What is love? This is such an easy, yet such a difficult question to answer. It will depend very much what we are talking about, who we are talking to, and ultimately the level of our consciousness. The more expanded our consciousness is, the more expanded our definition of love is.
The more we awaken ourselves to grasp the deeper and broader nature of life, this reality and our existence, the more we transition from “doing” love to “being” love. Essentially what this means is that love stops being a commodity that is shaped and limited by the Ego, and instead becomes the driving force of our life. There is a beautiful article, entitled The Four Qualities of Love written by Thich Nhat Hanh, which perfectly explains to us, love’s multi-faceted expression in our lives. It shares that these 4 qualities of love are love, compassion, joy and equanimity, and goes on to describe these expressions of love.
This is one of the most important articles to read and meditate upon for meaningful and awakened living because the more we value, prioritize, cultivate, practice, and ultimately live these four qualities in our life, the more we positively transform the nature of this life experience for ourselves, and for all others who come into contact with us and our life. This is the most effective way of increasing our coherence and decreasing our entropy.
In the end, it is not your ‘to-do’ list, status, looks, money, possessions, relationships or Earthly accomplishments that you take with you. Each life is assessed based on these four things — love, compassion, joy and equanimity — how much we lived, expressed and experienced them. The more you choose to “be these” and “apply these” here and now, in every moment of every day, the more you enjoy a life based on deep meaning, inner-peace and wellbeing.
May you bless yourself and all others with these four qualities of love!