LOVE AND DESIRE

Beloved ones, I want to talk to you today about love and desire in relationship. You have heard it said that love is of service; that love is all about the beloved; that love is an entire giving of oneself to the beloved, for them entirely, and nothing for yourself. In some sense, My dear ones, this is true. Love IS all of these things. This is the pure motive behind love in personal relationships.

However, it is also true that you are HUMAN BEINGS. And let Me tell you some of what that means. When you love, you will also desire. And, that desire is not bad; it is not bad at all. It is a very, very good thing. You will desire your beloved one. You will desire their company very much. You will desire them in all kinds of ways. This too, My dear ones, is part of love. Yes indeed. It is something that is awakened in you WHEN you love. And naturally so. That is how I designed you -- to desire when you love.

This does not mean that people are incapable of unselfish love. No, not at all. Desire does not mean that. In fact, the more unselfishly you love, the greater your desire becomes. When you achieve a truly pure and unselfish love, your desire and passion will be inflamed to a huge fire. Indeed, this is the nature of unselfish love. Unselfish love creates life, both in the beloved and in the lover.

And this is not only true of the love relationship between lovers. It is true in a mother's relationship to her child, a friend's relationship to a friend, and all relationships. When you love greatly, you desire greatly. Your desire becomes huge.

And this, too, benefits the beloved. Is it not easy to see that the desire, the fire, the passion, of one lover benefits the other? Is it not easy to see that the passion of a mother, and her desire for her child, benefits the child? Is it not easy to see that a friend's desire to have the company and closeness of the other friend benefits the other friend? Indeed! Who wants a friend who only spends time with us out of unselfishness, or a lover that only loves us unselfishly? Certainly, there is no fulfillment in that. That is dead love. Indeed.

So I declare to you, and I want you to remember, TRUE UNSELFISH LOVE IS NOT DEAD. The more unselfish your love is, the more alive it becomes.

The fact that desire is inflamed in you when you love is part of the natural order of things. This serves the wholeness, because all need to be desired; and for relationships to be good, there must be desire. You see?

Now, when it comes to how to handle desires in relationships: It is so that it takes morality to handle desires rightly. And it is true that many relationships have been destroyed when people have experienced desire and then placed that desire OVER love. Yes indeed. So, while desire will be experienced wherever there is love, when desire comes up, one must not forget love, forget the beloved. If you do so, then your desire will also die, and so will your relationship. You see? When you place desire over love, and you pursue your desire above love, the love suffers, and the love begins to die; and then the hearts begin to close, and the desire, too, begins to die. Then there is nothing left. You see? After this process has happened, people will often no longer even desire one another. Because where love has been betrayed, desire also dies. Desire is a natural effect of love, of the open heart that love creates.

Thus, when two lovers place their physical desire for one another over love, they betray one another, they soon resent one another, and their relationship is ruined. And finally, their physical desire for one another is hugely diminished, because of their feelings of resentment.

Therefore, My dear ones, LOVE. And when desire comes up, do not fear it or chasten it, do not kill it or deny it, but remember to always hold love FIRST. As you do so, you will come to see that your desires do not contradict your loving motives. When you remain in touch with love, your desires will be very compatible with love. Yes indeed. A friend desires to be with a friend -- does that contradict love? A lover desires to be with one's lover, to serve them, to please them, to make love to them -- do any of those things contradict love? A mother desires to see her child strong and well -- does that contradict love?

Only if the mother's desires become overbearing, to the detriment of the child's well-being, then is love contradicted.

Only if the lovers place their physical desires first, and their ego desires first, over their loved ones, is love contradicted.

Only if a friend's desire for company does not take the other friend into account, does it contradict love.

So you see, there is nothing wrong with desires; it is how you hold them that counts. If you love while you desire, then your desire will never hurt anybody.

My dear friends, love and desire are not in conflict. As long as you think they are, your hearts will be troubled. You will either attempt to have relationships with people that are free of personal desire and will therefore fail to please them, and have a VERY unfulfilling relationship because you are not alive; OR, believing that love is the opposite of desire, you will turn away from love to pursue desire. In that, you will hurt people, and you will hurt yourself; and your heart will begin to feel hollow, lonely, sad. Once again, you will be unfulfilled. Neither of these things work.

Remember that love and desire are part of the wholeness of human relationships. Desire is needed for love, to fulfill love relationships. If there is no desire there are no PEOPLE in the relationships. How, then, can the relationship be fulfilling? And also, love is needed for desire to work, for desire to be good. If there is no love in desire, it is entirely selfish, and it overlooks and hurts others.

Now, My dear ones, love, and allow desire. Yes indeed. When you love, desire will come. You must simply allow it.

There it is.

I love you.