Love is a small word that is big on meaning. Songwriters and poets thrive on love. After all, all you need is love and it makes the world go round.
God is love and desires companionship with each soul. Just being conscious of time and space as a gift of the creator should remind us of god’s love and patience.
Jesus recognized that fear is a failure of love – and that perfect love casts out fear. So just what is perfect love?
Remember that Jesus summarized the ten commandments in terms of love: Love God with all our heart, mind, and soul and your neighbor as yourself. In other words, love God, love others, love self. Thus the law of Moses is transformed into the law of love.
We may express our love for God in many ways – worshiping in religious service or reveling in the wonders of nature; in prayer and meditation when we enter the sanctuary within; or in the enjoyment of fellowship in the presence of God.
Love of others has been a fundamental lesson from cooperation on. Through compassionate living and application of the fruits of the spirit we experience a connection with other souls who are also making their way through the material realm. And as we have seen, in loving others we are loving God.
Psychologists have spoken of self-esteem and self-nurturing as the foundation of love that we express outward to others. And if God is within each one of us, by relating to that divine, inner self – we may even transcend love in any purely psychological sense.
This love of self is the healthy separate sense of self that we all need to be in relationships with God and others. It is not egotistical or selfish; not self-condemning or obsessive. It is the love of self that allows you to know yourself to be yourself and yet one with the whole that is God.
Love God – love others – love self – that is perfect love – something to strive for as an ideal. The Cayce readings affirm that this perfect love can be the source of peace in the world if adopted as an ideal by everyone. As with all mass movements, it begins with the individual. As you choose an ideal and work with it, this perfect love would be a great place to start.
If you are looking for an example of how to live perfect love, the live of Jesus is worthy of consideration – especially if you find it difficult to love your enemies and those who are unkind to you. Jesus certainly faced that situation.
Imagine forgiving those who condemn you to crucifixion, even during that painful process. Jesus’ prayer while on the cross was to forgive them for they know not what they do. They were ignorant of themselves and the greater context of life as a connected whole.
As we seen repeatedly in this course, what we do to others, we do to ourselves and God. Until we are able to see God in those whom we would call our enemies – or if we do not call them enemies, we think of them that way – until we can see God within that person, we have not even begun to make progress on the spiritual path.
With the recognition of our common humanity, we can have compassion for each person we encounter, regardless of the relationship. We can treat others – everyone – as we wish to be treated and sincerely do our best to avoid from inflicting pain. We can work to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures as we set aside selfishness in all of its manifestations.
We can serve others with no strings attached. For remember:
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; love is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; love does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things… now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:4–13)