Love ...

Love Is a Necessity

Love is not a virtue. Love is a necessity;
more so than bread and water;
more so than light and air.
Let no one pride himself on loving.
But rather breathe in Love and breathe it out
just as unconsciously and freely as you
breathe in the air and breathe it out.
Love will exalt the heart that it finds worthy of itself.
Seek no reward for Love.
Love is reward sufficient unto Love,
and Hate is punishment sufficient unto Hate.
Nor keep any accounts with Love.
For Love accounts to no one but itself.

The Book Of Mirdad, Mikhail Naimy
******

Love is the richest of all treasures.
Without it there is nothing
and with it there is everything.

Philosophy of the Masters, Vol II, Maharaj Sawan Singh

If He Had Not Loved Me

[In His Love do] I clothe myself
... and with His love, He loves me.
For I should not have known how to love the Lord
if He had not loved me.
For who is able to know love,
except he who is loved ?
I love the Beloved, and my soul loves him,
and where his rest is, there too am I.

And I shall be no stranger at His door,
for there is no begrudging
with the Lord Most High and Merciful.
I have been united to Him,
because the lover has found the Beloved.
And because I love him that is the Son,
I shall become a son.
For he who is joined to him who is immortal,
he, too, will become immortal.
And he who has pleasure in th Living One
will become living.

This is the Spirit of the Lord,
which is without deception,
which teaches the sons of men to know His ways.
Be wise, then, and understanding and vigilant.
Hallelujah.

John Davidson, The odes of Solomon