We live in a time when love has been commodified, packaged, and sold back to us as something we must chase, possess, and perform. Dating apps promise love through algorithms. Self-help books offer formulas for finding “the one.” Social media turns relationships into content.
But what if we’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places?
Ram Dass, the spiritual teacher who helped awaken a generation to the possibility of consciousness expansion, offered a radically different map of love, one that doesn’t just involve the romantic beloved, but the inner beloved as well. In a 1986 teaching that feels more relevant than ever, he revealed how we’ve been approaching love backwards – and why that strangles the very thing we’re seeking.
The Addiction to Connection
Ram Dass understood something most of us miss: when we “fall in love,” we’re not actually falling in love with another person. We’re falling in love with how they make us feel about ourselves. That person becomes “the key stimulus” – the doorway that helps us access the part of ourselves that already is love.
“When you say, I fell in love with her or with him,” he explained, “you mean she or he is my connection to the place in myself where I am Love.”
That’s why new love feels so intoxicating. The world feels brighter. Music sounds better. We’re in love…but what we’re really swimming in is our own expanded state of being. Love isn’t just a feeling. It’s a plane of consciousness.
But here’s the kicker… because we don’t know how to stay connected to that space within ourselves, we become dependent on the other person. We try to “possess” the one who unlocked the door. We cling to the key, instead of realising the door was “always” ours to open.
And this, Ram Dass says, is what strangles love. We start managing and controlling instead of trusting and flowing. We forget that love itself is the goal… not the person who helps us feel it.
The Liberation of Inner Love
The real magic comes when we realise: we don’t need another person to access that place.
Through spiritual practice, through presence, through breath, through silence – we learn to return to love on our own. Not because we’re detached or aloof, but because we’ve “remembered”. We’ve come home.
This is what I’ve been learning.
My last relationship was filled with intensity and longing. I ached for connection, mistaking emotional fireworks for deep love. But it was through the loss of that relationship, and the grief that followed, that I started to see the pattern. I was outsourcing love to someone else. I was addicted to the key.
Today, in my relationship with Natalia (Soul Lover), things feel different. There’s space. There’s breath. There’s a gentleness I never knew I needed. We’re not trying to complete each other – we’re practicing being whole together. And in that wholeness, I’ve come to understand that love isn’t something I find in her… it’s something I remember in myself.
The Many Faces of Love
Ram Dass drew from Hindu devotional paths to describe the many expressions of love:
- The fierce love of mother and child
- The intimacy of deep friendship
- The devotion of a student to teacher
- The loyalty of servant to master
- The compassion of a father to child
- The fire of the lover and the beloved
Each of these expressions points to the same truth: love wears many disguises, but beneath them all is the same divine frequency.
“Every one of you is my guru,” Ram Dass once said. “Come in drag to catch me… You won’t see that I’m God too.”
That’s the play of love. Seeing through the forms. Recognising the divine in every face – including your own.
Becoming Love Itself
Ram Dass didn’t want you to “find” love.
He wanted you to “become” it.
To become an environment. A frequency. A state of being where love radiates from you… not for validation, not for performance, but because it’s your natural state.
“Your life is your message,” he taught.
And you don’t need to shout that message. Children sense it instantly. Strangers soften in your presence. Even those hardened by trauma can feel the medicine of your being when you’re dwelling in love.
I’ve seen this during breathwork. In the silence after a session, there’s a sacred hush. Eyes soften. Walls drop. For a moment, people remember… “this is who I really am”. Not the story. Not the noise. Just love, breathing.
An Invitation to Remember
In a world obsessed with seeking love, maybe it’s time to stop chasing and start remembering.
Love isn’t something you find “out there.” It’s something you uncover “in here.” It doesn’t ask you to grasp, it asks you to surrender. It doesn’t require you to fix others, only to see them.
And if this resonates – if something in you is whispering “yes” – I invite you to come breathe with us.
This Sunday 13 July, 5:00pm–6:30pm in Bondi, I’m holding a breakthrough breathwork session called X-HALE. Check out my socials for more details.
We’ll explore the very heart of this teaching, using the breath as a way to drop out of the head, out of the noise, and back into the body. Into presence. Into the love that’s always been here.
No fixing. No performing. Just breath. Just love. Just you – remembered.
Big Love,
Dino