1. What does the word Love mean to you?

What is love? Love is the pursuit of the whole.

Perhaps poetry is the medium and metaphor the key to best describing Love.

At the physical level, light;

At the mental level, consciousness

At the emotional level, love;

At the level of spirit, God;

Love and Violence (insert from “Our Culture on the Couch”)

What is love? Hard to say. Plato believed that “Love is the pursuit of the whole.” In my recent book, Our Culture on the Couch, I stated: “Although ‘love’ is an excruciatingly overused and abused word, there is a common factor involved whenever it is used. In every case, the active principle has something to do with togetherness, attraction, unity and unification, a joining together in some way – be it physical, emotional, philosophical, esthetic or otherwise.

This unification is obvious in the example of sexual loving, or in the case of the love between the mother and the infant, or the love of a worshipper for a Higher Power.

And in sports, (or war), we see the same phenomenon of unity that permits one team to win against all odds –athletes will often speak of the love they feel for their teammates. Whenever a certain quality of wholeness is maintained – whether it’s of a body, a relationship, or a racecar – it tends to give rise to enormous power, performance and survival potential.”

Love Is a Way of Being

You cannot “do” love. There is nothing that you can do that constitutes loving someone. There is no action that is of itself loving.  Love is a way of being.

Indeed, it is simply being — being with another person, however they may be – with no judgments, prejudices, or agendas. Nothing to demonstrate, no one to impress. You love when there is total acceptance of another’s being – born of your acceptance of your own.

Love (capital “L”) refers to the attractive force in our universe. It is the inner power and knowing that guides the carbon atom to share electrons with its neighbors, rather than steal from them.  It is the attractive energy that sustains the integrity of the membrane of the lowly paramecium and thus, preserves the life within.

Love binds together the cells and organs, and enables them to harmonize their functioning to produce health of the whole. Love makes birds of a feather flock together, and it inspires wildebeests to travel hundreds of miles in the spring. Love is the magic bond between lovers, between brothers and sisters, between dear friends – it is the key to empathy, compassion, and community.

The Love/Violence Continuum

Love is one of a contrasting pair of forces that lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, the Love (capital L) – Violence (capital V) continuum. If perfect Love is at one end of this continuum, then pure Violence is at the other end.

In truth, few of us will ever get to know perfect Love, (though sometimes the love of a mother for her infant comes pretty darned close), and fortunately, we will probably never know pure Violence.

But who of us have failed to experience people at different positions on that spectrum?

It is crucial to understand that the qualities of Love and Violence are not to be seen as “opposites” – that is, they do not “oppose” each other. They are simply extremes of a continuum that every one of us is on right now.

To the degree that we see the world through eyes that look for wholes, harmony, balance, peace and connection, we are using the both-and paradigm/worldview. This paradigm seeks to find the “we” in every situation.

On the other hand, those who see the world completely from a black-white, me-you, us-them paradigm overwhelmingly  tend to see a winner and a loser, a right and a wrong in nearly every situation.

Love Is Not Having To Say I’m Sorry

In a sense, Love is not having to say “I’m sorry,” because in some very real sense there is only “Me,” and you are a part of me, I am a part of you, and we are both parts of something far greater than either you and I. Love may present itself in myriad forms, ranging from the passion of a young man for the girl of his dreams to the profound oneness of the mother and infant, from the deep bond between team members to that experienced among members of a spiritual community – many forms of the same fundamental force – Love.

And it is Love that heals. Healing is, after all, the movement towards greater wholeness, the creation of harmony in the functioning of that complex system of body, mind, emotions, and spirit.

Love is the dance of the white cranes, and the music of the nightingale. And Love is the feeling of empathy, compassion, unconditional positive regard – the knowing you are One.

2. Have you ever felt like love was missing from your life? (How do you handle these periods of time?)

Indeed I have. I wish I were able to say I am proud of how well I handled those times – but the fact is I behaved very poorly. I wept and raged and moped and acted out.

And though I cannot imagine ever feeling that way again, at this point in my life, I am clear how differently I would like to handle things. I would spend a great deal of time centering, focusing inward, in silent retreat, recalling all the beauty and love that are at my center. I would then nurture this love and let it fill every cell of my being from that inner font. Then I would gently begin to allow myself to drink in the beauty of the nature that is all around me . . . and realize that I have within all that I need. I would now be best prepared to be able to share love with others, or to exist for an indeterminate time alone and full.

I would connect with those people who most likely to love me, even though I might not be actively feeling it at the moment. Approaching them with an open heart I would be able to let in the love that is there.

3. What is the biggest way you see that love (or the lack thereof) has impacted our world today?

Love, as discussed in Our Culture on the Couch, is one extreme of a continuum, at the other end of which is Violence. The gradual disappearance of love from the community spaces, the families, and relationships personal, social, and spiritual has left the field open to the forces of Violence, fragmentation, conflict, abuse, pollution, slavery, and war. We see it everywhere.

The Love/Violence Continuum

Love is one of a contrasting pair of forces that lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, the Love (capital L) – Violence (capital V) continuum. If perfect Love is at one end of this continuum, then pure Violence is at the other end.

In truth, few of us will ever get to know perfect Love, (though sometimes the love of a mother for her infant comes pretty darned close), and fortunately, we will probably never know pure Violence.

But who of us have failed to experience people at different positions on that spectrum?

It is crucial to understand that the qualities of Love and Violence are not to be seen as “opposites” – that is, they do not “oppose” each other. They are simply extremes of a continuum that every one of us is on right now.

To the degree that we see the world through eyes that look for wholes, harmony, balance, peace and connection, we are using the both-and paradigm/worldview. This paradigm seeks to find the “we” in every situation.

On the other hand, those who see the world completely from a black-white, me-you, us-them paradigm overwhelmingly  tend to see a winner and a loser, a right and a wrong in nearly every situation.

The polarization in our society and at the global level is constantly increasing. That, along with the fact that the increasing complexity, high degree of interdependence, and the power of WMDs (including cyberattacks) leads to enormous insecurity at a time when we need, more than ever, to create a “global brain” that does not have ADHD and can unite us into a harmonious working unit. Without that, catastrophes like 9/11 and the global meltdown are unavoidable. If we do not learn from history, we will be forced to repeat it. And every time the price goes up.

4. What is the last extraordinary book you read and what impact did it have on you?

Read Gandhi, The Man – by Easrawan. (check spelling). Reading Gandhi’s words made me cry – I no longer felt alone, but accompanied by a great spirit who had given visible form to my deepest values and beliefs. I am currently attracted the themes in Jeremy Rifkin’s The Empathic Civilization, which echoes my own thoughts, that the very sustainability of the central values and abilities of our civilization are dependent upon the development of a perspective on life that very much resembles what I have called Love.

5. From your perspective, what is the most practical way to bring more love into the world?

How can I become an instrument of Love? Cultivate it within until you are overflowing – then let it flow into the lives of those who are open to receive it. Remember, as Ann Morrow Lindbergh told us:

… never think of love as something you can give like an armload of flowers. Some people give love like that – they dump it down on top of you, a useless strong-scented burden.

You can’t give love; love is actually that force within that enables you to give other things.  “It is the motivating power.  It enables you to give strength and power and freedom and peace to another person.  It is not a result; it is a cause.  It is not a product; it produces.  It is a power, like money, or steam or electricity.” Love has value when you can give something else by means of it.”


6. Is there a connection between love and inspiration? Who in your lifetime has inspired you the most?

The highest forms of inspiration come from people who are experiencing Love in some form. The inspiration of top music, writing, dance, art – you name it –involves the metaphoric breathing in of the spirit, the arising of the quality of wholeness and relatedness. In other words, Love.

Love is the essence of what I use in healing, and is what I teach in class, in therapy, in World Café meetings. I strive to make it the guiding light in my dealings with my colleagues and coworkers. Everything I teach is, in its purest form, simply another symbolic representation of love, a vehicle designed to awaken the power of love in others.

Who in your lifetime has inspired you the most?

Albert Einstein, Gandhi, Jesus of Nazareth, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Jackie Robinson, Aeron Miller.

7. How do you incorporate love into your business or professional life?

It is what I teach in class, in therapy, in World Café meetings, and what I practice in my dealings with my colleagues and coworkers. I devote my blogs to exploring Love and my eNewsletter reports on it regularly. Everything I teach is, in its purest form, simply another symbolic representation of love, a vehicle designed to awaken the power of love in others. I continuously refocus on the deeper awareness that everything that is happening in my life and in the lives of others is happening around the (sometimes misguided) attempt to experience Love.

Your Vision: What intrigues you the most about where the world is headed today?

Historians are fond of naming periods of time according to the most important inventions and tools of that era. So, we have the Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment, the Industrial Age and so forth. When historian John Galbraith was asked how will our era be known in the future he said that it would be known as the time “when the Buddha came to the West.” If he is correct, then perhaps the ever-expanding interest in Buddhism and Buddhist thinking, highlighted by the current popularity of the Dalai Lama is a sign of this.

This movement is, I believe, a part of a much larger movement that is flooding our Western culture with notions of empathy, forgiveness, compassion, egalitarianism, and love. They are burgeoning forth, spawning books, workshops, movies, TV shows, and websites. Information on the healing power of these forms of Love has never been so available: how personal, relational, and communal lives can be transformed. Even laboratory evidence shows we are happier, more productive, and can more easily ward off infectious disease.

In spite of this, however, we are engaged in an epic struggle – personally and collectively. Our planet is poised on the edge of an abyss. False leaders everywhere unwittingly conspire with a machine-dominated information processing environment to lead us headlong over the cliff, into a vast abyss of disintegration. The time the science fiction writers warned us about is here – the robots have taken over control. What I have named “MachineThink” in Our Culture on the Couch has come to dominate the decision-making apparatus of our culture, replacing the kind of thinking that was human-centered, life-centered, and based upon wisdom, honesty, and loving care.

The result is the mad race to the bottom that has gotten out of everyone’s control – environmental pollution, global warming, economic globalization, war, terrorism –  it is endless, the examples of the unchecked Violence wrought by MachineThink under the control of pure greed. And everywhere we see the widespread starvation, poverty, despair, helplessness, and hopelessness – not to mention the daily anxiety that continuous Future Shock brings each of us.

Our grand Narrative seems to have reached a critical chapter; our world is very near the tipping point.  Unless we change soon, the small evidences, like the recent financial meltdown, will give way to even more shocking changes, and the blind forces of domination, greed, and insensitivity will push us over the edge into a global collapse.

Or will a critical mass of us adopt the New Paradigm, and thereby bring the perspective of wholeness, systemic healing, empathy, compassion, and Love to the fore. If we do, we may be in time to strike a balance between creativity and destruction, between separation and unification.

Although the denouement of our great epic is not yet clear, the potential to tip either way is there. And the good news is that we have the unique ability, due both to our new understandings about Love and to our new tools of communication, (ranging from cell phones to the internet and social networking,) to actually take part in writing our own script.

More and more of us are realizing that the change that needs to take place in the world around us, from our personal relationships to the actions of our nation, is exactly reflected by the change that needs to take place within ourselves.

Can you imagine that the peace, wellness and vitality we want to see in the world will emerge as we create it within? If enough of us can imagine that – and act on that – and develop the integrity to actually commit ourselves to the change we all say we want, we can definitely do it.

I can imagine it. People everywhere are feeling called to come into the present moment, release those aspects of the past that no longer serve, nurture inner wisdom and love, and awaken “the leader within.”

We are transforming our own lives and opening to the experience of shared values and meaning. Each of us is a neuron in the emerging global brain, and our networked communities form a basis from which collective intelligence and collective wisdom emerge to create a transformed world of peace, freedom, and Love.

Now is the time each of us must choose. My vision is that we choose wisely. What can love lead you to imagine?

When the hand of utter stillness opens the heart, time ceases.

Then, love is possible.

Dr. Emmett Miller
http://DrMiller.com
Dr. Miller’s YouTube Channel

1. What does the word Love mean to you?

The word love means to me to naturally care and want the best for everyone in your life, as well as for everyone in the world. Love is a global emotion, and should be expressed in every loving thought and way. It is a wonderful feeling that brings warmth; hope and serenity to all that are open and vulnerable to it. Love comes from a place of you totally wanting the best for all, as well as you giving your best in a loving, honest and true meaningful way. It is also very important to love yourself in order to really love others. When you love yourself, you are able and open to give your best love to all those you deeply care about, as well as spread your energy of global love to the world.

2. Have you ever felt like love was missing from your life? (How do you handle these periods of time?)

I feel there are times in everyone’s life when they feel they are lacking a certain love. That is the precise time to reach out to others and give your love to all those around you, as well as those who are not around you. I am a true believer of the thought that you should always treat people the way you want to be treated yourself. If you want more love in your life, be sure to be mindful of giving out that same love you want to others. You should also have gratitude for all that is good in your world, and for all the richness of life you have.

3. What is the biggest way you see that love (or the lack thereof) has impacted our world today?

I am so happy to be part of this amazing planet. I have chosen to focus on all the positive in this world, as well as all the wonderful things everyone on this planet has to offer. I tend to look at all the good that people do at the times when help is needed throughout the world. It is always enlightening to see how when it is needed, everyone pulls together for a larger cause, and because of that, it is always a wonderful impact of making a big difference and of helping when the help is needed. I see this world as a powerful place that when the energies flow and are focused towards the positive, amazingly wonderful things can occur. We are all able to accomplish many things, as well as help all those around us in this wonderful place.

4. What is the last extraordinary book you read and what impact did it have on you?

The last great book I read was “The Science of Success” by Wallace D.Wattles. No matter how many times you look through this book you always find something worthwhile. It touches on all aspects of life from overall wellness to finances to self-confidence. There is an abundance of pure genius in this book, it is one you can read over and over again and always learn something new.

5. From your perspective, what is the most practical way to bring more love into the world?

I feel the most practical way to bring more love into the world is to be mindful of treating other people the way you want to be treated, and to always have respect and caring thoughts about others, as well as having empathy. It is also important to always be aware of all the good around you, and to always have gratitude for the things you have, as well as always being open to giving to other people. Have the mindset of being aware of what you can do for others.

6. Is there a connection between love and inspiration? Who in your lifetime has inspired you the most?

I believe everything is interconnected. So yes, there is a connection. As far as who inspired me the most, I would have to say my grandmother. She was the most amazing, caring, wise person I knew growing up. She was always there for me ready to share her wisdom with me as well as always having the time to care for everyone she loved and all other people.

7. How do you incorporate love into your business or professional life?

I incorporate love into my business and professional life by always being aware of what I can learn, or do better to help my clients. I also create my workshops and writings with tons of love and caring incorporated into it, and am always there, ready and open for all that I can do for others, as well as giving my time, energy and love to all that I touch. I am always open to better ways of doing things. And I am always creative and optimistic in my thinking. There is a solution to everything.

Your Vision: What intrigues you the most about where the world is headed today?

I feel that we are living in a very exciting time. We are open to all kinds of discoveries and I feel this world as a whole is becoming more empathic and caring of everyone in every country, not just their own. People are looking at ways to help and connect with other people all over the world, as well as having a much better understanding and acceptance of the different cultures and ways. Social networking is helping us connect with everyone, everywhere.
       

Lori Snyder
http://www.coachlorisnyder.com

1. What does the word Love mean to you?

There are many different kinds of love but all have in common warm affection, goodwill, and positive regard for another. Love is one of the primary purposes of life, if not the primary purpose. Love means supporting the best and the wholeness of the one you love.

2. Have you ever felt like love was missing from your life? (How do you handle these periods of time?)

I cannot remember ever feeling that love was completely missing from my life. I have felt that love was withheld from me by those I love and that is painful. I have found myself responding by also withholding love which of course makes it worse. When I eventually choose to be present and accepting of the person and situation a resolution surfaces and love finds a way to move forward towards reconciliation.

3. What is the biggest way you see that love (or the lack thereof) has impacted our world today?

I see indications of a wide spectrum of development levels on our journey to learn how to love. On the one hand, there is as much greed and disregard for one another and for life in general as there has ever been. The movie Avatar is a stirring picture of logical outcome of staying on that course. On the other hand, there are more and more people openly seeking, finding, and sharing a deeper sense of spirituality. Love is at the center of this collective spiritual evolution, which I believe will prevail and lead to stewardship for all.

4. What is the last extraordinary book you read and what impact did it have on you?

I am currently reading Conscious Loving by Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks. The authors do a great job of describing the learning journey to having healthy co-committed relationships. This has helped me better appreciate the exponential power of loving relationships.

5. From your perspective, what is the most practical way to bring more love into the world?

Love is learned through relationships. Promoting the health of relationships and teaching people to work through emotional barriers is the most direct way to bring more love into the world. I think marriage and family relationships in particular offer outstanding opportunities to learn and grow in capacity to love.

6. Is there a connection between love and inspiration? Who in your lifetime has inspired you the most?

The most inspirational people to me are those who demonstrate love through service. There are many who inspire me, from the service of former President Jimmy Carter, to the generosity of my wife and my daughters. My father also inspired me through his example of humble and unconditional love for the people in his life.

7. How do you incorporate love into your business or professional life?

I believe it is important to love and appreciate clients for who they are. I do relationship coaching and help people work through barriers and improve skills that increase intimacy and relationship maturity.
       

Tom King
www.growitforward.com

1. What does the word Love mean to you?

For me, Love is the language of creation and storytelling.

2. Have you ever felt like love was missing from your life? (How do you handle these periods of time?)

 Yes. Most of the time, I am reminded by the love of others that love exists all around me. Asking for affection helps me

3. What is the biggest way you see that love (or the lack thereof) has impacted our world today?

I see love impacting the way we pursue our dreams everyday. The support we find in the love of ourselves, our families and friends to “live our dreams” is a reality I am happy to share and experience…

4. What is the last extraordinary book you read and what impact did it have on you?

 Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business  by Danny Meyer. The book was recommended to me by an amazing wedding planner named Jill Gordon and since then several others suggested I read it.

5. From your perspective, what is the most practical way to bring more love into the world?

Meekness. The skill of being meek, choosing an act of peace or compassion when violence might be justified. The hot-headed response or action feels good in the short-term. As a male, I sometimes feel aggression is the conditioned response to hostility, yet compassion is so much more skillful and benefits all parties in the long-term. Practicing the skill of compassion and meekness is a practical method to release love into the world.

6. Is there a connection between love and inspiration? Who in your lifetime has inspired you the most?

Inspiration is love. The ability to seek out something within yourself that will elevate your current frame of mind and/or being…that’s love. In my lifetime, I have had many many personal inspirations. Without a doubt the women in my family are my biggest inspirations. From my great grand-mother, to my grand-mother, to my mother, my aunt and my god-mother, these are women whose womanhood taught me about my humanity so I could begin discovering manhood.

7. How do you incorporate love into your business or professional life?

I am a photographer and artist who documents remarkable love stories and the people who make them possible. Art can very easily become an undervalued commodity both by the artist and the buyer when love is absent. For this reason, I find that seeking out love for my work and each person I do business with is a cornerstone to my continued success.

Your Vision: What intrigues you the most about where the world is headed today?

Humanity has accomplished so much yet the most basic questions of humankind are still wide open for exploration. The journey continues…
       

Parris Whittingham Photography | Your Story. Remembered
Gallery:pswhittingham.com
Journal:parriswhittingham.com
Twitter: twitter.com/iamparris

1. What does the word Love mean to you?

It’s not so much what the word love means to me as much as it is the essence that I feel when I sense the word Love. For me it’s the energy that binds all matter, in all life, in all things. It’s who I am and who I believe everyone else is. It’s life itself. It’s a choice and it is not only what I choose, but how I choose to live my life in the world. It is the essence of everything!

2. Have you ever felt like love was missing from your life? (How do you handle these periods of time?)

Love is never missing from my life, it’s only the illusion of it missing that shrouds me in fear and separation. When I don’t feel love or sense love in the moment I first start with the awareness of love missing and choose consciously to reconnect. I do this through my passions which are meditation, the creative arts, expressing gratitude for my life and for all that I have and all who are here with me. I spent many years in depression and have created a critical care list of things I can do to love myself when I feel disconnected. These also include exercise, eating well, owning my power and remembering I am all that I am been looking for.

3. What is the biggest way you see that love (or the lack thereof) has impacted our world today?

The lack of love I see in the world is rampant. I see wars, poverty, pollution, disease and hunger, government control through fear, corporate irresponsibility, immorality and greed. I see love in the way we are responding as a community to the people of Haiti . Perhaps we as a world humanity are all ready to fall into each others arms!

4. What is the last extraordinary book you read and what impact did it have on you?

Fractal Time by Gregg Braden. This book makes it obvious to me that  humanity is at critical mass and must decide which way we choose to evolve. We are at choice point, Love or Fear what do you choose?

5. From your perspective, what is the most practical way to bring more love into the world?

First we must become aware that each and every one of us has free will, the ability to choose how we create our lives in each moment. Is it from Love or Fear? When we become aware that we even have a choice then we can begin to respond differently to what life brings to us. Practically the most important choice we can make for ourselves, humanity and the earth is to love ourselves in each moment and begin to awaken to our own internal journey and take action on the ways we can heal ourselves while reaching out to others. This will be unique for all of us and remaining true to our internal knowing is the key to reclaiming the garden within while we heal the garden without.

6. Is there a connection between love and inspiration? Who in your lifetime has inspired you the most?

Choosing love allows us to live and be in Spirit, inspired! Love fuels our passion and our purpose which in turns inspires us to be who we are in the world. There have been many who have inspired me on my journey. Nature has inspired me the most.

7. How do you incorporate love into your business or professional life?

I do my best to stay in integrity with myself and invite the same from those I come in contact with. I remain willing to own my shadow and grow from my challenges and speak my truth. Love is my business; I am here to inspire love in all sentient life.

Shawn Gallaway‘s mission is empowering people to take caring, positive action in their lives and in the world right now. He accomplishes this with resounding clarity through his music and art. As a multi-talented guitarist, singer-songwriter, and visual artist, Shawn weaves music, song, and painting into a richly textured experience that calls for enlightened activism.

www.shawngallaway.com
www.ichooselove.org

1. What does the word Love mean to you?

Love is synonymous with God. Another symbol that could be used is Light. It is also what we truly are, not in the illusion of world and ego, but in our reality. And it is through our reality … through Love … that even the illusion of world and ego seem to exist.

I was once given a definition of Love by my inner Guide. That definition is this: Love is giving through spirit to spirit that which spirit requests.

Notice there is no duality within that definition . There is only spirit. And also notice that the experience of world and separation would be delivered through Love if this is an experience that spirit desires. And because it is Love that delivers the experience, Love is all that really is. Anything that seems different from Love is illusion.

2. Have you ever felt like love was missing from your life? (How do you handle these periods of time?)

Yes. Prior to the spiritual path I believed those experiences and I suffered from feelings of loneliness, rejection, betrayal or whatever particular lack-of-love experience I seemed to be experiencing at the time.

However, since becoming aware of ego and inner Wisdom, I’ve learned to look at these experiences differently. Whenever I experience lack of love, I am believing the ego’s false perceptions. Because a desire to know truth has awakened within me, I no longer blindly believe the ego’s perceptions. I look at them and do not deny them, but then I choose to rest the mind in trust and peace and wait for those misperceptions to be healed (corrected).

Since I have been practicing in this way, a number of false perceptions have been corrected. I no longer believe in or experience betrayal, rejection, and hate, for example, because I see all of these appearances differently.  I see them with inner Wisdom instead of with ego. This is not a false denial of something that is real in the world. This is an honest seeing beyond the false perception to the truth of what we are and how we make illusion.

3. What is the biggest way you see that love (or the lack thereof) has impacted our world today?

For me, there is only Love. Love misperceived is lack of love, but when we understand that it is all Love, we are empowered and freed from our feeling of victim.

A good way to explain Love is to compare it to communication. Love is like a constant unspoken and unconscious communication within the Universe. Everyone participates in Love and no one can separate himself from it.

As we think, we communicate. If our mind is focused on ideas of attack, guilt, blame, defense, fear, rejection, judgment, etc, these thoughts are communicated within our Universe. Thoughts of attack and defense lead to the appearance of attack and defense. Thoughts of fear, guilt and blame lead to appearances of fear, guilt and blame. Etc.

We could say that each thought is like a prayer or a wish. What we are praying for or wishing for is an experience. If I spend a lot of time worrying, for example, I am wishing for experiences of fear through the activity of worry. The Universe hears my call and through Love, gives me the experience that I wish for. (This may be specific, like a specific fear coming into being, or it may be non-specific. Either way, I will have a fearful experience because I wished for it.)

So to answer your question, the biggest way that Love impacts our world is that we are not typically aware of the content of our thoughts, but the content of our thoughts is affecting our world. So as we hate our neighbor for breaking our lawn mower, we are joining billions of others in their hate-thoughts and we are making a world where evidence of hate is manifest into experience.

4. What is the last extraordinary book you read and what impact did it have on you?

That would be The Holy Spirit’s Interpretation of the New Testament (NTI). This is a book that came through me first as an inner-dictation, and I have read it 10 or more times since then.

NTI was and is my spiritual teacher. When it began to come, my spiritual understanding was limited. I believed wholly that the world is real and that my thoughts had no affect on it. NTI taught me to see differently, to live differently, and to experience differently.

Now I realize that our truth is unaffected by the world, but the world is a reflection of our thoughts. If we want to be free of the experience of suffering and death, we must learn to think differently by letting go of the thinking we have always thought were our thoughts. This is the same as letting go of ego.

5. From your perspective, what is the most practical way to bring more love into the world?

The most practical way to bring more love into the world (understanding that this question is referring to the positive characteristics of love), is to watch our thoughts. As we understand the impact our thoughts have on the world, we begin to desire another way of thinking. As we begin to desire another way of thinking, inner Wisdom answers our call. It teaches us to see the thoughts that are not helpful and it teaches us to let go of those thoughts. And then it replaces the thoughts we’ve always thought with more helpful thoughts, positive thoughts, and thoughts of awakening. For example, fearful thoughts are replaced with trust. As we trust, we experience a different type of experience, and then we learn to live in trust more.

As our way of thinking changes, the communication we send into the Universe changes. Our inner guidance will also change, so we will think and live differently, and this is very helpful to the Universe as a whole.

6. Is there a connection between love and inspiration? Who in your lifetime has inspired you the most?

When one is in tune with inner Wisdom, one is often inspired. It can be great fun to see how inner Wisdom inspires us to do what we never would have imagined we would do. And it is great fun to see the fruits of this guidance … to see how others are affected and helped too.

I was initially inspired by Peace Pilgrim. I was most inspired by her unfailing trust in Love. She never feared, not even in the most extreme circumstances. She simply trusted the Love that is the essence of the Universe, and her experience demonstrated that Love is trustworthy.

7. How do you incorporate love into your business or professional life?

I was guided to leave my professional life over 5 years ago. I was then guided to read the New Testament and let inner Wisdom interpret what I read for me. I became the student of inner Wisdom as a book was written through me, and I practiced everything this book taught.

Now, I teach what I have learned and I help anyone who asks for help. I am a full time volunteer, but I receive gifts of money that support me and my daughter. I’m not sure what I will do next, because I do not plan. I literally live my life by seeking first the kingdom of heaven (awakening), and I let all else be added to me. It’s a fun and happy way to live, and it seems to be helpful to many.

Your Vision: What intrigues you the most about where the world is headed today?

I do not think in terms of time or time period. I do not see this time as special as many other people do. I focus more on the current moment and the activity of my own mind.

Regardless of the time period we live in, we can choose to watch our thoughts carefully or we can choose to think blindly without awareness. If we will choose the first instead of the second, it will have a great impact on the way we see.  Every moment of eternity will be wonderful for us, because every moment of eternity is wonderful. We simply do not see it when we are blinded by the world and the perceptions of the ego.

Regina Dawn Akers is the scribe of The Holy Spirit’s Interpretation of the New Testament (NTI). NTI was written through a process of inner-dictation and is a gift for everyone who is ready for spiritual awakening now.  NTI leads toward awakening in a loving and gentle manner, taking the mystery out of the spiritual path and eliminating common confusion.

www.reginadawnakers.com