I remember once when my mind was out of control over a charming lady who had just come into my life. I had to ask myself, "Am I in love or just in heat? Is this true love or just infatuation? What is true love anyway?"

If we are seekers after the Truth of everything, then eventually we must face the concept, state and experience of love. We have to ask ourselves: "Do I really know what love is?" If there is any uncertainty we can only search until we know without any doubt; until we feel the fullness of this noble and sublime radiance pulsing at the center of our being. If we feel this warm fountain of sweetness no matter what the winds of change bring us, then we have found it.

A great sage revealed this pearl of wisdom: "Love is motiveless tenderness of the heart".

"Ah, that's nice," I thought: "...motiveless tenderness of the heart."

Without expectation.

The end of expectation is the end of karma. Karma is created when we have motives about our actions and expectations about the fruit of our actions. If one lives in a manner that creates no karma, then one is living in love through the sweetness of our own inner heart.

The common association of the word 'love' is in relationship with others. In this framework love is something you do to others and that they do to you. Much of this, I think, is merely fascination with the senses.

This fascination is accompanied by the expectation that the pleasure will last. Hence a goodly amount of karma is burned and created in the comings and goings of this fascination. To become motiveless within relationship really changes the picture. Steadiness develops. Entanglements diminish. The world somehow becomes peaceful. The bliss of the inner serenity expands into bloom. There is love. Just love.

Did the sage just make up this line about motiveless tenderness of the heart? Perhaps not; this is a teaching going back a thousand years to the great Acharya, Adi Shankara. He says in his Crest-Jewel of Discrimination: "The Teacher... is an ocean of love that knows no ulterior motive."

The only way to know if this is the Truth is to test it in our experience. Is the love I profess motiveless? Are my feelings, actions and expressions always tender? In this way we sharpen the blade of discrimination in knowing love from deceit. We thrust ourselves into the fire of uncompromising honesty to emerge a truly loving human being.