I am thinking about love today and really challenging myself to understand its force and it as my true essence. I wonder why it is so hard for people to love themselves. They say they can love others or that they can do service in love, but then if you were to ask them if they loved themselves, they would ask you how do I do that?

I heard an expert say that you could tell if you loved yourself by what you did: Do you eat well and take care of your body? Do you talk to your self poorly?  How do you let other people treat you? Do you put others before yourself? Well, I know people who eat very well, including myself, who at times do not love themselves. All the points this person made are conditions? What is loving ourselves truly about and why does it matter?

When we are in service or when we are doing something creative or falling in love with someone else, we are expressing love. However, that is not the Principle of Love. Emma Curtis Hopkins wrote, “Love is not something which comes to us in any one man, woman or child, and then goes away. That is only a sign of love. Love that is God is eternal and infinite.” Emma Curtis Hopkin

Do we relegate our love to the outside, to another another person? Then when they leave us or desert us, we feel pain and a loss of love. I am thinking upon this idea and I come to the conclusion that even this pain is love within us. We wouldn’t be able to feel the pain if we weren’t already in a state of love. How can we long for something that we do not understand? Love is present no matter what, which causes us to mistakenly think we need to reach out for it. Love knows itself as us even when we do not fully recognize it.

Yes, I believe the confusion lies in the fact that we are not consciousness of Love which is always there. We seek for it, not knowing that it is Love itself that is seeking love. Have you ever heard that quote that “that for which we are seeking is seeking us?” It’s true. God knows nothing different than itself. It might seem like a contradiction, but it’s very clear to me. I wouldn’t be able to say I was seeking for love and didn’t have it if I didn’t already have it. Otherwise, how would I even know I was seeking for it?

If I’ve totally confused you, think of it this way. It’s like a fish is in water. A fish perhaps doesn’t know it’s in water, but it is. We are like fish in water. We are immersed in Love, but don’t know we are.

The reason I know this has to be true is because I know and believe it is Love that is the force that keeps the Universe alive. Love is not a valentine. It is a very Power, the Power of creation, the Power of Life. The eternal Power that never leaves us. Remember that statement from Ghost. As the major character walks into the light, he says, “all you take with you is the love.”

Anyone who has come back from a near death experience and crossed even a bit over into the next realm always says all they feel is Love. All great art comes from Love even when it comes from pain. I remember writing a screenplay once after being emotionally destroyed by what I thought was lost love. Did I know that what I was writing was Love pouring from my self? I didn’t. I was using my writing to help me feel better, but all the time, it was Love healing me, opening me.

So, this all brings me to the idea proclaimed in the Ernest Holmes quote, “Love is the Cosmic Force whose sweep is irresistible.” It is on our labyrinth at Center for Spiritual Living Kaua`i. What is a Cosmic force, but something that cannot be destroyed by anything. It cuts through everything. It is the Force of Creation. The creators of the Star Wars Series talk about the “Force.” They write this…

‘The cosmic aspect of the Force had a will, binding all things with the energy of all life. The Cosmic Force was the wellspring from which the Living Force, the energy of all life, sprang into all living things, and into which all life was feeding upon death, becoming one with it.” This Force is Love.

So, as I write this and as I think about all that I know about art, music, life itself and the trials and tribulations of myself and so many, I see that Love as the energy that is us is the only thing that makes sense and rings true. Ernest Holmes uses Love as synonymous with God, as does Emerson. Holmes says “Love is the self-givingness of the Spirit through the desire of life to express itself in terms of creation.”

So, if this is the case and I know it is, then why would we not love ourselves or think that we don’t know how. Loving ourselves would merely mean surrendering ourselves to being our true and full and happy and joyful self. And, this kind of Love would be necessary in regards to our evolution. How can you not know how to love yourself when all you are is Love. It seems that is where we should start: in the recognition – accepting it, surrendering to it, allowing it.

I do not believe our planet can evolve further without this one ingredient. I am convinced that it is the only thing that is causing all the turmoil, destruction and devastation – Lack of Self Love!

Can we do at least our part today? Can we at least have the intent to relish and love ourselves. What if the survival or our species and our planet depended on it? Wouldn’t that make it the most important thing that we do right now?

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita Andriello-Feren, Author and Co-Spiritual Director of Center for Spiritual Living Kaua`i