The Greatest of all these is Love

I think that most people will agree that the greatest human virtue is the ability to love. But really what is love broken down to its purest part? It is empathy or compassion. It is the ability to be with someone in joy or in pain. The ability to sit with them in hell or soar with them to the heavens.

One would think that the joy is easy, but not always. If I don't know joy within myself, I can't share it with someone else. So my self-love and the enjoyment I take from my life is actually beneficial to all those I touch. Because joy is infectious.

Pain is sometimes more difficult to embrace. My own pain sits somewhere at the back of my mind, I love to ignore it. Then I meet someone who is suffering so I just want to ignore her. I am too busy pursuing my own happiness. But if I stop and hold her for a while, I take the opportunity to develop love in myself. All emotional pain is a gift, an occasion when I can decide to open my heart and mind more or close it up.

How can I understand the suffering of another if I have never suffered? Holding another through their healing gives me the opportunity to heal myself, to cultivate love. So that then I can soar so much higher.