upon ourselves that pain; the heart fills with love until it
aches with the burden of it; this love enlarged, expanded and impersonal in
its application is the same love with which we are told to love God, and to
"do all for Him." Do all for love of all the other hearts in the Universe
that feel as we feel when their loved ones suffer--that is the way to love
God--it is the only way we know. We only know divine love through human
love: human love is divine when it is unselfish and eternal--not fed upon
carnality, but anchored in spiritual complement.

The story of Abou Ben Adhem ("may his tribe increase") tells us how we may
know who loves the Lord. The angel wrote the names of those who loved the
Lord most faithfully and fully, and coming to Abou Ben Adhem asked if he
should write his name, and received the reply that he could not say whether
he deeply loved the Lord, but he was quite certain that the angel could
"write me as one who loves his fellow-men." And, lo! when the list was made
and the names of all who loved the Lord recorded, Abou Ben Adhem's name
headed the list.

The Vedanta philosophy teaches non-attachment and Vivekananda himself says:
"To love any one personally is bondage. Love all alike then all desires
fall off."

To love only the personal self of any one binds us to the sorrow of loss
and of separation and disappointment; but to love any one spiritually is to
establish a bond which can never be broken; which insures reunion, and
defies time and space.

We can not love all alike, though we can love all humanity impersonally.
All desires that have their root in the sense-conscious plane of
expression, will fall off when the heart is anchored in spiritual love; but
let it be understood that spiritual love is not opposed to human love; we
do not grow into spiritual love by denying the human, but by plussing the
human.

Spiritual consciousness is all that is good and pure and noble, and
satisfying in the mortal and infinitely more. It is the love of personal
self _plus_ the _Self_--the _atman_.

Love is never unrequited. It is never wasted; never foolish. Love is its
own self-justification; if it be real love, and not vanity, or self
admiration, misnamed, give it freely, and don't ask for a return; don't ask
whither it leads; only ask if it is real--if the love you feel is for the
object of your love, or if it is for yourself--for you to possess and to
minister to your pleasure; ask whether it is