My Understanding of True Love

 

I’m taking a speech class and our first speech was a commemoration speech. I decided to commemorate the question, “why are we all here? and the answer, Love.”

When i began the speech i noticed that my topic engaged my classmates very quickly. I’ll give you a rundown of my speech in a journalistic style.

The question why are we all here puzzled me about 2 years ago, so like any beginning to a puzzle, i had to start putting the pieces together. I read a couple intros to some philosophy books my roommates had, but it led myself to a wall. So at this point I was getting tired of school, not really learning too much that interested me (university of Riverside), so i decided to take a quarter off and chill out, visit old friends, and just get away from the norm for awhile. Now i had decided to stop drinking alchohol, quit smoking weed, and stop cutting my hair and grow a beard.

Anyways, back to the question. Being that i’m chinese, i decided to read some of Confucius’s works. Confucius went around China at about 450 bc teaching emperors and people the meaning of virture. So, I was sitting on a plane to NY and had printed out “The doctrine of the Mean” by Confucius and had a dictionary and highlighter for the words i did not know. “The doctrine of the Mean” is a dialogue between the master (confucius) and his disciples. They discuss the path one must walk in order to attain true virtue. After reading the work, about a year or so later, i realized that this path of virtue which they spoke of was essentially Love.

One quote that really stuck with me during the year was this, “The master said, “I know how it is the path is not walked in: The knowing go beyond it and the stupid do not come up to it. I know how it is that the path of the Mean is not understood: The men of talents and virtue go beyond it, and the worthless do not come up to it.”‘

What i took from this quote was this, The knowing go beyond it and men of talents and virtue go beyond it: men like preachers and singers talk of Love and sing of Love, but they do not actually instill it in their hearts and walk this path of Love. The stupid and worthless do not come up to it: many people in the world have their own misconceptions of Love and virtue, due to what they’ve been shown in life and never actually go out and learn of Love and virtue for themselves, making them stupid for not searching out what they deem to be true and false about Love.

“The doctrine of the Mean” also talked about self cultivation, meaning bettering yourself each day, making this path a path to be walked on and seen as a journey. So everyday i try and better myself, knowing that it’s not easy to give up being a lazy bum over night, i try and better myself a little bit each day. I’d say i’m about 60% still a bum and 40% learning of Love, pretty good since i started out at 100% bum a few months ago.

So back to this question. I believe this question has been the catalyst for progression in modern society. You see tribal way of life has understood this meaning of Love, which basically starts with faith and respect to God and Earth, but modern society lags behind tribal way of life in spirituality, among many reasons, because modern society has a huge deal of conflicting details of God which has led to wars and arrogance of race, but it’s all just really childish fighting, whereas tribal ways of life is much smaller and more communal, easier to love and respect the tribe’s belief in God and Earth and the tribe itself.

So back to the question, men like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and Gandhi and many great leaders of history and present have unflinching faith in God, giving them the strength to really push for change in Modern society. So this question of why are we all here and the answer which great leaders come to is Love and if you know God you know God is Love, this is one detail which no man can dispute.

So i commemorated this question of why we are here and the answer Love for leading me to study great minds such as Confucius, Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Gandhi, Aristotle, Socrates, John Lennon, Etc.

I also commemorated this question for helping the modern world progress and helping myself become a better person each day.

So this question has led me to my understanding of Love and a good relationship with God, but i’m not quite where i need to be yet.

So i hope this little journal has helped you get a better understanding of Love, but please please please for the love of God, do not take my word for it, go and seek knowledge for yourself and study great minds who you wish to satisfy your curiosity of this question, because i know we all have pondered this question but only the great ones seek an understanding to the best of their knowledge and instill it in their hearts and lives and walks this path of virtue. Oh and this is just a snippet of my understanding, i’ve got much more to learn and left much unsaid.

Peace and Love, if i have typos, my bad, i’m 42 min past when i get off work so ima jet outa here.

-Jas