If you love another
human being you are giving that human being your very
best. If you love every human being you are doing the very best you can do for
each of them. Similarly, if they love you they are doing the very best they can
for you. It is not hard to see that a world where each and every person loves
each and every other person would be the best possible world. Since each of us
can love if and when we want to love, a world filled with love is very much a
possibility. Pure love is so rare a quantity in daily life it may seem almost
impossible that, if they are willing to, people can love all other people. Yet
they can. We can bring about a world filled with love, a world that is worth
living for.
Few
of us seriously expect to see a day on earth when all people love one another.
There are too many people for whom physical pleasure is more desirable than
love. Only the most optimistic dreamers hold hope for a world filled with love.
So what is the next best world? If you understand love you know you can love
people even if they do not love you. You can always choose to love, and if love
is the best you can do, does it not seem true that you should love even if you
are not loved? Does it not seem intuitively true that you should always choose
love?
Who
should you love? If loving is good, the question really becomes is there anyone
you should not love? If you understand love you know you can always love
someone even if the person you love hates you. When you hate those who hate you,
you are doing the same wrong to them they are doing to you. The natural
reaction is to hate those who hate you, but if you understand love you should,
after deep thought and consideration, reach the conclusion that since you never
have to hate, you should always love (we discuss a possible exception in a
later note).
What
if the person who hates you continues to hate you, and does all kinds of evil
to you and to others without sign of remorse? Again, if you understand love you
know you can always love another person even if that person hates you. If you
can always choose to love people, does it not seem true that you should
continue to love them even if they hate you? If we agree that the best we can
do in this life, and in a life after death if one exists, is to love each
other, the answer seems clear. If it is your choice to love
or not, you should choose to love every moment of your earthly life.
That means you should love even if you are not loved.
Does
this mean you should never show any anger? If a child does something you know
will hurt them, and those who love them, you will be disappointed and
"angry" at both their actions, and perhaps at them. Yet anger that
accompanies love is far different than anger that comes from hate, and is
perhaps not anger at all. Such "anger" is in fact a deep and
emotional concern for people, which seeks to bring a person back to love. The
"anger" of a person who loves passes quickly when love is restored,
and forgiveness is freely and repeatedly given. If you understand love, you
know that if you love someone who hates you, you will forgive them each time
they wrong you.
Loving
someone does not mean you must condone, or even tolerate, the wrongs they do.
Many people who love others and try to help them out of problems like gambling,
drinking, casual sex, etc., find themselves defending the other person and
slipping into their way of life. There is a fine line between being with people
and loving and helping them, and, in an attempt to reach them, accepting at
least part of their way of life. If at all times you keep in your heart, mind,
and soul what it means to truly love, you will have no trouble knowing where
that line is.
If
you choose to love, you will constantly have to decide what you should do in particular
situations. The natural tendency is to take a middle of the road position that
seems to be positive toward everyone involved without being too negative toward
yourself. You then declare that your decision is based
on love, and all seems well. Loving is not that easy, every single decision
about love must be made from your heart, mind, and soul.
If
you want to love you must search your very being for the answers love requires,
and you must be willing to accept without change the answers you find. You are
driving home from work, heading for a birthday party your wife and friends have
been planning for you. Traffic is heavy on the freeway. You see a man
hitchhiking, he seems unsure of his footing, as you get closer you can tell he
is drunk. If you stop you are sure to be late for your party, anyway, there are
lots of cars one of which is bound to pick him up, and he doesn't look like he
will stagger into the roadway.
You
think, "he may be pretending to be drunk so he
can rob somebody, a policeman is bound to drive by, I can call one as soon as I
get home". Time to decide what to do. You want to
drive on by him and not have to decide, but you know you have to stop or not
stop. You stop your car, help the man into the passenger seat, he mumbles the
town he is going to and then passes out. When you reach the right exit, you get
off and try to rouse your passenger. He gets sick and throws up, you stop to
let him get some air and to clean out the car.
You're
forty minutes late for your party and there isn't a phone in sight. You think
about leaving him at a gas station, but you help him back in the car and go on.
He sees a bar, yells for you to stop, and curses you when you don't. You arrive
in his hometown, but he is too drunk to remember where he lives. You see a
motel, get the hitchhiker a room, and pay the desk clerk to look in on him to
see he is all right and to bring him breakfast the next morning. You buy him
some clean clothes and put them in the room.
You
call home and your wife slams the phone down. Finally you arrive home three
hours late, your guests have gone, your wife and kids are mad, you are hungry
and cold. You think about all the hassle you went through; the party you
missed, your party; the drunk hitchhiker cursing you.
You think, I hope I never get into another situation
like this one, but if I do, I'll do it all over again. If you have not
completed your search you may not understand the love given the hitchhiker. If
you have, you know that if you choose love you would do the same things the
driver did.
You
choose love, that means everything is all right,
right? In a very real sense the answer to that question is yes, for you
everything is all right. Everything being all right does not, however, mean
that your life on earth will be physically better. Probably it will get much
worse, for those who choose not to love will be doubly hard on those who do. If
you love someone you will not hit them when they strike you. You will give them
food, and drink, and shelter even if they hate you and even if you end up not
having enough for yourself. If you love them you will help them when they are
sick, even if they have cheated you and cursed your stupidity. You will love
them no matter what they do to you, with the knowledge that you are doing what
all human beings can and should do.
What
if the choice comes whether to kill someone, or be killed by them? The answer
to that, and other questions less dramatic but as hard or harder to answer, is
to be found in your knowledge and understanding of love. After you have
completed your search, and know and understand love, you will have to decide
for yourself whether or not our answer to the question about killing (which we
discuss in a later note - A Fanatic Life Or A Normal Life?),
as well as our answers to the many other difficult questions, are based on
love, or not. We believe they are, but perhaps they are not. If after you
finish reading this you do not agree with one or more of the conclusions we
reach, you may want to get a free copy of our book “LOVE – In Search of a Reason for Living",
and the associated comments and notes, which discuss some of our more “radical”
views on complex questions.
We
believe that after you complete your search of heart, mind, and soul you will
know and understand that if anything is true, it is true that every moment of
their lives each and every human being can and should love each and every other
human being. There is no question in my heart, mind, and soul, that every
person should love every other person. Indeed, if every person chose to love
every other person as they would have those people love them, if every person
chose to love every other person as himself or herself, then each of us would
do the very best that we could do for every human being in the world. There
would be nothing more that we should do for each other, nothing more that we
could do.
Difficult questions
arise only because there are people who are unwilling to love each other. There
are many people who chose not to love other people. There are many people who
chose to hate other people. Even though it is a difficult answer, it seems
intuitively clear to me that we should love those who love us and we should
love those who hate us. Yet many say that we should not love those who hate us,
and want to harm us. While I am convinced that we should love those who hate
us, I cannot say with absolute certainty that you will agree with me after you
complete your search of your heart, mind, and soul. The important thing to
remember is that your answers to the millions of questions you face throughout
your life must come from the knowledge and understanding of love that you will
find when you complete your search of your heart, mind,
and soul. You must be absolutely certain that you complete your search, and
that you know and understand true, pure, real, love.
One
essential warning, when faced with a hard question the normal human response is
toward self-interest, with elaborate arguments to justify the answer and make
it seem to be the result of love. The answer dictated by love is often (for
some people almost always) very, very, hard to accept. Yet we are convinced
that if you choose love you will accept the toughest of answers, and will find
peace and hope in your decisions. At all times you must be absolutely certain
that your answers are based on the knowledge and understanding of love you find
in your heart, mind, and soul. You must be certain that you always choose true,
pure, real, love.