Cloudscape

Love, in its earliest form, still as a germ, usually inevitably comes with attachment, and so fear, and ultimately hatred for anything that threatens that which we are attached to, and these remain until our love has become perfected. Usually, it is only if our love grows steadily, so that it grows already being close to perfection, it does not cause attachment. Attachment arises when our love grows faster than we can deal with.

Perhaps we can so see the evil within us, in the form of fear and hate, at least in part, as a good sign. It means that we are growing, and that we are growing fast. That we hate means that we love, and that we love so much that we are prepared to make the sacrifice of suffering for it. When we make this sacrifice, we must bear it, however, and not impose it upon others; it is our own burden. Others did not choose to share in it.

It is, in fact, easy to get rid of all suffering, but only if one gives up one's love. Love, once found, however, is so strong that one rarely finds the force to dispose of it again, unless one has descended into extreme tendencies of self-destruction, such as drug addiction.

Life is as hard as you are willing to make it. Life will never be easy unless you make it so. Remember this when you are suffering. It is the cross you bear to love. You can always be freed of it if you give up that love, and stop caring about anything in unfeeling emptiness. To suffer, until you are perfected, is your own choice.

Suffering, it itself, is not necessary to grow. But nonetheless, that we are suffering means that we are growing. It means that we have not given up, and that we are trying. For failure is always also a sign of success.

See also:

Change and Sameness

Love your hate, lest in hating it you would let it grow. In so doing, however, remember that your hate is, nonetheless, something that is not meant to be, but do not attempt to undo it. Be objective, trying neither to kill it nor to make it grow, but merely observing and enjoying it in the current moment, as nothing more than a merely relative and transient experience.

Moreover, experience it in its context, neither focussing too much upon it nor too little; for hate is an enemy which will attack you in your back lest you are on your guard, but as the Hydra, it will also only grow stronger as you fight it. Instead, then, try to unify and reconcile it with your life, and your life with it. Let it be part of your life as long as it is there.

Craving and fear can be converted into love through detachment. Do not therefore resist them, as they can precede love. Instead, allow them to grow into love.

Anything done out of craving or fear rather than love will destroy, whereas only what is done through love can create. This is a general rule because of how love, craving and fear are defined; love will do only that which is the best for that which it loves, whereas fear and craving will bring it harm in trying to do so. However, it must be noted that in everything we do there is both at least some love and some craving and fear involved, so that everything we do will therefore both create and destroy. We cannot be perfect in fully doing everything out of love alone.
We should to do whatever we do with greater love than we do it with fear and craving, to let our love be greater than our fear and craving in what we do; otherwise we should not do it at all, as it would then bring more harm than it would bring growth. If we really are to do something but our craving and fear to do so is greater than our love, then we should wait as long as it remains so, until our love has become greater.

Love in the form of craving or fear is worthless; true love is love that is purified of these. Craving is formed by male, yang energy that stands alone, fear by female, yin energy that stands alone; only when the two are combined can love be achieved.

All emotions are motivated in some way or other by some kind of love; even fear, for if one loved nothing one would have nothing to fear; even hate, for if one did not love to hurt one would have nothing hate; even loathing, for if one did not love that which is opposed to what one loathes, one would have nothing to loathe. Therefore, without love one is emotionless, and that is why love alone, in some form or other, is the only thing that can resolve emotionlessness.

As all emotions have some element of love, the only thing which could be fully opposed to love would be indifference - or not even indifference, as even that can perhaps said to be an emotion sometimes. Rather, then, the only thing we could call it is unlove; that which falls towards lower levels of beauty, closer to nothingness, whereas love strives towards greater beauty, closer to infinity.

If you seek beauty, deem only of worth that which is done with love, as love is the appreciation of beauty. However, though all things are created with love in some way or other, albeit the love of destruction, not all love is equal.
Love the whole, however, not its parts, as you will otherwise led astray from the greater beauty; for as far as you yourself are concerned, the whole means all that which you perceive, indeed you can be said to be the whole of your perceptions. If we see the self as such, to love the whole therefore means to love oneself. What this means, then, is to do whatever feels best for oneself, as only through feeling, not through thought, one can consider the whole rather than just the parts.
If what is best for you means to you what is most comfortable, then by all means, do whatever feels most comfortable when all is said and done. If you seek beauty, then do whatever feels most beautiful to you. Do not then be held back by either fear or craving to love whatever beauty you seek, but listen to your center, the heart.
For you can know what will bring you to beauty only through feeling it, as only you can feel what beauty means to you. For everything you do, listen to your feelings and examine whether or not you truly want to do it, accepting whatever it may bring along with it.
If you are urged to do something out of craving, no matter what it may be, even if it is something beautiful, then check yourself, until you feel you can do it out of love rather than out of craving; for nothing is beautiful with love, as love is what defines beauty, and craving can make even that which is beautiful worthless.
To achieve beauty, one must struggle against the forces of gravity, up towards the sky; craving and fear pull one down, but love tells one to fly on upward.

You can either accept or resist an experience, and if you resist, then that too is an experience, and there is nothing wrong with that. The point is, you can either run from an experience or stand before it and look it in the eyes, and like the monsters in our dreams, the more we'll run from them the more frightening they'll seem, but look closely and you'll find that they're just baby goblins with toy clubs.
You can either accept or resist an experience, and if you resist, then that too is an experience, and there is nothing wrong with that, either. The point is, you can either run from an experience or stand before it and look it in the eyes, and like the monsters in o ur dreams, the more we'll run from them the more frightening they'll seem, but look closely and you'll find that they're just baby goblins with toy clubs.There is nothing to be afraid of, not even fear itself.
The only difference it makes if one is afraid is that one is no longer conscious of the real nature of one's experiences. Like when one is running from a monster, one faces away from it and so no longer sees what it really is, let alone see it for what it really is; likewise, if one is afraid of something, one tries to become unconscious of it - and it works, but not with the desired effect. Suffering is, in effect, is ignorance.
And that's what people just won't get.
If you face your fears, they'll disappear. But what does that mean, facing your fears? It means you accept them, and whatever it is you fear, not resisting. Usually, people are incapable of both accepting their fears and at the same time enjoying. It is in our nature.
When we enjoy life, we try as hard as we can to forget our fears because those might interfere with our happiness. We cannot accept our happiness and at the same time that it might disappear. This brings us into a perpetual cycle of joy and suffering and hope and despair, and the only way we can break free from this cycle is to dispense with the illusion that there is any such thing as good and bad. This liberation is a painstaking process that can only be achieved by suffering - that is, in the sense enduring - those things we cannot accept, and learning to love those things and seeing their beauty.
If we drop the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, we will regain Paradise. That does not mean we must cease to distinguish light from darkness, but that we should condemn neither. Do that which is most beautiful, and it will create more beauty. But let us see what is most beautiful with our hearts, and not with our minds. Only the mind knows such duality between good and bad because only the mind sees in black and white.

One must not demand anything at all of life. It is given from us and it can be taken from us, but always and in all circumstances, there are untold wonders to enjoy, and each is a reason to be happy. If you can lose whatever ou have, you are free.

Only by accepting the current can one be open to the future. If you are already afraid of facing the current, there's no way you'll be able to face the future, whatever it is to become.