Make sure your love is unconditional1. Make sure you love people in all kinds of “weather”. Or else what is the use if we love a person only when he is good or she is nice? When I need the people most that’s when they leave me. All the time. So please, I hope you won’t be like that. We always have to consider the other party, your companion’s situation and mood. Maybe he’s in difficulty2 right now. That’s why his mood is not so sweet.

Maybe she has so much work to do and so many headaches, so she cannot be so darling like usual. That time is the time when we need to show our most noble3 quality, the way we want ourselves to be.

It’s not that if you are sweet to that person then he will love you more. Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. But that is not the point to be good and to be noble. To be good, to be noble is for ourselves because we choose to be that way, we want to keep being that way, and we feel good about it. It’s not because, “Okay, now he needs me more. If I show more sympathy4, then our love will be stronger”; It’s not even to be considered.

But most of the time we fail the test. When people are in most difficulty, we just leave them, or we are cold and indifferent5. “Oh, you’re not nice to me. All right, all right.”;”You’ll come and need me soon.”; Of course they will. When they’re in a better mood, when everything goes better, of course they’ll come around. But then it’s too late. Then it is not love anymore. It’s just a need for each other. That’s different, because you are used to each other and you need each other sometimes out of habit, out of convenience, out of financial security6 reasons — anything.

But it’s not true love.

When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you, yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you, believe in him, though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden .

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning . Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to our roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

But if, in your fear, you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor, into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not, nor would it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love .

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. But if you love and must have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips
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