Annual Valentine's Day Essay On Love
2007-02-15 - 3:41 a.m.

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strangely non-functional guestbook

Annual essay on love:

Short one this year, for a lot of reasons, mostly undocumented reasons, but reasons never-the-less.

(I have the Beatles singing a refrain of  Love, Love Love running through the back of my head.)

For one to have a more spiritual life, one only needs communion in the form of prayer and/or meditation as well as love.  Unconditional love.

Love in its many splendored apparel, like the feathers of the peacock,

What is love?  Is it loyalty?  Perseverence?  Benevolence?  Unconditional acceptance?

The wonderfulness is that it is all these things.  More permanent than the pyramids, those desperately phallyic incesseantly impotent male expressions of withering contempt for the passage of time and a feeble grab at immortality.  All that is physical will pass.  What will persist through the generations?  Love.

The Dali Lama said that unconditional love comes more easily when one considers that at one time, everyone has been their father, brother, mother and sister.

Meaning, of course, a few things.  Facially he's speaking of the belief of rebirth, and that we all are pretty much reborn until we "get it right" or otherwise acheive enlightenment to free us from a cycle of birth and death.  Seeing that all our roles are petty and unjustified one should love all.

On another level, he's speaking of, perhaps, that we are all one.  One conciousness punctually expressed in billions of peoples, animals, etc etc.  So to love someone else is as natural as loving one's self.  That there is no difference between you and me, other than the impermanence of the physical, the computer screen from which you now read.  You are my sister, my mother, my fatther, my brother.  And I am yours.  We have been lovers, haters, warriors, musicians, poets, teacher and student throughout our various lives and will be again.

So why not love?

In my experience sifting through religion and philosophy, love (and communion)  is all we have.  Everyone craves love.  No one can get enough.

So don't be scared.  Tell someone you love them.  If it exists, acknowledge it.  

"You know I love ya', right?"

You will find so many relationships in your life transformed.  

Love can be appreciation.  

Love can be kind, patient, and understanding.

Be these things.  Let love enter your life and tear down your barriers between your heart and mind.  Let it destroy the gulf between you and the rest of the world.  It comes back to you in ways you'd never guess.  You will exude confidence.  People will admire you.  More importantly, you will admire yourself for taking that step towards enlightenment.  Not because of what you get out of it, but because of how you feel.  About yourself. About what you have given. How the world will change under your feet even as you watch.

Don't be afraid.

Love.