Define: Love by Gregeory David Roberts

Love is the passionate search for a truth other than your own. Any definition of love must be broad enough to include all the many and varied forms of love, from the love of parents for children to the kind of love that keeps poorly paid researchers struggling to find a cure for a communicable disease; from romantic love to the kind of love that keeps teachers working to bring new generations into the light of understanding.

My definition includes its essential elements for the following reasons:

“Passion,” because there is no love without passion: You can’t be half-hearted about love, because love is all or nothing.

The “search,” because love is an active thing, not a passive thing: You can’t sit around, loving things by intention — you have to get out there and connect in order to love.

“Truth,” because love is inextricably connected with truth: You can’t love something that is a lie, and you can’t love something with a lie.

And “other than your own,” because love reaches outward from within: The idea that we can love ourselves is solipsistic nonsense, in my view, because every act of love involves engagement and interaction with others, directly or indirectly. We can like ourselves or dislike ourselves, but it takes two — or many more than two — to make love exist.

Companionship

Let it be comfort
and a medium of the all knowing
Let it become what you aspire
and a mode of growing

Let it teach
and compliment the spirit
Let it not breach
the boundaries of merit

Let it nourish
and kindle the soul
Let it flourish
like the garden for all

Or it shall perish
Dwindling the spirit
and its faith in love...

I am love, grace and the Universe!
Nisha Balani
April 16, 2011