Chapter 1

The Vision of Love

Love

—Chris Saade

At this moment in time, when our civilization is being challenged at its roots, a new vision of relationship is arising out of the dire needs of our planet. This new kind of relationship is based on partnerships united by a vision of loving service out in the world. The old paradigm saw partners retreating into one another, which led to a catastrophe in relationship building.

The statistics are horrifying. More than fifty percent of marriages end in divorce and of the other fifty percent, many, if not most, end up in dead relationships. Relationships cannot be enclosed into themselves. In this new evolutionary vision, individuals find the energy of their partnership love through a fierce fidelity to their individual authenticity as well as a passionate and engaged service of the world. They are joined together, out of the truth of their authenticity, in a vision of building justice, peace, democratic freedoms, solidarity, and compassion.

Love is an evolutionary soul force. It is the most powerful force of evolution that we know in our species and in the Universe. Love itself is evolving. The idea of love is evolving in our consciousness. Love is becoming more and more of a central philosophy that defines the fullness of life. Love is becoming something that colors our whole life.

Love helps us understand how we work, how we relate to others in society, and, of course, love propels us into a thriving and unique relationship with our loved one, and with our children. We are also coming to understand that love is a participation with the world in its collective struggle. The form of that participation will differ according to the diversity in our personality and gifts. Love is that which fuels our vitality. Frequently, it is love that fuels the struggle we undertake to survive dire poverty, the struggle to survive ecological problems, the struggle to survive the forces that are fighting against democracy, and the struggle to create a world that really works and offers us a sense of solidarity with one another. Love is the foundation.

Love is also one and indivisible. A lot of people say, “I want to take time to focus on my relationship. I want to build my relationship. I want to make that a priority. Then one day when that is taken care of, I will look at serving the world.” Unfortunately, this does not work. What helps a relationship thrive, what allows two people to stay in love, to remain connected, and to sustain intimacy, is the force of love itself. Love is indivisible. Love is an outpouring from the divine heart into our own hearts. The more we care for humanity and for the Earth, the more we let the river of love flow abundantly through our hearts. Love is, and must be, love for all.

The love within a relationship is the same love that we have for our partner, for our cats, for our dogs, for the animals in the world, for the poor in the world, and for those who are struggling or excluded because of race or socioeconomic conditions. It’s all the same love. Love cannot be divided and cut into pieces. We cannot say we’re going to just focus on our relationship. What helps a relationship survive and thrive is the amount and the intensity of love that is available. Again, we are beginning to grasp what it means that love is one and indivisible. We love our partner to the degree that we love the world. We can relate passionately to our partner to the degree that we are passionate about the pursuit of freedom, justice, peace, and solidarity in the world.

Our service to the world resources us in love. Service helps us find the ability to stay passionately in love with our partner. By serving the world, not only do we give, but we receive back at least tenfold. There is nothing that gives back more to us than service. There is nothing that has given me more in life than when I was able to reach out to someone who was struggling and offer support or solace. Those involved in humanitarian work, those who work for political and social justice, know this. It is their source of energy. So the source of energy for a couple is service as individuals and as a couple. That is what nurtures their ability to bring even greater love back to the relationship.

Love comes from the Divine. Love comes from the divine heart. By nature, the Divine is relational. The Divine is love in relationship with itself, with the world, with the Cosmos, with this expanding Universe, with every sentient being. We are all relational beings. We cannot not be relational. This is who we are in our nature.

To be relational is to be engaged. For example, when our children are sick, it is a no-brainer. We relate to them in their sickness and support them because that is who we are. We are also relational with the whole planet. This is who we are. We were created as relational beings to relate in love to the entire planet. All the children on Earth are our children. We are in relationship with them. We cannot individually solve all the problems of the world but we can, individually and especially as a couple, stay in relationship with the struggle for evolution and transformation in the world. We can be cognizant and do our part. And when we stay in relationship with the world, we are in harmony with our authentic relational nature.

Also, it is the nature of love to flower into passion. Passion is not something on the side that we visit every now and then. Passion is the natural fulfillment of love. Love was created to expand into passion. Therefore, to have a loving relationship with our beloved partner means to seek and to work so that love can fully expand itself into passion.

What is fascinating is that by pursuing passion, we are confronted by all that keeps our heart locked-in and personalized. The greatest threat to a relationship is when it is personalized, when we think it is only private and just between two people.

Passion comes from a heart that is open, from a heart that wants to be as big as it can be. Passion comes from a heart that realizes it contains the whole world. Our love can only flourish if we come out of our personalized and privatized prison and open ourselves in service to the world, to the planet, and to the Divine. Our service is to divine love. We are, in essence, the great lovers of the world and the Universe. As we redis-cover and claim our essence, we open the doors wide for love.