True love

True love is the supreme love. It is highly desired, yet rare in the world. These passages can only begin to describe this ideal love, whose various attributes will be treated at length in the following sections.

Most essentially, true love is grounded in divine love. Love or compassion, being the core of Ultimate Reality, is manifested by the saint who can rise above self-centered attachments and desires. As God created for the sake of His creatures, so true love is totally committed to the welfare of the beloved. As God is absolute, eternal and unchanging, true love never changes and cannot be defeated by the vicissitudes of life. As God is the Parent of all humanity and the creator of all things, so a person with true love is impartial and all-embracing. Therefore, true love is displayed to individuals who are deeply united with God and fulfill God’s purpose for their life.

True love is beyond the reach of most people, who are caught up in self-centered pursuits. Yet it is not so far off, for everyone has within him or herself the potential for love. A parent who gives everything for the sake of his or her children has tasted it. Maybe he had habitually lived for his own pleasure, but with the birth of a child his life goes through a total reorientation—from self to the other, from taking to giving. Parental love is close to God’s true love, and hence we call God our Father. This inborn potential is illustrated by the Chinese character for benevolence (仁), which contains elements signifying “two (二) people (人)”; the same elements that are combined to make the character for Heaven (天). Thus love is innate in our being, through love God dwells with us, and by loving we resemble God.