Love Transforms The World

When we love an animal, it’s not just warm fuzzies. Love lifts all beings higher into their true potential. Maybe it even goes further than that. Maybe an animal who feels even the smallest, briefest touch of human love experiences a tiny inner revolution that may eventually lead to the development of its own spiritual life.

If you have ever loved an animal, you know they can return the favor. Something beyond treats or walks can motivate a dog to actually attune himself to the emotional needs of his caregiver. Dogs know when we are sad. An attuned dog will come and sit with its human during times of grief or pain. Even a cat can occasionally do this, when it feels like it!

When we love an animal, this teaches the animal to love. They can give love back because love was given to them. The object of love then becomes a higher being than it was before it was loved. It has been raised up. It has been transformed.

I think this principle, that love raises all beings to a higher place, holds true not just for domestic animals, but for all life on the planet. All life has a being that animates it. That being is the difference between something that is living and something that is not. It seems that being itself can be changed and grown by love, and humans have the unique capacity to love regardless of circumstance or object. We have this gift, and the task that comes with it.

We can choose to love. No matter who we are, what circumstances we are in, or what we have had to endure in the world, we can still choose love. If someone feels their life has no meaning, that there is no one who cares whether they live or die, that their existence doesn’t matter, get a dog. Feed the birds. Care for the plants and trees around you.

Love is not a one-way street. When we love the living things around us, whether human or otherwise, a great cosmic deed is unfolding. We are truly “gardeners” in this sense. We are bringing life to other beings, helping them to become more than they were when they first began to live here. No matter what is going on in our own lives, we can still choose to love. Love transforms and raises our own being as we love. It is, in fact, our purpose for existing–the actual role mankind was created to fulfill.

Love transforms the world.