Your questions that point to issues I might have better fleshed out if I hadn’t become caught up in writing what my life partner calls “a rather oracular” article. Your implication in the first question is of course correct: it would hardly be love if one -intentionally- imposed what you feel to be good on others. I suppose it could be seen as motivated by love if one does so out of ignorance, as I certainly feel my parents did to me more than once and as I’ve also done to others from time to time. I’m glad to say I do this far less often now – I think and hope – than previously.

The love I’m talking about here though isn’t anything you’d impose on anyone, in fact it’s quite the opposite. It’s simply the feeling of real connection with, or com_passion with (not for) others. It’s the kind of love a counselor taught me about when I was languishing from loving a girl who wanted to go off and do other things rather than live with me. He asked: “do you really love her?” – to which I of course said “YES!” He then asked: “Do you love her enough to delight in her joy in doing what she wants to do, whether or not you’re involved?” Well, my conceptual world exploded with that one: until them my entire concept of love was in terms of clinging together and possession – though I didn’t then recognize the possessiveness for what it was. So, I’m trying to talk here about anything but possession and putting demands and expectations on those we love.

For your second question, my answer is decidedly “no!” What I was attempting to suggest here is that we find rewarding in giving far more than in receiving. I suggested therefore that we remove all consideration of receiving as far from our minds as possible. Perhaps I overdid it a bit! A good deal of Law of Attraction writing worries me in that it insists we give generously in order to provoke universal energy to give back in equal bounty. The problem here is that we may feel we’ve given more than we receive back and we end up being in disappointment. I think we’re disappointed in such an instance because our real deep down goal isn’t really to give but rather to receive. In other words, we’re giving so that we’ll receive. I think we’re truly liberated and therefore truly happy when we find fulfillment in giving without regard to what we receive back. Our real reward is the delight in what we do for others, not at self expense or self sacrifice to the point of causing ourselves pain, but self sacrifice that turns into self fulfillment.

This is why I suggest we’re really here to give – not to receive (love – not to be loved). Of course we receive, but that is not our true purpose here and it cannot be our goal if we’re to find fulfillment in our experience here. The reason I find this to be so is that I perceive the universe entirely involved in giving out, manifesting being in every possible way so as to experience in every possible way. Our only true way to participate, as I see it, is to assist in spreading universal abundance, giving and loving in every way we possibly can. In my view, when we try to take (receive) we then hold things to ourselves and we consequently work against this process.

What are the things we’ll value in the last instant of our conscious lives? These are the things of value. We can certainly feel the love that will come back to us from loving and helping others – at lest this is how I feel it to be. I hope you or anyone else with a differing conclusion will continue to share so that I might learn more.

This is a great read. Please understand I’m just another guy looking for a less cumbersome way to live.