Speaker Identification

Speaker 1 - Jim, Co-Host
The speaker is identified as Jim because Speaker 2 directly addresses him by name during the discussion. He also directly addresses Sandy by name and closes the program by saying they must finish the session.

Speaker 2 - Sandy, Co-Host
The speaker is identified as Sandy because Speaker 1 directly addresses her by name. She also addresses Jim by name while describing his willingness to speak with people and learn from them.

Speaker 1 - Jim:
Well, welcome, everyone, to Angel Talk. Today, our show is going to be about living with love or its opposite. Love can encompass all things, and once you are filled with it, you are filled to overflowing. It does not come free; it carries responsibility, and there is no greater wonder in life. Join us for another exciting Angel Talk radio show, sponsored by the Living Light Center, a church of faith and healing.

Speaker 2 - Sandy:
It is funny that you mention the word “overflow,” because it has so much meaning and is used so many times within Scripture. We may look at it on the surface and feel that we know what overflow means, but overflow in a biblical sense means that it never stops. It begins to overflow, and it gains and gains. We do not know where the end is, if there is an end. It does not stop; it simply continues to flow. What more could you ask for?

Speaker 1 - Jim:
Absolutely. I would like to share a prophecy reading.

We should look at life as another day and another opportunity to grow consciously, make a difference in our lives, serve God in the best way possible, and give thanks for all that we have. We should develop a close relationship with God and not feel so entitled to everything, putting ourselves before others or speaking cruelly about others while feeling justified.

We live in a world where our consciousness is connected to one another. Many people shut themselves down to the point that they know only their own thoughts and feelings. The world is changing, and our spiritual abilities are being enhanced. Soon, all will have telepathic abilities, and there will be no hidden secrets, because deceitful and evil ways will be exposed to everyone.

We will have to realize that our guilt is holding us back. Sometimes, what seems enormous to us is very small in reality. Everyone makes mistakes. We are here to learn, grow consciously, and become better people.

We must also realize that the Earth is going through many changes. The devastation we are soon to experience within the next five to six months will be overwhelming. Great earthquakes, volcanic activity, enormous flooding, and extreme winds will occur at levels far worse than what we have seen in recent days. We need to prepare mentally and emotionally for this time.

We may not want to believe that it will happen, but I say to you: do not wait until the last minute to prepare. We do not want to instill fear in your life, but instead inform you of the possibilities. Pray to God and ask for protection and guidance. Align yourself with the light and love of God. Allow yourself to be one with Him, because through Him all things are possible. Blessings to you.

Speaker 2 - Sandy:
Let us look at love itself, its definition, and what it asks of us. One cannot give what one does not possess. To give love, you must possess love. One cannot teach what one does not understand. To teach love, you must comprehend love. One cannot know what one does not study. To study love, you must live in love.

One cannot appreciate what one does not recognize. To recognize love, you must be receptive to love. One cannot avoid doubt about that which one wishes to trust. To trust love, you must be convinced of love. One cannot admit what one does not yield to. To yield to love, you must be vulnerable to love. One cannot live what one does not dedicate oneself to. To dedicate yourself to love, you must be forever growing in love.

Love is like a mirror. When you love another, you become that person’s mirror, and that person becomes yours. Reflecting each other’s love, you see infinity.

An infant does not know or understand the subtle dynamics of love, but already has such a strong need for it that the lack of love can affect growth and development and can even lead to death. This need does not disappear in adulthood. In many cases, the need for togetherness and love becomes the major drive and goal of an individual’s life.

A lack of love has been described as a major cause of severe neurosis and even psychosis in adulthood. The fear of being alone and unloved is so great in many of us that we can become slaves to that fear. We may be ready to surrender even our true selves and do almost anything to meet the needs of others, hoping in that way to gain intimate companionship for ourselves.

A child may comply with unreasonable rearing practices to receive the love of his or her parents. An adolescent may lose a sense of identity and surrender part of the self to be accepted by a group. Adolescents may dress like their peers, wear their hair the same way, listen to the same music, dance the same dances, and take on the same attributes.

In adulthood, we often find that the easiest way to be accepted is to become like those by whom we wish to be accepted. We conform. No matter how much we deny it, at every stage of life we move toward others: toward parents when we are children, peers when we are adolescents, potential partners when we are young adults, communities during adulthood, and retirement communities when we grow older and approach the end of life.

We need others. We need others to love, and we need to be loved by them. Without love, we too, like an infant left alone, may cease to grow and develop and may move toward madness or even death.

There have been so many cases, Jim, in which children were ignored or received no meaningful attention. The resulting mental and emotional problems can be incredibly severe.

Speaker 1 - Jim:
Yes. I remember studies involving children in Russian orphanages who received no touch and almost no personal attention beyond their most basic physical needs. A very large percentage of those children did not survive.

Speaker 2 - Sandy:
I know. It is very true.

Before a person can love all people, or any person, the first responsibility in love is, and always will be, to oneself. The Gospel statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” presupposes self-love and suggests that a person will love others to the extent that he or she loves the self.

Only to the depth and extent that one feels responsible for growing in self-love can one feel a corresponding responsibility to help others grow. All people are interconnected to a greater or lesser extent, and each person who comes closer to the self in any way also comes closer to others.

Many people find it difficult to assume full responsibility even for themselves, let alone for another individual or a group. Therefore, the idea of being accountable for the human family may seem inconceivable, unrealistic, or idealistic. But when love is truly responsible, it becomes one’s duty to love all people. One must accept this duty, because the alternative lies in loneliness, destruction, and despair.

To assume this responsibility is to become involved with delight in mystery and growth. It is to dedicate oneself to helping others realize the love within them. Simply stated, to be responsible in love is to help others love. To be helped toward realizing your love is to be loved by others. This applies to women and men alike.

If it were not a duty to love, there would be no concept of neighbor at all. Only when one loves one’s neighbor is the selfishness of preferential love rooted out and the equality of the eternal preserved. Love is not selfish and exclusive; it is selfless and inclusive.

The world still finds this universal truth difficult to accept. If a person loves only the self, that person may be labeled egotistical, self-centered, and selfish. If that person expands love to a small community, including a spouse and family, society may call that person a true lover and praise him or her as sound. But if a person loves all humanity in a highly principled way, the world may ridicule that person as naive, fanciful, or foolish.

Another responsibility implied by love is the continuing assurance that love will be directed toward growth: personal growth, our own growth, and the growth of those we love. Responsibility of any kind can feel intimidating. For this reason, people may be afraid of truly deep relationships. A relationship can appear to impose an extreme responsibility, a burden, or a restriction on freedom, though the converse may also be true.

Another responsibility of love is to create joy, because joy is always an integral part of loving. There is joy in every act of life. No matter how menial or repetitive a task may be, to work in love is to work in joy. To live in love is to live in joy.

You may not have before you the most creative or satisfying day, but you must live it. You can make that day dull, nerve-racking, frustrating, and a waste of time, or you can approach the same day with energy, enthusiasm, and a determination to make it one of the best days of your life for yourself and for those around you.

To live each moment as if it were the last day of your life requires the same number of hours and much of the same energy as any other day. The difference is that you can choose to live it with joy or live it with misery. Why not choose joy?

Responsible love needs expression. Love is communication. Just as we must assume responsibility for expressing our joy, we are responsible for letting our sorrow and loneliness be known. In reality, it seems that the more devastated we become, the more defenses and rationalizations we build. We create walls behind which we grumble: we are misunderstood, unloved, abused, or exploited.

In other words, the more we need loving understanding, the more we may move away from any possibility of receiving it. The pouting syndrome is a perfect example. If a person has a need, that person must let others know, or the need may never be met. Even lovers are not mind readers.

Often, when people finally express their needs, they are surprised by the response: “I had no idea you were lonely. You always seemed so self-sufficient, composed, and fulfilled. I am pleased to know that you are human.” Just as one shows others that one loves them, one must reveal the need to be loved.

You cannot assume that people, even those closest to you, will know and understand your unexpressed needs and feelings. If you want people to know you, you are responsible for communicating yourself to them.

This can be difficult for many people because we want to believe that we are strong, and we want others to look up to us. In reality, we are human. We all need attention and love in our lives.

Another responsibility of love is acceptance and understanding. Love grows at different rates and in different directions within every individual. Love in marriage, or any close relationship, is a process of growing hand in hand but separately. It must be separate because it is impossible to expect two individuals, even when they are in love, to grow at the same rate and in the same direction.

This means that one person may not always completely understand or appreciate another person’s growth or resulting behavior. Love helps us accept that the other person is behaving only as he or she is able to behave at that moment. To demand otherwise may be to demand the impossible.

Love is empathic. The word empathy, though perhaps overused, remains a powerful word. It means “to feel with.” It does not imply total understanding. We know that we can never completely understand another person, but because love gives us many positive and common elements, there is hope.

If another person’s behavior contradicts our expectations, annoys us, or disappoints us, it can be seen as a passing phase because love is always changing and learning. Love offers great flexibility. It asks us to accept behavior as it is expressed, with the knowledge that this behavior is not necessarily permanent.

It is not simply a matter of forgiving. It is a matter of accepting the person unconditionally for who he or she is at the moment, while realizing that who the person is today may not be who the person will be tomorrow. A lover is therefore constantly watching, listening, waiting, feeling, adjusting, readjusting, and changing.

Responsible love has at its universal core humanity in the deepest sense. We all have a core of humanness. The greatest thing a person can be is a human being, with all the strength and frailty implied by that meaning.

The world’s greatest figures have often been the most human and the least reluctant to reveal it. On Earth, Jesus wept and felt loneliness, disappointment, pain, and despair. Only in this way, the speaker suggests, could He fully understand what it meant to be human. Buddha knew basic human characteristics such as confusion, eccentricity, pride, envy, and even indigestion. Gandhi felt humility, exhaustion, physical deprivation, illness, frailty, and torture, and spoke of what was described as the temporal accident of his own personality.

In varying degrees, we have all felt what figures such as Jesus, Buddha, and Gandhi felt, and to that extent we share an empathic connection. It is empathy that makes us responsible in love to all humanity. With each person who dies in the world, each of us dies a little. With each person who suffers, we too suffer a little. With each child born into the world, we all become richer in possibilities.

We are fundamentally like one another. We simply live in diverse lands, play different roles, and wear different robes before similar backdrops, on various stages, and before unfamiliar audiences. It would be interesting if we could change robes and stand on many stages during our lifetime. It would give us greater insight into humanity’s universality. We exist for each individual, just as each individual exists for us all.

Responsible love shares. No person possesses anything but the self. The saying that “you cannot take it with you,” though overused, is true. One can ultimately hold on to nothing and no one.

Love shares with others. What purpose does knowledge serve if it is not offered to students? What meaning has beauty if it is not presented for all to experience? What good is love if it is not freely given? Love is always an act of sharing. If one has love to give, one may impart it to everyone in the world and still retain the same love with which one began.

We never lose anything by sharing it, because nothing is ever solely ours to begin with. In fact, love acquires meaning only as it is shared.

Responsible love rises even beyond hope. The ability to hope is certainly one of humanity’s greatest life-saving phenomena. In hope, a person shows deep respect and faith in humanity’s ability to change, a belief in the integrity of the universe, and confidence in new beginnings and exciting tomorrows.

Hope is essential because humanity has not yet become brave enough to exist without it. To live without hope would be devastating. People have not yet learned to work solely for the joy of work, learn solely for growth, create solely for expression and exaltation in the act, or live simply for the pleasure of loving.

People still require rewards. Until they learn otherwise, hope remains a basic motivating force. In work, they seek more wages and better titles. In knowledge, they seek degrees and diplomas. In creativity, they seek recognition. In love, they seek assurance. Until people appreciate that each pursuit carries its own reward, they will need hope as a crutch.

There is nothing wrong with hope in love; it is simply the second-best thing. Hope is the beginning of plans. It gives people a destination, a sense of direction, and the energy to begin. It enlarges sensitivity and gives proper value to feelings as well as facts.

Hope involves a rekindling of human imagination: imagination about life as humanity might wish it to be, about the full use of intelligence to bring sanity and sensitivity to the world and its art, about the importance of the individual, and about the capacity to create new institutions, discover new approaches, and sense new possibilities. All of that is true, but love is beyond hope. Hope is a beginning; love is forever.

To love others, you must first love yourself. Loving yourself involves discovering the true wonder of you, not only the present you but the many possibilities within you. It involves the continual realization that you are unique and unlike any other person in the world. Life is, or should be, the discovery, development, and sharing of this uniqueness.

The process is not always easy. Some people will feel threatened by a changing and growing you. Yet the process can remain exciting, fresh, and, like all things new and changing, never dull. The journey into oneself is the grandest, most enjoyable, and longest-lasting journey. The fare is cheap. It involves continually experiencing, evaluating, educating, and trying new behavior. Only you can be the final judge in determining what is right for you.

Loving yourself means appreciating your value. It also includes knowing that only you can be you. If you try to be like anyone else, you may come very close, but you will always be second-best. You are the best version of you. It is the easiest, most practical, and most rewarding person to be.

It makes sense that you can be to others only what you are to yourself. If you know, accept, and appreciate yourself and your uniqueness, you will allow others to do the same. If you value the discovery of yourself, you will encourage others to engage in self-discovery. If you recognize your need to be free to discover who you are, you will allow others the freedom to do so as well.

When you realize that you are the best you, you can accept that others are the best versions of themselves. It all begins with you. To the extent that you know yourself, and recognize that we are more alike than different, you can know others. When you love yourself, you can love others. Only to the depth and extent that you love yourself will you be able to love others.

Speaker 1 - Jim:
That is so true. We often put substitutes in place of saying the words “I love you,” “God loves you,” or “We love you.” We replace those words with what we consider respectful social responses.

Suppose someone comes out of a grocery store and hands you a loaf of bread, saying, “You have to try this bread. It is the best bread I have ever eaten.” What do you say? “Why, thank you.” In many situations, when someone does something for you, or you do something for someone else, the typical response is “Thank you” or “That was a nice thing to do.”

But do we ever say, “It is because God loves you, and if God loves you, then I love you, too”? That changes the dynamic completely because the person must open up to accept the love. Once the person does, it can change the soul completely.

Imagine if every one of us did that throughout the day. Instead of saying only “Thank you,” “Thank you for helping me,” or some other conventional response, we could say, “God loves you, and therefore I love you, too.”

It has been said that God is love and God is law. God is law, and God is love. Therefore, love is God’s law. If you wish to experience divine law and overcome the things that oppose it, you must push yourself to experience love and share it with everyone who gives you an opportunity to do so.

There was a gentleman named Khalil Gibran. I would describe him as a poet or philosophical writer. He wrote some incredible things, and I use his writings often, especially in wedding ceremonies. The United States government, in the early 1900s, believe it or not, recognized a Khalil Gibran Day to honor and remember him.

In The Prophet, one of the books he wrote, he describes love as a powerful, all-encompassing force that shapes and tests the human heart. He writes that love crowns and crucifies, nurtures and prunes, and descends to the roots of one’s being to shake, thresh, and sift the soul, ultimately refining it into sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

The metaphor emphasizes that love is not merely pleasure but a process of spiritual purification and self-discovery. He also stresses that love cannot be directed by the lover; it follows its own course: “Think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.” Love’s purpose is self-fulfillment, and it seeks to express itself fully, independent of human control.

According to Gibran, love is both joyful and painful. It brings tenderness and ecstasy, but it can also bring the pain of too much tenderness and a willingness to bleed willingly and joyfully. This duality reflects the idea that true love requires openness, vulnerability, and acceptance of life’s challenges.

He frames love as a path to the divine. “When you love, you should not say, ‘God is in my heart,’ but rather, ‘I am in the heart of God.’” Love connects the individual to a higher spiritual reality, transcending personal desire and ego and aligning the soul with a universal life force.

He uses natural and mystical imagery to convey love’s essence. Love is like a running brook singing in the night, a force that melts, flows, and transforms. Agricultural metaphors involving threshing, sifting, and grinding illustrate the soul’s refinement through love’s trials. These images make an abstract spiritual experience tangible and relatable.

Love refines the soul through both joy and suffering. It is autonomous and self-fulfilling, beyond human control. True love connects the individual to the divine and fosters spiritual growth. Experiencing love fully requires openness, vulnerability, and acceptance of life’s dualities. His vision of love in The Prophet is a profound spiritual journey in which embracing love in all its intensity leads toward personal and divine union.

Speaker 2 - Sandy:
That is beautiful. He has always been one of my favorite poets, or however one might describe him. He goes directly to the heart of things and lays them open. You cannot twist his ideas around, muddle them, or try to make them fit only yourself and not everyone else.

This past week, instead of simply saying “Thank you” or using some other conventional phrase, we ended conversations by saying, “God loves you,” or, “We love you.” The overwhelming response was often, “Why, I love you, too.”

That love has always been within people, yet many are afraid of being viewed suspiciously. They may wonder whether the speaker has an ulterior motive or another reason for saying it. We saw none of that. People accepted the expression of love very differently from the way they would have accepted a simple “Thank you.”

We crave love within ourselves, yet it can become hidden behind a rock-like wall. We do not want to break down the wall, go through it, or risk the response on the other side. But the response ultimately does not determine whether we have done what we are supposed to do. If we carry forward God’s love for us and for every part of His creation, I believe we can begin to see a massive change in society.

Speaker 1 - Jim:
I agree.

Speaker 2 - Sandy:
To live in love is life’s greatest challenge. It requires more subtlety, flexibility, understanding, acceptance, tolerance, knowledge, and strength than perhaps any other human endeavor or emotion. Love and the practical world can appear to be two contradictory forces.

On one hand, a person may know that only by becoming vulnerable can he or she truly offer and accept love. At the same time, that person knows that revealing vulnerability in daily life creates a risk of being misused or taken advantage of. If a person holds part of the self in reserve to protect that vulnerability, the person may receive only the partial love that he or she gives.

The only chance for a deep experience of love is to give all that one has. Yet a person may discover that after giving everything, he or she is left with little or nothing in return. Therefore, the person must trust and believe in love, because trust is the only approach to love.

If one openly expresses trust and belief, society may abuse that person and take him or her for a fool. If a person hopes in love and believes that this hope can help make the dream of an all-loving humanity a reality, society may ridicule that person as an idealistic dreamer.

If someone does not frantically seek love, that person may be suspected of being impotent or odd. Yet the person may know that love does not need to be sought because it is everywhere, and to search for it can be a form of self-deception. If a person decides to spend every moment living in love, knowing that he or she is most real and human when living lovingly, society may label that person a weak-minded romantic.

Love and the practices of the so-called real world often appear miles apart. It is no wonder that many people lack the courage to bridge the gap, because in practice the gap can seem unbridgeable. A person may possess the understanding and desire needed to grow in love, but society makes that knowledge difficult to apply. Society’s reality differs from love’s reality.

The strength required to believe in love while living in a non-reinforcing proving ground is more than many people feel able to accept. They find it easier to put love aside, reserving it for special people and unique occasions, while joining society in questioning love’s supposed reality.

To be open to love, trust love, believe in love, hope in love, and live in love requires great strength. This contradiction is experienced so often in real life that people do not know how to cope with it. Even when they discover it, history shows society turning against those who embody difficult ideals: Jesus was crucified, Gandhi was shot, Thomas More was beheaded, and Socrates was poisoned.

Society often seems to have little place for honesty, tenderness, goodness, or concern. It may be unable to handle what it perceives as perfection because that example causes people to reflect on themselves and consider change, which can be uncomfortable and painful. It may seem easier to ignore perfection and remain content with imperfection.

Humanity does not live in a world composed entirely of lovers. In the human world, one is likely to encounter selfishness, cruelty, deception, manipulation, and parasitic behavior. Anyone who depends on the external world for reinforcement may become disillusioned and discover that society and its people are far from perfect, because society itself was created by imperfect people.

To cope with what one finds and still live in love, a person must have inner strength. One must not place love before the world and, if it is rejected, blame the world for being insensitive. If a person finds no love, the person must examine whether love is secure within the self. One must dedicate oneself to love and remain resolute and unwavering.

A person must also recognize evil, hatred, and bigotry as real phenomena while continuing to see love as the greater force. One must not doubt this, even for a moment, or one may become lost. The only salvation is to dedicate oneself to love in the same manner that Gandhi dedicated himself to militant nonviolence, Socrates to truth, Jesus to love, and Thomas More to integrity.

Only then does a person gain the strength to combat doubt, confusion, and contradiction. One cannot always depend on another person or thing for reinforcement and assurance. This may be a lonely path, but it becomes less lonely when one understands that the central function is to unfold the true self and, equally, to help others become strong and fulfilled as unique individuals.

One does this by giving all people an opportunity to show their feelings, express their aspirations, and share their dreams. The forces labeled evil can be seen as emanating from suffering people who, like everyone else, are human and attempting to perfect their being.

These forces of evil must be confronted through acts of love that show deep concern for each person’s desire for self-discovery. One must believe that the world is not inherently ugly, bitter, and destructive; rather, what humanity has done to the world can make it appear that way.

A person should be a model, not necessarily a model of perfection, which is rarely reached, but a model human being. Being a good human being is one of the greatest things a person can be. One must forgive oneself for being less than perfect and understand that change is inevitable. When change is directed toward love and self-realization, it can be good.

A person must be convinced that behavior must be practiced in order to be learned: to be is to do. One must learn that it is impossible to be loved by everyone. A person can be the finest human being in the world and still encounter someone who does not like him or her.

One must endeavor to love everyone even when that love is not returned. One does not love merely to be loved; one loves in order to love. One should reject no person, because each person is a part of the whole, and to reject even one person is, in some sense, to reject part of oneself.

If a person loves all people and is rejected by one, the person must not withdraw in fear, pain, disappointment, or anger. The other person may simply not have been ready for what was offered. Love was not offered with conditions. It was given because the giver was fortunate enough to have love to give and experienced joy in the giving, not because of what might be received in return.

If one expression of love is rejected, there are hundreds of others awaiting love. The idea that there is only one right love can be deceptive. There are many right loves. These ideas can give a person strength to be a lover.

To be a lover continually requires the subtlety of the wise, the flexibility of a child, the sensitivity of an artist, the understanding of a philosopher, the acceptance of a saint, the tolerance of the dedicated, the knowledge of a scholar, and the fortitude of one who is certain. That is a tall order, but these qualities can grow in the person who chooses love because they are already part of human potential. They are realized through loving. It becomes a matter of loving your way toward love.

Speaker 1 - Jim:
Throughout history, we have taken love and molded it into our own concepts and relationships. You can walk into a restaurant and see a man and a woman sitting together at a table, looking around but not speaking, discussing anything, or doing anything except waiting for the food. You have to wonder whether it was always that way or whether something was lost along the way. More than likely, something was lost.

When you first meet someone, the experience can raise you to a higher point in life, almost like moving upward through an octave. You are ecstatic. Over time, however, ordinary responsibilities begin. She may be picking up your clothes or washing things for you. You may be doing things for her or choosing not to go out with friends as often because you want to stay home with the person you love. Wanting to do it because you love the person is the key.

Too often, people imitate what they see others doing. They say, “Henry does it down the street,” or, “Mary and John do it up the street, so it must be right.” But when we return to Khalil Gibran, his view of love was shaped, as described here, by three forces: Sufi mysticism, which sees love as a path to God; Christianity, which teaches love as self-sacrifice; and his own unrequited love for Mary Haskell, who supported his career but declined his marriage proposal.

These influences created a philosophy in which love is not possession but liberation, pain and joy are inseparable companions, and the deepest love requires the courage to let the beloved be free. No man or woman owns another. That is one of the hardest lessons for us.

When we sign a marriage certificate, we can begin acting as though we own one another and can tell each other what to do. True love is the opposite. If you can experience love with enough courage to let your beloved be free to choose, then you have reached a high expression of love.

Gibran also wrote, “When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep.” He wrote that love possesses not, nor would it be possessed, because love is sufficient unto love. “Love one another, but make not a bond of love; let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”

If we think of love in an entirely different way, we can recognize that each person is as much a part of God as we are. We cannot imagine possessing God, so how can we imagine possessing one another?

The next brief phrase in the recording is unclear, but appears to include the words “trembling happiness” and “broken wings.”

Gibran also wrote, “Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” Other passages and ideas attributed to him in the discussion include the following: your daily life is your temple and your religion; you give little when you give only of your possessions, but when you give of yourself, you truly give; out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls, and the greatest characters are seared with scars.

The appearance of things changes according to our emotions. We see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty may actually be within ourselves. No person can reveal to you anything except that which already lies asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

“When you love, you should not say, ‘God is in my heart,’ but rather, ‘I am in the heart of God.’” Faith is knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof. Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart. In the depth of the soul, there is a wordless song.

The deeper sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Sadness is but a wall between two gardens. You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, but not the one with whom you have wept. Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.

“You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore, but let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of heaven dance between you.” Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you also be alone. Fill each other’s cup, but drink not from one cup.

Nourish each other without losing individual identity. Codependency is not love; mutual enrichment is. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. Stand together, yet not too near together, for the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress do not grow in each other’s shadow.

Gibran breaks love down through images and things we recognize in the world around us. Those images give inspiration for a truer and happier love. When two people are truly in love, others notice it.

When you are in that elevated place and the troubles of life arrive, those troubles can pull you into a lower state. From that lower state, you may not remember where you began. You may think, “I must really love her; I am still with her,” yet you cannot see the relationship from the place where you started.

There is a saying that you will never see heaven from where you are. Sometimes a relationship descends and later rises again, but for some people it ends with both individuals tearing each other apart and going separate ways. To lose a love that was once present, and that might have continued, is one of the greatest losses I can imagine.

Speaker 2 - Sandy:
Absolutely. Expressing love or forgiveness is not about earning approval. It is about aligning with the nature of God. Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, we cannot survive.

The more you are motivated by love, the more fearless and free your actions can become. You can make better decisions because love guides your way. To create strong relationships with the people you love, you need to give them freedom. You must also welcome them with open arms and love them when they return.

When we feel love and kindness toward others, we not only help others feel loved and cared for; we also develop inner happiness and peace. We all share an identical need for love. It is therefore possible to see anyone we meet, under any circumstance, as a brother or sister.

We are all connected in the universe. We are connected because we all want and need love. That shared need should unite us and cause us to treat one another like family.

We need to remain focused on the present. If we focus only on love in the past or in the future, we may miss the love directly in front of us. Do not wait. When you have an opportunity to love your neighbor or your partner today, take that opportunity.

When you demonstrate kindness and love, others will recognize your intention and begin spreading love as well. The pattern continues. Love is something everyone wants, so people will gravitate toward it. Someone must begin spreading it in order to start the process.

If a person shows anger toward you and you return anger, the result can be disastrous. If you empower hatred, you will never be happy, even if you live in luxury. But if you control your anger and show its opposite - love, compassion, tolerance, and patience - you can remain at peace, and gradually the other person’s anger may diminish.

Sadly, some people value material things more than what is truly important, such as love. This way of thinking can contribute to war and chaos. The world needs to establish the correct priorities. When we prioritize love over greed, chaos begins to calm.

It is easy to love people who love us. It is even more important to love people who do not like us, and that is difficult. The more we extend ourselves and demonstrate our love, the more godlike we become. We bring the light of God into the soul.

God empowers us because He wants love to be expressed and shared. He wants everyone to feel able to open the heart, speak, be authentic, and say what needs to be said.

People keep many things private because they fear they are too different. They may have intuitive or empathic abilities, or experiences that feel unusual, so they hold those experiences inside. When they open up and become who they really are, others may say, “That is interesting. Something like that happened to me, too.” A whole new conversation begins.

You start to realize that the world is not as small as you thought. There are many opportunities for God’s love to touch every soul. People simply have to be willing to share. When they do, they realize they are not alone. Loneliness begins to fade because they recognize connections they had never imagined.

When people open themselves vulnerably and permit others to be vulnerable, a new side of each person emerges. Light and love begin to emanate between them. Other people notice and wonder why there is so much energy and light around them.

Even unconsciously, people are attracted to light because it is energy - pure energy - and everyone is seeking it. Yet it can be hard to find. When you go shopping or enter a public place, many people appear to be saying, “I am doing my own thing. Ignore me. I do not want to talk.” Deep inside, however, they may be yearning for the love of other people while fearing rejection.

The fear of rejection is one of the greatest fears people carry. Those who overcome it can think, “If I am rejected, I do not need to remain sad for the rest of the day. I understand where that person is right now, and that is okay. I can move on.” You will find many people who are willing to open up.

Sometimes, you do not know what effect your expression of love may have on someone who initially seems not to accept it. Over time, that person may come to understand.

We have met people we did not know, told them about some of the things we do, and heard them respond, “We have a group of people. Would you come speak to them?” Then we discover a new group of like-minded friends. The circle grows. More people want to know, and more connections are created.

It is wonderful to go out and encounter people who recognize you. It feels good to know that perhaps you touched their soul or they touched yours and that you made a difference in life.

When we stagnate, remain at home, isolate ourselves, and speak to no one, we may begin to feel lonely and sad. We may feel that nobody cares. People may care very much, but our isolation makes it appear otherwise.

When you go into the community and try to make a difference, you learn from people. Jim, you are very good at this. There is hardly anyone you will not talk to. It is amazing to hear the people you meet and the things you learn from them.

Everyone carries a wealth of experiences and knowledge. It is almost impossible to meet someone from whom you cannot learn something. Is that not one of the purposes of life - to continue growing, experiencing, learning, and sharing what we have learned so that another person’s life may become a little better or easier?

We have worked extensively in spirituality and healing. We have specialized knowledge to share. When we share it, it not only helps others feel good; it helps us feel good because our time and experience have served someone. The happiness and joy reflected back to us create happiness and joy within us.

Life keeps moving forward. If we decide, “I am unhappy today. I am going to be miserable, and I am going to make everyone else miserable,” we do not get far. We only dig ourselves into a deeper pit. Before long, the hole can feel so large that we cannot crawl out.

But if someone reaches down and shows kindness and love, we suddenly feel lifted from the pit. Love keeps us motivated. It keeps us doing what we do and helps us want to live for tomorrow.

There is great heaviness in the world: warlike activity, destruction, killing, religious division, and many other forms of suffering. It can take a toll on our emotions and drag us down. But when we turn to God, see God’s love, read the Bible, listen to uplifting music, pray, give praise and gratitude, or do something good for another person, negative feelings begin to change.

We must find a way out when we fall into feelings of hurt, deception, sadness, or anger. We must lift ourselves back up and avoid remaining in self-pity, saying, “Poor me. This always happens to me.” Self-pity does not serve anyone.

We have to say, “This was a lesson I had to experience, and I received the lesson. What am I going to do now? Will I stand here and mire myself in grief, or will I stand on my feet, do something good, and use the experience to understand what can happen while choosing a higher path?”

When you choose the higher path, angels and beings of light are ready to help. It is as though they say, “Good. We have this person back where he or she needs to be.” When you remain in the low pit, you are not helping anyone or vibrating with the light of God. You are wallowing in self-pity.

At times, we may briefly need to feel that self-pity, but we cannot stay there forever. We must feel an inner power and hear an inner voice. We must know that God speaks to us whenever we fall from the path, urging us to return.

Once we return to the path, He empowers us and gives us assignments to do something greater. We may not succeed completely on the first attempt. We may have to try two or three times, but when we get it right, we have moved up another rung in life and reached a higher vibration of light that guides us to the next step.

Eventually, our bodies can become so filled with light that we seem to emanate a halo. We are working toward enlightenment, but it is not easy. It requires work and responsibility. There will always be forces that try to work against what you are doing. You have God and light on one side, and Satan and darkness on the other. The question is: which direction will you lean?

Speaker 1 - Jim:
You know, Sandy, that contrast is portrayed even in the word love. If you look at L-O-V-E backward, you see E-V-O-L, which sounds phonetically like the beginning of “evil.” The speaker’s point is that both possibilities appear within the same arrangement, depending on how energy is used and presented to others and to God. If you are not choosing one direction, you may be misusing the same energy in the other direction.

If you think your life is hard or impossible, look at the life of Jesus and consider what He experienced. Compare your problems with His. Who carried the greater burdens? Who went to the greatest degree to be perfect in all that He did and to be one with the Father?

If we want to reach enlightenment, we must see problems as stepping stones, not mountains that cannot be climbed. We must realize that there is nothing we cannot achieve if God is on our side. Jesus said that if our faith were pure and true, we could move a mountain. Not many people can do that, so we still have a way to go.

Every step involves a choice. Do we choose greed and selfishness because we think we deserve something or because the ego feels it needs to be empowered? Or can we step out of ego and into humility?

We may feel that humility will make us less popular or permit people to use us, but we are walking in the footsteps of God. When we reach the finish line, we may discover that we have advanced much farther than we imagined.

We can trust, believe, and have faith. That is where many people fall short. We have a little trust, some faith, and partial belief, but we do not give ourselves fully in all three areas because we are afraid.

When Scripture speaks of removing a mountain, the mountain may represent the stumbling blocks and stones in our path that keep us from reaching where we are meant to go.

Speaker 2 - Sandy:
That is so true. Christ’s example of laying down His life for others sets the ultimate standard for sacrificial human love and far exceeds anything most of us would willingly place before ourselves.

We can begin with a small step each day: do something good for someone else, improve our lives by seeing the good in things, and give praise and gratitude to a tree, an animal, nature, a friend, a neighbor, or someone we have never met. Try these things and see what happens.

When you walk in love, everything feels that vibrational energy. If you walk in the woods with a total feeling of love in your heart, you may notice that some animals do not run away and some birds do not immediately fly. At times, they become inquisitive and move closer.

Everything seeks love. It is not only humans. Anything living and carrying a life force seeks love. Even the lion, in the image offered by the speaker, would lie down beside Jesus. There is no fear when love is predominant. If there is anger or negativity within you, that too will be felt.

I try to do the best I can. I say my prayers, give thanks, praise, and gratitude, and try to be good to other people. Yet I am tested constantly, especially in patience. During intense days, it is easy to become impatient. When you feel ill, everything may seem to nag at you. When hackers try to enter your computer or steal credit-card information, that will certainly test your patience.

Still, hold in your mind that God is good, God can guide you, and God will help you through these situations if you trust and believe. This does not mean that bad or negative things will disappear completely. It means that you may experience greater protection.

God loves everyone and wants each person to know what the energy of love feels like. Imagine if every person in the world held a beautiful feeling of love toward every other person. Imagine what the world would feel like.

In the past, there were world peace days when multitudes - even millions - of people meditated together, feeling love in their hearts and directing it toward everyone in the world. Many people felt uplifted because the event created what the speakers describe as a mass-consciousness effect.

If one or two million people create that effect, the speakers believe billions may feel it. The same principle, however, is said to apply to negativity. When war, killing, death, and intentional evil occur, the whole world feels the heaviness. You may think, “The war is happening on the other side of the world. Why should I feel it?” But we are all connected. We are one, like pieces of one vast hologram.

As negativity accelerates, we may feel it inside ourselves as nervousness, anxiety, pressure, or discomfort. It becomes harder to let love dominate because the opposing energy attempts to conquer love and become the dominant feeling within us.

Then we begin attracting more negativity. The speaker describes this through the idea that like attracts like: whatever your dominant energy is, that is what you vibrate and attract.

If you want to leave dark, negative energy, begin to feel love. If you think, “I cannot hold love,” continue placing it within yourself. Be it, live it, embody it, and do everything you can to make it part of your life. It will begin changing the dominant energy within you.

Ask Christ Jesus to be within you and fill you with His love and light. If you receive Him, He will come into you and remove negative energy. He will be your Savior. The speakers describe this as His purpose: to release people from negativity and sin so they have an opportunity to reach enlightenment and become one with heavenly beings of light.

Angels are messengers and helpers of God. Most people do not see them, but they are always present, attempting to reach those willing to open themselves and become one with the light of God. Call upon them. Call upon the masters of light and the archangels. Ask them to be part of your life and observe the difference.

We need protection because the Earth contains both negativity and positivity. We use our voice and mind to express our needs, and God hears us. God does not sit idly and say, “There is another person who needs My love. I will get around to that person later.” Love is everywhere. The moment you open yourself and allow it in, it enters because you are part of Him.

It is we who separate ourselves from God’s love; God does not separate Himself from us. We must understand this so that we can return to our path and move forward.

We need humility and selflessness, patience and kindness. We must learn to forgive others, particularly when they act negatively toward us. We must move beyond envy and pride, rejoice in truth, and accept challenges as part of life while knowing that we can move through them.

We must remain committed to what we know as our truth, path, and way. God’s love is demonstrated through the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, for salvation, as expressed in John 3:16 and Romans 5:8.

Love is everything. If we accomplish nothing else, the most important thing we must do is love. Love is God, and God, as Jim said, is love and law. When we follow God’s law, we remain within God’s light and love.

In the Bible, love is selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional. It is a commitment that reflects God’s nature and is expressed through action, not merely feeling. We may say the word love, but are we practicing it, demonstrating it, and giving it to someone we have never met?

That is where love can have its greatest impact, because no one expects it. Family members may expect us to say, “I love you,” when we leave. But to embody love daily in everything we do is to take up the light of love. The speakers believe this brings us into the heart of God more swiftly than any other path.

Speaker 1 - Jim:
That is very true. When we look at the walk of Jesus, we see that before John the Baptist came to this planet, he was called by God. He was called to baptize Jesus and purify Him completely for the work He had to do. Jesus was already pure, but He still received baptism from John the Baptist.

When we examine our own lives, we must consider the purification we need. We can be baptized in light and by the Holy Spirit, but our souls still need purification. We do not even know the extent of our sins; we know only what we know. Under universal laws, the speakers suggest, we may be sinning in many of the things we do without recognizing it, and this uncleanness can build within us.

Jesus can lift these sins from us, but we must ask. Sometimes we say, “Why do I have to ask? I do not really have sins.” Yet we may not even recognize the sins we carry. We may believe we are pure, but in some part of each day’s walk we may still fall short.

We are growing and learning. In the vast picture of God-consciousness, we are like babies. Higher beings of light are watching and trying to guide us. I am sure they think we are a handful, but they remain willing to help as long as we do not become egotistical, think we are better than others, or believe we need no help.

When we enter a self-centered state, we lose opportunities without realizing how much we have lost. We lose the ability to recognize our wrongdoing because we feel justified, deserving, or entitled to something from another person.

A person can live in that state for years or even an entire lifetime. But at some point, that person may realize, “I took the wrong path.” It is never too late to turn to God and say, “Please forgive me. I believed I was doing the right thing, but I now see that I was on the wrong path. Please forgive me and accept me into Your light and love.”

If you are sincere and humble, God will do that. It is never too late. You may think your actions are unforgivable, but the speakers emphasize that forgiveness remains possible. Life is a lesson. We do not usually intend to do negative things, but sometimes we react before thinking. One situation leads to another until we are so deeply involved that we cannot find the way out.

It is never too late to ask for help and turn to God. When you do, things will begin changing. You may not immediately appear to live in a completely new reality, but gradually you will see the difference.

If you begin doing good for others, change your ways, and decide that old habits no longer serve you, you will be walking the right path. On Earth, however, counterfeit spirits may challenge you at every step. Just when you think you have done everything perfectly, another test will appear. Even the greatest are tested.

The more light you achieve, the more visible you become to the dark side. It is attracted to the light like moths to a flame. Your challenges may become greater, but your wisdom and knowledge should also become stronger, helping you avoid the vulnerabilities that would cause you to surrender your light or your love of God.

When love fully encompasses you, it is characterized by patience, kindness, humility, forgiveness, and perseverance. It seeks the good of others without expecting anything in return.

Scripture describes agape, unconditional and selfless divine love, as the highest form of love exemplified by God in Jesus Christ. It describes philia, brotherly or friendship love, emphasizing loyalty and companionship. It describes storge, familial love, focusing on care and devotion within families. It also describes eros, romantic or passionate love, celebrated in the Song of Solomon.

Each form must meet the essential definition of love. From love come gifts of the Holy Spirit, healing of the sick, feeding of multitudes, forgiveness of sins, and sacrificial service.

Biblical love is transformative and relational. It calls believers to love God wholeheartedly and love others as themselves. It reflects God’s character in daily acts of kindness, forgiveness, and sacrifice. It prioritizes the well-being of others above personal desire and embodies selflessness and sacrifice.

In essence, biblical love is an enduring, action-oriented commitment that mirrors God’s divine nature. It transcends fleeting emotions, romantic attraction, and self-interest. It guides believers to live with compassion, mercy, and sacrificial service toward God and others. By practicing agape love, Christians fulfill the greatest commandment and participate in God’s transformative work in the world.

Speaker 2 - Sandy:
That is very good. It covers a great deal.

Every day, we move through our routines: going to work, caring for someone, doing chores, and handling ordinary activities. But how many times do we stop and think of God? How often do we ask whether our actions are Godlike? How often do we include God in our enjoyable moments as well as our work?

People often curse or complain: “I cannot believe this,” or, “I hate this.” But how many times do we consciously include God in what we do? Look at your day and count how many times you include God.

Perhaps people bless their food, pray before bed, meditate, or give praise and gratitude. But do you practice these things regularly? If not, you need to ask what is most important in life. Is it racing to buy groceries, doing a menial task, or sitting down to watch television? What is truly most important?

We need to set aside time to acknowledge God. Part of that practice requires quieting the mind. Prayer is an outward expression, but when the mind becomes quiet, God can communicate with us because the mental chatter no longer drowns out everything except our own voice.

Quieting the mind places us in a meditative state. Whether you remain quiet for a few minutes or twenty minutes, you allow what the speakers describe as the energies of God to flow through you. You may begin to receive insights.

You may or may not hear God’s words. You may or may not see visions. Over time, however, the speakers describe the two hemispheres of the brain and the way the energies of daily life cross from left to right and right to left, creating what they call a tangled nest of energy. Meditation is described as combing that tangled energy apart so that the light of God can flow through us and higher messages can be received.

Sometimes we receive only an intuition about what the higher energy is communicating. At other times, we may receive the larger picture. Even if you feel that nothing happened, if you quieted your mind and aligned yourself with God, the speakers believe something positive occurred. It may not be recognizable in that moment, but something happened.

The more often you practice, the more your body is said to build light within itself. The speakers refer to an aura field, an energy field around the body that becomes stronger. They describe this field as helping protect the body from viruses, bacteria, germs, and other harmful influences.

They also describe an energy field inside the body. As these practices become part of daily life, you begin to embody them. Light is then said to move from cell to cell until it encompasses every cell in the body, and the person becomes enlightened.

Speaker 1 - Jim:
Exactly. It not only enlightens; it changes your health and attitudes. It is an energy that attracts energy like itself, so good things begin vibrating at the same frequency and are attracted to you. Like attracts like.

This energy can bring opportunities. Some successful chief executive officers and business leaders meditate because insights come through. When we realize that opportunities may be endless if we make a few changes, we can ask ourselves whether we are willing to spend ten minutes each day quieting the mind and allowing the light of God to come through.

After a short period, look for changes. Do you feel better? Do you have more insight? Are you attracting new people into your life? Are opportunities arriving that were not available before? You may find that all of these things are true.

These are only a few examples of what the speakers believe can happen. When the energy becomes strong, it attracts not only other people but also more beings of light. That creates more opportunities for higher spiritual growth.

The process builds upon itself. It is like climbing Jacob’s ladder. The ladder is not easy to climb. We may feel as though a ball and chain is hanging from the ankle while we climb a steep ladder under a heavy weight. But at a certain stage, the weight begins to decrease. It becomes lighter until you feel that you fully embody the light.

The feeling is a love that cannot be adequately described, a bliss beyond bliss.

I believe that some people - and I will use younger people only as one example - may have come here as enlightened souls from a much higher level. When they entered Earth, they had to fall in vibration. They then searched for the higher vibration of love but could not find it in other people.

Some turn to drugs, which offer only a short-lived energy. A drug may take a person upward for a moment but then pull the person down ten times farther than before, creating an even greater struggle to rise again.

People may use alcohol and drugs to escape hardship, believing these substances are the answer. The speakers describe this as Satan’s way of tricking a person into doing something that only makes the situation worse.

The only way to reach a higher spiritual level is to walk it, believe it, live it, and embody it. You must work at it. To reach purity, you cannot allow negativity to taint it. That is why you are tested: the tests demonstrate your faith to God and your commitment not to taint the purity of higher-dimensional light.

When you demonstrate that commitment, you are given the next level of empowerment and move to a higher rung of enlightenment, with more light within the body. We will eventually reach that stage, but it requires work.

When we look at the world in its present condition, it may not seem that we are progressing quickly. Yet the speakers believe we are accelerating rapidly. The problem is that everyone must catch up. The heaviness feels heavier until we finally realize, “I do not need to live this way. It is causing more problems.” Then we let it go.

Why must the heaviness become extreme before we understand the point? Why can we not examine life and say, “This is not working. I do not want to continue because it is taking me down the wrong path”?

We fear that we will never return to the right path because we do not trust God or possess enough faith and belief to know that we can do it. That fear is an illusion. You are the light of God. You came from the essence of God. When you realize that, you begin walking the right path.

You can set aside negative attitudes and harmful habits and realize that many people and spiritual beings are cheering you on. You made one choice, and now you can change that choice and make a better one. It can work.

You may not be able to continue spending time with the negative people who brought you down. You may need to make new friends, but you can do it. Your life is still in front of you. Make a change and observe how your life can turn around through one decision.

You can find more patience, happiness, and bliss than you could ever receive from a drug. Habits are easy to develop - smoking, drinking, drug use, and unhealthy sexual behavior among them - but we have a choice every day. When we make the right choice, God is there to lift us up.

We have to finish this session, Sandy. We encourage everyone to email us at the address stated in the recording as “Sandy’s with an F, Angel Talk at AOL.com,” though the exact spelling and formatting should be confirmed. You may also call 304-567-3354.

We want to thank all of you for joining us on Angel Talk, and we hope you can join us again in two weeks. May God bless you all.

Speaker 2 - Sandy:
God bless. We love you.