More thoughts on December 21, 2012 The end of the world as we know it :-)

Ideally, love is a superior form of unity, where two become one but in a way, which preserves their consciousness, so that they can perceive they are one. The problem is that that is very difficult to achieve in practice because we identify consciousness with our ego, and I believe that was what Buddha was referring to. 

It is a bit of a paradox: love is good; attachment is bad. However, in order to perceive love, one needs consciousness. We identify consciousness with the ego. Therefore, our ego-oriented consciousness automatically turns love into attachment.

One conclusion is that love is just another name for a tendency that exists in the universe to dissolve the walls between individuals and achieve a degree of stable unity between isolated souls. Attachment' is only a side effect of love, or a kind of love gone wrong, a love that misses the point. The idea (or the ideal) is to dissolve the walls between the subject and the object of love, not to attach the object to the subject.

So yes, love can be a pure, life-giving force but I also think we are structurally designed to corrupt it and it is very hard to get around that. All religions try to give an answer to this problem and they succeed to some extent, but to turn theory into practice is a completely different story.

"Organized" religions, as in those who push a belief to rule others’ lives and take their money, are probably invented. Perhaps there are there are two rules and we can choose which one to live by. Mother Nature's rule: Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten. God's Rule: Do unto others, as you would wish others to do unto you. 

As we move into the new calendar, we have to decide which rule we will live by.

So if you wish to be loved, then love. You do not have to love what another does to love them. In addition, you can always wish on them their true intentions in spades. Thus without judging them, you can make sure they get their just reward.