'Is love a universal gift?' Photo: Photo: Nina Matthews / flickr CC.
Divine love
Leslie Fuhrmann considers the nature of divine love
Oxford English Dictionary definitions suggest that divine love is strong feelings of affection having to do with God. It is usually felt to be a gift of universal love from God to mankind. Are all Friends of the Truth at ease with this broad statement? Is love a universal gift? The energies proceeding from God are universal, but is divine love universal or, indeed, real? What of the calamities that affect good people and bad alike: war, disease, pests, famine, storms, floods, droughts, forest fires, earthquakes and poverty? A universal love from God? Something doesn’t fit. Perhaps we should consider alternative views of divine love.
I currently think of God not as an entity or being but as a mysterious source of vital universal energies, including gravity, electricity and life itself – life embracing the diverse human energies or qualities, spiritual, emotional, and physical. Our emotional energies include the power of love; but not all love is good. Love can be directed inwardly: self-interest, greed, lust, money, pride and power. Or it can take more beneficial forms when directed outwards: to family, friends, communities, mankind, nature, beauty, truth, goodness and, perhaps, at the highest level, altruistic, selfless love. This I think of as a form of divine love. Perhaps divine, or altruistic, love is not something that we receive from God, but something we can create, using our divinely given energies.
A step further; when earthly bodies become unserviceable, souls may, if they have progressed sufficiently in this life, move to a spiritual plane. We know of the earth, oceans, atmosphere and sky. Four levels perhaps. How many levels may there be on spiritual planes?
People do much good work on earth during their working lives and in their retirement years. After moving on from life and work on earth some souls may be active on a spiritual plane, serving as guides, or ‘guardian angels’ for earthlings. Do we label our subtle perceptions as ‘instinct’, ‘conscience’, ‘subconscious’, ‘inspiration’, ‘ministry’, or ‘dowsing guidance’, when they are, in fact, intimations of divine love and guidance from a spiritual plane? If divine love, guidance and care come from a spiritual plane, but not from an omnipotent God, perhaps our prayers should be shared with our spiritual guide, maybe a deceased relative, friend, teacher, or ancestor, as a possible source of divine love and help, rather than directed to an impersonal, remote, perhaps unloving, God.
Healthy life includes receiving and giving; but not just a balance – we should not be living to mark time, but seeking to make a difference by looking for opportunities to generate positive offerings of practical and spiritual giving and creation during our daily lives. A full life should include the contribution of personal creative additions to the worldwide spiritual pyramid of universal love. Altruistic love can be our individual personal offering. We each have a share of diverse divine energies. ‘That of God in everyone’ can be our personal dynamo, providing fuel for us to generate altruistic (divine) love.
Should we view our universal gift from God not as divine love but as spiritual energy, a responsibility laid upon us all to use our personal efforts in creating effective altruistic (divine) love in action?
