What is Love?

Love is a word used every day in many ways by just about everyone, everywhere in the world, but what is it? 

When we say we love something we often mean it makes us feel good at that moment. 

Sometimes we say we love things like food, cars, apps, music and places when they make us feel good. This is personal love which is based on feeling good. Another aspect of personal love refers to relationships with our friends, spouses, children and parents. This personal love has conditions and expectations about pleasing one another. 

When we say “I love you,” it is usually an expression of personal love which is always preceded by a thought such as, “You make me feel good right now. I am getting what I want from you.” We want to get love from people and we try to give love to get it. When we think in these terms and get love from someone, we feel good and secure. But, when this love ends, or doesn’t come to us from others, we can feel lonely, rejected, angry, and maybe even physically ill.

Everyday we are influenced with this expression of personal love in movies, books, advertising, greeting cards, television and social media.

But getting love that makes us feel good is hard work that only provides temporary satisfaction. There is another view of love that is fulfilling and reliable. It is spiritual love. This love is a spiritual quality, available to us just by being interested in it.

Spiritual love can be defined as non-personal, non-conditional goodwill. It is non-personal in that we are not seeking personal love from others but instead seeing and appreciating the expression of goodwill. It is non-conditional as it has no conditions.

There are no thoughts such as “if you loved me you would do this” or “if you do this I will love you.” The goodwill of spiritual love is that it is good for all, not just good for me or good for you. The good of spiritual love is that it brings harmony, assurance, gratitude and peace to our lives.

When we are interested in the spiritual quality of love it improves our lives with others by reducing the criticism, judgment and expectation that comes with personal love. While this change in perception can be gradual, we are drawn to it more and more as its benefits unfold. 

How do we begin to live our life with this new understanding of love?

We can stop looking to others to feel good and start being here for what is good. As we become receptive to this idea we find and value qualities like gratitude, harmony and assurance being expressed by ourselves and others.

Nothing can deprive us of the peace and joy we find when we are in spiritual love.