Love is being aware of total unity of all.

Love is not just a romantic expression but rather an awareness of the total unity that is felt between human beings, between human and nonhuman existence. It is how you embrace the earth. It is how you treasure the air you breathe. It is how you interact with other human beings. It is how you find commitment to others that exceeds the commitment to self. We don’t say the commitment to others instead of self, for you are a part of God as well, and the love that we urge you to find ways of expressing to others must also find its expression towards self.

Others are sacred, but it is easy to forget in your own self-awareness that you are equally sacred. Service is service to self as well as service to others. That is not to imply that there is great virtue to selfishness. There is a difference between being selfish and loving self. There is a difference between feigning interest in others and being deeply committed to others.

Service means connection. It means unity. True service means a recognition that all are one. If you recognize that all are one, the sheer recognition is an exercise of love. You don’t love others because they are other. You don’t love others because you feel sorry for them, placing them in some kind of inferior position. Loving others, in the true sense, is embracing others because they are part of you, and you are part of them.