"If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with," crooned folk and rock singer, Capricorn, Stephen Stills, back in the '70's, leaving listeners to wonder if this is relationship advice or a humanitarian outlook.  

Naturally, my Aquarian hippie roots prefer the interpretation of the latter.  It doesn't matter 'who,' we love, it only matters that we do love.

And, as Taurean, Dr. Wayne Dyer suggests, we must love ourselves.

Loving another person is the greatest mystery of life  

In a previous article, What's love got to do with it? Astrology, science and swamis explore relationships , we read an excerpt from the book, Karmic Relationships, by astrologer, Martin Schulman:

One of the greatest mysteries of life is the experience of loving another person. For eons, people have tried to define and understand the depths of love's simplicity.

We know the intimate love of one person to another. We experience a love for nature. We have a love for material things. We feel the love for family and children. We have been enveloped by the love for God and for life itself.

These are all different forms of love and yet in subtle, intangible ways, they are all the same. A thread of continuity links all forms of love together, so the differences are based more on the love object and the quality of love itself rather than in the basic essence.  

We know that when one person feels love for another he is able to feel love for other things in the universe because the love center is open. When an individual feels a great love for life, he is capable of loving all things – for loving anything is the foundation for loving everything.

Without love, where would you be now?  

The Doobie Brothers pose a question worth asking.  Imagine for a moment, if love were as fickle as humans.  

Thankfully, even the human heart is smart enough to beat in rhythm with the heart closest to it.  This should be our clue.  

How do we know that love will not heal absolutely everything that needs healing on this precious planet?  We've never tried.  All we need to do in any given moment is just love.  So simple.

A Course in Miracles says that our only job is to remove all the barriers and obstacles that prevent us from being completely loving in every moment.  Not so simple.

We're wounded.  We're afraid.  We're guilty.  We have a thousand reasons why we don't just love.  

Why do we think we must heal before we love, when every spiritual teacher and philosophy encourages us that it is love that will heal us?

From an article titled,_ We are drawn together in order to heal – part 2_ , we learned:

We come together in order to heal. The ark is entered two by two; we go to heaven - the state of blissful consciousness - with whomever is in front of us in the moment that we choose love instead of anything else. The exalted state of our being-ness on this planet is when the masculine and feminine are harmoniously joined together for they exponentially consummate each moment they serve in that state.

In other words, when we balance the masculine (intellect) and feminine (feeling) in ourselves, we express this balance in our relationships with everyone.

The bridge we must first build is within ourselves; we need to change how we see ourselves and then our perception of others will naturally change as a result. Life knew we wouldn't do this easily and that's why there's sexual chemistry. Without sexual attraction, God couldn't get anything done!  

Oooh, la, la!

Just Love

"There is no difficulty that enough love with not conquer; no disease that enough love will not heal; no door that enough love will not open; no gulf that enough love will not bridge; no wall that enough love will not throw down; no sin that enough love will not redeem.

It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble, how hopeless the outlook, how muddled the tangle, how great the mistake; a sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all. If only you could love enough you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world." Emmet Fox.  

Emmet Fox (1886-1951), is one of the most influential new thought teachers of the 20th century, and one of the world's great motivational writers.  His landmark work, Power through Constructive Thinking, first published in 1932, continues to be in current publication as recently as 1990.

His immortal Leonine (Leo rules the heart) words live in the poem he wrote with the prayer that we keep them alive in our hearts as we just love.

Happy Valentine's Day, humanity!  Let's make history once and for all:  love the one you're with, right now.