Love is the Answer

JANINA GOMES





True love does not lie in receiving but in giving. Love is the driving force and is the heart of all religions. Love is the energy that comes from the willingness to cooperate with God's plan of creation, says psychiatrist T B D'Netto. In his work titled Reaching Out in Love, D'Netto says that love is the force that motivates all people of good will, as it did Mother Teresa.Christian revelation emphasises that the most important aspect of God's nature is love.God's love is compassionate love. Jesus preached this basic message and invited all his followers to be like him, “This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.“ Thus, D'Netto sees the life of Jesus on earth as a life motivated by compassionate love. In asking his followers to love one another in this way , Jesus invited them to be compassionate like him and to forgive one another.
In many schools of thought, self-love and love for others are considered mutually exclusive and even incompatible. Calvin spoke of self-love as a `pest' because it signified selfishness.For Freud, self-love was the same as narcissism and, hence, an immature love. To overcome this difficulty , Paul Tillich, the Christian theologist, suggested the term `self-love' be replaced with `self-affirmation' or `self-acceptance'.
If love inspires both individuals and the world, it will lead to the opening of a new dimension altogether in human existence. That is why D'Netto advocates the practice of loving others and reaching out to them in love.