Love is supposed to be the outcome of a spontaneous, emotional reaction, of suddenly being gripped by an irresistible feeling. To love somebody is not just a strong feeling—it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision? Certain types of love are exclusively an act of will and commitment, and therefore fundamentally it does not matter who the two persons are. Whether the marriage was arranged by others, or the result of individual choice, once the marriage is concluded, that act of will should guarantee the continuation of love. We are all one—yet every one of us is unique, unduplicable entity. While it raises no objection to apply the concept of love to various objects, it is a widespread belief that, while it is virtuous to love other, it is sinful to love oneself. However, the Bible tells us to love others as we love ourselves. “Who could have supposed that our God would have been so merciful as to have snatched us from our awful, sinful, and polluted state (Alma 26.17)?” #RandolphHarris 1 of 5

If it is virtue to love my neighbor as a human being, it must be a virtue—and not a vice—to love myself, since I am a human being, too. It implies that respect for one’s own integrity and uniqueness, love for and understanding of one’s own self, cannot be separated from respect and love and understanding for another individual. The love for my own self is inseparably connected with the love for any other being. Love of others and love of ourselves are not alternative. An attitude of love toward oneself will be found in all those who are capable of living others. Genuine love is an expression of productiveness and implies care, respect, responsibility, and knowledge. “Cry unto God for all your support; let it be in the Lord; let all your thoughts be directed unto the Lord; let the affections of your heart be placed upon the Lord forever. Counsel with the Lord in all your doings, and he will direct you for good; when you lie down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when you rise in the morning let your heart be full of thanks unto God; and if you do these thing, you shall be lifted up at the last day (Alma 37.36-37).” #RandolphHarris 2 of 5

The desire for happiness is in this World. Love is not an affect in the sense of being affected by somebody, but an active striving for the growth and happiness of the loved person, rooted in one’s own capacity to love. Deeper than this psychic life is a spiritual intelligence which transcends even objective processes of reasoning, and it can distinguish between illusions and reality. Our subconscious reactions will coerce unless we control them, will cause us to believe all kinds of fantastic things unless reason sits in judgment. Therefore, we should be careful at all times to study any alleged revelation in the light of this truth, knowing as we do that one’s personal opinion may masquerade as any revelation which one’s unconscious desire may order, for the entire race thought is more or less active in all of us. Truth has been revealed—not only to give vitality to the belief, but to equip it with power and give it a performance which has been good. There is no God who holds one person superior to another. It is not the will of God that some people should be free while other are bound, since God is the author of freedom and not of bondage. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5

You focus on the good in life, you can shake the negative emotions and patters. Spiritual power works through human beings at the level of our faith, and we find that throughout the ages faith has been honored. Most certainly some people’s prayers have been answered, but not all persons’ prayers have been answered in the way which they wished them to be answered. To love a person is the actualization and concentration of the power of love. The basic affirmation contained in love is directed toward the beloved person as an incarnation of essentially human qualities. Love of one person implies love of humans as such because if we love our family, but are without feeling for (a concern for the life of an unknown person) the stranger, that is a sign of a basic inability to love. Love of human beings is not, as is frequently supposed, an abstraction coming after the love for a specific person, but it is its premise, although genetically it is acquired in loving specific individual. More so, we must love ourselves as much as we love other people. The affirmation of one’s own life, happiness, growth, freedom is rooted in one’s capacity to love, in care, respect, responsibility, and knowledge. If an individual is able to love productively, one loves oneself too, if one can love only other, one cannot love at all. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5

Most surely belief is a certain way of thinking; it is an activity of consciousness. Belief is a thing of thought, and being a thing of thought we can change belief. And if what a human being believes decides what is going to happen to one, the most important thing for one to do is regulate one’s belief so that what happens will be good for one, and one will be glad to have it happen, and joyously welcome it. No matter what we have suffered, God is the source of healing. Those who have experienced any manner of abuse, devastating loss, chronic illness or disabling affliction, untrue accusations, vicious persecution, or spiritual damage from sin or misunderstandings can all be made whole by God. We must come unto God and allow God to work his miracles. “And it did work for them according to their faith in God; therefore, if they had faith to believe that God could cause that those spindles should point the way they should go, behold, it was done; therefore, they had this miracle, and also many other miracles wrought by the power of God, day by day (Alma 37.40).” God is the source of peace, and he promises the peace, which passes all understanding, a feeling that comes with his spirit speaks peace to our souls no matter what challenges surround us. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5