All the problems people have today stem from a lack of love. The same warmth we felt from our mother, the same care, should continue to surround us later in life, from our partners and from society in general. This is how it is meant to be according to nature, but reality is very different.
First of all, it is worth defining what love is, because today there is a great deal of confusion surrounding this term. Intense attraction and sexual desire are not connected to love. These are bodily urges that exist in a basic form in animals as well, and they demand fulfillment. We need to learn how to develop love, because it involves relationships that exist above our egoistic desires.
The longing for love is an aspiration for an inner connection with someone who will become a friend to you, give you security, a shoulder to lean on, complement you, understand you, and accompany you from here to eternity.
In a relationship of true love, all of a person’s longings can be fulfilled. Such partners truly exist within one another, and the emotional connection between them is a kind of reflection of physical union. At every moment, each one looks for what the other would like to receive from them, what they are lacking, and tries to help and support them. It is a delicate, mutual emotional entry into one’s partner, with the aim of identifying the empty spaces within them and filling them.
Everyone wants to be loved and cared for in this way, just as their mother treated them when they were a baby. Let’s try for a moment to enter that picture, to feel something of it once again. A baby in its mother’s arms. What enables the baby to develop properly? Her attitude toward it. What does the baby feel? Wrapped in warmth and love. This is an essential condition for healthy development.
Even in the womb, we have a longing for a certain attitude toward us, which is essentially a longing for love. And when we come into the world, we are born with a need to feel love. A baby wants to be cared for, cries, and calms down in its mother’s arms. Give the baby the whole world, and it wants nothing but her. What it lacks is the feeling of her love. This is a sign that from the beginning of life until its end, our primary need is to be accompanied by a feeling of love.
In a person’s perception, the entire universe, humanity, the society in which they live, and especially their partner, all of them must fill this inner emptiness. After all, a person is incapable of filling it alone. And when this does not happen, all the problems in the world begin from here.
Violence, outbursts, ego games, aggression, illness, despair, depression, distortions in various areas, even wars and terrorism, all of these will subside if we engage in the higher art of developing love. Education and culture, communications and media, all the means we have developed as a society, should focus on this.
How do you think a child growing up in some ancient tribe thousands of years ago felt? Enter that picture. Everyone lived together, friends were constantly around you, and you ran among the adults with complete confidence that everyone cared for you and wanted what was best for you. Everything was open, shared, equal, and fraternal. A society that was like a warm family.
And today? How relaxed are you when your children are alone at the playground?
After a society-wide educational and cultural process that brings every person to understand that despite the intensification of the ego, the fundamental longing that drives us is to be filled with the feeling of love, we will be able to advance together to the next stage of “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
This principle means that just as I want to be loved, I must develop a loving attitude toward others from my side. I must provide the other person with what they lack. Why is this worthwhile? It is because a person who acquires the ability to fill others with love opens up the possibility of feeling a similar attitude from those around them. It is worth reading that sentence again, because it summarizes an entire wisdom that is worth exploring deeper.
By nature, the relationship between partners is the closest relationship a person has. Within it, we can learn to develop love and then expand it. As the circle of love grows—from the couple and the family to others and society—a person feels that love itself fills them with an elevated sense of vitality. Their inner empty spaces and those of others begin to connect and become filled with a special force of higher love. Moreover, when we love, we derive pleasure from giving. Every mother knows that there is no greater pleasure than giving to her baby.
Therefore, by definition, love means filling ourselves by filling others. May we all succeed.
Based on “New Life 199 – Passion and Intimacy” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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