Love: What does it mean to you?

Do you think of the romantic kind of love, the love for a child, the love of a pet, or a love for the planet? What about the love you have for yourself, for life itself, a divine love?

Love isn't trite, and it isn't negotiable. Isn't love, of every kind, urgently needed, everywhere, in every body, now more than ever?

In yoga, love is the greatest force, the reason and cause, the purpose and meaning, the truth. Love is “no thing, yet is everything.”

My second August poem pick:

Love from Gurumayi Chidvilasananda of the Siddha Yoga tradition.

LOVE

by Gurumayi

They say love is like space

Love is like earth

Love is like water

Love is like air

And love is like fire

Divine love is like space because it is limitless

Like earth because it is tangible

Like water because it is cooling

Like wind because it can transport you anywhere

But it is the fire of love that enchants me

In all the other elements there can still remain a trace of existence

but in the fire of love, you don't want to exist or hold on,

the bondage of existence is long gone

If you run away from the fire of love, you will wriggle like a worm in this world

You will be like a dry leaf hanging from a tree

You will be like uncooked rice

You will live of course, but cut off from the nectar of love

Plunge into the fire of love

Find the joy of becoming nothing

Love has no rule, no law, because it is no thing

yet love is everything

It is the entire universe

The fire of love courses through your whole being

illuminating every part of you

Give yourself to this fire

It is not harmful

In the burning, there is living

In the burning, there is offering

In the burning, there is being

Living, offering, being - when all these are nothing but love,

life shines brightly showing the way to all those who tread this path

Om

Let’s practise.