IN THE NAME OF LOVE

PHOTOS AND TEXT: ADRIAN DE GROOT
COVER PHOTO: MIA MEDAKOVIC

When you hear the phrase “In the Name of….’, without the word love, it may have all kinds of connotations and implications. A few examples:

* Much blood was spilled in the name of religion and revolution.
* „Open up the door in the name of the law“.
* They were arrested in the name of the king.
* We have the right to know what action has been taken in our name.
* “I reserved this airplane ticket in the name of Anima Mundi”.
* “The house is in the wife’s name, but the insurance policy on it is in the husband’s name”.
* The priest was offering a prayer in the name of Jesus and blessed his congre­gation in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
* Muslims preface anything in writing with the prefix “In the name of Allah”.
* And many other examples could be cited.

In other words, the authority belongs to the name bearer. But on another level, someone might say to you: “In the name of goodness, please donate something to this poor beg­gar” to inspire you to benevolent action. A parent may say to a teenager: “In the name of decency, please wear something more appropriate to tonight’s party.” Again, many more examples are possible.

It all means to submit to a supposed high­er authority. And I say “supposed”, because submitting to a nefarious dictator is not ex­actly what I consider a higher authority, in the sense of the word higher meaning of a beneficial nature, and not of an undesirable fearful nature.

When we add the word love, even the ex­pression “In the name of love” may not al­ways be so pleasant, because it depends so much on what kind of love we have in mind. I think most of us would agree that love should mean the best and highest form of love, which is unconditional love (some call it “True Love”), but even that term “uncondi­tional” isn’t necessarily understood perfectly by many, or is very difficult or at least most challenging to put into practice.

Is love that demands conditions actually (true) love? When a mother tells her children that in order to get ice cream they have to clean up their room first? When parents with­hold blessings from their so-called “naughty” kids? When religions demand sacrifices to please their conditionally loving gods? When an employer fires an employee for a minor infraction or remark or opinion on Facebook out of supposed love for his company, more than finding a way to rehabilitate, forgive and correct the employee who made a mistake? Many couples who say they have true love for each other, nevertheless still end up di­vorced. And is so-called tough love by defi­nition always true unconditional love? Often it is not.

Before I can even confidently say ”In the name of Love”, I have to first make sure we are all on the same page of what the word love truly is all about. We agreed that it ought to be unconditional. Would an unconditional­ly loving parent judge their child for bad be­havior? Is Santa Claus seemingly less than perfectly loving all children? Can we disci­pline or even punish someone in the name of love? I think it depends on what the true motivation of that parent is, or for that matter even a judicial system, by handing out pun­ishment, such as grounding a child for a peri­od of time, a financial fine or even jail time. In North Korea two boys were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for watching and distrib­uting videos from South Korea. That surely is not love. Love without forgiveness and gen­tle correction of the offending person is truly not true love.

By just handing out a punishment, without a higher message or motivation or plan of ac­tion, I think that kind of love, if we can even call it that, is totally counterproductive and accomplishes little to nothing, or might even have a negative effect and make a criminal, for example, even worse. Unconditional Love also forgives unconditionally.

So, I find it hard to define “In the name of Love”. Ideally we long for it to have one uni­versal meaning and appeal, but are we as a human species there yet? I’m afraid not. So many different cultures, languages, religions, levels of spirituality and education, and you name it. Nevertheless, despite these sup­posed negatives or at least challenges, I be­lieve that at the bottom line the human de­sire is one and the same: We want to live in true peace and harmony with each other and treat each other with the ageless Golden Rule by “doing unto others as you have them do to you.”

So, “In the Name of Love” let’s continue this new year of 2024 with a love that judges no one, expects nothing in return from giving, is totally forgiving, and hereby I can quote Wayne Dyer, a very wise man who was very well-known in the United States from his Public Television (PBS) presentations, often used during their fundraising campaigns:

If you desire peace for others, you’ll receive it.

If you want others to feel loved, you’ll be the recipient of love.

If you see only beauty and worthiness in oth­ers, you’ll have the same returned to you.

You’ll only give away what you have in your heart, and attract what you’re giving away.

I would like to add some spiritual wisdom here. Rather than just saying “In the name of Love”, please realize that you actually already are a being of love, made for love, made by love, made of love, that you are not your body but have one (which is 99.99% empty space and all energy) temporarily, and that you are foremost a conscious eternal soul.

So, this article’s title is an expression that can be one of universally accepted authority, whereby True Love is the accepted and only true standard to which we willingly submit, and even deeply long for, have been seeking for our whole life long, and may at times even have been desperately pleading for.

In conclusion, all I like to say as the author of this article that “In the Name of Love” is not a demand, nor even a request, but simple an encouragement, by your own free will, to bring out the best in yourselves and thereby in all of us:

“In the Name of Love, let us therefore Love each other totally and unconditionally from now on, and make lasting peace and friend­ships in this world, totally free of judgment, condemnation, resentment, anger, and use Unconditional Love as the means to achieve this.” Let us move beyond all the trappings of the physicality of ourselves, such as ap­pearances, race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, intelligence or financial levels, achievement levels, difference of opinion, and practice the immaterial, spiritual, invisi­ble, TRUE LOVE, and express it also in nu­merous physical ways of giving, helping, and embracing all people with a love like a moth­er to her newborn child, and don’t forget to include yourself in that love as well! We are one human family, after all.

I think it was the Indian guru Sri Aurobindo who said that the road to happiness is hap­piness itself, and thus the road to perfect love is love itself. Since everything is always evolving further and further, endlessly, there is no end point, no so-called „ultimate“ point. One person once told me she wanted to die during the ultimate love making experience with her husband. She didn’t understand that there can be no such thing as the ulti­mate experience, for what would come after it? Maybe she thought that physical death would be the total end of her existence, go­ing out with a bang.

But can True Love, which is immaterial and as a matter of our non-physical heart, be lim­ited by physicality? Can it possibly be tem­poral? The evidence that life and love are eternal is overwhelming and ought not to be a matter of belief or even religion anymore, even though for many it remains that way. I can calmly and confidently proclaim that True Love will end all nihilism and fill us with hope, for Love is eternal, never dies, and keeps on expanding. Thus, “In the Name of Love” let us all have a True Love-filled 2024!

POSTSCRIPT: CONGRATULATIONS TO THE UNCONDITIONALLY LOVE-DEVOTED MIA AS THE FOUNDER OF RYL E-MAGAZI­NE WHICH, WITH THIS 102ND ISSUE, HAS BEEN AROUND FOR 10 YEARS ALREADY AND WE CELEBRATED THE 100TH ISSUE BACK IN DECEMBER. I LIKE TO PRONOUN­CE A BLESSING OF CONTENT-PROSPERI­TY FOR THE CONTINUATION OF THE “IN THE NAME OF LOVE RYL PROJECT”!