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20 LOVE
We can love any number of people equally and totally and we have
the capacity to love every person on the planet.
The most basic example of human love in this reality is the mutual
love of our parents, our spouse and our children.
One facet of this love is that we can love two parents totally and
equally. If we have more than one child, we can love them each totally
and equally. In other words, if we have five children, they do not
each receive one-fifth of our total love. They each receive 100%
of our total love.
In fact, if we think about it, we do not divide our love between
our parents, our spouse and our children. They all receive all the
love that we have without reducing our total capacity to love one
single bit. We love them totally and not as a percent of totality.
However, if we generalize to an elementary example like polygamy,
we
refuse to acknowledge that a man can love two women or that a woman
can love two men. To further generalize, we tend to believe that
no one can love everyone the same. We believe that only God has
the capacity to totally love us all. These beliefs are false.
Another facet of love is that when we love someone, we make allowances
for their behavior which irritates us or makes us mad. If our loved
ones hurt us, we tend to forgive them or ignore their behavior because
we love them.
However, we apply a different standard of love to our parents, our
spouse, our children and even our close friends than we do to everyone
else. We overlook the faults and negative conduct of our loved ones
because of our love for them. But we generally refuse to overlook
the same conduct in others.
We seem to have a very difficult time applying the same standard
of love
that we have for parents, spouse, children and friends to the rest
of society even though every human being on the planet, in truth,
is possibly someone's parent or spouse, is definitely someone's
child and is probably someone's best friend.
Why do we not treat everyone the same? Why do we draw lines that
separate us from the majority of society? And how can we justify
treating others like alien beings?
When we forget that we are at one with God and at one with each
other, we lose the ability to love ourselves. Loving ourselves becomes
easy when we look inside ourselves and remember our oneness. When
we remember that we are at one with all of Creation, we flow in
the peace and harmony of God's infinite, unconditional love which
is the essence of our being.
Inner peace comes when we begin to see other people as our parents,
our spouse, our children and our friends.
Inner peace comes when we apply the same standard of total love
to
everyone, refrain from judging them and forgive their unkind words
and
deeds.
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