The answer to suffering is love. Unfortunately, it its everyday usage, this concept has become oversimplified. What exactly is love? Can we understand it - can we grasp it? Here is precisely where spirituality teaches a profound lesson to psychology, because the love of which spiritual systems speak extends beyond the concepts of Western psychology.
The psychological self says, " I want to survive; I want to master, to be successful; I want pleasure, I don't want pain - I want, I want! " The spiritual self says, " What is this mysterious game - this incessant movement between up and down, sadness and joy, pleasure and pain? What is there beyond this constantly changing world, this transient fleeting moment that is soon forgotten? Is there anything beyond it? "
Yes. Love is constant, unchanging, selfless - transcending separation and duality, revealing the oneness underlying and unifying all things. It is a state of consciousness in which giving needs no reward. Love reaches out to and encompasses the other. It is the source of our intuition, our creativity, our empathy. It is the most basic and primary tool of all therapies, allowing us to extend beyond ourselves to merge with the other, experience the other's pain, and finally dissolve that pain with love's life-giving force.
Love is far more than a psychological feeling; it is said by Sai Baba to be the most basic principle of all creation - the principle that created, preserves and sustains the entire cosmos. This basic universal principle is also our own inner nature; it triumphs over suffering; it survives the grave - it extends us into eternity.
Taken from the book - Spirit and the Mind Ch.14 Sai Love
By Dr. Samuel Sandweiss M.D. Psychiatrist
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