"Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.--Luke 12:37"<P>"Everywhere in the world people are in search of love, for everyone is convinced that love alone can save the world, love alone can make life meaningful and worth living. It is frequently equated with good feelings towards others, with benevolence or nonviolence or service.<P>But these things in themselves are not love. Love springs from awareness. It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and now and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them, otherwise it is not the person that you love but the idea that you have formed of this person as the object of your desire not as he or she is in themselves.<P>The first act of love is to drop your desires, your prejudices, your memories, your projections, your selective way of looking. When you set out to serve someone whom you have not taken the trouble to see, are you meeting that person's need or your own?<P>The second ingredient is to see yourself....your motives, your emotions, your needs, your dishonesty, your self-seeking, your tendency to control and manipulate.<P>If you achieve this kind of awareness of the other and yourself, you will know what love is."

After thinking the full meaning of this one through I have to say I agree 100%! Nice insight!<P>------------------<BR>Chick's <BR>Bren<P>You won't see things until your ready to not be blind!

Thanks for reprinting this Tootrusting.<P>I just love it and have printed it out, both for myself and to go in my "divorce package" for H!!!!<P>Hugs,<P>Sheba

Thanks for posting this. It is true. How can we really love someone if we are trying to control or change them or somehow prevent them from being who they truly are. IF that is the case, it's true that we need to take a closer look at ourselves. A rather scary thought when I think about it!<P>Thanks for the post (and for the reply to my own post!)