I’ve been thinking about love this evening, about how the world craves love in all of its forms. Work of love, for instance. There’s just not enough work of love in the world. I’ve been thinking about how difficult it often is to love.  You need to have yourself together to love. You need to have yourself together to do a work of love. A work of love is a result of the careful organization of one’s life. Very little of the work of humanity is work of love because it is so difficult. True love is demanding.

It is often difficult to bring love into our relationships, especially into the relationships where there is not currently any love. It is easier to return love than to initiate love.

It takes a certain amount of inner structure and discipline and self-love to bring love into a scenario where no love exists.  Gandhi’s thoughts are particularly challenging:

“It is not nonviolence if we merely love those that love us.  It is nonviolence only when we love those that hate us.” 

It was one of the great accomplishments of modern history that Gandhi was able to lead a successful revolution against an oppressive colonial British rule without firing a shot.

Visit the link below for the rest of Gandhi’s reflection, and for other favorite quotes, book and Heron Dance interview excerpts collected over the last forty years on love and friendship:

www.herondance.org/love