Fourth Perspective
The Word, “Love”
[The Love Warrior]
1 “Say the word and you’ll be free.” (Lennon: “The Word”) Free from what? Free to what? Free from the adversities of life, from the impetuosity of one’s ego-sensuality, from anxiety and despair, from depression and worthlessness…and on and on. Free to be more self-understanding, free to be transcendent, free to be moderate, free to be loving, and on and on.
2 Let Love soothe the “savage beast” in you; however buried, sublimated, repressed, it may be. Keep in touch with your Love divinity, and you will keep from the dark forces of your nature, of human nature.
3 Love – transcendent Love – certainly is all you need, as Lennon sings; especially when It comes to freeing you mind.
4 Say the word “Love,” chant the word Love, sing the word Love, as in the song Love is all you need: Love, love, love.
5 Do you want a dosage of strength in a particular situation? Turn to Love. Repeat the word, and that dosage will impart that strength to you ̶ more than, perhaps you can imagine. Keep the faith!
6 Let Love take over. It knows. Certainly more than you know.
7 Ah, the word Love! sweet to the ears, balm to the mind!
8 Temper the word Love with the wisdom of the species – good and evil, love and strife, you know; lest you become engulfed in “sappiness,” in treacle.
9 Saying, chanting, singing, the word Love will save you from yourself. Not totally, but in good part.
10 Saying the word, thinking the word, Love will embark you on a high adventure sans boredom and egoism and neurosis, and …
11 Don’t think that love is merely a feminine quality, while truth is the masculine stance; when in fact they’re interchangeable, with the additional merit of love as the pathfinder of truth. Or again, it is the masculine quality of Love that emboldens one to be more than he or she is. As a matter of fact, just think of that old, familiar reality of being first in love with another person. Cannot you then “move mountains.” Cannot you then “conquer the world.” Are you not “eight miles high?” Are you not in another staggering dimension of your humanity willing to sacrifice yourself, rehabilitate yourself, die, for your love? So perhaps, since we have that surpassing, transcendent dimension in loving another person, something comparable happens to us in loving Love-Itself; though certainly not as emotionally intense a river-rapids experience, but a more tranquil, long-lasting oceanic flow. And just as you want to be with your loved one all the time, why wouldn’t you want to be with Love all the time — through the word Love, the concept of Love, the feeling of Love, the strength of Love, the presence of Love. Yes, the word Love is an abstraction, but it is a relative human abstraction just as it is an absolute pure abstraction ̶ relative to us, personal to us.
12 You wake up depressed with mind clouded in despair; and can’t seem to get through it. Do you drink or eat, or drug, or lust yourself against the depression? … Love can help you. “Say the word and you’ll be free.” Then you get up and do something creative, constructive, helpful. You work; but in mind is always Love, Love, Love.
13 Boredom drains your energy so that all you can do is “mope around,” “loaf around,” sleep, You gropefor some kind of relief, stimulation, even mischief, to end the dullness. Love can help you. – “Say the word and you’ll be free.” Let it take over creatively.
14 You’re aroused sexually unexpectedly, unwantedly, on the instant; your thoughts, your images, can’t stop themselves. You’re flooded with “the urge”; your conscience can’t help you; your vows are but straw in the fire. And so you give in; and so do we all, with no way out, it seems. The incomparable Shakespeare puts it in his sonnet.
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy’d no sooner but despisèd straight;
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
And again in The Tempest:
Do not give dalliance
much the rein, the strongest oaths are straw
To the fire I’ the blood: be more abstemious,
Or else, good night your vow! (The Tempest)
15 What are we to do, then against this implacable force? The best answer is: The best we can, over and over again. Turning to the word Love does help us do this “the best we can.”
16 Anger blazes through you at the injustice committed, and you go blind instinctively to attack verbally or physically; yet can you abrupt yourself with a thread of reason before it’s too late…with the word Love repeated over and over again. ¯ Say the word and you’ll be free!
17 Anxiety swells up in you as you forebode the worst. How will you ever get through the “calamity” of what is to, or might, come. The situation is dire; loss looms over your precarious life. How will you deal with it? Perhaps the chant of Love as your saving grace might ease the pain enough to forestall your mind from expecting the worst, to give you another perspective, to put you back on your feet, so to speak.
18 You can’t get to sleep, as you toss and turn restlessly; wanted and unwanted thoughts invading your consciousness aimlessly – so it seems. Then is the time to chant slowly the word “Love,” as it soothes you from the flurry of your unwanted thoughts. Observe how restful and quiet and obedient your mind becomes to the incantation of the word Love as your mind readies itself to put you to sleep. Not always, of course.
19 The word Love is a fathomless fount of physical relief and psychic settlement.
20 Let your Love divinity be your constant companion.
The Love Testament 