When we have to define the fun­da­ment­al con­cepts of our lives, we are often at a loss. Life, death, time, space, love… con­cepts hard to grasp, and yet vital. Because of its mean­ing, most people con­sider love the most beau­ti­ful word in the Hun­gari­an lan­guage, and yet how often we have abused it and worn it thread­bare, speak­ing of it more often than we prac­tise it.

For many, love is merely a beau­ti­ful word, for oth­ers a feel­ing that people over­com­plic­ate. Love is rare, not com­mon, at least not in prac­tice. Love is care, ten­der­ness, ser­vice, atten­tion, a per­petu­al turn­ing towards the other, which goes hand in hand with uncon­di­tion­al accept­ance and humil­ity. Love is self­less, love is self-giv­ing, and, if the other allows it, a cease­less giv­ing. Love is not ‘sac­ri­fice’, not ‘renun­ci­ation’ in the neg­at­ive sense of the word, but love is always good, even when it is renun­ci­ation, even when it is sac­ri­fice, for it is act­ive devo­tion made mani­fest in deeds. Love is the oppos­ite pole of hatred. Love is not sen­ti­ment­al, for then the senses shape one's frame of mind. Sen­ti­ment­al feel­ing lacks deep con­vic­tion, so it is bet­ter when cer­tainty pre­cedes the emo­tions.

Love is free­dom… does this rhyme, per­haps, with the fact that in true love, on its purest plane, there are no rules any more? Or with the thought of the apostle Paul, per­haps, that love lets go, is gentle, makes no demands? How wide is the chasm between free love and the free­dom of love! Glar­ing is the dif­fer­ence between the power of love and the love of power!

Fear­less love is a most power­ful weapon for over­com­ing fear, and divine love is the anti­dote to worry. Exist­ence, know­ledge, bliss – this is the great secret of the uni­verse, and if illu­sion veils it, noth­ing remains for dis­in­her­ited man but tran­si­ence, folly and tor­ment.

Many say that God is love, but the sages of the East add that love belongs to God, that love is divine energy. True faith is cer­tainty gained through love. Love on the divine level is a high degree of ecstasy, a world of feel­ing that is all heart, and at its focus the believ­er meets his adored God. Accord­ing to Michelan­gelo, ‘God dwells not in love but in the lover; the beloved is merely the instru­ment of divine inspir­a­tion.’ This chimes with the secret love-philo­sophy of India, accord­ing to which the adored God lives so vividly in the believ­er that his mere name, or some sight con­nec­ted with him, can call forth fierce emo­tion­al reac­tions. The pass­ive side of divine love is com­plete self-giv­ing – I am yours – while its act­ive side is the feel­ing of lov­ing appro­pri­ation – and you are mine. This is one of the mys­ter­ies of the path of divine love. Love of God is noth­ing other than the meet­ing of Beauty and Love in the heart of man, and the beauty that attracts all is the ulti­mate aspect of God, while abso­lute love is his ardour per­son­i­fied – the two are insep­ar­able. And the philo­sophy of love declares that only love begets love, and love begets only love.

It is said that love is not a feel­ing but a state. Let us add that it is a state of con­scious­ness; that is, love is a ques­tion of one's view of the world. Feel­ings come and go, but a view of the world remains; at most it increases and grows rich­er, but it never per­ishes.

Love is per­son­al, bound to a per­son, like a child's love, a par­ent's love, love of man and love of God. It is an emo­tion­al gift, a spir­itu­al offer­ing to oth­ers. Love is patience, the wis­dom of accept­ance. Love is the bond that holds people togeth­er in an emo­tion­al rela­tion­ship. Love is some­thing spir­itu­al, incom­pre­hens­ible and not of this world. Love is a respons­ible ardour that spreads through rela­tion­ships. Love is joy­ful, but pain­ful too, the source of the greatest hap­pi­ness and the greatest tor­ment. Love is attach­ment, man's greatest strength, one that can­not be arti­fi­cially induced. Love mat­ters.