You know you want to…love more that is. Not in the sentimental way but through a profound level of inclusiveness that encompasses all. All people, all beings, all life.
Can we even imagine what that feels like? To have such a well of love in one’s heart that truly every person and every living being can find a place in it no matter what their behaviours, tendencies or past actions? To contain our own personal suffering and to go beyond it to radiate love.
It is a high bar.
And as we survey the challenges in our world today on the global stage, the business stage or more locally within communities and family life, anyone who knows anything about love would say that love must be the answer.
We don’t always believe it, and ego often gets in the way, but love really does provide the gateway to lifting all relations to a higher level. This, of course, doesn’t mean that we necessarily continue in close relationship. It may mean we agree to love each other, wish the best for each other, be respectful and courteous and co-exist – doing no harm to the other or others. And this last part is fundamental.
Part of truly loving is being willing to live alongside and do no harm to the other. The other part of truly loving is having the courage (a heart quality) to speak up and share concerns, discuss exhaustively, if needed, a pathway to resolving concerns and all the while hold everything within the container of love.
Of course, many will at this juncture rightly point out that not everyone is capable of this and that darkness does exist in this world. Agreed. And individually we aren’t exempt – it also exists in every one of us.
The only way to dispel the darkness is with light – love is that light.
Diplomacy is our political version of this and yet so often it gets distorted to individual national agendas rather than the greater good. Adherence to higher standards or ethics must sit at the base of all relations including diplomacy and again this is where love provides the true North.
In business the single-minded pursuit of profit can distort progress toward the true expansion of love. They need not be incompatible, and we thankfully have many wonderful examples with Patagonia being but one.
And as is always the case, if every single person chooses to love more the transformation would be exponential because that’s the laws of mathematics and physics in action. Love is a scientific principle that plays out according to established scientific laws…imagine that.
The HeartMath Institute has been scientifically exploring the impact of the heart on the brain and vice versa for many years. Their Global Consciousness Project 2.0 explores how collective human emotion and attention influence physical systems and global coherence.
So, at this time of unprecedented change, let us all commit to choose more love so that the darkness succumbs to the radiance of the light and global coherence, or the greater good, becomes a reality.