LOVE IS

What is Love?

--by Robert Elias Najemy

YouWall.com

(...from The Six Stages of Love)

Love is ...expansion beyond our ego limitations. It is the ability to identify with the other, to let go of our self-interest and personal needs enough to really hear and understand the other's needs and interests. It means caring enough to sacrifice, when necessary, our own pleasures and desires when the other's needs are obviously more important.

Love is the force that brings about unity and harmony. It is the "glue" of the universe.

It helps persons with different egos, desires, programmings and needs to overcome all those potentially repelling forces and unite. Love needs not so much to be learned or cultivated, but rather released or brought from within us to the surface.

We are love. Our basic nature is love. However, our ignorance, fear and attachment have buried it so deeply within us that it is sometimes difficult to summon or maintain. Loving others steadily, independently of their behavior, is not an easy achievement.

Love vs. Need-- The power of attraction which we call love is expressed on many levels and in countless ways. The most basic level is that of need. We often use the word love when we really mean, "need". We say, "I love you." But, if we analyze ourselves deeply, we realize we really mean, "I need you."

This is the basic message of most love songs. They lament with sadness, pain, agony and cry out "you left me, I cannot live without you. I need you."This is not the highest form of love. It is love mixed with need, attachment and addiction. If it were pure love and the other was happier by leaving us or even happier with someone else, we would be happy for him or her, not full of sadness for ourselves.

Loving others means wanting them to be happy, healthy and successful in the ways that they are guided to be. Love does not create the pain we feel when someone leaves us or rejects us. That pain is generated by our dependency upon that person for our security, pleasure or affirmation. Needs and attachments create fear, pain and suffering.

Love creates happiness, fulfillment and the experience of our True Selves.

Continue reading, "The Stages of Love" Series--

About the Author: Robert Elias Najemy is a spiritual empath, life coach and author of more than 30 books, 600 articles and 400 lectures on Human Harmony. His recently released book, "The Psychology of Happiness" (ISBN 0-9710116-0-5) is available at Amazon. Robert makes his home in Athens, Greece. Please visit his website here. ~

--Kahlil Gibran "On Marriage"

(...from The Prophet)

Then Almitra spoke again and said, and what

of Marriage, master?

And he answered saying: You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.

Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow. ~~Kahil Gibran

“The book is fabulous.

It’s really spectacular”

--Dr. Oz