Love is a purity of motive.

Love is a way of relating to the world that is forgiving, nurturing, and supportive. […] It has the capacity to lift others and accomplish great feats because of its purity of motive.

—Edited from Power vs. Force by David R Hawkins. M.D., PhD.

To suggest this is to challenge, but here goes: Try and sense what your greatest ability to love is like right now, for several days. 

Of course, now, we are feeling contraction, being hit from all directions with shock, hurt, loss of faith, exhaustion, and so on. 

However, You must have also seen the messages from all the helpers: those who are speaking up, those who are upholding law and order, those who are providing perspective, those holding space for resilience and recovery, those ensuring normalcy and uninterrupted routines. 

What fuel us for the long term has got to be love and hope. They exist, even if unrecognizable. However, we need to affirm their power. In times of “peace”, heart-based feelings may seem unproductive. But, in times of darkness, those “useless feelings” are now shining brighter, providing meaning and therefore function to human interactions that will sustain us with more good faith and energy. 

The most obvious flashes of love come from when we and loved ones understand and support each other, and when we want to keep the hope and love in THEIR hearts continuing to grow. 

The more powerful and less obvious is when it extends to the unknown, and to beings that may be hostile, fearful, or indifferent, and yet our first response starts with good wishes of health and safety, wellness and happiness. 

We may not want to rush to the next steps, such as resolutions with those we are in conflict with, because if love’s power is not nurtured, this pure love for the world can be easily crushed and warped. 

We first nurture the pure intentions we sometimes have, which is the power of love that we hold, while maintaining boundaries, so that we notice it grow. 

When we hope the slow store staff inconveniencing us is free from physical or mental distress, when we hope the speeding car is not under a life or death matter, when we hope an irritable stranger has resolutions to their problems, all in a split of a second, before we judge the situation with more logic and context——the first reaction comes from an innate love for the world. 

That is affirming that love exists and is valuable. 

Having this sensitivity most of my life, I know it often makes me look timid, gullible, and incapable, even though I’m simply instinctively holding more neutral space than what many busy, industrial souls find value in.

It’s all good, until the balance tips, and the warring and the hollow begin their massive feed on the rest. Then you realize that with enough violence and destruction, love and compassion can be nearly wiped out in a person. Then you realize love and compassion is not only an ability, but also an undertaking to nurture and keep at.

Almost every person I interact with can teach me something about presence, awareness and compassion. If we also accept that the anger, curses, and frustrations within ourselves are just normal and do not outlast our love and goodwill for the world, then we grow the power to apply love not just to the abstract whole but also deeper into the conflicts and uncomfortable situations.

My deepest curse and prayer for Trump and gang is probably for them to accept their fear and weakness, face their wrongdoings, and find the self love and courage to right the wrongs. While I’m not holding my breath for it, I acknowledge that my instinct is still to wish for things to turn out for the better. Redemption is more hopeful of a story than the dead end of punishment, isn’t it?!

While there’s a lot to think about, I think this is why “love for the world” does not interfere with resisting and defending and fighting for good. Upholding a space for love requires persistence and resistance. It will manifest differently for each person, what “fighting for good” looks like. 

What if more and more, we believe in and bestow the power of pure thoughts and instinctive loving nature? It’s what all the cool epic movies and stories teach us: love does not lead to weakness, it grows strong as we’re tested more and more, and it is an ultimate power. Don’t let it be taken away.