Is There Love
Channel: Rich Erickson
Date: 2020-06-27

by Richard R Erickson (June 1986)
note: the tune and lyrics are free to use

Lyrics and Meaning:
This song is three verses with two choruses and two 'contrasts'. The song can mean different things to different people but here are some notes on the original meaning: Verse 1, 'lost' originally referred to both an absence of human warmth/connection that many feel, but also to a sense of meaninglessness: being lost in a world of things/activity disconnected from deeper being. In the Chorus and throughout, 'love' refers to the sense of connectedness and identity that one feels when sensing the 'light by which all things appear', what today might be called 'presence'. 'Fetters' refers to mental activity that turns one away from sensing this 'love' or 'being' (which is really like an ever-present but unnoticed background, holding all that appears). 'Empathy', of course, is the sense of connectedness or oneness with another, feeling as they do. Verse 2: 'both sides' refers to attraction/repulsion, pleasure/pain or love/fear that motivates the reactive behavior of most of us. 'Losing what you once owned' refers to the shift in identity or feeling that occurs when you sense the deeper being and feel the connectedness with all things: things then become an aspect of being, rather than objects owned by a separate 'you'. Verse 3: 'look within' refers to the practice of sensing the silent awareness in which all things appear; like shifting one's focus from the images on a screen to the screen itself, or perhaps more aptly, to the light by which they appear.

Verse 1:
Do you have a heart
Do you feel sorry to see the sadness
Can you perceive the hurt, the cruel madness
Can you perceive the common bond

Will you hold a hand
When it is shaking from a deep loss
Will you point the way for someone who is lost
There're so many lost--so many lost

Chorus:
Is there love
Deep loving light to fill the cold dark night
With understanding and a special sight
Free of the fetters that binds it
Is there care
Oh is there feeling, is there empathy
Don't you agree that it is the key
It's empathy, it's seeing

Verse 2:
Will you stand strong
When it starts to pull you from both sides
Will you fight to see the common bond inside
Inside of every pair of eyes

Do you want to help, 
To help the troubled ones to strengthen and grow strong
To help the little ones to stand on their own
To lose what you once owned--lose what you own

Contrast:
Love is here to see
Love is you and me

Verse 3:
Do you live a lie
Do you feel different from the sad ones that pass by
Do you feel different from the ones that make you cry
Do you feel separate from the Earth and the sky

Separation is a lie
Mistaken notion of a timeless, divine child
Deep down inside it's true that no man is an isle
Except in ignorance--I ask you, to look within

Chorus:
[Same as above except the seventh line is:
Deep down inside I'm sure you do agree]

Contrast