"And in the end, the love you take, Is equal to the love you make"

Love is everything. We are born into this world to give love to each other. Love flows from person to person in a circular fashion as we each bestow upon the life of another, unconditional love. Like the sound of fresh snow falling in a quiet forest, I believe that life was meant to be just that simple and pure. Love is part of each of us. It was placed in our hearts at conception. We carry it with us for all of eternity.

The innocence that accompanied our souls on their spiritual journey from nowhere to now-here, was born of a deep and everlasting love that serves as a reminder of what life on earth would be like if love were allowed to prevail. The capacity to love and to use love for the betterment of the world is a gift we can all partake of and share with each other no matter what our station in life. We are each called to minister the spirit of love to each other in our own unique way. It is our sole purpose for existing. There cannot be a more noble pursuit.

We seem to struggle with the possibility that life can really be that simple—that love is all we need to know. We distort and complicate the whole idea of love, desperately searching to find meaning among the meaningless. We buy things—lots of things—expensive things—believing that in some way they will fill the void and make us happy. They do not.

When we give our love in this way—to the materialistic as opposed to the spiritual—our love never has the chance to fully blossom. When we love the meaningless we are never truly satisfied because that which is of the material world can never love us back. Our love flows from our hearts to an object and then stops dead in its tracks. The circle is broken.

Our constant focus on finding love outside ourselves has led many of us to believe that the world is a rather loveless place. We never find the love we are so desperately seeking because we only focus our attention on what the world has to offer. Because the world cannot fulfill our needs, we believe that love does not exist. But the world it seems is the last place we should be looking for love. For as Jesus and other spiritual masters teach us, true love can only be found within ourselves as we pursue the realm of the spiritual and seek a one-on-one relationship with God. Only then will we ever be truly satisfied and fulfilled.

Love is a source of energy that can drive the human spirit and illuminate the world. It cannot be seen with the naked eye but can only be felt by the human heart. It is the power that God gives to us unconditionally—no strings attached—in hopes that we will in turn release our love upon the world through the unselfish giving of our time and talents to others. The power of love can only be fully realized when it is allowed to be unleashed and freely given away. It is the giving that makes the difference. Kept hidden within ourselves, love serves no useful purpose.

Think about the times in your life when you have been most at peace. Think about how it felt and what caused those moments of bliss. Chances are, it was the giving of love to another human being or the comforting of a soul in a time of need that brought about your own sense of well-being. That's the magic of it all. Love returns to our lives in abundance as we give more and more of it away.

It is never hate or anger that allows us to feel our lives are on purpose, that our mission is being fulfilled. In fact, anger and hate have quite the opposite effect. Whenever we hate or point blame or allow our egos to dominate our existence, the world seems false, phony and obscene. We are fearful, miserable and void of inner peace. We lose our sense of trust in others and ourselves. Our lives are off center. Our potential diluted.

Deep down inside, I believe each of us understands that love is the only way out—the only solution for a world gone seemingly mad. Each of us shares the knowledge—at some deep spiritual level—that in order to be truly fulfilled, truly alive, we must let love and nothing else dominate our lives. We know that when we operate from love we are happy, content and at peace with the universe. So why do we fight it? Why is it so hard, so seemingly uncomfortable, to simply take our hands off the handle bars and let love direct us? Perhaps the answer lies in our ego and its relentless need for control.

For many people, riding on the back of a motorcycle can be a rather frightening experience. It's uncomfortable to surrender control and perhaps your own safety to someone other than yourself. Our ego wants to be the one doing the steering—the one in charge—the one calling the shots with regards to our life. Seems natural, right?

But that same ego—the one that fears losing control—is what holds us back from surrendering ourselves to the power of love. Yet, surrendering is exactly what we must do if we are to ever find peace and allow love to dictate the direction of our lives. Just as a flower will blossom or a river will flow without any help from us, love too has a power all its own. We need only surrender to this power and allow the seed to be planted in our lives. Love will do the rest.

For most of us, surrendering to anything or anyone is something we're just not comfortable with—it feels like failure. After all, when was the last time anything of value was ever won by surrendering? In our culture, winning is often everything and to win we must never surrender. But love wears a different game face. Love isn't something we need to win, it is simply something we need to embrace.

Love stands waiting at the doorstep of our lives seeking an entrance through open wounds. To surrender to it, is to let the power come in and heal us. Nothing else can fill the void in our hearts. Nothing else will complete us. Only love can make us whole.

To borrow a line from an old song, it seems that many of us have been "looking for love in all the wrong places". We search for it in the romantic eyes of another human being, in the accumulation of worldly possessions or in the ideas of false idols and teachers. Many of us think we need to improve ourselves in order to be worthy of love. That somehow we are inadequate and not already perfect. We look everywhere for love except the one place that held the answer all along—God.

We resist the need to just let Go(d). In fact, many of us often spend a good deal of our lives refusing to believe that there could be a higher power that controls the universe. We want to be in charge. We want to be our own God; masters of our own destiny. We agree with Sinatra; we want to do it "Our Way'. But more times than we care to admit (especially us baby boomers) our way often involves the use of alcohol, sex, drugs and other escape mechanisms that work for the moment but fail us in the long run. Hey, remember the 70's? I don't.

As our lives spin further and further out of control, we reach out for a higher truth. It is at that point that many of us hand our lives over to God, surrendering to the power of love. Where we once felt secure in the false knowledge that we were in control, it is now quite comforting to know that we are not. We allow love to take control and illuminate our lives with a peace we have never known before. We begin to understand that love must be our destination and the only way to get there is through God. When our lives or the lives of our beloved are hanging in the balance, there can be no greater truth.

There is a passage in the Bible so eloquently written, so positively beautiful, that it could only have come from the voice of God. It is the truest description, I think, of what love is meant to be. It reads "Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly ever notice when others do it wrong. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever truth wins out."

During this holiday season, I pray that each of us allows the love that so defines this time of year, to expand in our lives and continue to mold and shape our earthly experience each and every day. That somehow we will see as a people, as a nation and as a world that love is our only hope. That love is all that matters. That love is all we are and all we were ever meant to be.

Some Things To Consider

Spend an entire day freely giving love away to others—no strings attached. Just give unconditional love to each and everyone you come into contact with for the next 24 hours—the checkout person at the grocery store, the bank teller, the plumber, your life partner, your family, your pet—everyone!

No matter what happens, just send them love. At the end of the day, note how it made you feel. Note how it made them feel. Do it again next week. Or better yet-tomorrow!

All Rights Reserved © 2002 By Jeffrey Alan Hall