A total immersion in life offers the best classroom for learning to love.

As soon as the love relationship does not lead me to me, as soon as I in a love relationship do not lead another person to himself, this love, even if it seems to be the most secure and ecstatic attachment I have ever experienced, is not true love. For real love is dedicated to continual becoming.

Joy is always an integral part of loving. There is joy in every act of life, no matter how menial or repetitive. To work in love is to work in joy. To live in love is to live in joy... Why not choose joy?... Why not live in joy?

Man has not yet learned to work for the joy of work, learn for the sake of growth, create for the expression and the exaltation in the act, or to love simply for the pleasure of loving: he still requires a reward. Until a man learns to do these things, hope will have to be his basic motivating force. In work, he'll require more wages and better titles; in knowledge, he'll require degrees and diplomas; in creativity, he'll require recognition; in love, he'll require assurance. Until he appreciates that each of these are their own reward, he'll need hope as his crutch. There is nothing wrong with hope; it is simply the second best thing. For love goes beyond hope. Hope is a beginning. Love is forever.

But man has other needs as well: emotional needs. These, too, are few, but every bit as important as his physical requirements, yet not so simple. If they aren't met, they can be as devastating as physical hunger, as uncomfortable as a lack of shelter, as incapacitating as thirst. The frustration, isolation and anxiety brought about by unmet emotional needs can, like physical privation, produce death or a degree of living death - neurosis and psychosis.

In love, each man is his own personal challenge.

He must also know evil, hate and bigotry as real phenomena, but he must see love as the greater force. He must not doubt this even for a moment or he is lost. His only salvation is to dedicate himself to love, in the same fashion as Gandhi did to militant nonviolence, as Socrates to truth, as Jesus did to love and as More did to integrity. Only then will he have the strength to combat the forces of doubt, confusion and contradiction. He can depend upon no on or no thing for reinforcement and assurance but himself.

He must understand that if he is the world's finest plum and someone he loves does not like plums, he has the choice of becoming a banana. But he must be warned that if he chooses to become a banana, he will be a second rate banana. But he can always be the best plum.

There are those who will dismiss love as a naïve and romantic construct of our culture. Others will wax poetic and tell you that “love is all,””love is the bird call and the glint in a young girl’s eyes on a summer night.” Some will be dogmatic and tell you emphatically that “God is Love.” And some, according to their own experience, will tell us, “Love is a strong emotional attachment to another…”etc. In some cases you will find that people have never thought of questioning love, much less defining it, and object violently even to the suggestion that they think about it. To them love is not to be pondered, it is simply to be experienced. It is true to some degree all of these statements are correct, but to assume that any one is best or all there is to love, is rather simple. So each man lives love in his limited fashion and does not seem to relate the resultant confusion and loneliness to this lack of knowledge about love.

There are those who will dismiss love as a naïve and romantic construct of our culture. Others will wax poetic and tell you that “love is all,””love is the bird call and the glint in a young girl’s eyes on a summer night.” Some will be dogmatic and tell you emphatically that “God is Love.” And some, according to their own experience, will tell us, “Love is a strong emotional attachment to another…”etc. In some cases you will find that people have never thought of questioning love, much less defining it, and object violently even to the suggestion that they think about it. To them love is not to be pondered, it is simply to be experienced. It is true to some degree all of these statements are correct, but to assume that any one is best or all there is to love, is rather simple. So each man lives love in his limited fashion and does not seem to relate the resultant confusion and loneliness to this lack of knowledge about love.