Jeff Kober's wet plate camera, Los Angeles
How do I feel love?
As we pass through the stages of infancy into adulthood, we lose the need to receive from others in order to survive. We have, to one degree or another, become self-sufficient. Our ego, ever the naysayer, insists that we must acquire more and more material wealth in order to be worthy. Worthy of what? The love of others, of ourselves, of our creator.
But our creator already loves us. He brought us into this world and gave us endless gifts that we often choose to ignore. We have difficulty loving ourselves because we don't wish to be judged as narcissistic or conceited. Yet we are encouraged to appear confident and assertive. No wonder we get confused. What is the path to true self love? The Veda states that there is only one thing. The difference between you and me is miniscule. The love of others and the love of self is an academic distinction at best.
This leaves loving others. It is a paradox that, according to the Vedic world view, we can only feel love if we give it. We must strive as yogis to do just this. In what circumstances? In every circumstance. When is such effort appropriate? Always. Every time we ask the question, the answer is yes.
When we do the research and check our deepest intuition, we know that we must love others always. To follow this path yields so much more inner wealth than the acquisition of material goods.
So, for us, to give love is to experience love, with no exceptions.
We have never killed our way to peace. Our culture goes so far as to discount the very idea of peace and deems its study unworthy or unrealistic.
War is justified by adopting a twisted worldview in which the exact words of the Christian savior are ignored and discarded, or cherrypicked.
"Market forces" or the dangerous dictates of crony capitalism are sold to us as inevitable, or even morally superior to actions or ideas that are sustainable.
Orwell warned us about this linguistic pretzel logic. His prescient dystopian fiction seems to have become an accurate depiction of our daily lives.
Perhaps it is time to try love.
Boat passengers on the Ganges