Perfect Love

In the words of the Indian sage Nisargadatta Maharaj, “Life is love and love is life.”2

You will never feel loved until you love yourself .

—ARNAUD DESJARDINS

I would define love very simply: as a potent blend of openness and warmth, which allows us to make real contact, to take delight in and appreciate, and to be at one with—ourselves, others, and life itself. Openness—the heart’s pure, unconditional yes—is love’s essence . And warmth is love’s basic expression , arising as a natural extension of this

The two aspects of holding—contact and space, attunement and letting be—correspond to the two core qualities of love, warmth and openness, that are native to our being. Warmth is our natural impulse to reach outside ourselves, touch, and make contact, to welcome, embrace, and take delight in. Openness is our capacity to let be, to allow, to let in

“To love is to cast light,”8 Rilke writes, while “to be loved means to be ablaze.” Who is to say that being ablaze is any less holy than casting light? And how can we cast pure light if we are not ablaze?