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“Love is the very foundation, beauty and fulfillment of life. If we dive deep enough into ourselves, we will find that the one thread of universal love ties all beings together. As this awareness dawns within us, peace alone will reign.”
~ Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma)
The more widely a word becomes, the more challenging it can become to use in communication. This is especially true for qualities of wisdom which lack a concrete physical thing to point to when using that word. Love is word which has all sorts of uses. We use the word love when talking about nearly anything we really like, such as foods we find delicious, pieces of technology, or articles of clothing. We also use the word about other people or animals we are quite attached to, declaring devotion or great affection.
When spiritual teachers use the word love, it is often meant with more of a universal compassion type of meaning. Yet in this sense, love is something deeper than only universal compassion, and deeper than having a feeling of care for all living creatures and existence. Love, in the deepest sense, attempts to speak to our identity as being totally intertwined with all there is. In this way, the more we find out who we are – as rooted in love – the more we grow to love ourselves as we are also loving towards everything which had previously been thought of as not ourselves.
Love is what lay beneath all of the suffering, injustices, pain, confusion, struggles, violence, anger and disconnection which we experience. Love is the birthplace of peace, contentment, understanding, wisdom, compassion, generosit, kindness and happiness. Love is the place from which we have all come, yet as we journey through our life-experience we are taught by the world how to feel anger and hatred, sadness and fear. discontent and anxiety. Part of the journey of life is traversing through those generally considered negative qualities in order to be reborn in the place from which we came: Love.
And from that place of rebirth, we begin a new journey. We walk a new path, the path of peace and Love.
