WHAT IS LOVE?

 

          WHAT IS LOVE?

Love is a quality of the heart. To be alive is to be in love not only with a man or woman but the whole world.

We must love our country, our home, our friends and relative, our body, mind and soul.

Nothing is unlovable in this world. The whole universe is worthy of love. All nations, all religions, all planets deserve love. One must love, the sky, the sun, the moon the stars, mountains, rivers and gardens with their trees, flowers and thorns.

Birds and beasts all look for loving eyes and affectionate hands.

God deserves maximum love for His infinite life-friendly blessings and well-deserved mercies.

Love is life. A person who does not get  love is almost lifeless. He is alone and cut off from all the joys, beauties and charms of the world.

Love is health and happiness; its antonym hatred is sickness and distress.

Love demands sacrifice not for some time but for the whole of one’s life.

Love is not a duty, it is a spiritual offering. It asks for no material rewards.  It is a selfless phenomenon.

To be untrue and unfaithful in love is poisonous. Truthful and loyal love is elixir.

A person who loves his enemies, rivals, opponents, competitors and antagonists is the best practitioner of love.

If love changes into hatred; hatred, too, changes into love. In this respect, time is a great changer.

True love is  free from jealousies. It is extremely broad-minded. It is non-possessive. It believes in the freedom of the loved ones.

To conclude, here is a sonnet by the English poet-playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616).

. . . . . . . Love is not Love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove;

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken.

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth is unknown, although his height be taken.

 

Love is not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

 

If this be error and upon me prov’d,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

  

                                                ********

G.R.Kanwal

15 February 2025