to really put you in touch with the experience of it.
Related reading: Meditating on Enlightened Love the Easy Way
Three types of relational love
© Toby Ouvry 2025, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com
All upcoming classes & workshops
Ongoing on Tuesday’s & Wednesday’s (live & online), 7.30-8.30pm – Weekly integral meditation classes
Ongoing on Tues & Weds, 7.30-8.30 pm – Freedom & Fullness – A practical introduction to non-dual meditation practice
Ongoing on Saturdays, 5.30-6-15pm – Freedom & Fullness deep-dive non-dual meditation sessions
Saturday 5th April, 3-5pm (9am start Europe time) & Monday 7th April, 7.30-9.30am ( 7.30-9.30pm Eastern time US) – Mindfulness masterclass: Liberation & creativity through the observer self
Saturday 2nd & Sunday 3rd May – The Call of the Wild: Shamanic Meditations for connecting to animal guides in the inner world Masterclass & Mini-retreat
Starts Tues 10th, Wednesday 11th May, 7.30-8.30pm – Shamanic meditations for connecting to your animal guides & familiars
Saturday 17th May, 3-4.30pm – One Heart Open Day: Heart Opening meditation with singing bowls
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