The Family Tree of Love

Mohandas Gandhi's grandson, Arun, lived with his grandfather for 18 months in his early teens. Gandhi required his grandson to create a "family tree" for violence, so that he could recognize how many daily activities he witnessed and experienced were forms of violence, not only "physical" but "passive" -- mental and verbal. By studying all the signs of violence, Arun became more aware of the ways we create and wreak violence upon our fellow man although we may never lift a hand against them.

In the same vein, I have decided to create a family tree of Love. Some people believe that God is Love and everything comes from Love. But, even though we talk, write, and sing about love frequently, we do not often stop to reflect on the nature of love and its "family tree". So, let's look at some of Love's many aspects.

What is Love?

If we are going to look at the family of Love, first we should understand what Love really means. Love is a state of being where we feel connected to everything around us. It is life-affirming because it makes us open to the flow of life and all of its possibilities. We feel at peace because we are not threatened; we trust that our connection with the rest of Life is supportive to us.

Love is actually our native, unperturbed state of being. But as we travel through life, we may find that we don't feel at peace; we are scared and put up our defenses, separating ourselves from other people and our environment; we lose our trust in our fellow human. In this way, we lose our connection to the source of love that is always within us. We need a reminder of how we can find our way back to love. This discussion is an attempt to clarify what we are looking for, to make it easier to find our way home again.

Connection and Peace

We have already found a few "relatives" in this discussion of what Love entails: Connection, Life-affirmation, Peace, Trust, and Openness. In addition, let's add Growth, since Love is nurturing and allowing, providing the freedom to explore and grow in a supportive environment. The idea of growth leads us to the two components required to grow: support and challenge. It requires some form of challenge to teach us the lessons we need to grow, but it also requires some form of support to be able to meet the challenge. Therefore challenge is a form of Love, because it produces growth and growth is an aspect of Love.

Growth: Support and Challenge

"Now, wait a minute!" you may say. "You said Love creates peace and now you are saying challenges come from love. How can I be at peace when I am living with a challenge?" By staying connected to the source of Love in your heart, you CAN remain at peace during a challenge! 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, "In all things, give thanks!" When we know that the challenge is an opportunity for growth and we know that the support we need to meet it is at hand, we will be at peace. We will be grateful both for the support and for the challenge -- because growth leads to more capability to express our Love. And the more Love we can express, the more Love we will experience.

The Breath of Spirit: Creativity and Inspiration

Another aspect of Love which is similar to Growth is Creativity. Love is creative because it keeps us open to the flow of spirit and the source of inspiration. You might notice that the roots of spirit and inspiration are the same; they both come from a word meaning breath. Therefore, the "breath of life" and the "breath of spirit" are connected in our language and in our lives.

The Flow of Spirit: Giving and Receiving

Just as breathing is a cycle of intake and outflow, spiritual gifts are also available in a flow of receiving and giving. Abundance flows to us and we return gratitude and tithes of our abundance, thus maintaining the cyclic flow. When we are truly in this flow, we are prosperous - in our finances, our relationships, our health, our career, in all things.

Connection Leads to Service

Returning to the aspect of Love which is connection, we will find that the more we demonstrate and experience our connection to others, the more Love we will experience. This brings us to Service - the act of sharing our loving connection by serving others. Being in service to something larger than ourselves is a key component to creating meaning in our lives.

Coming Home : Living with the Family of Love

When we use our challenges to grow and our prosperity to create and serve, giving and receiving in gratitude, we become filled with the experiences of Love. We are at peace, trusting in the support and abundance of the Universe. This is living with the family tree of Love and it is the way to experience Heaven on Earth!

REFERENCES

http://www.cunepress.com/cunepress/booksonline/essays/etg/etg-pages/e-q/gandhi.htm

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