Love is the Driving Force of Life

23 August 2001, 02:26am IST
Janina Gomes.

True love does not lie in receiving but in giving. love is the driving force and is the heart of all religions. love is the energy which comes from the willingness to co-operate with god's plan of creation, says psychiatrist t b d'netto. in his work titled reaching out in love , d'netto says that love is the force that motivates all people of good will, as it did mother teresa of calcutta.

Christian revelation emphasises that the most important aspect of god's nature is love. god's love is a compassionate love. jesus preached this basic message and invited all his followers to be like him: ``this is my commandment that you love one another as i have loved you.'' d'netto sees the life of jesus on earth as a life motivated by compassionate love. in asking his followers to love one another in this way, jesus invited them to be compassionate like him and to forgive one another.

Loving god, the author says according to the bible, is not an option but a commandment. he spells out the practical implications of this commandment. loving god implies loving his creation and especially human beings, the highest form of creation.

Analysing the saying of jesus ``you shall love your neighbour as yourself'', d'netto says that since love is an activity and an attitude involving knowledge of the object of love, respect, care and concern for the object, self-love or loving oneself is acceptable especially since it is a commandment to love one's neighbour in the same manner.

In many schools of thought, self-love and love for others are considered mutually exclusive and even incompatible. calvin spoke of self-love as a `pest' because it signified selfishness. for freud self-love was the same as narcissism and hence an immature love. to overcome this difficulty, paul tillich, the christian theologist suggested the term `self-love' be replaced by `self-affirmation' or `self-acceptance'.

While emphasising the importance of true, genuine human love, d'netto believes that love is often like water, open to contamination. the contamination can come through intention due to jealousy, rivalry or pride and prejudice. it could come about unintentionally due to ignorance, misunderstanding or simply the weakness and frailty of human nature. sometimes, what may be mistaken for true love both by the lover and loved one, is really the expression of a will to pleasure or the will to power. other contaminants of love may be emotional needs like loneliness, self-preservation, fear or ego problems like pathological self-love.

Suggesting that the art of sharing is at the root of all love, d'netto says that since human beings are part of god's creation, a natural consequence of loving god is loving people. all religions teach the concept of universal love or universal charity.

An important offshoot of love, is altruism based on love and respect for the other person. altruism which is connected with human emotional development leads to expenditure of time, energy, money and possessions.

Describing the different nuances of love found in the sanskrit and greek languages like bhakti or reverential love for god in sanskrit, maitri or sneha to describe love in friendship between companions called phiha in greek, karuna for compassionate love madhurya for a beloved's love, d'netto says what often leads to confusion in the english language is that the word `love' is used to convey many meanings. often it is ignorance of these finer differences that leads to confusion and misunderstanding.

True love which is at the root of all creation must result in a `reaching out to others' spirit. even with the tremendous advances in technology and research available in modern times, something still seems to be missing. for him this missing dimension is the spiritual dimension. this spiritual dimension is characterised by compassionate love.

If love inspires both individuals and the world, it will lead to the opening of a new dimension altogether in human existence. that is why d'netto advocates the practice of loving others and reaching out to them in love.