Love: The Universal Life Force

Affectionate friendships are not one of life’s optional extras; they are vital to our health, happiness and longevity. We need to love and be loved. This is one of life’s major driving forces. As Mahatma Gandhi said: ‘Where there is love there is life.’ Many medical research trials have highlighted the benefits of being surrounded by a caring circle of family and friends. Typical of these projects is the Alameda Study, which followed the fortunes of seven thousand Californian adults over a nine-year period. The results showed that unmarried individuals with few friends and no links with a church or outside community group have a death rate from all causes which is two to five times higher than those with adequate ‘psychosocial support’, which is the technical term for a well-developed network of friends. These days we’re often encouraged to keep a tight rein on our affections. The objective is to be laid back, to play it cool and maintain a stiff upper lip. In maintaining this pose, we set up barriers which protect us from pain but also screen us from pleasure. We become apathetic, in the true sense of the word, meaning a-pathos, without feeling.

Many people are so shy, or so afraid of suffering a rebuff, that they’re reluctant to be the first one to make overtures of affection and friendship. This is a sure recipe for disaster. Far better to follow the counsel of St John of the Cross who advised: ‘Where you do not find love, put love and you will find love.’ Everyone we meet has a need for love and affection. Our capacity for making warm, intimate relationships depends on our ability to respond to this fundamental need. If we’re cold and indifferent to the people we meet, we mustn’t be surprised if they’re cold and indifferent to us. Like dogs, they’ll wag their tails, if only we stroke their backs. Fear of rejection shouldn’t hold us back, for as St Augustine advised: ‘Better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.’

We achieve a state of emotional maturity when we learn to love people for what they are, rather than for their ability to satisfy our personal catalogue of physical wants and psychological needs. Love is an end in itself, not a means to an end. This was well expressed by St Bernard of Clairvaux who said: ‘Love seeks no cause beyond itself, and no limit; it is its own fruit, its own enjoyment. I love because I love; I love in order that I may love.’ The secret of a happy marriage is not finding the right person, but being the right person. Before we can love someone else, we must first be able to love ourselves. A fully autonomous adult can exercise control over their emotions. That is the essence of ‘response-ability’, the capacity to foster positive feelings of love, hope and joy, and the refusal to entertain negative sentiments like anxiety, depression and despair. We are free agents, and can choose not only our hair style and clothes but also our moods. Love is not a gift from the gods, but an attribute we can either nurture or neglect. It obeys the Karmic laws of cause and effect. As we sow, so shall we reap. The more love we give, the more love we get in return, or as Shakespeare wrote: ‘The more I give to thee the more I have, for both are infinite.’. With money and material goods it’s the other way round – the more we hoard for ourselves the less there is for other people.

Charity, it’s said, begins at home, but it certainly shouldn’t end there. We should care for the postman, exchange pleasantries with the girl on the supermarket check-out desk, show affection to the next door neighbour’s cat and speak kindly to the trees to encourage their growth. Our aim should be to fall in love with the world. This was the practice of pianist Artur Rubinstein who told reporters on his 95^th birthday: ‘I have found that if you love life, it will love you back.’

This acceptance of the need for both sexual love (eros) and brotherly love (philia) is the basic teaching of all the world’s great religions. The Old Testament relates how God gave Moses a number of laws and ordinances. Most of these were negative: against stealing, making idols, bearing false witness and committing adultery. But there was one positive commandment, that the Israelites should show as much love to strangers as they did to their own children. This love for one’s fellow beings is now accepted as the fundamental principle of Jewish moral law. It’s also the core ethical principle of Christianity, following the pronouncement of Jesus Christ at the Last Supper, when after washing the disciples’ feet he said: ‘And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.’  The same message was given to Hindus in the Dhammapada, where it’s written: ‘For hate is not conquered by hate: hate is conquered by love. This is a law eternal.’

Unfortunately while the adherents of the world’s major religions do their best to love one another, they seem to find it difficult to feel universal love for heretics from other sects. This was recognized many years ago by Jonathan Swift, who made the sardonic comment: ‘We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to love one another.’ This rigid, religious sectarianism exists today as a major cause of global conflict. We’ll never find peace until we can learn to love our neighbours, whatever their race, religion or social standing. Love is a verb, not a noun. It’s not an object which can be bought and sold. It’s something we feel, a sentiment that can be cultivated by repetitive practice. A loving person creates a loving world; a hostile person creates a hostile world. Each day we should seek opportunities to spread this healing force, and the ideal time to start is now. To focus your mind, permit me to ask you three questions.  If you had only one hour to live, who would you telephone?  What would you say? And, why are you waiting?

© Donald Norfolk 2010

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