Why Choose Love?

Life is a journey, but what kind of journey? Is it a death march through a vale of tears? Or is it a pleasure cruise with gambling, entertainment, and all you can eat 24/7? Or is it a pilgrimage during which we follow the footsteps of saints? I like to think of it as a field trip in which we learn important lessons.

One of the lost important lessons is love. Love has the power to transform our lives. It is the antidote to fear and hatred. Omraam said in "Golden Rules for Everyday Life," that "It is important to understand the power and efficacy of love. Whatever you do, do it with love...or don't do it at all. For anything you do without love only fatigues and poisons you, and you...find yourself drained and ill."

Victor Frankl was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. He came to understand that although he was stripped of his freedoms, he still had the freedom to choose how to react. He could choose to respond to the guards' cruelty with hatred or with love abd forgiveness. He chose love and was able to survive with his mind and body intact. He went on to become a famous psychotherapist and wrote a groundbreaking book, "Man's Search for Meaning." (I will soon discuss more about Frankl and his book in "Find Your Purpose").

Most of us don't have to endure the horrors of a concentration camp. But if someone doesn't have love, they can turn their life into one. They will think of their job as slave labor and their boss as a cruel task master. How many times have you heard a cynical coworker say after a break, "Well, time to go back to the salt mine"? They endure the torture of onerous work only to return exhausted to a bare cell and spend the night tossing and turning, trying to sleep. Someone can be a millionaire, but without love, will live the harrowing life of a prisoner. But someone who is poor, working a minimum-wage job and having only the bare necessities, can be happy if they have love.

Love is the key that can unlock the door to our prison (See "Love Is the Key That Unlocks the Door to Perception" from March 27 and "Free Your Soul From the Prison of Fear" from April 6"). All it takes is a shift in perspective and an act of will. You can decide to see your job as an opportunity to serve and balance karma, something you love to do, not have to do. Love requires willpower and understanding in a three-fold action that can transform your life. Understanding comes first. May these words help you understand the journey of your life and how you can transform it with love.