“This honest love may ever trust us; forgiving and forgetting may be its atmosphere. It may inspire us, recreate us, give wings to us when downcast, a new shield to faith and new heart to energy. We may have this great happiness all our own, firm in our grasp, yet for a mere trifle—we may throw it away, or let it fall gradually from us—like pearls dropping, one by one, silent and unnoted, from a broken necklace.” – William George Jordan
Any time you withdraw your love you throw away your happiness. How do you withdraw your love? Every time you curse another. Each instance where you fail to give it your all. Each and every moment you spend wallowing in self-pity, blame, complaint or even worry.
The radiant expression of love serves the double purpose of protecting you from that which is inconsistent with love’s nature, while connecting you to all that is consistent with its purpose and design. That which divides also connects. The same principle holds true with the expression of hatred, or any of its lesser forms, only in reverse. A hateful expression isolates you from the healing and purifying influence of love while connecting you to all that has succumbed to the absence of love in the world around you.
Most people hide behind defensive strategies – gruffness, toughness, terseness, shyness, etc. – to protect themselves from that which they fear. This is a tiring approach, for it must be fed with your life energies to be sustained…energy that could be employed in other, more productive areas. True protection comes from radiance.
Your body, mind and heart have the capacity to magnify the core of love in you day and and day out. Most people use these brilliantly designed capacities as mirrors to the world around them, rather than as megaphones for the expression of their inner greatness. As Dr. Maya Angelou put it so beautifully: “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”
Why do you sing?
When you decide to be radiant no matter what, you open the door to happiness. You realize that the starting point for greatness lies not in the world beyond you, but deep within you. The You that you are and always will be is a great and magnificent presence that must be translated – to meet the needs of the moment – by your closest allies: your body, mind and heart.
Radiance in this sense is the best offense and the best defense. It really is a lot easier than most people have made it.
Give it a try!
Gregory Hake 
This has been such an excellent series and topic on the nature of love and radiance. I’ve enjoyed reading your posts each day.
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This is so simple and practical. Thank you!
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Love is a priceless treasure, our human birthright, yet it has been mired in layer upon layer of misinterpretation due to a disconnection from it’s source. Your posts are like a map found on an archeological dig, giving right starting points in the rubble of life, to begin to excavate the truth of who we are. Love can so appropriately take the burdens from our lives away, simply by staying centered. I know from experience, though there may be an immediate release, nothing good comes from cursing yourself your situation or others. As a song so aptly put, ” I believe, love is the answer, I believe that love will find a way.” Thank you for creating a legacy of love, giving all of your readers the ability to bring these words to life in their day to day experience. This world may just have a chance based on the actions of a few.
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Thanks for the great blog Gregg!
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When you decide to show or give credit to something other than love, when you hate or judge something or someone, you are closing the tap of life to yourself. Life’s energy will only flow to you unhindered when it is allowed to flow out of you as well. Some people decide to use life’s energy they are given for nefarious purposes. They do not translate their true selves, but they allow their body, mind, or heart to twist their life energy into something less than. It might not even be something aggressively hateful, but it might be just trying to keep themselves for themselves.
Living radiantly makes life simple. There is no more plotting or scheming, seething or envy. It is just living life to your best ability, and helping others do the same.
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I felt to emphasize this part of today’s post. “The radiant expression of love serves the double purpose of protecting you from that which is inconsistent with love’s nature, while connecting you to all that is consistent with it’s purpose and design. That which divides also connects. The same principle holds true with the expression of hatred, or any of its lesser forms, only in reverse. A hateful expression isolates you from the healing and purifying influence of love while connecting you to all that has succumbed to the absence of love in the world around you.” Most children are taught it is wrong or at least unwise to hate. This paragraph has the power to refocus that innocence in anyone that is wishing for another chance at happiness.
Thanks Gregg, your intention is greatly appreciated.
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What a great point. Never thought of the subtleties of defensive postures as a drain but you’re right. If our capacity for radiance is occupied by anything other than love we are on our way to broken.
I love Mr. Jordan analogy of loosing your happiness like a “string of broken pearls.” His writing was so poetic. This is a sobering post, thank you.
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The way you put it, it does seem foolish to try to live any other way. We only have a finite amount of life energy, so why not use it in concert with the larger presence of what is? This larger reality of who we are? We can let the winds of this presence propel us through life, so that our own energies can be used for steering – the intelligent decisions made on a day to day basis. I can see where if we both had to propel and steer, we wouldn’t get very far in comparison, and we’d get more tired. I’ve been there, done that. Confusion surely ensues.
This larger presence cannot be denied, though we can try to ignore it if we choose. If accepted, through connecting with love through giving it constant expression, through letting it simply be, the winds once again return to your back and you are swiftly carried in life’s stream of blessing, to you and all things beyond you.
What a way to live – and how things could be for the world over! Brilliant, simply brilliant.
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It is true that the effect of cursing is detrimental to one’s own body, mind and heart. Which is funny because it ends up being the opposite effect the one/s cursing had intended of the curse! Why not instead offer a blessing and be released from the entropy of cursing? Cursing has no lasting power except to hasten the demise of those engaged in it. Great keys to true defense and offense as being connected to the source of life and extending that blessing. Sounds like a much better use of the resources of body, mind and heart!
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