“A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Our society and culture do a very poor job in defining what love is. The societies notion of love is very myopic, unsophisticated and naive. Love is neither taught in the school/classroom nor by the self-help leadership gurus.
A scientific, rational and pragmatic minded person will refuse to understand what I am about say about love. From their perspective love seems to be a human quality, it seems silly unrealistic sort of things and that these are romantic sentimental emotions.
But love is not that. Love is not just a human brain phenomenon. Love is not wishy-washy, airy-fairy romantic concept. It is not what is shown in mainstream media or fairytale movies or written in novels. In fact, this is a very narrow concept of love derived out of materialistic, scientific minded and success chasing people.
Love is more fundamental than any other subject like physics, mathematics, history or geography in this world. To define what love is one has to feel love.
To get a sense of what love is- make yourself relax and comfortable and with your eyes closed think about a time from your early childhood when you felt very loved, or you loved anything. It could be love towards your family member, your pet, child or spouse, car, music or movie, anything. Think about that specific moment in life when you felt that liking and affection. Feel it in your heart & belly and then let it expand to your whole body and into your cells. Try to bring that memory alive and expand that out of your body. What you feel is the bliss in your entire body and this sensation is called love.
Now for most of us, we have become so detached by our materialist, egoistic mind from our inner soul that it will need a lot of practice to feel that sensation. But if you practice this continuously you will get a glimpse of this.
This biggest problem in human is that they expect love from external sources. But all of mankind just like any other animals, birds, tress, all living & non living creatures are capable to create love from within.
In ancient Hindu philosophy, the yogis and gurus have practiced love and defined them. Sat cit ananda in Hinduism according to Vedanta means Truth, Consciousness and Love. One has to become conscious of all the three facets individually and become conscious of all these together at various of depths to fell blissed.
Prátarnamami tamasah ,paramarkavarnam, pürnam sanátanapadam purushottamaakhyam, yasminnidam jagadaseshamaseshamurtau, rajjvaam bhujamgama iva pratibhasitam vai.
— Sri Adi Shankaracharya
It translates as- “At dawn I bow to that which is called the Highest Self which is beyond darkness, of the hue of the Sun the ancient goal which is the plenum – That, the residues form (i.e. the whole) in which the entire universe is made manifest like a serpent in a rope.”
When we break an atom, it consists of electron or neutron. If we break them farther- they consists of elements – fire, earth, water & air and their is a fifth element. The fifth element is nothing but emptiness, through which light travels. This emptiness is nothing but love. The Universe is a giant mind and consciousness is the substance of love. Love is the facet of absolute.
Love is very powerful. It needs a mystical experience to feel what love is. Love is infinite and unlimited. Love is absolute acceptance of everything, just like the universe that loves every piece of itself.
Your capacity to love is a powerful virtue of True Leadership
The quality of our life will determine our capacity to Love. Because our happiness depends on our capacity to love unconditionally. When a human experience Love, in the form a love from family member, from friends, mankind, cat or dog, it is a little sleek of Universal love.
The purpose of our life is to love and to be as loving as possible. Love is a life simulator. Love is every essence of reality without exception. Its goal is to love all of reality without exception.
When one loves so deeply that evil is an impossibility. True love means loving the unlovable, loving not just the good things but also the bad things. When you love your family, friends, your pet, your country this is the easiest form of love. But to love your enemy, the evil, the culprit, the murderer is the real test of love. One who is weak, naive, narcissistic, scared, practical and are wrapped up with ideology, opinion, race, religion etc are not capable of love.
Most people’s capacity of love is too low. Thats why it is very rare.
When one is more loving human being then he or she is more loving leader. In order to be good leader one has to be a powerful lover. Because in history, leaders who can not expand their capacity to love has become tyrants. They are being hated and a disgrace to the human society.
On the contrary, the leaders that had great capacity to love have become Ideology. They have become immortal, and religion started around them. This is so powerful that he or she gets defended as God. But this is very rare and there for only a handful of people in the human history with the full capacity to Love.
Those who want to be great leader has to commit to increase their capacity to love. A real commitment to love as your are transforming your entire life. One has to surrender everything about himself in order to transform into a more loving person.