Balancing Love and Law for Sustainability

“The love of God does not supersede His laws and His commandments, and the effect of God’s laws and commandments does not diminish the purpose and effect of His love.”- Anonymous
Love and Law are the two sides of a coin. Neither of them can be compromised, be it to get through the day to day activities in daily life of an individual or the sustainable development of a nation or worldwide progress. It is difficult to imagine a world with no love and law. Without love, there would be no purpose of life. The human touch would go away and the world would not be a place worth living. Similarly without law, there would be no system, no controls and this would lead to anarchy. Where on one hand law guides and shapes everything in the world by its do’s and dont’s, on the other hand love is the factor that provides liveliness to life. Today, the world is experiencing them one at a time i.e. where there is love they are unable to follow laws and where they follow laws they restrict themselves from love. Hence, the biggest challenge faced by many today is that how to keep a balance of these two factors which are perceived to be opposites by majority today. To love lawfully and practice laws love fully is what everyone seeks for, and is also the need of the hour.
The main reason for not experiencing this balance is, not understanding the real meaning of ‘love’ and ‘law’. Often, love is misunderstood as a weakness of an individual and law is considered to be something binding and restricting. People believe that laws will become paralysed with the presence of love; while to practice love, laws need to be broken. Due to the incapability of walking along in life with both the factors hand in hand, they tend to choose either of the two.
Today, if asked whether the new generation follows laws, or does it understand the language of love, majority would stand amongst the ones saying a big ‘NO’ for both the questions. Have we ever wondered why? As a result of the confusion between love and law and inability of their elders to keep a balance, they are drifted to using neither of the two. Today the upcoming generation neither likes discipline and laws, nor understands the value of love. Generations have been blaming each other for not following what is to be followed. The elderly blame their younger generation for not teaching the kids properly while the young ones blame the previous generations for not progressing with the fast moving time. Why have we trapped ourselves in this blame game and what is the solution out?
We all know that everything in this world has value, till it is used in proper quantity and at the proper time and place. Similarly practicing love and law with its real understanding and in the required amount and place, is the key to balance them. Let us go deeper to understand what is love and law in the correct sense.
Love is the only language common to every living entity on earth, be it humans, animals or any other species, irrespective of the country, caste, religion or any other barrier. It is first language that we understand, the day we are born. No one teaches us how to love because it’s our own nature. A new born does not know how to speak, nor does he understand words, but feels secure and happy the moment he is in the lap of his mother or father. This love becomes strength for the child. A pet who may not know our language, also understands a touch full of love by his master. It enables an animal to be so faithful to a human being that in his presence no one can cause harm to his master. Hence love is the seed to many other values. History has many incidences where love has won wars. It is said that love is such a power that can shake mountains. Let us think, why even then, we say that we are unable to get our work done through love? Or dealing with love does not work in today’s world? Definitely somewhere our understanding or way of practicing love is incomplete.
Love is a pure feeling of the self. It is our true nature. It only knows how to give and construct. It never desires anything in return. It is not the attachment or attraction to the others, but is the pure affection towards them. It is the affection that one has for others, irrespective of who the other one is. This affection does not support them in the wrong, but encourages them to again walk on the right path if they have gone on the wrong one. Love becomes a ray of light for a person who has lost hope. But the irony today is that we are unable to experience this true feeling of our own self because we are hardly connected to ourselves. Most of the time, we look out searching for love in the materialistic world, unaware of our inner treasures. Due to materialization of love, it transforms into attachment or attraction. These assumed but false forms of love do much harm to the society, as along with them, comes the feeling of partiality, insecurity, rebellion and in extreme cases may even lead to hatred. We are not unaware of various incidences today where lovers do not even hesitate in doing heinous deeds like murder in the name of love. Sadly, they lack the understanding of the law of love.
The biggest law of nature is Love, while love has its own laws. Both are interdependent and inseparable. Talking of law, it the essential force that drives this universe. Everything including nature has its own laws. We are aware of the amount of devastation that occurs with the slightest deviation of nature from its laws. In one’s life, laws are like the string tied to a kite. At once, it may seem that the string is restricting the kite to fly high, but we all know the fact. If the string is cut and the kite is left to fly on its own, it will eventually come down. This is the importance of laws in our life. They are not bondages, but the strings of strength that support us and guide us to always rise and achieve new heights. A person who spreads love and whose actions are always lawful automatically receives everyone’s love and appreciation. Laws are the roots of one’s personality and the water needed to strengthen the roots is love. Law cannot function without love as it would induce fear. If a child is shouted upon, to teach the smallest discipline of life, it is doubtful whether the child learns the discipline taught in this way or not, but it is certain that he learns to shout whenever he wants to teach something to someone else. Hence in the process of teaching discipline, we unknowingly teach the innocent child, that discipline can’t be imbibed with love and this viscous chain continues. Also he would permanently generate a feeling of fear for his parents, which may even compel him to lie in future. A person, who only follows laws without love, becomes unapproachable and is not appreciated either. A person, who is very lovely in nature, would be of no inspiration to the self or others if the foundation of laws and discipline is weak.
So to have a complete personality and be able to do justice with all kind of jobs and relations linked to us, a perfect balance of love and law is required. For this, we need to stop searching outside and start connecting to the self, as there lays the treasure. We all know that everything in this world is temporary, including this body of ours. But what is permanent is the energy that drives this body. That is the real me- the Self. The self which is also know by the term ‘soul’ is the embodiment of virtues like peace, love, happiness, purity, power, co-operation etc, but due to lack of self awareness we are unable to experience these qualities. All these years the inner virtues have been locked inside us and the only key to open these, is self awareness or ‘soul-consciousness’. The opposite of this state is ‘body-consciousness’ which has become so natural these days that we spend our entire life thinking that ‘I am this’ and ‘I am that’ but towards the end we tend to ponder who was the actual ‘I’ all these years! Is it necessary to wake up at the end of life? Why not experience our true self during the wonderful journey of our life.
Connecting to the self is a journey of the soul from external world to the internal space. Knowledge and introspection are the tools to help in this journey. After we get the knowledge of who we actually are i.e. we are all souls; we need to practice those qualities in the daily life. Being in soul consciousness automatically changes our vision towards others. We realize that, similar to me, others are also a pure energy, full of virtues but unfortunately unaware of their capabilities. It is with this insight, that we start experiencing love in its true form, unadulterated by any form of attachment or desire. We stop blaming others or the world, for whatever bad happens to us. When we obey all the laws of our true nature i.e. being in the state of love, peace, happiness, power etc, we regain the inner strength to walk on the path of righteousness and lead a disciplined life. Initially, by practicing our original virtues in our day to day activities, we need to make effort to protect our laws and build our personality, balanced with love and law. Later, this personality protects us in every situation. For instance, if we are known to be a person of values, always doing things in the right manner and if a situation of blame arises in front of us, this impression of our good conduct would speak out the truth for us and others would not find it difficult to disbelieve the blame being put on us. Thus, by being in the state of soul-consciousness a character is built. Life becomes an embodiment of virtues.
Like the property of a rose or sandalwood is to spread fragrance. It does not need to make effort to fill the environment with its beautiful smell. Similarly a soul-conscious person naturally radiates all the virtues in the surroundings. Others can feel the aura of positivity in the presence of that individual. His life becomes an inspiration to others. Such self transformation is the only tool to bring about a sustainable transformation of the society. If we wish to see a world with a perfect balance of love and law, with every individual living in harmony with others and with nature and every one self disciplined and controlled, we need to start with ourselves. Like we plan for all the important jobs to be done in a day, we need to take out time for ourselves daily. Sit with ourselves and introspect. This technique of connecting to the self and unlocking the hidden virtues is what we call ‘Meditation’. Like regular exercise keeps the body healthy, meditation is the exercise of mind which keeps the mind fresh and healthy. Like a diseased person finds it difficult to balance his own body, similarly a diseased mind i.e. a mind trapped in the vices of ego, anger, attachment, jealousy etc, finds it difficult to keep a balance of the essential virtues in life. Meditation helps in re-strengthening the soul and regaining this lost balance.
If every individual in the world re-strengthens itself, there would not be much effort required to shape the future of a peaceful and united world, where everything would be in harmony, and no one would be complaining about lack of love or law in the society. Thus a sustainable future would be achieved. Enough time has been lost blaming; let’s start our inner journey to have a perfect balance of love and law to ensure a sustainable bright future of the earth.