“Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation.
The foundation of such a method is love.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

“At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.
This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Two sermons on Love given by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

• Levels of Love

• Loving Your Enemies

“Levels of Love,” Sermon Delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church Atlanta, Georgia

September 16, 1962

In this sermon, prepared as part of a series on love, King urges his congregation to move beyond varieties of love that involve self-interest, such as romantic love and friendship. He cites a recent conversation with a white man in Albany who claimed the tension of the civil rights movement had caused him to not “love Negroes like I used to.” King’s unspoken retort is, “You never did love Negroes because your love was a conditional love. It was conditioned upon the Negro staying in his place, and the minute he stood up as a man and as somebody you didn’t love him anymore.” Instead he recommends a higher kind of love that extends even to segregationists and recommends that his congregation “rise to agape…an all-inclusive love. It is the love of God operating in the human heart.” The following text is taken from an audio recording on the service.¹

I hope that at this moment you will not utter a word unless that word is uttered to God. For the moment you will rise above the miasma and the hurly-burly of everyday life and center your vision on those eternal verities, those eternal values that should shape our destiny. Life is difficult. It is the road we travel, but in traveling this road we encounter rough places. At points it’s a meandering road; it has its numerous curves; it has its hilly places; and we struggle to get over the hills. Sometimes it’s painful; sometimes it’s trying. But [somehow?] we have a faith, and we have a belief that even though the road of life is meandering and curvy and rough and difficult, we can make it if God guides us and leads us. We go on with that faith, and we can keep on keeping on. We can smile when others all around us are giving up in despair. Lead me. Guide me. Be with me as I journey the road of life.

May we open our hearts and spirits now as we listen to the words from the choir. [choir sings]

This morning I would like to continue the series of sermons that I’m preaching on love. I’ll preach a sermon this morning that I preached in this pulpit some two years ago, but one that I’ve had a chance to give some more thought to.² And one that I hope will clear up some of the things that we have been discussing in the two previous sermons. You remember we started the series preaching from the subject “Loving Your Enemies.” The second sermon in the series was “Love in Action,” based on the prayer of Jesus Christ on the cross: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”³

And I’d like to use as the subject this morning “Levels of Love,” trying to bring out the meaning of the various types of love. Certainly, there is no word in the English language more familiar than the word “love.” And yet in spite of our familiarity with the word, it is one of the most misunderstood words. In a sense it is an ambiguous term. And we often confuse when we begin to grapple with the meaning of love and when we attempt to define it. And I think a great deal of the confusion results from the fact that many people feel that love can be defined in one category, in one pattern, in one type. But in order to understand love and its meaning and its many sides, its qualities, we must understand that there are levels of love. And this is what I would like to set forth this morning as my thesis and try to give these various levels of love.

First, there is what I would refer to as utilitarian love. This is love at the lowest level. Here one loves another for his usefulness to him. The individual loves that person that he can use. A great deal of friendship is based on this, and this why it is meaningless pseudo-friendship, because it is based on this idea of using the object of love. [Congregation] (That’s right) There are some people who never get beyond the level of utilitarian love. They see other people as mere steps by which they can climb to their personal ends and ambitions, and the minute they discover that they can’t use those persons they disassociate themselves, they lose (All right) this affection that they once had for them. (That’s right)

Now we can easily see what is wrong with this love. Number one–it is based on true selfishness, for in reality the person who engages in utilitarian love is merely loving himself (That’s right) through somebody else. The second thing wrong with it is that it ends up depersonalizing persons. The great philosopher Immanuel Kant said, in what he called his categorical imperative, that “every man should so live that he treats every other man as an end and never as a means.”⁴ Kant had something there because the minute you use a person as a means you depersonalize that person, and that person becomes merely an object. This is what we do for things. We use things, and whenever you use somebody you, in your own mind, thingify that person. A great Jewish philosopher by the name of Martin Buber wrote a book entitled I and Thou, and he says in that book that life at its best is always on the level of “I and Thou,” and whenever it degenerates to the level of “I and It,” it becomes dangerous and terrible.⁵ Whenever we treat people not as thous, whenever we treat a man not as a him, a woman not as a her but as an it, we make them a thing, and this is the tragedy of this level of love. This is the tragedy of racial segregation. In the final analysis, segregation is wrong not merely because it makes for physical inconveniences, not merely because it leaves the individuals who are segregated with inferior facilities, but segregation is wrong, in the final analysis, because it substitutes an I-It relationship for the I-Thou relationship and relegates persons to the status of things. This is utilitarian love. And the other thing wrong with it is that it is always a conditional love, and love at its best is always unconditional.

I talked with a white man in Albany, Georgia, the other day, and when we got down in the conversation he said, “The thing that worries me so much about this movement here is that it’s creating so much tension, and we’d had such peaceful and harmonious race relations.” And then he went on to say, “I used to love the Negro, but I don’t have the kind of love for them that I used to have. You know, I used to give money to Negro churches. And even the man who worked for me, I would give him something every year extra; I’d give him a suit. But I just don’t feel that way now. I don’t love Negroes like I used to.” And I said to myself, “You never did love Negroes (That’s right) because your love was a conditional love. It was conditioned upon the Negro staying in his place, and the minute he stood up as a man and as somebody, you didn’t love him anymore because your love was a utilitarian love that grew up from the dark days of slavery and then almost a hundred years of segregation.” This is what the system has done, you see. (Yes) It makes for the crudest level of love. Utilitarian love is the lowest level of love.

Now there is another type of love which is real love, and we’re moving on up now into genuine, meaningful, profound love. It is explained through the Greek word eros. Plato used to use that word a great deal in his dialogues as a sort of yearning of the soul for the realm of the divine. But now we see it as romantic love, and there is something beautiful about romantic love. When it reaches its height there is nothing more beautiful in all the world. A romantic love rises above utilitarian love in the sense that it does have a degree of altruism, for a person who really loves with romantic love will die for the object of his love. A person who is really engaged in true romantic love will do anything to satisfy the object of that love, the great love. We’ve read about it in all of the beauties of literature, whether in ancient or medieval days. We could read about it in a Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, beauty of romantic love. Edgar Allan Poe talks about it in his beautiful “Annabel Lee” with the love surrounded by the halo of eternity.⁶ I’ve quoted for you before those great words of Shakespeare which explain the beauty of romantic love:

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

It is an ever-fix’ed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark.⁷

Oh, it’s a beautiful love. There is something about romantic love that lifts it above the crude level of utilitarian love.

But I must warn you that romantic love is not the highest love. And we must never forget this. With all of its beauty this can’t be the highest form of love because it is basically selfish. This is often difficult to think about, but it is true. You love your lover because there is something about that person that attracts you. If you’re a man, it may be the way she looks. It may be the way she talks. It may be her glowng femininity. It may be her intellectual qualities. It may be other physical qualities–something about her that attracts you. If you are a woman it may be something about that man that attracts you, and even if you can’t put it in words you end up saying, “I don’t quite know what it is, but I just know that he moves me.” [laughter] This is the, this is romantic love. It’s a selfish love. And so with all of its beauty it can never be considered the highest quality of love.

Well, there is another type of love, certainly on the same level of romantic love, and that is mother’s love. (That’s right) Oh, when life presents it in its beauty, it gives us something that we never forget, for there is nothing more beautiful than the loving care, the tender concern, and the patience (That’s right) of a real mother. (That’s right) This is a great love, and life would be ugly without it. Mother’s love brings sunshine into dark places. (Yes) And there is something about it that never quite gives up. (Amen, That’s right) The child may wander to some strange and dark far country, but there’s always that mother who’s there waiting (Yes Lord) and even her mind journeys to the far country. (Yes Lord) No matter what the mistake is, no matter how low the child sinks, if it’s a real mother, she still loves him. (Praise Him, Lord) How beautiful it is. (Oh yes) It has been written about, too, in beautiful glowing language. We’ve read about it. We’ve seen it in beautiful stories. It is a great love.

There is another level of love that I would like to mention this morning. But before mentioning that let me say that even mother’s love can’t be the highest. (That’s right) We hate to hear that, I guess, but you see, a mother loves her child because it is her child. (That’s right) And if she isn’t careful, she can’t quite love that other person’s child like she loves her child. (That’s right) Even mother’s love has a degree of selfishness in it. (Yes) Well, we move on up to another level of love that is explained in another Greek word, the word philio, which is the sort of intimate affection between personal friends. This is friendship. In a sense it loves a little higher, not because the love itself is deeper, not because the person who is participating in the love is any more genuine of concern, but because its scope is broader, because it is more inclusive. You see, romantic love, at its best, is always between two individuals of opposite sex, but when we rise to friendship a man can love a man, a woman can love a woman. Friendship becomes one of the most beautiful things in all the world. One can have five friends, ten friends, twenty friends, and jealousy does not creep in as the horizon broadens and as the group enlarges. (That’s right) In romantic love, always, jealousy emerges when the one individual moves towards a love act with another individual and rightly so. Then in friendship, which is not based on sex, which is not based on physical attraction, one has risen to another level of love where they stand side by side and become united because of a common interest in something beyond themselves. In romantic love, the individuals in love sit face to face absorbed in each other. In friendship the individuals sit side by side absorbed in some great concern and some great cause and some great issue beyond themselves, something they like to do together. It may be hunting. It may be going and swimming together. It may be discussing great ideas together. It may be in a great movement of freedom together. Friendship is beautiful (Yes Lord) There is a beauty about it that will always stand. There is nothing more beautiful in all the world than to see real friendship, and there isn’t much of it either. (That’s right) You labor a long time to find a real genuine friend (Yes Lord, Preach it), somebody who’s so close to you that they know your heartbeat. I must hasten to say that as we discuss these levels of love we must remember that one can be involved in several levels simultaneously. A young lady who loves her husband is engaged in romantic love, but at the same time she will have some children later–she engages in mother’s love, and if she’s really a wonderful person she’s a good friend of her husband. So that one can engage in romantic love and mother’s love and friendship simultaneously. This is a beautiful level.

But even friendship can’t be the highest level of love because there is something about friendship that is selfish. You love people that you like. And it’s hard to be friendly with Mr. [James 0.] Eastland.⁸ It’s hard to be friendly with Mr. Marvin Griffin if you believe in democracy.⁹ Friendship is always based on an affection for somebody that you like, and it’s difficult to like Mr. Griffin. It’s difficult to like Mr. Eastland because we don’t like what they are doing. But this would be a temble world if God hadn’t provided us with something where we could love Mr. Griffin even though it’s impossible for us to really like him. And friendship limits the circle even though it enlarges the circle over romantic and mother’s love. It limits it because it says that the friend is the person who has mutual concerns and the person that you like to be with, that you like to talk with (That’s right), that you like to deal with.

Well, there is a love that goes a little higher than that. We refer to that as humanitarian love. It gets a little higher because it gets a little broad and more inclusive. The individual rises to the point that he loves humanity. And he rises to the point of saying that within in every man there is a divine spark. He rises to the point of saying that within every man there is something sacred and so all humanity must be loved. And so when one rises to love at this point he does get a little higher because he is sinuously attempting to love everybody. But it still can’t be the highest point because it has a danger point. It is impersonal; it says I love this abstract something called humanity, which is never quite concretized in an individual. Dostoyevsky, the great Russian novelist, said once in one of his novels, “I love humanity in general so much that I don’t love anybody in particular.”¹⁰ [laughter] So many people get to this point. It’s so easy to love an abstraction called humanity and not love individual human beings. And how many people have been caught in that. (That’s right) Think of the millions of dollars raised by many of the white churches in the South and all over America sent to Africa for the missionary effort because of a humanitarian love. And yet if the Africans who got that money came into their churches to worship on Sunday morning they would kick them out. (Yes they would) They love humanity in general, but they don’t love Africans in particular. [laughter] (That’s right) There is always this danger in humanitarian love–that it will not quite get there. The greatness of God’s love is that His love is big enough to love everybody and is small enough to love even me. (That’s right) And so humanitarian love can’t be the highest.

Let me rush on to that point which is explained by the Greek word agape. Agape is higher than all of the things I have talked about. Why is it higher? Because it is unmotivated; it is spontaneous; it is overflowing; it seeks nothing in return. It is not motivated by some quality in the object. Utilitarian love is motivated by a quality in the object, namely the object’s usefulness to him. Romantic love is motivated by some quality in the object, maybe the beauty of the object or the quality that moves the individual. A mother’s love is motivated by the fact that this is her child, something in the object before her. Move on up to friendship, it is motivated by that quality of friendliness and that quality of concern that is mutual. Go on up to humanity, humanitarian love, it is motivated by something within the object, namely a divine spark, namely something sacred about human personality. But when we rise to agape, to Christian love, it is higher than all of this. It becomes the love of God operating in the human heart. (Amen, Yes Lord) The greatness of it is that you love every man, not for your sake but for his sake. And you love every man because God loves him. (Amen, That’s right) And so it becomes all inclusive. The person may be ugly, or the person may be beautiful. The person may be tall, or the person may be short. The person may be light, or the person may be dark. The person may be rich, or the person may be poor. The person may be up and in; the person may be down and out. The person may be white; the person may be black. The person may be Jew; the person may be Gentile. The person may be Catholic; the person may be Protestant. In other words, you come to the point of loving every man and becomes an all-inclusive love. It is the love of God operating in the human heart. And it comes to the point that you even love the enemy.¹¹ (Amen) Christian love does something that no other love can do. It says that you love every man. You hate the deed that he does if he’s your enemy and he’s evill, but you love the person who does the evil deed.

And so this is the distinction that I want you to see this morning. And on all other levels we have a need love, but when we come to agape we have a gift love. And so it is the love that includes everybody. And the only testing point for you to know whether you have real genuine love is that you love your enemy (Yeah), for if you fail to love your enemy there is no way for you to fit into the category of Christian love. You test it by your ability to love your enemy.¹²

And so this is what we have before us as Christians. This is what God has left for us. He’s left us a love. As He loved us, so let us love the brother. And therefore, I’m convinced this morning that love is the greatest power in all the world. Over the centuries men have asked about the highest good; they’ve wanted to know. All of the great philosophers have raised the question, “What is the summum bonum of life? What is the highest good?” Epicureans and the Stoics sought to answer it. Plato and Aristotle sought to answer it. What is that good that is productive and that produces every other good? And I am convinced this morning that it is love. God is light. God is love. And he who hates does not know God. But he who loves, at that moment, rises to a knowledge of God.¹³

And so you may be able to speak well, you may rise to the eloquence of articulate speech, but if you have not love you are become as sounding brass or the tinkling cymbal. (Yes Lord) You may have the gift of prophecy so that you can understand all mysteries. You may break into the storehouse of nature and bring out many insights that men never knew were there. You may have all knowledge so that you build great universities. You may have endless degrees. But if you have not love it means nothing. Yes, you may give your gfts and your goods to feed the poor. You may rise high in philanthropy, but if you have not love, your gifts have been given in vain. Yes, you may give your body to be burned (All right), and you may die the death of a martyr. You may have your blood spilt, and it will become a symbol of honor for generations yet unborn. But if you have not love, you’re blood was spilt in vain.¹⁴ (All right) We must come to see that it is possible to be self-centered in our self-sacrifice and self-righteous in our self-denial. We may be generous in order to feed our ego. We may be pious in order to feed our pride. And so without love, spintual pride becomes a reality in our life, and even martyrdom becomes egotism.

Love is the greatest force in all the world. And this is why Jesus was great. He realized it in his life, and he took this force and split history into A.D. and B.C. so that all history has to sing about him and talk about him because he made love the center of his llfe. And what does the cross mean? It means that God’s love shines before us through that cross in all of its dimensions. And so “when I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, I count my richest gains but loss and pour contempt on all my pride. Were the whole realm of nature mine that were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my all, and my all.”¹⁵ This is our legacy. This is what we have. And may we go on wth a love in our hearts that will change us and change the lives of those who surround us. And we will make this old world a new world. And God’s kingdom wll be a reality.

We open the doors of the church now. Someone here this morning needs to accept the Christ. Someone needs to make a decision for Him. If you have the faith, He has the power. Who this morning will come? Just as you are, will you come? Just as you are, will you come? And make this church not only a place to come as a regular attending person but a spiritual home. Who this morning will make that decision as we sing this great hymn, “Just As I Am?”¹⁶ Wherever you are, will you accept Christ? By Christian experience baptism [words inaudible]. Wherever you are, you come this morning. God’s love stands before us. God’s love is always ready. He’s calling you now. Make the church the center of your life, for here, we come to the mercy seat. Here, you learn the great realities of life. [Congregation sings]

Now let us stand for the next stanza, and if you are there we still bid you come wherever you are. Who will come this morning? Just as I am, wherever you are, will you come? Is there one who will accept Christ this morning?

Now let us sing that last stanza, and as we prepare to sing, I make this last plea. There is someone here this morning without a church home. There is someone here this morning standing between two opinions. There is someone here this morning who lives in Atlanta, who was a Christian back home, but who is not united wth a church in this city. We give you this opportunity, in the name of Christ, to come as we sing this last stanza. This is the hour for you to decide. [Congregation sings]

God bless you [recording interrupted]

At. MLKEC: ET-72

1. A voice at the beginning of the tape states the day and date, gives King’s name, and identifies the sermon as “Levels of Love.” This was King’s announced sermon topic for 16 September 1962 (“Martin Luther King, Jr., at Ebenezer Sunday,” Atlanta Daily World, 15 September 1962).
   2. This was also King’s announced sermon topic for 14 August 1960 (“‘Levels of Love’ to Be Subject at Ebenezer,” Atlanta Daily World, 13 August 1960).
   3. “Dr. King, Jr. to Preach on ‘Love Your Enemies’ at Ebenezer Sunday,” Atlanta Daily World, 18 August 1962; “‘Love in Action,’ King Jr.’s Topic at Ebenezer Sunday,” Atlanta Daily World, 1 September 1962; Luke 23:34.
   4. “Accordingly the practical imperative wll be as follows: So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as a means only” (Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. Thomas K. Abbott [Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1949], p. 46).
   5. Buber, I and Thou (1937).
   6. Poe, “Annabel Lee” (1849).
   7. Shakespeare, “Sonnet 116” (1609).
   8. Eastland served in Congress from Mississippi in 1941 and from 1943 until 1978, using his power as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee to block civil rights legislation.
   9. Griffin served as governor of Georgia from 1955 to 1959.
   10. Cf. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamaun, (New York: Modern Library, 1937), p. 56: “But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.”
   11. Cf. Matthew 5:44.
   12. King draws upon Harry Emerson Fosdick’s discussion of agape in On Being Fit to Live With (pp. 6-7).
   13. Cf. 1 John 4:7-8.
   14. Cf. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3.
   15. King cites Isaac Watts’s 1707 hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”
   16. King refers to Charlotte Elliot’s hymn “Just As I Am” (1836).

“Loving Your Enemies,” Sermon Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church

November 17,1957

Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama

I am forced to preach under something of a handicap this morning. In fact, I had the doctor before coming to church. And he said that it would be best for me to stay in the bed this morning. And I insisted that I would have to come to preach. So he allowed me to come out with one stipulation, and that is that I would not come in the pulpit until time to preach, and that after, that I would immediately go back home and get in the bed. So I’m going to try to follow his instructions from that point on.

I want to use as a subject from which to preach this morning a very familiar subject, and it is familiar to you because I have preached from this subject twice before to my knowing in this pulpit. I try to make it a, something of a custom or tradition to preach from this passage of Scripture at least once a year, adding new insights that I develop along the way out of new experiences as I give these messages. Although the content is, the basic content is the same, new insights and new experiences naturally make for new illustrations.

So I want to turn your attention to this subject: “Loving Your Enemies.” It’s so basic to me because it is a part of my basic philosophical and theological orientation—the whole idea of love, the whole philosophy of love. In the fifth chapter of the gospel as recorded by Saint Matthew, we read these very arresting words flowing from the lips of our Lord and Master: “Ye have heard that it has been said, ‘Thou shall love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.’ But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.”

Certainly these are great words, words lifted to cosmic proportions. And over the centuries, many persons have argued that this is an extremely difficult command. Many would go so far as to say that it just isn’t possible to move out into the actual practice of this glorious command. They would go on to say that this is just additional proof that Jesus was an impractical idealist who never quite came down to earth. So the arguments abound. But far from being an impractical idealist, Jesus has become the practical realist. The words of this text glitter in our eyes with a new urgency. Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, this command is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. Yes, it is love that will save our world and our civilization, love even for enemies.

Now let me hasten to say that Jesus was very serious when he gave this command; he wasn’t playing. He realized that it’s hard to love your enemies. He realized that it’s difficult to love those persons who seek to defeat you, those persons who say evil things about you. He realized that it was painfully hard, pressingly hard. But he wasn’t playing. And we cannot dismiss this passage as just another example of Oriental hyperbole, just a sort of exaggeration to get over the point. This is a basic philosophy of all that we hear coming from the lips of our Master. Because Jesus wasn’t playing; because he was serious. We have the Christian and moral responsibility to seek to discover the meaning of these words, and to discover how we can live out this command, and why we should live by this command.

Now first let us deal with this question, which is the practical question: How do you go about loving your enemies? I think the first thing is this: In order to love your enemies, you must begin by analyzing self. And I’m sure that seems strange to you, that I start out telling you this morning that you love your enemies by beginning with a look at self. It seems to me that that is the first and foremost way to come to an adequate discovery to the how of this situation.

Now, I’m aware of the fact that some people will not like you, not because of something you have done to them, but they just won’t like you. I’m quite aware of that. Some people aren’t going to like the way you walk; some people aren’t going to like the way you talk. Some people aren’t going to like you because you can do your job better than they can do theirs. Some people aren’t going to like you because other people like you, and because you’re popular, and because you’re well-liked, they aren’t going to like you. Some people aren’t going to like you because your hair is a little shorter than theirs or your hair is a little longer than theirs. Some people aren’t going to like you because your skin is a little brighter than theirs; and others aren’t going to like you because your skin is a little darker than theirs. So that some people aren’t going to like you. They’re going to dislike you, not because of something that you’ve done to them, but because of various jealous reactions and other reactions that are so prevalent in human nature.

But after looking at these things and admitting these things, we must face the fact that an individual might dislike us because of something that we’ve done deep down in the past, some personality attribute that we possess, something that we’ve done deep down in the past and we’ve forgotten about it; but it was that something that aroused the hate response within the individual. That is why I say, begin with yourself. There might be something within you that arouses the tragic hate response in the other individual.

This is true in our international struggle. We look at the struggle, the ideological struggle between communism on the one hand and democracy on the other, and we see the struggle between America and Russia. Now certainly, we can never give our allegiance to the Russian way of life, to the communistic way of life, because communism is based on an ethical relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept. When we look at the methods of communism, a philosophy where somehow the end justifies the means, we cannot accept that because we believe as Christians that the end is pre-existent in the means. But in spite of all of the weaknesses and evils inherent in communism, we must at the same time see the weaknesses and evils within democracy.

Democracy is the greatest form of government to my mind that man has ever conceived, but the weakness is that we have never touched it. Isn’t it true that we have often taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes? Isn’t it true that we have often in our democracy trampled over individuals and races with the iron feet of oppression? Isn’t it true that through our Western powers we have perpetuated colonialism and imperialism? And all of these things must be taken under consideration as we look at Russia. We must face the fact that the rhythmic beat of the deep rumblings of discontent from Asia and Africa is at bottom a revolt against the imperialism and colonialism perpetuated by Western civilization all these many years. The success of communism in the world today is due to the failure of democracy to live up to the noble ideals and principles inherent in its system.

And this is what Jesus means when he said: “How is it that you can see the mote in your brother’s eye and not see the beam in your own eye?” Or to put it in Moffatt’s translation: “How is it that you see the splinter in your brother’s eye and fail to see the plank in your own eye?” And this is one of the tragedies of human nature. So we begin to love our enemies and love those persons that hate us whether in collective life or individual life by looking at ourselves.

A second thing that an individual must do in seeking to love his enemy is to discover the element of good in his enemy, and everytime you begin to hate that person and think of hating that person, realize that there is some good there and look at those good points which will over-balance the bad points.

I’ve said to you on many occasions that each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality. We’re split up and divided against ourselves. And there is something of a civil war going on within all of our lives. There is a recalcitrant South of our soul revolting against the North of our soul. And there is this continual struggle within the very structure of every individual life. There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Ovid, the Latin poet, “I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do.” There is something within all of us that causes us to cry out with Plato that the human personality is like a charioteer with two headstrong horses, each wanting to go in different directions. There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Goethe, “There is enough stuff in me to make both a gentleman and a rogue.” There is something within each of us that causes us to cry out with Apostle Paul, “I see and approve the better things of life, but the evil things I do.”

So somehow the “isness” of our present nature is out of harmony with the eternal “oughtness” that forever confronts us. And this simply means this: That within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals. The person who hates you most has some good in him; even the nation that hates you most has some good in it; even the race that hates you most has some good in it. And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls “the image of God,” you begin to love him in spite of. No matter what he does, you see God’s image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never sluff off. Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude.

Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.

The Greek language, as I’ve said so often before, is very powerful at this point. It comes to our aid beautifully in giving us the real meaning and depth of the whole philosophy of love. And I think it is quite apropos at this point, for you see the Greek language has three words for love, interestingly enough. It talks about love as eros. That’s one word for love. Eros is a sort of, aesthetic love. Plato talks about it a great deal in his dialogues, a sort of yearning of the soul for the realm of the gods. And it’s come to us to be a sort of romantic love, though it’s a beautiful love. Everybody has experienced eros in all of its beauty when you find some individual that is attractive to you and that you pour out all of your like and your love on that individual. That is eros, you see, and it’s a powerful, beautiful love that is given to us through all of the beauty of literature; we read about it.

Then the Greek language talks about philia, and that’s another type of love that’s also beautiful. It is a sort of intimate affection between personal friends. And this is the type of love that you have for those persons that you’re friendly with, your intimate friends, or people that you call on the telephone and you go by to have dinner with, and your roommate in college and that type of thing. It’s a sort of reciprocal love. On this level, you like a person because that person likes you. You love on this level, because you are loved. You love on this level, because there’s something about the person you love that is likeable to you. This too is a beautiful love. You can communicate with a person; you have certain things in common; you like to do things together. This is philia.

The Greek language comes out with another word for love. It is the word agape. And agape is more than eros; agape is more than philia; agape is something of the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is a love that seeks nothing in return. It is an overflowing love; it’s what theologians would call the love of God working in the lives of men. And when you rise to love on this level, you begin to love men, not because they are likeable, but because God loves them. You look at every man, and you love him because you know God loves him. And he might be the worst person you’ve ever seen.

And this is what Jesus means, I think, in this very passage when he says, “Love your enemy.” And it’s significant that he does not say, “Like your enemy.” Like is a sentimental something, an affectionate something. There are a lot of people that I find it difficult to like. I don’t like what they do to me. I don’t like what they say about me and other people. I don’t like their attitudes. I don’t like some of the things they’re doing. I don’t like them. But Jesus says love them. And love is greater than like. Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody, because God loves them. You refuse to do anything that will defeat an individual, because you have agape in your soul. And here you come to the point that you love the individual who does the evil deed, while hating the deed that the person does. This is what Jesus means when he says, “Love your enemy.” This is the way to do it. When the opportunity presents itself when you can defeat your enemy, you must not do it.

Now for the few moments left, let us move from the practical how to the theoretical why. It’s not only necessary to know how to go about loving your enemies, but also to go down into the question of why we should love our enemies. I think the first reason that we should love our enemies, and I think this was at the very center of Jesus’ thinking, is this: that hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. [tapping on pulpit] It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. And that is the tragedy of hate, that it doesn’t cut it off. It only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love.

I think I mentioned before that sometime ago my brother and I were driving one evening to Chattanooga, Tennessee, from Atlanta. He was driving the car. And for some reason the drivers were very discourteous that night. They didn’t dim their lights; hardly any driver that passed by dimmed his lights. And I remember very vividly, my brother A. D. looked over and in a tone of anger said: “I know what I’m going to do. The next car that comes along here and refuses to dim the lights, I’m going to fail to dim mine and pour them on in all of their power.” And I looked at him right quick and said: “Oh no, don’t do that. There’d be too much light on this highway, and it will end up in mutual destruction for all. Somebody got to have some sense on this highway.”

Somebody must have sense enough to dim the lights, and that is the trouble, isn’t it? That as all of the civilizations of the world move up the highway of history, so many civilizations, having looked at other civilizations that refused to dim the lights, and they decided to refuse to dim theirs. And Toynbee tells that out of the twenty-two civilizations that have risen up, all but about seven have found themselves in the junkheap of destruction. It is because civilizations fail to have sense enough to dim the lights. And if somebody doesn’t have sense enough to turn on the dim and beautiful and powerful lights of love in this world, the whole of our civilization will be plunged into the abyss of destruction. And we will all end up destroyed because nobody had any sense on the highway of history. Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.

There’s another reason why you should love your enemies, and that is because hate distorts the personality of the hater. We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. You just begin hating somebody, and you will begin to do irrational things. You can’t see straight when you hate. You can’t walk straight when you hate. You can’t stand upright. Your vision is distorted. There is nothing more tragic than to see an individual whose heart is filled with hate. He comes to the point that he becomes a pathological case. For the person who hates, you can stand up and see a person and that person can be beautiful, and you will call them ugly. For the person who hates, the beautiful becomes ugly and the ugly becomes beautiful. For the person who hates, the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good. For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That’s what hate does. You can’t see right. The symbol of objectivity is lost. Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater. And this is why Jesus says hate [recording interrupted]

. . . that you want to be integrated with yourself, and the way to be integrated with yourself is be sure that you meet every situation of life with an abounding love. Never hate, because it ends up in tragic, neurotic responses. Psychologists and psychiatrists are telling us today that the more we hate, the more we develop guilt feelings and we begin to subconsciously repress or consciously suppress certain emotions, and they all stack up in our subconscious selves and make for tragic, neurotic responses. And may this not be the neuroses of many individuals as they confront life that that is an element of hate there. And modern psychology is calling on us now to love. But long before modern psychology came into being, the world’s greatest psychologist who walked around the hills of Galilee told us to love. He looked at men and said: “Love your enemies; don’t hate anybody.” It’s not enough for us to hate your friends because—to to love your friends—because when you start hating anybody, it destroys the very center of your creative response to life and the universe; so love everybody. Hate at any point is a cancer that gnaws away at the very vital center of your life and your existence. It is like eroding acid that eats away the best and the objective center of your life. So Jesus says love, because hate destroys the hater as well as the hated.

Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption. You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even though they’re mistreating you. Here’s the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.

I think of one of the best examples of this. We all remember the great president of this United States, Abraham Lincoln—these United States rather. You remember when Abraham Lincoln was running for president of the United States, there was a man who ran all around the country talking about Lincoln. He said a lot of bad things about Lincoln, a lot of unkind things. And sometimes he would get to the point that he would even talk about his looks, saying, “You don’t want a tall, lanky, ignorant man like this as the president of the United States.” He went on and on and on and went around with that type of attitude and wrote about it. Finally, one day Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States. And if you read the great biography of Lincoln, if you read the great works about him, you will discover that as every president comes to the point, he came to the point of having to choose a Cabinet. And then came the time for him to choose a Secretary of War. He looked across the nation, and decided to choose a man by the name of Mr. Stanton. And when Abraham Lincoln stood around his advisors and mentioned this fact, they said to him: “Mr. Lincoln, are you a fool? Do you know what Mr. Stanton has been saying about you? Do you know what he has done, tried to do to you? Do you know that he has tried to defeat you on every hand? Do you know that, Mr. Lincoln? Did you read all of those derogatory statements that he made about you?” Abraham Lincoln stood before the advisors around him and said: “Oh yes, I know about it; I read about it; I’ve heard him myself. But after looking over the country, I find that he is the best man for the job.”

Mr. Stanton did become Secretary of War, and a few months later, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. And if you go to Washington, you will discover that one of the greatest words or statements ever made by, about Abraham Lincoln was made about this man Stanton. And as Abraham Lincoln came to the end of his life, Stanton stood up and said: “Now he belongs to the ages.” And he made a beautiful statement concerning the character and the stature of this man. If Abraham Lincoln had hated Stanton, if Abraham Lincoln had answered everything Stanton said, Abraham Lincoln would have not transformed and redeemed Stanton. Stanton would have gone to his grave hating Lincoln, and Lincoln would have gone to his grave hating Stanton. But through the power of love Abraham Lincoln was able to redeem Stanton.

That’s it. There is a power in love that our world has not discovered yet. Jesus discovered it centuries ago. Mahatma Gandhi of India discovered it a few years ago, but most men and most women never discover it. For they believe in hitting for hitting; they believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; they believe in hating for hating; but Jesus comes to us and says, “This isn’t the way.”

And oh this morning, as I think of the fact that our world is in transition now. Our whole world is facing a revolution. Our nation is facing a revolution, our nation. One of the things that concerns me most is that in the midst of the revolution of the world and the midst of the revolution of this nation, that we will discover the meaning of Jesus’ words.

History unfortunately leaves some people oppressed and some people oppressors. And there are three ways that individuals who are oppressed can deal with their oppression. One of them is to rise up against their oppressors with physical violence and corroding hatred. But oh this isn’t the way. For the danger and the weakness of this method is its futility. Violence creates many more social problems than it solves. And I’ve said, in so many instances, that as the Negro, in particular, and colored peoples all over the world struggle for freedom, if they succumb to the temptation of using violence in their struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and our chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos. Violence isn’t the way.

Another way is to acquiesce and to give in, to resign yourself to the oppression. Some people do that. They discover the difficulties of the wilderness moving into the promised land, and they would rather go back to the despots of Egypt because it’s difficult to get in the promised land. And so they resign themselves to the fate of oppression; they somehow acquiesce to this thing. But that too isn’t the way because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.

But there is another way. And that is to organize mass non-violent resistance based on the principle of love. It seems to me that this is the only way as our eyes look to the future. As we look out across the years and across the generations, let us develop and move right here. We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way. Jesus discovered that.

Not only did Jesus discover it, even great military leaders discover that. One day as Napoleon came toward the end of his career and looked back across the years—the great Napoleon that at a very early age had all but conquered the world. He was not stopped until he became, till he moved out to the battle of Leipzig and then to Waterloo. But that same Napoleon one day stood back and looked across the years, and said: “Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have built great empires. But upon what did they depend? They depended upon force. But long ago Jesus started an empire that depended on love, and even to this day millions will die for him.”

Yes, I can see Jesus walking around the hills and the valleys of Palestine. And I can see him looking out at the Roman Empire with all of her fascinating and intricate military machinery. But in the midst of that, I can hear him saying: “I will not use this method. Neither will I hate the Roman Empire.” [Radio Announcer:] (WRMA, Montgomery, Alabama. Due to the fact of the delay this morning, we are going over with the sermon.) [several words inaudible] . . . and just start marching.

And I’m proud to stand here in Dexter this morning and say that that army is still marching. It grew up from a group of eleven or twelve men to more than seven hundred million today. Because of the power and influence of the personality of this Christ, he was able to split history into a.d. and b.c. Because of his power, he was able to shake the hinges from the gates of the Roman Empire. And all around the world this morning, we can hear the glad echo of heaven ring:

Jesus shall reign wherever sun,

Does his successive journeys run;

His kingdom spreads from shore to shore,

Till moon shall wane and wax no more.

We can hear another chorus singing: “All hail the power of Jesus name!”

We can hear another chorus singing: “Hallelujah, hallelujah! He’s King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Hallelujah, hallelujah!”

We can hear another choir singing:

In Christ there is no East or West.

In Him no North or South,

But one great Fellowship of Love

Throughout the whole wide world.

This is the only way.

And our civilization must discover that. Individuals must discover that as they deal with other individuals. There is a little tree planted on a little hill and on that tree hangs the most influential character that ever came in this world. But never feel that that tree is a meaningless drama that took place on the stages of history. Oh no, it is a telescope through which we look out into the long vista of eternity, and see the love of God breaking forth into time. It is an eternal reminder to a power-drunk generation that love is the only way. It is an eternal reminder to a generation depending on nuclear and atomic energy, a generation depending on physical violence, that love is the only creative, redemptive, transforming power in the universe.

So this morning, as I look into your eyes, and into the eyes of all of my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you, “I love you. I would rather die than hate you.” And I’m foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed. And then we will be in God’s kingdom. We will be able to matriculate into the university of eternal life because we had the power to love our enemies, to bless those persons that cursed us, to even decide to be good to those persons who hated us, and we even prayed for those persons who despitefully used us.

Oh God, help us in our lives and in all of our attitudes, to work out this controlling force of love, this controlling power that can solve every problem that we confront in all areas. Oh, we talk about politics; we talk about the problems facing our atomic civilization. Grant that all men will come together and discover that as we solve the crisis and solve these problems—the international problems, the problems of atomic energy, the problems of nuclear energy, and yes, even the race problem—let us join together in a great fellowship of love and bow down at the feet of Jesus. Give us this strong determination. In the name and spirit of this Christ, we pray. Amen.

“The heart is a sensory organ and acts as a sophisticated information encoding and processing center that enables it to learn, remember, and make independent functional decisions.”
https://www.heartmath.org/articles-of-the-heart/science-of-the-heart/the-energetic-heart-is-unfolding/

The heart, like the brain, generates a powerful electromagnetic field, McCraty explains in The Energetic Heart. “The heart generates the largest electromagnetic field in the body. The electrical field as measured in an electrocardiogram (ECG) is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the brain waves recorded in an electroencephalogram (EEG).
”https://www.heartmath.org/articles-of-the-heart/science-of-the-heart/the-energetic-heart-is-unfolding/

A great book on this subject is The Field by Lynne McTaggart. Also. check out The Heart Mind Matrix and the Heart Intelligence.

“Love may be symbolised by a triangle. The first angle is, love never begs, never asks for anything; the second, love knows no fear; the third and the apex, love for love’s sake.” – Swami Vivekananda

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” 
– John 4:8 

Commune with your whole heart upon your bed and be still
The fool has said in his heart,
There is no God My heart teaches me, night after night
Weigh my heart, summon me by night
They have closed their heart to pity
You have given him his heart’s desire
My heart within my breast is melting wax
May your heart live for ever!
Those who have clean hands and a pure heart
The sorrows of my heart have increased
– Book of Psalms

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled, as to console, To be understood, as to understand. To be loved, as to love, For it is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
– St. Francis of Assisi

The Still Small Voice Listen to the still small voice. It tells us to follow in the ways of holiness. It asks us to sanctify our days with kindness. The still small voice is not in the wind, the shaking of the earth, or in fire. The still small voice is heard in the hearts of those who listen.
– Esta Cassway, Based on Kings 19:11-12

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
– 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
– 1 Corinthians 13:13

Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.
– 1 Peter 4:8

Let love be without dissimulation.
– Romans 12:9

If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us.
– John 4:12

Beloved, let us love one another.
– John 4:7

Be on guard 
so that your hearts are not weighed down 
with dissipation and drunkenness 
and the worries of this life, 
and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.
– Luke 21.34-35

“This is what our love is––a sacred pattern of unbroken unity sewn flawlessly invisible inside all other images, thoughts, smells, and sounds.”
– Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams

“Compassion crowns the soul with its truest victory.”
– Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams

“This world’s anguish is no different from the love we insist on holding back.”
– Aberjhani, Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love

“Got just enough room to be a friend of yours. Oh I hope you got room to be a friend of mine.”
– Aberjhani

“Quote words that affirm all men and women are your brothers and sisters.”
– Aberjhani

“Most people are slow to champion love because they fear the transformation it brings into their lives. And make no mistake about it: love does take over and transform the schemes and operations of our egos in a very mighty way.”
– Aberjhani

“Love is our most unifying and empowering common spiritual denominator. The more we ignore its potential to bring greater balance and deeper meaning to human existence, the more likely we are to continue to define history as one long inglorious record of man’s inhumanity to man.”
– Aberjhani

“Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends.”
– Aberjhani

“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream was a manifestation of hope that humanity might one day get out of its own way by finding the courage to realize that love and nonviolence are not indicators of weakness but gifts of significant strength.”
– Aberjhani

“By serving humanity, I automatically serve myself.” ― Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset

“Love is more abundant than we could possibly imagine. Just like there is more air than we could possibly breathe in, there is more love than we could possibly perceive.” ― Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset

“Love is not the opposite of power. Love IS power. Love is the strongest power there is.” ― Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset

“Looking with eyes of love is about not only looking, but seeing.” ― Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset

“To extend compassion to a so-called villain, to forgive those who have wronged you, and to find common ground with someone who has been awfully isolated are not acts typically met with fireworks and swelling violins. More often than not, they are pushed away. To love, really love, is to do them anyway.”
― Vironika Tugaleva, The Love Mindset

“I will tell you a secret, what is really important… true love is really the same as awareness. They are identical.”
– Jack Kornfield

May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I be safe rom inner and outer dangers. May I be well in body and mind. May I be at ease and happy.
– Jack Kornfield, The Awakened Heart

A peaceful heart gives birth to love. When love meets suffering, it turns to compassion. When love meets happiness, it turns to joy.
– Jack Kornfield

We all want to love and be loved. Love is the natural order, the main attraction, the mover of nations, the bees in spring, the tender touch, the first and the last word. It is like gravity, a mysterious force that ties all things together, the heart’s memory of being in the womb and the oneness before the Big Bang. The vastness of the sky is equaled by the vastness of the heart.

Neuroscience shows us that love is a necessity; its absence damages not only individuals, but whole societies. Our brains require bonding and nurturing. Close emotional connection changes neural patterns, affecting our sense of self and making empathy possible.

Remember the days you were in love, how it felt on a spring day of crocuses and plum blossoms or a crisp autumn evening with the smell of burning leaves, how your heart soared as you met your Beatrice or Brent standing on the street corner. And if you never fell in love because of the oppression or pain around you, the Persian poet Rumi suggests, “Today is the day to start.”

Love being alive. Love your creative, distracted, overworked mind. Love your anxiety and depression and longing and wisdom. Love your food, celebrate your survival, open your senses to the mysterious communion of life right where you are. Love the natural world. Like Annie Dillard, who has spent her life walking the hills “looking for the tree with lights in it.” There are moments when you see the sacred shine from quivering aspen, autumnal maples, or textured clouds, the sunlight of heaven piercing the veil and illuminating everyday forms like a Michelangelo masterpiece. Love the creatures of the world, the incalculably complex web of teeming earthworms, bacteria, bees, and beasts that live and die in an incalculable process of re-creation on this cooled piece of star.

Start anywhere. Love dogs, cats, dolphins, squirrels, mockingbirds, lizards, elephants. Love men and women, tribes, nations, the unending varieties of human character and theater. Love is a sacred wellspring that never runs out. The freedom of love is based on the perennial renewal of love itself; it actually can grow. It is this simple: Your whole life is a curriculum of love.

Some people learn love spontaneously when their children are born. Some when their children are in trouble. Some learn from falling in love, from caring for the one they’re with. Your True Nature is love and awareness. And yet at times you forget, which is utterly human.Ursula LeGuin reminds us, “Love must be remade each day, baked fresh like bread.”

Modern neuroscience reinforces that while love is native to us, it is also a quality that can
be developed. Like gratitude and forgiveness, love can be invited, nourished, and awakened. It can flower and expand. It can become our way no matter what. Every great spiritual tradition understands this. Ecstatic music and art, devotional prayer, sacred rituals and contemplative practices all offer us ways to open to love. Neuroscience show how practices of love and compassion can change our nervous system and greatly increase access to these capabilities.

Practices of lovingkindness and compassion drawn from Eastern psychology are being adapted for medicine, education, psychotherapy, conflict resolution, even for business. The inner trainings of meditation and prayer tune us in to the love channel. They invite us into the reality of love over and over until the time comes when love bursts our heart open, swoops in and fills us, and we can’t say no.

Think of those who choose love in this world, and remember that you can awaken your own love and join them. Practicing in any of these ways profoundly affects how you hold others.

This excerpt is taken from No Time Like the Present: Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy Right Where You Are

Choose Love

The ascent of man is only through love.
– J. Krishnamurti

“When one comprehends the nature of love, when one has that quality of the mind in the heart, that is intelligence. Intelligence is a comprehension or discovery of what love is. One might be very adept in one’s studies, and in one’s work, capable of arguing with much aptitude and rationality, but that is not intelligence. Intelligence goes hand in hand with love and compassion; and a person, as a separate individual, cannot come to that intelligence.”
-Jiddu Krishnamurti― from “Holistic Education: Pedagogy of Universal Love”

“The Simple Path Silence is Prayer Prayer is Faith Faith is Love Love is Service The Fruit of Service is Peace”
― Mother Teresa

“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”
― Mother Teresa

“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.”
– Mother Teresa

“We come here to love and to learn.”

-Cella Coffin

“I believe the only true religion consists of having a good heart”
– His Holiness the Dalai Lama, XIV

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them, humanitycannot survive.”
– His Holiness the Dalai Lama, XIV

“When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.”
– His Holiness the Dalai Lama, XIV

“One of the basic points is kindness. With kindness, with love and compassion, with his feeling that is the essence of brotherhood, sisterhood, one will have inner peace. This compassionate feeling is the basis of inner peace.”
– His Holiness the Dalai Lama, XIV

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
– His Holiness the Dalai Lama, XIV

“Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.”
– His Holiness the Dalai Lama, XIV

“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”
– His Holiness the Dalai Lama, XIV

“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done.
One is called Yesterday and the other is called Tomorrow.
Today is the right day to Love,
Believe, Do and mostly Live.”
– His Holiness the Dalai Lama, XIV

“At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.”
― Ernesto Che Guevara

“The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”
― Ernesto Che Guevara

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. So medicine, law, business, engineering… these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love… these are what we stay alive for.”
-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“Life doesn’t give You the people you want, It gives you The people you need: To love you, To hate you, To make you, To break you, And to make you the person you Were meant to be.”
-Walt Whitman

“I think I could always live with animals. The more you’re around people, the more you love animals.”
-Walt Whitman

“We need Joy as we need air. We need Love as we need water. We need each other as we need the earth we share.”
– Maya Angelou

“Love is the most powerful element in the universe. It may in fact be the thing which holds stars in the firmament and that thing which keeps the blood rushing in our veins.”
– Maya Angelou

“Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but is not solved one yet… Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”
– Maya Angelou

“I’m grateful for being here, for being able to think, for being able to see, for being able to taste, for appreciating love – for knowing that it exists in a world so rife with vulgarity, with brutality and violence, and yet love exists. I’m grateful to know that it exists.”
– Maya Angelou

“We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude toward it. Uproot guilt and plant forgiveness. Tear out arrogance and seed humility. Exchange love for hate – thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising.”
– Maya Angelou

“We need Joy as we need air. We need Love as we need water. We need each other as we need the earth we share.”
– Maya Angelou

“I am grateful to have been loved and to be loved now and to be able to love, because that liberates. Love liberates. It doesn’t just hold—that’s ego. Love liberates. It doesn’t bind. Love says, ‘I love you. I love you if you’re in China. I love you if you’re across town. I love you if you’re in Harlem. I love you. I would like to be near you. I’d like to have your arms around me. I’d like to hear your voice in my ear. But that’s not possible now, so I love you. Go.’”
– Maya Angelou

Excerpts from a lovely book titled Deep, Deep Down in Your Heart by Brown Landone, published 1925

Deep down in the heart, each soul recognizes and prefers that beauty of activity which transcends beauty of form. For what beauty of form except the OUTWARD MANIFESTATION OF AN INWARD state of condition. It is a RESULT and not a cause; and since it IS a result, it CAN be changed by changing the inner activity!

O Soul, that which seemeth need not continue!
Let the Spirit of thy Soul move upon (love) the face of that which appears and all things shall be changed even as the Spirit of God, moving upon (loving) the face of the ugly void, changed that which was formless to beauty divine!

THE HATE WHICH LOVES

God is Love, and the Origin of all that is; all things created He out of His own love substance, and there is no hate in thee with which to hate!

Out of love were all things made; out of nothingness of hate was not anything made!

Since everything cannot turn to nothing, love cannot burn to hate.

It is very vain for thee to try to hate—for that which thou thinkest thou hatest is that which thou lovest!

O Soul, there is no hate in thee; thy hate is but thy love, unexpressed, demanding channels of expression divinely magnificent!

That thou mayest know no hate and no suffering, in this manner love: think not overmuch about love, but love love itself, much and divinely, to the end that its peace and joy may remain forever with thee!

He that hateth…layeth up deceit within himself. –Proverbs 26:24
Now are we the sons of God. –I John 3:2

God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him. –I John 4:16

It is vain to hate!

It is very vain!

It is vain event to try to hate!

And it is useless, for no soul attains by hate that which it hopes to attain.

Hate is but love unexpressed; and if we but knew this and understood it, we would no longer hate. Instead, we would turn our efforts into those channels in which we can find divine and unlimited expression of our love—in advancing the progress of the times, in loving people and being loved by them, in loving society and winning our rightful place in it.

Since love is infinite, the one who love is unexpressed in one channel can always find greater and grander expressions of love—if he realizes the divinity and magnificence of love.

Many revered and beloved men and women learned to love humanity and benefit it by their lives because, instead of letting rejected personal love turn to hate, they broadened their love and deepened it, in a divine way, to many hundreds or thousands of people.

In doing this they have found that the greater love brought more happiness than that which they thought was rejected—even greater and nobler than personal love.

And then, loving thus gloriously, the soul finds the one it loves most of all and from whom it receives more than from all others.

Find a man or a woman who has rendered great service to humanity, and in that soul you find love given its largest and most glorious expression. Also its freest and happiest expression, for all the trouble and fears and jealousies of personal love are to the attempt to limit great love to expression in a small channel and in a small channel only.

This is the process:

First, God is Love and Love is Infinite.

Second, hate is but unexpressed love.

Third, neither deny it or affirm its opposite; take no note of it at all.

Fourth, Love is unlimited.

Fifth, you can not limit that which is limitless.

Sixth, discover the love you want to express.

Seventh, express the love without limitation by condition, or thing, or person!

Then heaven is at hand!

O Soul, thou art love and there is no hate in thee—only love unexpressed!
That thou mayest know no hate and no suffering in this manner love: think not overmuch about love, but love love itself, much and divinely, to the end that its peace and joy may remain forever with thee.

FRETTING AND DOING GREAT THINGS GREATLY

When the soul—deep down within itself—feels impulse and desire and capacity to do great things in a great way, and the conscious mind at the same time assumes that it has no opportunity to do them, or that it is shut off from doing them by one obstacle or another, then the conscious mind centers all the soul’s gigantic impulse to act upon doing little things, and the doing of such little things as are available.
But the doing of little things is not sufficient to use the full capacity of the soul’s desire for infinite action.

Consequently, to secure some kind of outlet for the unused desire and impulse, the mind fusses and fumes, frets and fidgets about the doing of what are called “little” things.

The first step toward remedying the condition, is to discover the divine desire for action; determine the line of activity; prepare and fit yourself to do that thing greatly; and then set out to do it.

Re-read the above paragraph.

Read it again!

Read it a third time!

Then commit it to memory.

Take the thought to sleep with you tonight.

And tomorrow night.

And every succeeding night until you begin doing the big things you desire to do and stop your fussing and fretting about little things or the doing of them.

Self-pity grows into nothing but wailing and whining, and ultimately into bitterness. It does not bring you what you want.

Think of a can of crimson paint wishing it were crimson. All that is wrong is its attitude toward crimson itself.

If you take the non-idealized attitude, there is naught but suffering and misery. If you take the idealized attitude, God manifests through you in accord with your ideal, and there is always peace and joy.

The non-idealized attitude limits; the idealized attitude gives freedom.

So it is with love; if you try to shut it up, and its place substitute self-pity, there is sadness and suffering. But radiated love brings peace and joy and a glorious and eternal happiness.

Love is the most precious thing in the world!

Your greatest joy comes from expressing it.

Yet infinite love is sometimes locked up in what we call self-pity; and, instead of joy, there is suffering.

I repeat and emphasize: Self-pity is NOT a love within the self for the self; it is a love for others—a love locked up and unexpressed.

Express love and self-pity vanishes.

Love is expressed by action; not by words!

There is no limit of infinite love!

Love SURROUNDS you; it is on all sides of you; beneath you, above you!

Love EXTENDS out for you throughout the entire universe for billions of miles; it holds the sun and the stars so that that they move in HARMONY; except for love they would crash into each other and destroy the universe.

Love PERMEATES you; it is WITHIN you; it reaches to the inmost center of your being—even to the inmost cell of your physical body.

Love is EVER-PRESENT—in every MOMENT of eternity, as well as every WHERE in infinite space.

Attain this consciousness of love—whether it takes a week or a generation—and (since Love IS the Kingdom of Heaven) ALL other things which Christ promised shall come to you.

O SWEET SOUL OF LOVE

O Soul–mothered of love and sired of love–longing, ever longing for love–searching e’er for the path to thine Eden of of Love–hast thou not heard the Master say that bread cast upon the waters returneth an hundred fold?

Dost thou not know the nature of love?

As light shines ever outward from its source in the sun, so love ever outward shines from its source in the soul.

And, as light, turned back upon its source, consumes itself–so love returned to its source is self-consuming!

Thy self-pity is naught but soul-void–the dark emptiness of love for others turned back from its source, consuming itself.
As bread cast upon the waters returneth an hundred fold, so love sent forth comes back to thee a thousand fold!
– Brown Landone

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
-All’s Well That Ends Well | Act 1, Scene 1

“A heart to love, and in that heart, Courage, to make’s love known”
-Macbeth – Act 2, Scene 3

“I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

From Walden Chapter 18 “Conclusion”

“Pursue, keep up with, circle round and round your life, as a dog does his master’s chaise. Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still. Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much of life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good–be good for something. –All fables indeed have their morals, but the innocents enjoy the story.
Let nothing come between you and the light.”
―Letters to a Spiritual Seeker, Henry David Thoreau

“…the main objective of Hoʻoponopono is getting to “the state of Zero, where we would have zero limits. No memories. No identity.” To reach this state, use the mantra, “I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.”

-excerpted from Wikipedia

“You deserve a lover who wants you disheveled, with everything and all the reasons that wake you up in a haste and the demons that won’t let you sleep.
You deserve a lover who makes you feel safe, who can consume this world whole if he walks hand in hand with you; someone who believes that his embraces are a perfect match with your skin.
You deserve a lover who wants to dance with you, who goes to paradise every time he looks into your eyes and never gets tired of studying your expressions.
You deserve a lover who listens when you sing, who supports you when you feel shame and respects your freedom; who flies with you and isn’t afraid to fall.
You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.”
― Frida Kahlo

“I love you more than my own skin and even though you don’t love me the same way, you love me anyways, don’t you? And if you don’t, I’ll always have the hope that you do, and i’m satisfied with that. Love me a little. I adore you.”
― Frida Kahlo

“I am that clumsy human, always loving, loving, loving. And loving. And never leaving.”
– Frida Kahlo

“Perhaps the primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone. That all men are, when the chips are down, alone, is a banality — a banality because it is very frequently stated, but very rarely, on the evidence, believed. Most of us are not compelled to linger with the knowledge of our aloneness, for it is a knowledge that can paralyze all action in this world. There are, forever, swamps to be drained, cities to be created, mines to be exploited, children to be fed. None of these things can be done alone. But the conquest of the physical world is not man’s only duty. He is also enjoined to conquer the great wilderness of himself. The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through that vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.”
– James Baldwin

“…love brought you here.
If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now.”
– James Baldwin

“The universe, which is not merely the stars and the moon and the planets, flowers, grass, and trees, but all the people, has evolved no terms for your existence, has made no room for you, and if love will not swing wide the gates, no other power will or can.” -James A. Baldwin

“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” – James A. Baldwin

“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.”
– James A. Baldwin

“Be careful what you set your heart upon – for it will surely be yours.”
– James A. Baldwin

“Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.”
– James A. Baldwin

 

“Innocence, Baldwin argued, masks America’s violent racial past and present record, enabling white Americans to shirk responsibility and to reproduce an idea of themselves and of the United States based on the republic’s noble ideals rather than its ignoble history. Baldwin believed that no substantive racial progress, and no fundamental transformation of the nation, could be achieved so long as innocence remained the organizing feeling of American whiteness. This is why he had championed love as a countervailing feeling. In fact, he believed it to be the only remaining force powerful enough to free whiteness from its arrested state of innocence, concluding, “If love will not swing wide the gates, no other power will or can. 
– Dagmawi Woubshet

 

Baldwin attacks the assumption of an American keyword such as integration, which in 1963 widely meant the acceptance of African Americans by white people, institutions, and standards. Instead, he inverts that logic and insists that it’s African Americans who have to accept their white counterparts and change U.S. institutions and norms on black terms. Writing two years before the end of legal segregation, Baldwin demands black people not only to accept whites, but to do so with love, positioning black love as a vital instrument for white liberation and interracial renewal on a national scale.”
– Dagmawi Woubshet

 

 

“If we—and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others—do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.”
– James Baldwin

“Complexity is our only safety and love is the only key to our maturity.”
– James Baldwin

“Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover’s war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself and, with that revelation, to make freedom real.”
– James Baldwin

“In a country that remains in many ways emotionally infantile, and where simple-mindedness can be deemed a sign of strength, Baldwin’s fierce imagination remains an invaluable resource and provides a blueprint for America’s collective welfare.”
– Dagmawi Woubshet

 

Please read the full article by DAGMAWI WOUBSHET, Ahuja Family Presidential Associate Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. 

For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.
– Viktor E. Frankl

What is to give light must endure burning.
– Viktor E. Frankl

“By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic “the self-transcendence of human existence.” It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself–be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself–by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love–the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

INDIA ARIE “I Am Light”

I am light, I am light [x4]

I am not the things my family did
I am not the voices in my head
I am not the pieces of the brokenness inside

 “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.

There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung.
Nothing you can say, but you can learn
How to play the game
It’s easy.
Nothing you can make that can’t be made.
No one you can save that can’t be saved.
Nothing you can do, but you can learn
How to be you in time
It’s easy.

“Love is old, Love is new, Love is all, Love is you.”

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one.
– John Lennon

Love, Love, Love. All you need is love. Love is all you need.
– John Lennon

There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.
– John Lennon

It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love or how you love, it matters only that you love.
– John Lennon

If someone thinks that peace and love are just a cliche that must have been left behind in the 60s, that’s a problem. Peace and love are eternal.
– John Lennon

We live in a world where we have to hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight.
– John Lennon

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
– Howard Thurman

“WE ALL PREFERRED THE WORLD WE FOUND, TO THE ONE WE LEFT BEHIND.”

“Love isn’t something we invented. It’s observable, powerful, it has to mean something… Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.”
-Interstellar

“In one soul, in your soul, there are resources for the world.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you’re a stranger to your own wound, then you’re gonna be tempted to despise the wounded.”

“There is nothing more powerful than loving kindness.”

– Father Gregory Boyle

There are a thousand ways in which to acquire knowledge but it is only necessary to love in order to become wise. Knowledge demands a reply to the problems before which it stands baffled; love seeks only to serve and to it nothing is denied. To those who love us we yield the innermost secret of our souls, knowing that our most intimate treasure is safe in the hands of love to whom all is sacred; and thus it is that when we love become naked to love’s altar and feel no shame in the revelation of our poverty, knowing that we have brought our all and realizing that to the eyes of love there is no wealth but worship.

Love is the recognition of something greater than ourselves, something that lends all life its beauty, something that endures beyond the reach of death, and in the contemplation of this mystery we lose all thought of self and seek only to become one with it for ever. It is when we love, therefore, and only when we love, that we lose that cunning manipulation of our knowledge which we term worldly wisdom and which is in truth merely a weapon with which we seek to enforce the satisfaction of our selfish demands. When we love we live those values which previously were largely theoretical and so our lives become representative of our souls; then it is that we are amazed to discover the countless, invisible ties uniting ourselves with other and then we become aware of the spiritual brotherhood of man and so realize that no man lives unto himself alone.

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” “For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.” “The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars.
– Carl Sagan

“Not explaining science seems to me perverse. When you’re in love, you want to tell the world.”
– Carl Sagan

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
– Carl Sagan

“The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but it is really fear.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“Where there is love there is life.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imaginable.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“Hate the sin, love the sinner.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“Power is of two kinds: one is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“Forgiveness is choosing to love. It is the first skill of self-giving love.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“If we are to reach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with children; and if they will grow up in their natural innocence, we won’t have to struggle; we won’t have to pass fruitless idle resolutions, but we shall go from love to love and peace to peace, until at last all the corners of the world are covered with that peace and love for which consciously or unconsciously the whole world is hungering.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“The law of love could be best understood and learned through little children.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“If light can come out of darkness, then alone can love emerge from hatred.”
– Mahatma Gandhi (Satyagraha in South Africa)  

“I believe in the sovereign rule of love which makes no distinctions.”
– Mahatma Gandhi (Harijan, May 25, 1947)

“Love never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never resents, never revenges itself.”
– Mahatma Gandhi (Satyagraha in South Africa)

We are built to be kind.

Is the heart more than a glorious pump?

The Four Qualities of Love, by Thich Nhat Hanh

“Teach this triple truth to all:  A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.”
– The Buddha

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
– The Buddha

Silence the angry man with love. Silence the ill-natured man with kindness. Silence the miser with generosity. Silence the liar with truth.
– The Buddha

Love the whole world as a mother loves her only child.
– The Buddha

Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time. Hatred ceases through love. This is an unalterable law.
– The Buddha

Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.
– The Buddha

The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.
– The Buddha

Drop by drop is the water pot filled.
– The Buddha

Radiate boundless love towards the entire world — above, below, and across — unhindered, without ill will, without enmity.
– The Buddha

These are the benefits of Metta (Loving Kindness) as described by the Buddha:

1. you will sleep easily.
2. you will wake easily
3. you will have pleasant dreams
4. people will love you
5. devas (celestial  beings) and animals will love you
6. devas will protect you
7. external  dangers will not harm you

– The Buddha

“Put away all hindrances, let your mind full of love pervade one quarter of the world, and so too the second quarter, and so the third, and so the fourth. And thus the whole wide world, above, below, around and everywhere, altogether continue to pervade with love-filled thought, abounding, sublime beyond measure, free from hatred and ill-will.”

~Buddha

THE BUDDHA’S WORDS ON LOVING KINDNESS

(Karanīya Mettā Sutta)

(Now Let us chant the Buddha’s words on loving-kindness.)

This is what should be done

By one who is skilled in goodness

And who knows the path of peace:

Let them be able and upright,

Straightforward and gentle in speech,

Humble and not conceited,

Contented and easily satisfied,

Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.

Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,

Not proud and demanding in nature.

Let them not do the slightest thing

That the wise would later reprove,

Wishing: In gladness and in safety,

May all beings be at ease.

Whatever living beings there may be,

Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,

The great or the mighty, medium, short, or small,

The seen and the unseen,

Those living near and far away,

Those born and to be born,

May all beings be at ease.

Let none deceive another

Or despise any being in any state.

Let none through anger or ill-will

Wish harm upon another.

Even as a mother protects with her life

Her child, her only child,

So with a boundless heart

Should one cherish all living beings,

Radiating kindness over the entire world:

Spreading upwards to the skies

And downwards to the depths,

Outwards and unbounded,

Freed from hatred and ill-will.

Whether standing or walking, seated or lying

down,

Free from drowsiness,

One should sustain this recollection.

This is said to be the sublime abiding.

By not holding to fixed views,

The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,

Being freed from all sense-desires,

Is not born again into the world.

So cry if you must, but not for me,
since I am rising with thread in hand
and sewn to you with love’s loose stitch now
ready to ravel or pull for you at will.

1997 poem by Jeffrey Lee Betcher

More

There are only two emotions: one is Love and the other is fear. Love is our true reality. Fear is something our mind has made up, and is therefore unreal.
-Gerald Jampolsky, MD

Eros, the fiery, passionate love you feel toward a lover.

Philia, the platonic love between friends and family.

Ludus, the playfulness found among new lovers and children.

Pragma, the deep understanding between partners that grow over time.

Agape, the selfless, charitable love for our fellow humans.

Philautia, the love of the self.

“The truth is, indeed, that love is the threshold of another universe. Beyond the vibrations with which we are familiar, the rainbow-like range of its colours is still in full growth. But, for all the fascination that the lower shades have for us, it is only towards the “ultra” that the creation of light advances. It is in these invisible and, we might almost say, immaterial zones that we can look for true initiation into unity. The depths we attribute to matter are no more than the reflection of the peaks of spirit.”
–  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “The Evolution of Chastity” (1934), as translated by René Hague in Toward the Future (1975)

“If there were no real propensity to unite, even at a prodigiously rudimentary level, indeed in the molecule itself, it would be physically impossible for love to appear higher up in the ‘hominized’ or human form”  
– Teilhard de Chardin

“Love in all its subtleties is nothing more, and nothing less, than the more or less direct trace marked on the heart of the element by the psychical convergence of the universe upon itself.”
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“Love is the most powerful and still most unknown energy in the world.”
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves. All we need is to imagine our ability to love developing until it embraces the totality of men and the earth.”
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man

“At a finite distance in the future, a critical state of encounter will occur, an ultimate co-reflective Center. A focused conspiration will allure individual persons to identify with others in profound affinity. Because of thinking altogether, love will grow into Divinity.”
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“Today, something is happening to the whole structure of human consciousness. A fresh kind of life is starting. Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world are seeking each other, so that the world may come into being.”
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“Love is the most universal, the most tremendous and the most mystical of cosmic forces. Love is the primal and universal psychic energy. Love is a sacred reserve of energy; it is like the blood of spiritual evolution.”
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“A universal love is not only psychologically possible; it is the only complete and final way in which we are able to love.”
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“What name should we give…[to that] to that which all the activities displayed by the stuff of the universe are finally reduced? Only one name is possible: love. The physical structure of the universe is love.”
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“Self-love is the foundation of our loving practice. Without it our other efforts to love fail. Giving ourselves love we provide our inner being with the opportunity to have the unconditional love we may have always longed to receive from someone else. Whenever we interact with others, the love we give and receive is always necessarily conditional. Although it is not impossible, it is very difficult and rare for us to be able to extend unconditional love to others, largely because we cannot exercise control over the behavior of someone else and we cannot predict or utterly control our responses to their actions. We can, however, exercise control over our own actions.  We can give ourselves the unconditional love that is the grounding for sustained acceptance and affirmation. When we give this precious gift to ourselves, we are able to reach out to others from a place fulfillment and not from a place of lack.

One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others. There was a time when I felt lousy about my over-forty body, saw myself as too fat, too this or too that. Yet I fantasized about finding a lover who would give me the gift of being loved as I am. It is silly, isn’t it, that I would dream of someone else offering me the acceptance and affirmation I was withholding from myself. This was a moment when the maxim “You can never love anybody if you are unable to love yourself” made clear sense. And, I add, “Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself.”

In an ideal world, we would all learn in childhood to love ourselves. We would grow, being secure in our worth and value, spreading love wherever we went, letting our light shine If we did not learn self-love in our youth, there is still hope. The light of love is always in us, no matter how cold the flame. It is always present, waiting for the spark to ignite, waiting for the heart to awaken and call us back to the first memory of being the life force inside a dark place waiting to be born–waiting to see the light.”
– bell hooks, All About Love – New Visions

“A generous heart is always open, always ready to receive our going and coming. In the midst of such love we need never fear abandonment. This is the most precious gift true love offers – the experience of knowing we always belong.”
― Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“Abuse and neglect negate love. Care and affirmation, the opposite of abuse and humiliation, are the foundation of love. No one can rightfully claim to be loving when behaving abusively.”
― Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“In everyday life males and females alike are relatively silent about love, Our silence shields us from uncertainty. We want to know love. We are simply afraid the desire to know too much about love lead us closer and closer to the abyss of lovelessness. While ours is a nation wherein the vast majority of citizens are followers of religious faiths that proclaim the transformative power of love, many people feel that they do not have a clue as to how to love. And practically everyone suffers a crisis of faith when it comes to realizing biblical theories about the art of loving in everyday life. It is far easier to talk about loss than it is to talk about love. It is easier to articulate the pain of love’s absence than to describe its presence and meaning in our lives. 

Taught to believe that the mind, not the heart, is the seat of learning many of us believe that to speak of love with any emotional intensity means that we will be perceived as weak and irrational. And it is especially hard to speak of love when we what we have to say calls attention to the fact that lovelessness is more common than love, that many of us are not sure what we mean when we talk of Love or how to express love. 

Everyone wants to know more about love. We want to know what it means to love, what we can do in our everyday lives to love and to be loved. We want to know how to seduce those among us who remain wedded to lovelessness and open the door to their hearts to let love enter. The strength of our desire does not change the power of our cultural uncertainty. Everywhere we learn that love is important, yet we are bombarded by its failure. In the realm of the political, among the religious, in our families, and in our romantic lives, we see little indication that love informs decisions, strengthens our understanding of community, or keeps us together. This bleak picture in no way alters the nature of our longing. We still hope that love will prevail. We still believe in love’s promise.”
– bell hooks, All About Love

Alibaba Founder Jack Ma Says LQ Or ‘Love Quotient’ Is What Gives Humans The Edge Over Machines

LQ Explained

Jack Ma’s Love Machine

Take-Aways

• Love by being a teacher to the student. A good teacher always expects his students to do better than him. This is what Jack Ma learned in his entrepreneurial journey.
• Love by always endeavoring to know who is better than you and choose to learn from and work alongside that person unselfishly.
• Love by sharing your knowledge and expect the other person to be better.
• Love by always hiring people who show potential to be better than you are. Then love some more by training them, disciplining them, and supporting them.
• Love your teams (as leaders) and coworkers despite differences of opinion, and respect them with dignity in the journey toward a common goal or mission.
• Love by respecting and honoring other generations outside of your own.
• Measure your success (or your company’s success) not by your worth but how many problems you solved and how many people you helped in the world. This is the bottom line of your love quotient.

Refuge in Truth, Love and Awareness 

The three archetypal refuges of truth, love and awareness are interweaving pathways home found in most spiritual traditions. This talk looks at our habitual pursuit of substitutes to feel happy, and reflects on how we awaken through each true refuge. The talk ends with a living ritual anyone can participate in that helps us remember these refuges as we move through our lives.

Very interestingly, after twenty years of research and practice as a cardiologist, Ornish wrote in his book, Love and Survival, that no other factor in medicine, “not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery”, affects our health, quality and length of life more than feeling loved and cared for.

He believes that opening your heart means opening your heart anatomically, emotionally, and spiritually. This means that medical knowledge must be integrated with a deeper, ancient wisdom: that peace and well-being come from within. We need to open our heart to this truth of who we are. He states that heart disease needs to be treated with altruism, compassion, and love, “not just unclogging arteries.”

— Dean Shrock, Why love heals

The Ultimate Nature of the Universe is an Energy of Love

A fundamental quantum energy underlies and interconnects with all physical matter.

However, our physical senses set limits on what can be perceived. We perceive as real that which we have been conditioned to believe is true, including thinking of ourselves as separate from other human beings and other forms of matter.

Eminent physicist, Dr. David Bohm, suggests that any ideas and thoughts that do not support these conditioned beliefs create a pressure, and that “you accept as true any statement that will relieve that pressure.” Therefore, to have a clearer picture of reality, the first priority is to change our beliefs. He notes that our beliefs about our separateness is really a result of such pressures. These include fear, gain, greed, compromise, tradeoffs, and pressures to achieve. He says that this corruption of our consciousness could be healed by people having an understanding of our interconnectedness. We need to work together to change our consciousness to one of responsibility toward humankind.

Bohm, in collaboration with the Indian sage, Krishnamurti, believe that meditation is a means to transform the mind of conditioned thoughts. By quieting oneself through passive, focused attention, consciousness can be transformed. In a deeply relaxed, meditative state, the brain becomes quiet and sympathetic with the underlying universal frequency pattern. This allows a new means to perceive reality, an alternative way of knowing, which can reprogram the brain. 

Thinking is a filtering process and distorts true reality. Enlightenment, according to Bohm and Krishnamurti, is the channeling of the universal force to operate through us. They extend this proposition, blending physics, religion and mysticism. This “wholeness” which links the entire universe is a force of compassion, an active concern for all of creation. They conclude, “In short, the energy itself is love… the ultimate nature of the universe is an energy of love.”

Excerpt from Doctor’s Orders: Go Fishing by Dean Shrock, Ph.D.

Golden Precepts of Esotericism by G. de Purucker

Love is the Cement of the Universe

Love shows the way and lights the path; love is the flowing forth of the permeant light, the Buddhic splendor, the Christ light, at the heart of the universe — that love which, working in gods and men, teaches us to know beauty when we see it, especially inner beauty, to recognize greatness and splendor in others, from knowing the greatness and splendor in our own inmost being.

Love is the cement of the universe; it holds all things in place and in eternal keeping; its very nature is celestial peace, its very characteristic is cosmic harmony, permeating all things, boundless, deathless, infinite, eternal. It is everywhere, and is the very heart of the heart of all that is.

Love is the most beauteous, the holiest, thing known to human beings. It gives to man hope; it holds his heart in aspiration; it stimulates the noblest qualities of the human being, such as the sacrifice of self for others; it brings about self-forgetfulness; it brings also peace and joy that know no bounds. It is the noblest thing in the universe.

“Love ye one another” — a beautiful saying this, for it is an appeal to the very core of your nature, to the divine within you, to the inner god, whose essence is a celestial splendor. The essential light of you is almighty love.

Love is protective; love is puissant; it is all-penetrating; and the more impersonal it is, the higher it is and the more powerful. It knows no barriers either of space or of time, for it is nature’s fundamental activity, nature’s fundamental law, and it is the universal bond of union among all things. It will not only eat away the obstinacy of the stoniest of human hearts and dissolve the substance of the most adamantine of human minds, but it will slowly infuse its life-giving warmth everywhere. Nothing can bar its passage, for it is the very life-essence of the universe. For all beings and things are one, ultimately, all rooted in the one Life, and through all flows the steady, uninterrupted current of almighty love.

Love is the great attractive power which links thing to thing, human heart to human heart; and the higher one goes in evolution, the closer does love enwrap its tendrils through all the fiber of one’s being; or, to change the figure of speech, the more does the human heart expand with love, until finally it embraces in its folds all the universe, so that one comes to love all things both great and small, without distinction of place or time. Oh, the blessedness of this feeling, of this realization! It is divine; for love, impersonal love, is divine.

Personal love is but a reflection of it; and personal love is fallible, because the ray is so feeble. Anything that has as its motivating cause the desire for personal benefit is not true love.

In personal love the veils of personality begin to thicken before the inner eye, because personal desire collects and thickens into one’s aura — the surrounding psychic atmosphere — and condenses it, and this it is which causes the thickening of the psychic veils, obscuring the inner vision and understanding. The essence of true love is self-forgetfulness, and to this rule there are no exceptions.

If a man’s heart and mind are filled solely with a personal love, then he loves this but he does not love that; he loves something over there, but he does not love some other thing here, or vice versa — in other words, his love is limited in direct ratio with its personal character. That is the kind of love that is not wholly true, that is limited.

Impersonal love is lovely, beautiful, and has no trace of the things that we all dislike. It is always kindly to everything and to everybody — to beings and things both great and small; it is intuitive.

Responsibility, trust, confidence, love — these indeed bring happiness, strength, and joy. But you will not understand these grand qualities nor truly feel them if your heart is filled with purely personal limited feelings and thoughts. Your heart will not have a place for them, will not contain them if it is filled with merely personal things.

For personal love is never responsible, has no sense of responsibility. It cannot trust; it cannot truly confide; it cannot utterly give, because the “I” is there in strength all the time and its one thought is: for me, for me, for me. This is the trouble in the world today, and all troubles and sorrows will cease in large, large, large degree when men and women can love each other impersonally, when men can look upon their fellow man as a human hero, and when women will trust their own sex, which they will do when they have this vision — the vision sublime.

It is precisely this selfish personal love which has brought sorrow, suffering, and misery into human life, just as impersonal love cleanses and purifies and makes men’s hearts glad.

There is something beautiful about a human heart which can give itself without thought of recompense or of the pain that the giving temporarily may cause the giver. That love which is given without thought of or for self, which has no frontiers and no conditions, is divine. True love is impersonal always.

Love is peace; love is harmony; love is self-forgetfulness; love is strength; it is power; it is vision; it is evolution. Its power so expands the inner nature that slowly you become sympathetic, because you become at one with the entire home universe in which you live and move and have your being; and because it is harmony itself, and because it is of the very essence of the core of the universe, you become at one with the divinity in the heart of all things.

Impersonal love is divine. It illuminates the heart; it broadens the mind; it fills the soul with a sense of oneness with all that is; so that you could no more injure a fellow creature than you could do a wrong deliberately and willfully to some thing, or to the individual, that personally you love best on earth.

Love is mighty. It is the greatest thing in human life, because it is the greatest thing in the life of the gods, of which human life is but a poor and inadequate reflection. One’s whole nature pours out its glorious stream of sympathy for all that is. Life becomes ennobled from the very beginning, and you see before you, even on those distant horizons of the future, complete understanding of everything, with everything, and a reunion of all entities and things into one consciousness, wherein hatred, strife, disunion, misunderstanding, will have vanished away.

A faint reflection of this love is the love of one human being for another — very faint it is, but it is at least the beginning of self-forgetfulness. But once the soul is illuminated with impersonal love’s holy splendor, then you truly live.

Impersonal love asks no reward, it gives all and therefore gives itself. Love is an illumination. Love is inspiring; it opens the doors of the mind, because it cracks the bonds of the lower selfhood hemming in the god within. When you love impersonally then the divine fires flow out, and man becomes truly man.

Love is a mighty power. Perfect love casteth out all fear. He whose heart is filled with love and pity never knows what fear is; there is no room for it in his heart. Love all that lives and you then ally yourself with invincible cosmic powers and you become strong and spiritually and intellectually clairvoyant. You will never fear anything in proportion as your heart is filled with love and understanding, because love — perfect love — bringeth understanding. You will then never fear poverty; you will never fear death.

You can overcome fear by visualizing to yourself actions and thoughts of high and noble courage. Think of yourself as doing courageous actions. Study and admire courageous actions in others. Study and admire courageous thought in others. Grow to love courage, so that you follow it. Then you become it and fear will vanish away like the mists of the night before the rising sun. There lies the secret of overcoming fear: it is to use the creative imagination.

These are practical rules of ethics, practical rules of human conduct; and oh, the pity that mankind has lost sight of them! Men will be ruled by fear just as long as they love themselves; for then they will be afraid of everything that is going to happen — afraid to venture, afraid to act, to do, to think, for fear lest they lose. And they will then lose. “That which I had feared has come upon me!” It is always so.

It is the great men who do not fear, who venture, who act, who do — for they are the doers; and they are also the thinkers of the world; because in either case they have no fear. They love the things that they do. Therefore they have no fear.

The strong man is he who loves, not he who hates. The weak man hates because he is limited and small. He can neither see nor feel the other’s pain and sorrow, nor even sense so easy a thing as the other’s viewpoint. But the man who loves recognizes his kinship with all things. His whole nature shines with the beauty within him, expands with the inner fire which flames itself forth in beautiful and symmetrical thoughts, and therefore in beautiful and kindly acts. His very features will soften and become kindly; he will not be feared; he will not be hated.

Impersonal love is magical; it works marvels; it will break even stony human hearts. Nothing, not even hate, can withstand its passage. Follow the ancient law: hate not. Conquer hatred by love. Requite never hate with hate, for thus you but add fuel to an unholy flame. Requite hatred with compassion and justice. Give justice when you receive injustice. Thus you ally yourself with nature’s own spiritual procedures and you become a child of the cosmic life, which thereafter will beat in your own heart with its undying pulses.

Be yourself, and expand your sympathies; touch with the tendrils of your consciousness the hearts of other human beings. What delight to feel, as it were, the inner and electrical quiver that your own soul experiences when you have touched the heart of a fellow human being!

Let your heart expand with the divine energies latent within it: love, compassion, pity, understanding of others, kindliness, the vision of beauty in the light of love, and of love in the light of the beauty that itself emanates.

Be kindly; refuse to hate. Let your heart expand.

Another step which leads to the pathway of divine love is forgiveness. Forgiveness is the movement of the heart which will lead you to make the first step on the upward way; it is in truth one of the steps to divine love. True forgiveness requires strength of character, real manhood, real discrimination, and intellectual power; it is the refusing to bear resentment, to nourish a grudge, to cultivate hatred; and forgiveness means also to cleanse your own heart of these vile and degrading impulses.

Here is the illustration: you have been wronged. Which of these twain will you do: nourish resentment, cultivate hatred, bide the time when you may pay back in the same coin, thereby increasing the trouble and heart agony of the world by double? Or will you say: No, I will forgive; I myself have laid the way open for this, for I myself in the past have brought this pain upon me. Unhappy man who harms me! I will forgive him.

The evildoer knows not what he is doing. He is weak. He is blind. Whereas he with a forgiving heart sees and is strong: for love forgives all things, and the reason that it does so is because it sympathizes, it understands. Understanding brings insight.

Learn to forgive; and forgive when forgiving is needed. Not the mere lip-forgiving, when there is no temptation upon you to hate, but forgive when forgiveness means calling forth the strength in you. Love when there is a mean and selfish impulse upon you to hate, because loving then shows spiritual exercise which means strength and grandeur within you.

This is very strengthening for you in your inner constitution. The effort and the result pacify disputes, allay distress, stimulate trust and kindly feeling; and to him who sincerely and successfully forgives there come a peace and a consciousness of strength which nothing else ever can bring.

Forgive and love your fellows, and let that love which fills your heart with its holy light and illumines your mind with its divine splendor, let it go out to all that lives, without bounding it, without laying frontiers for it; and your reward will be very great. For love is not only evocative of love in other hearts, but it is very elevating to yourself. It brings out not solely the beautiful things in the souls of those whom you love, but it develops your own faculties and powers.

Forgive and love; and you thereby place your feet on the pathway which will lead you direct to the spiritual sun which rises eternally with healing in its wings. Forgive and love; and before you know it, you will feel the sweet influence of the Buddhic splendor — the Christ spirit — stealing all through your being. You will then become a beneficent power on earth, not merely beloved of your fellow men, but a blessing to all beings. You will then be making a beginning in the proper use of the sublime faculties and powers native to the god within you; you will understand all things, because love is truly clairvoyant and is a mighty power.

Learn to forgive, for it is sublime; learn to love, for it is divine.

Source.

The Universe Is Love
Thursday, February 22, 2018

The future can exist only when we understand the universe as composed of subjects to be communed with, not as objects to be exploited. —Thomas Berry [1]

Cynthia Bourgeault, a faculty member at the Center for Action and Contemplation, writes about how the ancient Wisdom tradition views creation:

Contrary to our usual theological notion, which sees God as “having” certain qualities—such as love, truth, and justice—Wisdom correctly perceives that there are certain states, or qualities of being, that cannot be known (or even truly said to exist) in potential but only in actual manifestation. God “has” these qualities by virtue of enactingthem. “I was a hidden treasure and longed to be known,” says God, according to an ancient Islamic teaching, “and so I created the world.” [2]

Foremost among these qualities . . . is love. In the Christian West we are accustomed to rattling off the statement “God is love” [1 John 4: 8, 16]. . . . Love is a relational word, and that relationship presumes duality, or twoness, “because,” in the words of Valentin Tomberg (1900-1973), “love is inconceivable without the Lover and the Loved, without ME and YOU, without One and the Other.” [3] In order for love to manifest, there must first be duality. . . . In the words of another Sufi maxim whose truth is apparent to anyone who has ever experienced the sublime dance of recognition and mutual becoming at the heart of all love: “You are the mirror in which God sees himself.”

. . . As we begin orienting ourselves on the Wisdom road map, it is with the recognition that our manifest universe is not simply an “object” created by a wholly other God out of the effluence of [God’s] love but is that love itself,made manifest in the only possible way that it can, in the dimensions of energy and form. The created realm is not an artifact but an instrument through which the divine life becomes perceptible to itself. It’s the way the score gets transformed into the music.

References:
[1] Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future (Three Rivers Press: 1999), x-xi.

[2] This saying belongs to the Haddith Qudsi, or extra Qur’anic revelation.

[3] Anonymous, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism, trans. Robert Powell (Tarcher/Putnam: 2002), 33. Tomberg requested that this book be published anonymously to allow the work to speak for itself.

Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Way of Knowing: Reclaiming an Ancient Tradition to Awaken the Heart (Jossey-Bass: 2003), 51-52, 53.

“In the universal sense, love is the divine power of attraction in creation that harmonizes, unites, binds together. It is opposed by the force of repulsion, which is the outgoing cosmic energy that materializes creation from the cosmic consciousness of God. Repulsion keeps all forms in the manifested state through maya, the power of delusion that divides, differentiates, and disharmonizes. The attractive force of love counteracts cosmic repulsion to harmonize all creation and ultimately draw it back to God. Those who live in tune with the attractive force of love; achieve harmony with nature and their fellow beings, and are attracted to blissful reunion with God.” 
-Paramahansa Yogananda

“Love gives joy. We love love because it gives us such intoxicating happiness. So love is not the ultimate; the ultimate is bliss. God is Sat-Chit-Ananda, ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss. We, as souls, are individualized Sat-Chit-Ananda. “From Joy we have come, in Joy we live and have our being, and in that sacred Joy we will one day melt again.”[Taittiriya Upanishad 3-6-1]”
-Paramahansa Yogananda

“Real love is when you are constantly watching the progress of the soul. As soon as you cater to someone’s physical desires and bad habits you are not loving that soul anymore. You are just pleasing that person to avoid ill will. No matter how unpleasant it is to tell a friend that he is wrong, if you say it with love in your heart and stand firm on it, sometimes that person will respect you if you are right. If you are wrong, even then he will know that you did it with sincerity, out of love.”
-Paramahansa Yogananda

“Wisdom is a chisel, love is the sandpaper. Man needs intellectuality, but intellect must be tempered with love. When you carving a piece of furniture, you have to smooth it with sandpaper or it will remain rough. Love is the sandpaper that takes away the harshness of intelligence, and smooths your intellectuality.”
-Paramahansa Yogananda

“There was in India a devoted husband who loved his wife very deeply. Another man became infatuated with her. She ran away with her lover, who eventually left her without friends or funds. One day her husband came to see her. He spoke gently. ‘Are you through with this experience? Come home with me, if you are.’ She demurred. ‘I could not think of disgracing you further.’ ‘What do I care about the opinion of society?’ he replied. ‘I love you. The other man loved only your body. I love the real you – your soul. What has happened doesn’t make any difference’. That was real love. The husband wasn’t concerned for his honour; he was thinking only of the welfare of his beloved.”
-Paramahansa Yogananda

“There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt. It’s true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it’s more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They’re opposites. If we’re in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we’re in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear.”
– Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others but ourselves as well.”
– Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“Consciously or not, we are all on a quest for answers, trying to learn the lessons of life. We grapple with fear and guilt. We search for meaning, love, and power. We try to understand fear, loss, and time. We seek to discover who we are and how we can become truly happy.”– Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“I think modern medicine has become like a prophet offering a life free of pain. It is nonsense. The only thing I know that truly heals people is unconditional love.”
– Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us.
– Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“We need to teach the next generation of children from day one that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind’s greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear.” 
– Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
– Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (Death: The Final Stage of Growth, 1975)

Hannah Arendt, Denktagebuch I: 522

Golden Precepts of Esotericism by G. de Purucker, Chapter 5

Love shows the way and lights the path; love is the flowing forth of the permeant light, the Buddhic splendor, the Christ light, at the heart of the universe — that love which, working in gods and men, teaches us to know beauty when we see it, especially inner beauty, to recognize greatness and splendor in others, from knowing the greatness and splendor in our own inmost being.

Love is the cement of the universe; it holds all things in place and in eternal keeping; its very nature is celestial peace, its very characteristic is cosmic harmony, permeating all things, boundless, deathless, infinite, eternal. It is everywhere, and is the very heart of the heart of all that is.

Love is the most beauteous, the holiest, thing known to human beings. It gives to man hope; it holds his heart in aspiration; it stimulates the noblest qualities of the human being, such as the sacrifice of self for others; it brings about self-forgetfulness; it brings also peace and joy that know no bounds. It is the noblest thing in the universe.

“Love ye one another” — a beautiful saying this, for it is an appeal to the very core of your nature, to the divine within you, to the inner god, whose essence is a celestial splendor. The essential light of you is almighty love.

Love is protective; love is puissant; it is all-penetrating; and the more impersonal it is, the higher it is and the more powerful. It knows no barriers either of space or of time, for it is nature’s fundamental activity, nature’s fundamental law, and it is the universal bond of union among all things. It will not only eat away the obstinacy of the stoniest of human hearts and dissolve the substance of the most adamantine of human minds, but it will slowly infuse its life-giving warmth everywhere. Nothing can bar its passage, for it is the very life-essence of the universe. For all beings and things are one, ultimately, all rooted in the one Life, and through all flows the steady, uninterrupted current of almighty love.

Love is the great attractive power which links thing to thing, human heart to human heart; and the higher one goes in evolution, the closer does love enwrap its tendrils through all the fiber of one’s being; or, to change the figure of speech, the more does the human heart expand with love, until finally it embraces in its folds all the universe, so that one comes to love all things both great and small, without distinction of place or time. Oh, the blessedness of this feeling, of this realization! It is divine; for love, impersonal love, is divine.

Personal love is but a reflection of it; and personal love is fallible, because the ray is so feeble. Anything that has as its motivating cause the desire for personal benefit is not true love.

In personal love the veils of personality begin to thicken before the inner eye, because personal desire collects and thickens into one’s aura — the surrounding psychic atmosphere — and condenses it, and this it is which causes the thickening of the psychic veils, obscuring the inner vision and understanding. The essence of true love is self-forgetfulness, and to this rule there are no exceptions.

If a man’s heart and mind are filled solely with a personal love, then he loves this but he does not love that; he loves something over there, but he does not love some other thing here, or vice versa — in other words, his love is limited in direct ratio with its personal character. That is the kind of love that is not wholly true, that is limited.

Impersonal love is lovely, beautiful, and has no trace of the things that we all dislike. It is always kindly to everything and to everybody — to beings and things both great and small; it is intuitive.

Responsibility, trust, confidence, love — these indeed bring happiness, strength, and joy. But you will not understand these grand qualities nor truly feel them if your heart is filled with purely personal limited feelings and thoughts. Your heart will not have a place for them, will not contain them if it is filled with merely personal things.

For personal love is never responsible, has no sense of responsibility. It cannot trust; it cannot truly confide; it cannot utterly give, because the “I” is there in strength all the time and its one thought is: for me, for me, for me. This is the trouble in the world today, and all troubles and sorrows will cease in large, large, large degree when men and women can love each other impersonally, when men can look upon their fellow man as a human hero, and when women will trust their own sex, which they will do when they have this vision — the vision sublime.

It is precisely this selfish personal love which has brought sorrow, suffering, and misery into human life, just as impersonal love cleanses and purifies and makes men’s hearts glad.

There is something beautiful about a human heart which can give itself without thought of recompense or of the pain that the giving temporarily may cause the giver. That love which is given without thought of or for self, which has no frontiers and no conditions, is divine. True love is impersonal always.

Love is peace; love is harmony; love is self-forgetfulness; love is strength; it is power; it is vision; it is evolution. Its power so expands the inner nature that slowly you become sympathetic, because you become at one with the entire home universe in which you live and move and have your being; and because it is harmony itself, and because it is of the very essence of the core of the universe, you become at one with the divinity in the heart of all things.

Impersonal love is divine. It illuminates the heart; it broadens the mind; it fills the soul with a sense of oneness with all that is; so that you could no more injure a fellow creature than you could do a wrong deliberately and willfully to some thing, or to the individual, that personally you love best on earth.

Love is mighty. It is the greatest thing in human life, because it is the greatest thing in the life of the gods, of which human life is but a poor and inadequate reflection. One’s whole nature pours out its glorious stream of sympathy for all that is. Life becomes ennobled from the very beginning, and you see before you, even on those distant horizons of the future, complete understanding of everything, with everything, and a reunion of all entities and things into one consciousness, wherein hatred, strife, disunion, misunderstanding, will have vanished away.

A faint reflection of this love is the love of one human being for another — very faint it is, but it is at least the beginning of self-forgetfulness. But once the soul is illuminated with impersonal love’s holy splendor, then you truly live.

Impersonal love asks no reward, it gives all and therefore gives itself. Love is an illumination. Love is inspiring; it opens the doors of the mind, because it cracks the bonds of the lower selfhood hemming in the god within. When you love impersonally then the divine fires flow out, and man becomes truly man.

Love is a mighty power. Perfect love casteth out all fear. He whose heart is filled with love and pity never knows what fear is; there is no room for it in his heart. Love all that lives and you then ally yourself with invincible cosmic powers and you become strong and spiritually and intellectually clairvoyant. You will never fear anything in proportion as your heart is filled with love and understanding, because love — perfect love — bringeth understanding. You will then never fear poverty; you will never fear death.

You can overcome fear by visualizing to yourself actions and thoughts of high and noble courage. Think of yourself as doing courageous actions. Study and admire courageous actions in others. Study and admire courageous thought in others. Grow to love courage, so that you follow it. Then you become it and fear will vanish away like the mists of the night before the rising sun. There lies the secret of overcoming fear: it is to use the creative imagination.

These are practical rules of ethics, practical rules of human conduct; and oh, the pity that mankind has lost sight of them! Men will be ruled by fear just as long as they love themselves; for then they will be afraid of everything that is going to happen — afraid to venture, afraid to act, to do, to think, for fear lest they lose. And they will then lose. “That which I had feared has come upon me!” It is always so.

It is the great men who do not fear, who venture, who act, who do — for they are the doers; and they are also the thinkers of the world; because in either case they have no fear. They love the things that they do. Therefore they have no fear.

The strong man is he who loves, not he who hates. The weak man hates because he is limited and small. He can neither see nor feel the other’s pain and sorrow, nor even sense so easy a thing as the other’s viewpoint. But the man who loves recognizes his kinship with all things. His whole nature shines with the beauty within him, expands with the inner fire which flames itself forth in beautiful and symmetrical thoughts, and therefore in beautiful and kindly acts. His very features will soften and become kindly; he will not be feared; he will not be hated.

Impersonal love is magical; it works marvels; it will break even stony human hearts. Nothing, not even hate, can withstand its passage. Follow the ancient law: hate not. Conquer hatred by love. Requite never hate with hate, for thus you but add fuel to an unholy flame. Requite hatred with compassion and justice. Give justice when you receive injustice. Thus you ally yourself with nature’s own spiritual procedures and you become a child of the cosmic life, which thereafter will beat in your own heart with its undying pulses.

Be yourself, and expand your sympathies; touch with the tendrils of your consciousness the hearts of other human beings. What delight to feel, as it were, the inner and electrical quiver that your own soul experiences when you have touched the heart of a fellow human being!

Let your heart expand with the divine energies latent within it: love, compassion, pity, understanding of others, kindliness, the vision of beauty in the light of love, and of love in the light of the beauty that itself emanates.

Be kindly; refuse to hate. Let your heart expand.

Another step which leads to the pathway of divine love is forgiveness. Forgiveness is the movement of the heart which will lead you to make the first step on the upward way; it is in truth one of the steps to divine love. True forgiveness requires strength of character, real manhood, real discrimination, and intellectual power; it is the refusing to bear resentment, to nourish a grudge, to cultivate hatred; and forgiveness means also to cleanse your own heart of these vile and degrading impulses.

Here is the illustration: you have been wronged. Which of these twain will you do: nourish resentment, cultivate hatred, bide the time when you may pay back in the same coin, thereby increasing the trouble and heart agony of the world by double? Or will you say: No, I will forgive; I myself have laid the way open for this, for I myself in the past have brought this pain upon me. Unhappy man who harms me! I will forgive him.

The evildoer knows not what he is doing. He is weak. He is blind. Whereas he with a forgiving heart sees and is strong: for love forgives all things, and the reason that it does so is because it sympathizes, it understands. Understanding brings insight.

Learn to forgive; and forgive when forgiving is needed. Not the mere lip-forgiving, when there is no temptation upon you to hate, but forgive when forgiveness means calling forth the strength in you. Love when there is a mean and selfish impulse upon you to hate, because loving then shows spiritual exercise which means strength and grandeur within you.

This is very strengthening for you in your inner constitution. The effort and the result pacify disputes, allay distress, stimulate trust and kindly feeling; and to him who sincerely and successfully forgives there come a peace and a consciousness of strength which nothing else ever can bring.

Forgive and love your fellows, and let that love which fills your heart with its holy light and illumines your mind with its divine splendor, let it go out to all that lives, without bounding it, without laying frontiers for it; and your reward will be very great. For love is not only evocative of love in other hearts, but it is very elevating to yourself. It brings out not solely the beautiful things in the souls of those whom you love, but it develops your own faculties and powers.

Forgive and love; and you thereby place your feet on the pathway which will lead you direct to the spiritual sun which rises eternally with healing in its wings. Forgive and love; and before you know it, you will feel the sweet influence of the Buddhic splendor — the Christ spirit — stealing all through your being. You will then become a beneficent power on earth, not merely beloved of your fellow men, but a blessing to all beings. You will then be making a beginning in the proper use of the sublime faculties and powers native to the god within you; you will understand all things, because love is truly clairvoyant and is a mighty power.

Learn to forgive, for it is sublime; learn to love, for it is divine.

https://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/goldprec/gp-5.htm

“He who works with his hands is a laborer.
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.”
– Saint Francis of Assisi

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
when there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand,
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying [to ourselves] that we are born to eternal life.” 
― Francis Of Assisi

“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where these is hatred, let me sow love.” 
― St. Francis of Assisi

“Blessed is the servant who loves his brother as much when he is sick and useless as when he is well and an be of service to him. And blessed is he who loves his brother as well when he is afar off as when he is by his side, and who would say nothing behind his back he might not, in love, say before his face.” 
― St. Francis of Assisi

“O Divine Master, grant that I may not seek to be consoled, as to console. To be understood, as to understand. To be loved, as to love. For it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” 
― St. Francis of Assisi

“And St. Francis added: “My dear and beloved Brother, the treasure of blessed poverty is so very precious and divine that we are not worthy to possess it in our vile bodies. For poverty is that heavenly virtue by which all earthy and transitory things are trodden under foot, and by which every obstacle is removed from the soul so that it may freely enter into union with the eternal Lord God. It is also the virtue which makes the soul, while still here on earth, converse with the angels in Heaven. It is she who accompanied Christ on the Cross, was buried with Christ in the Tomb, and with Christ was raised and ascended into Heaven, for even in this life she gives to souls who love her the ability to fly to Heaven, and she alone guards the armor of true humility and charity.” 
― St. Francis of Assisi, The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi

Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you; through those who endure sickness and trial. Happy those who endure in peace, for they will be crowned.” 
― St. Francis of Assisi

For decades, Fr. Gregory Boyle has helped thousands of “homies” – at-risk, gang-involved youth – heal from wounds of all kinds to live productive lives. 

“And you stand with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. And you stand with those whose dignity has been denied. And you stand with those whose burdens are more than they can bear. And you stand against forgetting that we belong to each other. You obliterate the illusion that we are separate, that there is an ‘us’ and a ‘them.’” 

– Father Gregory Boyle

“What if infinite love–and note the speed of light–were the absolute constant in the universe? And what if all things were contained in this Unified Field of Love?  This would mean that love and joy reside deepest within us–even beneath our deepest fear and despair.”
– Dr. Allen Roland

“You can well imagine my excitement when I recently learned that scientific research theoretically confirmed through experiments that a Fifth natural force of the universe does exist and that it could well be the manifestation of one grander, more fundamental force. To me, this is not a theory but a fact that I maintain and have long demonstrated, in my work and published writings, that this fundamental force is in reality a Unified Field of love and soul consciousness that exists not only beyond time and space but also beneath our deepest fear and whose principle property is the universal urge to unite ~ which we continue to resist at our global peril.”
–Allen Roland, PhD

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
– Albert Einstein

“Here is the greatest and the smallest, the remotest and the nearest, the highest and the lowest, and we cannot discuss one side of it without also discussing the other. No language is adequate to this paradox. Whatever one can say, no words express the whole…Love “bears all things” and “endures all things” (I Cor. 13:7). These words say all there is to be said; nothing can be added to them. For we are, in the deepest sense, the victims and instruments of cosmogonic “love”. I put the word in quotation marks to indicated that I do not use use it in its connotations of desiring, preferring, favoring, wishing, and similar feelings, but as something superior to the individual, a unified and undivided whole. He is at its mercy. He may assent to it, or rebel against it; but he is always caught up by it and enclosed within it. He is dependent upon it and sustained by it. Love is his light and his darkness, whose end he cannot see. “Love ceases not” whether he speaks of the “tongue of the angels” or with scientific exactitude traces the life of the cell down to its uttermost source. Man can try to name love, showering upon it all the names at his command, and still he will involve himself in endless self-deceptions. If he possesses a grain of wisdom, he will lay down his arms and name the unknown by the more unknown. “ignotum per ignotius” – this is, by the name of God. That is a confession of his subjection, his imperfection and his dependence; but at the same time a testimony to his freedom to choose between truth and error. “

– C.J. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1963

“I used to think That being rich Meant … Having lots and LOTS of money, And getting And doing Everything You want. But I was wrong. Now I know That being rich Means … Having lots and LOTS of love, Honesty, Respect, And friends. So no matter How poor Or wealthy You may be, It is always Friends and Gifts of the heart That really count.”
– Mattie J.T. Stepanek

Heaven’s Smile
“On New Year’s Eve, look out at the moon That will bring new tomorrows. And if the moon is God’s thumb-nail, Then you can see Heaven’s smile. Know that the smile is a gift, In the middle of the Angel-Stars Watching over us from above. Know that the cold air of winter brings us hugs, As we keep tightly with each other for warmth. If you understand this, It will help you to get wiser and stronger. It will help our Heartsongs to grow. It will help peace to spread in the world. It will help Mother Earth to live another year. And if you see a shooting star, Know that it is very special Even if we don’t really get to wish on it. Understand that the gift is to our heart, and We can always wish within our heart. My wish, even if it is only in my heart, Is for a safer next year that is not so rough, And that I am wishing on the eve of A peaceful new year, and years. So remember, Every New Year’s Eve, look up into the sky, and See Heaven’s smile in whatever moon is there. It will be a reflection of life and love, And a gift for you to meditate About the past, the present, and our future, As we get stronger in understanding each year.”
– Mattie J.T. Stepanek

Royal Decree
“Once you make a friend, Never stop being a friend to them. Celebrate all the holidays, somehow. Don’t drink alcohol unwisely. Do not be evil, mean, or bad. Don’t say any bad words, Especially words like “Shut Up!” Believe in the Clean-Dish Fairy. Put on the porch light if A family member is out after dark. Use your best manners, no exceptions. Always have an interest. Be gentle with people and the earth. Don’t do any bad things. Be patient with yourself and others. Be good everywhere you are and go. Decree that you love life, every day.”
– Mattie J.T. Stepanek

About Friendship
“It is good to have a friend … Someone to comfort, and Someone to be comforted by. Someone to trust, and Someone to be trusted by. Someone to play with, and Someone who will play with you. It is good to have a friend … A true friend offers respect and honesty. A true friend shows consideration and trust. A true friend cares and supports gently. True friends work together as a team. It is good to have a friend … Friendship is a very special gift. Friendship is a very special bond. Friendship is a very special relationship Between and among people. It is good to have a friend … When one has a friend, One can feel loved for being oneself. When one has a friend, One can believe and rejoice in the moment. When one has a friend, One can travel through life in contentment. It is good to have a friend … Hand-to-hand, Heart-to-heart, Spirit-to-spirit, Friendship is the key that opens The door to harmony, The river of peace, and The hope of the future. It is good to have, and to be, a friend.”
– Mattie J.T. Stepanek

AIMLESS LOVE

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,

I fell in love with a wren

and later in the day with a mouse

the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

In the shadows of an autumn evening,

I fell for a seamstress

still at her machine in the tailor’s window,

and later for a bowl of broth,

steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.

This is the best kind of love, I thought,

without recompense, without gifts,

or unkind words, without suspicion,

or silence on the telephone.

The love of the chestnut,

the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.

No lust, no slam of the door –

the love of the miniature orange tree,

the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,

the highway that cuts across Florida.

No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor –

just a twinge every now and then

for the wren who had built her nest

on a low branch overhanging the water

and for the dead mouse,

still dressed in its light brown suit.

But my heart is always propped up

in a field on its tripod,

ready for the next arrow.

After I carried the mouse by the tail

to a pile of leaves in the woods,

I found myself standing at the bathroom sink

gazing down affectionately at the soap,

so patient and soluble,

so at home in its pale green soap dish.

I could feel myself falling again

as I felt its turning in my wet hands

and caught the scent of lavender and stone.

-Billy Collins

“Let me tell you about love, that silly word you believe is about whether you like somebody or whether somebody likes you or whether you can put up with somebody in order to get something or someplace you want or you believe it has to do with how your body responds to another body like robins or bison or maybe you believe love is how forces or nature or luck is benign to you in particular not maiming or killing you but if so doing it for your own good. Love is none of that. There is nothing in nature like it. Not in robins or bison or in the banging tails of your hunting dogs and not in blossoms or suckling foal. Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are blind. It is a learned application without reason or motive except that it is God. You do not deserve love regardless of the suffering you have endured. You do not deserve love because somebody did you wrong. You do not deserve love just because you want it. You can only earn – by practice and careful contemplations – the right to express it and you have to learn how to accept it. Which is to say you have to earn God. You have to practice God. You have to think God-carefully. And if you are a good and diligent student you may secure the right to show love. Love is not a gift. It is a diploma. A diploma conferring certain privileges: the privilege of expressing love and the privilege of receiving it. How do you know you have graduated? You don’t. What you do know is that you are human and therefore educable, and therefore capable of learning how to learn, and therefore interesting to God, who is interested only in Himself which is to say He is interested only in love. Do you understand me? God is not interested in you. He is interested in love and the bliss it brings to those who understand and share the interest. Couples that enter the sacrament of marriage and are not prepared to go the distance or are not willing to get right with the real love of God cannot thrive. They may cleave together like robins or gulls or anything else that mates for life. But if they eschew this mighty course, at the moment when all are judged for the disposition of their eternal lives, their cleaving won’t mean a thing. God bless the pure and holy. Amen.” 
― Toni Morrison, Paradise

“Even as a mother protects with her life 
Her child, her only child,
So, with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings.”
– Metta Sutta

“So with a boundless heart, should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world: Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths; Outwards and Unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will. Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down,
Free from drowsiness, one should sustain this recollection, This is said to be the sublime abiding.”
– Metta Sutta

Loving-kindness, or metta, as it in called in the Pali language, is unconditional, inclusive love, a love with wisdom. It has no conditions; it does not depend on whether one “deserves” it or not; it is not restricted to friends and family; it extends out from personal categories to include all living beings. There are no expectations of anything in return. This is the ideal, pure love, which everyone has in potential. We begin with loving ourselves, for unless we have a measure of this unconditional love and acceptance for ourselves, it is difficult to extend it to others. Then we include others who are special to us, and, ultimately, all living things. Gradually, both the visualization and the meditation phrases blend into the actual experience, the feeling of loving kindness.

This is a meditation of care, concern, tenderness, loving kindness, friendship–a feeling of warmth for oneself and others. The practice is the softening of the mind and heart, an opening to deeper and deeper levels of the feeling of kindness, of pure love. Loving kindness is without any desire to possess another. It is not a sentimental feeling of goodwill, not an obligation, but comes from a selfless place. It does not depend on relationships, on how the other person feels about us. The process is first one of softening, breaking down barriers that we feel inwardly toward ourselves, and then those that we feel toward others.
–The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society

Metta/good will, Non-harm (compassion)

The Eightfold path moves from wise understanding through wise intention to wise action (the cultivation of Karma)  

Venerable Maha Ghosananda:

The thought manifests as the word;

The word manifests as the deed;

The deed develops into the habit;

Habit hardens into the character;

Character gives birth to the destiny

So, watch your thoughts with care,

And let them spring from love

Born out of respect for all beings…

Metta: loving kindness, good will, benevolence, acceptance

“The purpose of loving-kindness and compassion practices is to cultivate the intention to embrace all parts of yourself and to overcome feelings of separation from yourself and others. Thus, you learn to receive and work with your faults as sources of needless suffering and spontaneously move toward change in order to relieve that suffering.”   – Phillip Moffitt

Metta practice is often taught as a series of phrases, repeated for oneself and others

May I (you/they/all) be safe, happy and healthy 

May I (you/they/all) be filled with peace, calm and loving kindness

May (you/they/all) my life unfold with ease

The Buddha suggested radiating benevolence in all directions

Original metta teaching was offered to monks who were frightened of devas, snakes, and tigers, so:

Metta is the antidote to aversive mind states: ill will, anger, fear, judging:

“The burdensome practice of judging brings annoyance and weariness.” – Third Zen Patriarch

“Metta practice is the cultivation of our capacity for lovingkindness.  It does not involve either positive thinking or the imposition of an artificial positive attitude.  There is no need to feel loving or kind during metta practice.  Rather, we meditate on our good intentions, however weak or strong they may be, and water the seeds of these intentions.  When we water wholesome intentions instead of expressing unwholesome ones, we develop those wholesome tendencies within us.”    – Gil Fronsdal

“There are times when my kindness amounts to just not holding on to the negative impression that I have of someone (including myself).”
– Ajahn Sucitto

Metta practice does not reject suffering.

“While suffering increases, love increases.  The greater the afflictions, the mightier the primordial wisdom.  The larger the pile of wood, the greater the blaze of enlightenment”.  – Sahara (teacher of Nagarjuna)

Yongey Mingur Rinpoche: “Life experience is adding wood to the fire: Whatever you experience in the present moment is exactly what you need to wake up”

The foundational practice of metta is loving ourselves, to embrace all parts of ourselves, nothing left out:

“We can search the world and not find a person more deserving of love than ourselves.”    – The Buddha

In meditation: good will towards our experience.  Making space for whatever shows up, no part left out 

“Metta is kindness with awareness.   It means that we don’t get caught up in the old patterns of fear, depression, jealousy or resentment.  When we stop dwelling in aversion for ourselves or others it is easier to bear with the vicissitudes of life.”     Ajahn Chah

Acceptance: acceptance of our experience, of ourselves, and of others

It’s easier to love if we can let go of preconceptions and expectations about both ourselves and others.  I love you just as you are (in this moment)

Being fully present in the moment for whatever arises is an act of metta in itself.

But metta is usually an intentional practice, pointing towards wise action:

“Metta is kindness with awareness. It doesn’t mean we resign ourselves to mediocrity or to tyranny. It means that we don’t get caught in the old patterns of fear, depression, jealousy or resentment. When we stop dwelling in aversion for ourselves or others it is easier to bear with the vicissitudes of life.” – Ajahn Chah

Many thanks to Metta teacher David Lewis for his ample contributions to these Metta quotes. Also, thanks to my other Metta teachers, John Martin and Gretchen Thometz.

Love knows no boundaries.
What do we know of love? If we are lucky, we know the love of our parents or our siblings, or the love of the first crush or our current lover or our spouse or the love of our children or grandchildren. Maybe we just know the love of our dog or our parakeet. All of this love matters, and we can count our blessings to know these loves. But what if we zoom out a little and we see the collective love of our favorite sports teams or the love of the members our mosque, temple, church, coven, military unit, local atheist society, political party, or bird watching group? Then we zoom out a little more and we might see the love of our nation or our particular ethnic or social group. Zooming out further, perhaps there is a love of our species, so much so that we believe our species takes dominion over all others… but wait, zooming out a little further, you can now see the love of all the organisms on our planet and we see that love is actually what is beneath, around, and in all life on earth, in every drop of water, and in every particle of soil. Now we zoom out into space – just far enough to see the whole earth. Perhaps we already know the love of our planet even though most of us have never left the atmosphere? Now let’s just imagine that all of this many splendored love can be seen with some special goggles – the latest issue of the Interplanetary Love Goggles, model number 108. Sitting in your cozy armchair in space, sipping on a little love potion number 9, you now you see all this love and you realize that there are no boundaries of love. You see all the love that exists on Earth is vibrating and glowing and shooting out big love rays into space that seem to go on forever. Even more interesting, there are love rays coming from the sun, and all the planets and stars in space. But, oh-oh, you can now also see that there is something eating away at the love on Earth, a darkness that is growing like a cancer. It appears in dark spots; masses of darkness that are growing and that seem to be feeding on love. This darkness only emanates from the human critters. It begins as fear, evolves into various forms of human stains, including discrimination, racism, speciesism, sexism, etc., a sense of boundaries and borders, us against them, and ultimately into the cancers of hate, violence, and war – war on other humans and virtually all the species and natural systems on earth. What if we could see the totality of love, its boundary-less nature, and its vulnerability to the cancer of fear, the seed of all darkness? What if you could put this all in to reverse and see that here are essentially two evolutionary pathways – the path of fear and the path of love. Just like in mathematics, which features the basic functions of adding and subtracting – there is loving and hating. And yes, there are many more complicated equations, but ultimately, you are either giving or taking. All equations have an equal sign, the two sides must add up to something. Fear and hate always contribute to the love deficit – they are the ultimate subtraction equation. If there is ever a lack of love in any situation, it is because the “equation” is not properly balanced. Simply add more love, multiply more love, and deduct fear, hate, suffering, etc. The deficit of love is also known as the complete sum of fear, hate, and suffering. If you want more love after the equal sign, then you need to subtract more fear, hate, and suffering. The Love Goggles are cool, huh? I tell you what, just leave them on for now.
– G32 (drafting an broadcast to planet earth), Pupazzo Universo

“Shower The People”

You can play the game and you can act out the part, even though you know it wasn’t written for you.

Tell me, how can you stand there with your broken heart ashamed of playing the fool?

One thing can lead to another; it doesn’t take any sacrifice.

Oh, father and mother, sister and brother, if it feels nice, don’t think twice, just shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel.

Things are gonna work out fine if you only will do as I say, just shower the people you love with love, show them the way you feel.

Things are gonna be much better if you only will.

You can run but you cannot hide, this is widely known.

Tell me, what you plan to do with your foolish pride when you’re all by yourself, alone.

Once you tell somebody the way that you feel, you can feel it beginning to ease.

I think it’s true what they say about the squeaky wheel always getting the grease.

Better to shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel.

Things are gonna be just fine if you only will what I’d like to do to you.

Shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel.

Things are gonna be much better if you only will.

Shower the people you love with love, show them the way that you feel.

You’ll feel better right away.

Don’t take much to do, sell you pride.

They say in every life, they say the rain must fall, just like pouring rain, make it rain.

Make it rain, love, love, love is sunshine, oh yes,

Make it rain, love, love, love is sunshine. Everybody, everybody.

– James Taylor

More at https://www.emptyhandsmusic.org/videos

Mister Rogers, a champion of loving-kindness.

“Deep within us—no matter who we are—there lives a feeling of wanting to be lovable, of wanting to be the kind of person that others like to be with. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving.”
— From The World According To Mister Rogers

“Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like ‘struggle.’ To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”
— From The World According To Mister Rogers

“Love and trust, in the space between what’s said and what’s heard in our life, can make all the difference in this world.”
— From The World According To Mister Rogers

“There are many ways to say I love you. Just by being there when things are sad and scary. Just by being there, being there, being there to say, I love you.”
—”Many Way to Say I Love You” as performed on Episode 1643 of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

“We need to help people to discover the true meaning of love. Love is generally confused with dependence. Those of us who have grown in true love know that we can love only in proportion to our capacity for independence.”
— From The World According To Mister Rogers

“Love is like infinity: You can’t have more or less infinity, and you can’t compare two things to see if they’re ‘equally infinite.’ Infinity just is, and that’s the way I think love is, too.”
— From The World According To Mister Rogers

“The toughest thing is to love somebody who has done something mean to you. Especially when that somebody has been yourself.”
— From Episode 1665 of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

“Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors.”
— From The World According To Mister Rogers

“Love seems to be something that keeps filling up within us. The more we give away, the more we have to give.”
— From The World According To Mister Rogers

“When we love a person, we accept him or her exactly as is: the lovely with the unlovely, the strong along with the fearful, the true mixed in with the façade, and of course, the only way we can do it is by accepting ourselves that way.”
— From The World According To Mister Rogers