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It was G. D. Purucker, not Bruno Grollo, who said that “Love is the cement of the Universe”. This was a very Theosophically profound statement, which, when mentioned to others, makes them immediately seek to define “what is this thing called love”, this fugacious, ethereal quality, and that is what I, too, am trying to do this afternoon, working from the Bible, Purucker, and Blavatsky.

According to a Christian friend, the Greeks defined five kinds of love, six when you count in “Hesed” or steadfast loving-kindness. The first kind that may spring to mind is Eros, the procreative kind, the direct opposite of which is Agapé, termed as “caring and sharing, helping, charity in the original sense of caritas or selfless love; the kind Theosophists are interested in. (See Romans 5:8.) All people crave this love but mostly people are too sparing with it. Between these two extremes, or perhaps cleaving to one or the other of them, are Epithumia which a young person described as “sexual desire” and which an older one called “understanding”. Then comes “Storge” (Store-gay) or familial love for members of the same household – housemates, siblings, and even pets – devoted loyalty. The last kind is Phileo – friendship, as in Philadelphia, or Phillip.

Many spiritual hierarchies value a loving heart over and above a keen intellect, some candidates for initiation apparently being deficient in the latter but rich in the former. Paul of the Christians gave a magnificent definition of selfless love, outlining the importance of love over intellect in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13, in which he called love “charity” or caritas – self sacrificing love. I quote:

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity (or love), I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling symbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it propheteth me nothing. Love suffereth long, and is kind ; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, it is not puffed up…doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil…rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth … beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth, but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail, whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity(or love)”. – Pure God-wisdom/Theosophy – no doubt the same teaching can be found in other religions.

Caritas is the love embodied by the golden rule which is outlined in Leviticus 19:18 “You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself (as) I am the Lord”. The Master Jesus re-iterated this maxim when the Pharisees asked him which was the “great commandment of the Law” to which he replied “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.” (In Matthew 5:44) H also said “You have heard that it was said: “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy, but I say to you, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?” This came perhaps from Solomon’s Proverb” A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity.” (Provs, 17:17.)

The Golden Rule – to love your neighbour as yourself (neighbour I think meaning any other life form) is suitably enough found in cultures right across the globe – from religions deriving from the middle and far east, as well native Americans, who say “Respect for all life is the foundation.” Some of these sayings are on the wall chart near the door. Perhaps you’ve read them already. (read some if there’s time).

This leads neatly onto the universal nature of the spirit in all things. When I was wondering (again) how to tackle “love” I thought I’d clean up the desk and found this little triangle of yellow wood- an upper triad if you were ever looking for one. Love is the proof of the upper triad’s existence. We all have one, but it is ethereal and fugacious, hard to detect; it melts into the air like morning mist; it escapes like a shy bush animal. It retreats from our advance as we try to define it, but it creeps out again when conditions favour, when it thinks it’s safe to. Even so, nature and human society often seems to run on dog eat dog, Darwinian laws of selfish self-preservation – heartless – I call this “the mongrel principal.” Once I saw two blue wrens (males) flying at one another’s’ throats. When I chased them away, their female counterparts also took up the fray, their mutual aggression blinding them to greater dangers around them. No doubt the females were also claiming territories, but this took place only about 100 m from the scene of a human murder, only a few days earlier. It was as though the evil scandas had been unthinkingly taken up by the mute brute world from the degenerate human ethos of hatred, competitiveness, callousness – copying from their evolutionary, human, “elder brothers” who should know better. I don’t think this would have happened in Eden or during the Golden Age of the Greeks, when gods walked the earth as equals with men and beasts and all nature’s kingdoms lived in loving mutual respect, a state attainable by living the golden rule. If this rule be followed the instinctive forces of nature would follow suit and poor orphaned humanity would re-perceive the gods walking among them, and rediscover their divine roots and holy heritage, as in Hebrews 13:1 – “Let brotherly love continue (be hospitable) – (for you may have entertained angels unawares)…” Then the harmony which prevailed in the Golden Age would return, humans following the divine example and setting in turn the example of “loving kindness to all living things.” or active compassion as outlined in Paramitas?

The popular song says – “What the world needs now is love, sweet love, it’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” But it’s a scarce commodity, everyone craves unconditional love, but they close their hearts up when they don’t get any. It’s left to a few to keep giving it out without expecting any back as a reward, thereby loving completely selflessly and abstractly (detachedly, though some may misunderstand this concept.) There was a Christian Saint (called Amandus – omit?) whose name means “worthy of all love” or “worthy to be loved”, so named for his three characteristics of “True friendship, honourable conduct, and righteousness and virtue,” qualities applicable to theosophical brotherhood. The core of all love is compassion, binding all beings into one eternal becoming, a universal brotherhood, according to C. Vonk (Sunrise, June/July 1999, p. 182). In the Voice of the Silence which Blavatsky enjoined all sincere followers of the path to read, she said “Compassion speaks and saith: “Can there be bliss when all that lives must suffer? Shalt thou be saved and hear the whole world cry?” as in the maxim “inaction in a deed of mercy is action in a deadly sin.”)This was the enlightenment received by the Buddha, which set him on his bodhisattvic mission to teach all people that to conquer desire is to conquer suffering. The ideal love is a conviction that another’s happiness is of equal or greater importance than one’s own, a state often existing between members of families – (parents {especially mothers} to children, and between siblings.)

G. D. Purucker said that “Love ye one another” is a saying which appeals to the divine inner core in all, your essential light and celestial splendour.” It was G.D. P. who outlined the saying that “love is the cement of the universe,” in for example, Golden Precents of Esotericism (pp. 113-126) and in his Esoteric or Oriental School pamphlet, entitled The Initiatory Cycle. This love is like “the force” in Star Wars, the positive force that knits up the troubled sleeve of creation. G.D.P. also said – “Love is the cement of the universe; it holds all things in place and in eternal keeping; its very nature is celestial Peace; its very characteristic is cosmic Harmony, permeating all things, boundless, deathless, infinite, eternal. It is everywhere, and is the very heart of the heart of all that is.”

G.D.P. also said that “love is the most beauteous, the holiest, thing known to human beings. It gives to man hope; it holds his heart in aspiration; it stimulates the noblest qualities of the human being, such as the sacrifice of self for others, it brings about self-forgetfulness; it brings also peace and joy that knows no bounds. It is the noblest thing in the Universe.” Impersonal love is almighty. It overcomes all barriers, and dissolves and undermines even the stoniest heart and the most set and crystallised mind. When one’s heart is full of love there is no need for fear; love casts out fear and it cannot enter in, and no malevolent entity can touch one whose atmosphere is permeated with irresistible love. Love is a magical thing, and can steal silently even into the nature of one whose heart is like a den of serpents – love cleanses and purifies all that it touches. No bad influence can ever oppose love’s path. Love is majestic and sublime, and I tell you that it is the very cement of the universe, and he who loves impersonally helps Nature and works with her, and Nature recognises her masters and makes obeisance.”

Love is the universal bond between all things. Nothing can bar its passage, because all things are One, ultimately rooted in the one LIFE, through which flows the steady, uninterrupted current of almighty Love. “Love shows the Way, and lights the Path; it is the flowing forth of the permeant light, the Buddhic Splendour – the Christ-light at the heart of the Universe: that love which, working in gods and men, teaches us to know beauty when we see it, especially inner beauty, to recognise greatness and splendour in others, from knowing the greatness and splendour in our own inmost being.” Love is allegiance to the inner self, the soul which is universal, and therefore selfless actions promote this universal, higher aspect. It is allegiance to the Great White Brotherhood, the Hierarchy of Compassion and Love, of Light, the Sun, the earliest brotherhood having begun from a ray of love from the Hierarch, from the Silent Watcher’s own Mind and Heart.

G.D.P. said that love gives life, brings wisdom. But while you give out the treasures of your heart, all the lower part of you dissolves away and there is a disinclination towards the indulgence of personal desires. Our method and maxim should be to follow the inner impulse for good, by following/developing the intuition, because by abandoning the selfishness of the lower self, the monad will be evolved from its material casing. Members of the Buddhic Order are taught that it to follow the pathway of self forgetful love, love for others and for all that is, because this love’s sustaining power keeps us on the Path with all its difficulties. Acts of kindness in everyday life are a protection to the person to whom they are directed. When thoughts of hate arise, (therefore) think the opposite – thoughts of love. Open the heart of the spiritual sun rising within it, by being calm, still, quiet, at peace, and harmonious – “Love will guide the wings of your soul to your spiritual sun.” Perfect love casts out all fear. This can be done by visualising to yourself thoughts of high and noble courage. A man in whom love is strong, not one who hates, his whole nature shines with the beauty within him, expands with the inner fire which flames itself forth in beautiful and symmetrical thoughts, and therefore in beautiful and kindly acts. Love softens his very features and he becomes kindly, being neither feared nor hated. Requite hate with compassion and justice, returning injustice with justice, (and) thereby allying yourself with Nature’s own spiritual processes so that you become a child of the Cosmic life, which thereafter will beat in your own heart with its undying pulses. By forgiveness, refusing to bear a grudge or harbour hatred, we will put our foot on the sacred way of impersonal love and compassion, seeking to overcome the World’s pain. As it says in Proverbs 12:12, “hatred stirs up strife, but love conquers all offences.” Therefore by having a loving heart, we re-inforce the cement of the Universe.

G.D.P. advocated following the path of selfless love, and said that the keynote for preparing the way and seeking the teacher in the coming age/century was to be – awake, alert, ernest, devoted, loyal, steady, compassionate, forgiving, and loving, in order to be good material to work with at that time. Maybe this message may also hold true not only for our coming century, but also for the millennium which it brings in its train. iN ONE’S HEART emain pure in the face of institutionalised selfishness, chaos/anarchy (the law of the fishes), and (albeit somewhat cautiously) enact the law of selfless love for others.

GLOBAL REACH OF THE BROTHERHOOD IDEAL:

Baha’íá“Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself.” – Baha’u’llah, Tablets of Baha’u’llah, 71.

Buddhism “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” – Udana-Varga, 5:18.

Christianity “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” – Matthew 7:12.

Confucianism “Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you.” – Analects 15:23.

Hinduism “This is the sum of duty: do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.” – Mahabharata 5:1517.

Islam “No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.” – Sunnab.

Jainism “In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self.” – Lord Mahavir 24th Tirthankara.

Judaism “What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. That is the law: all the rest is commentary.” – Talmud, Shabbat 31a.

Native American “Respect for all life is the foundation.” – The Great Law of Peace.

Sikhism “Don’t create enmity with anyone as God is within everyone.” – Guru Arjan Devji 259. Guru Granth Sahib.

Zoroastrianism “That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self.” – Dadistan-i-Dinik, 94:5.

(Courtesy, The Temple of Understanding, A Global Interfaith Association; headquarters, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, N.Y.) Quoted in Sunrise, October/November, 1993, pp. 8-9.)