Love and Compassion

Inner Frontier
Fourth Way Spiritual Practice

Love and Compassion

Revised October 17, 2026

We hear that God, the Divine Will, is within everything, everywhere. Whatever is around us, whether a street, cars, trees, houses, people, dogs, walls, computers — within all of that there is the Source.

At first, we may take that as an idea, maybe even accepting it as a true idea, maybe believing it, or just considering it to be possibly true but beyond our understanding or direct knowledge. A great shift in our spiritual journey comes when we start looking for the reality of the Divine Will within everything and even within ourselves. We look beneath, behind everything, toward that which supports it all. That is the will of everything to be itself, to be what it is: the tree to be a tree, the car to be a car, the person to be a person, to be that person. We search for a way to connect with that One Will within us and within everything, and to be with That, to be That.

This, perhaps unexpectedly, turns out to be an approach toward universal love. That love is a very high energy, though at that level, energy and will start to lose their distinction. At the lower levels they are quite distinct, while at the very highest levels, the distinction with will is nearly gone. The Will that is within everything is the ground truth, the means by which love is manifest, by which love unites.

That will operates with, through, and as the unitive energy, so that we may awaken to the will that is in us and in everything. That shows us the inherent unity of everything, because the same will that is in me and you is in everything. It is at the same time one in its source and unique in each of us. That One Will, from which everything arises and in which everything is united, differentiates into the unique individuality in each of us, while maintaining its fundamental nature and oneness. This recognition of unity opens us to the ocean of love that is behind and within everything. Dropping back to our root, to our source, to the base of our own uniqueness, our own will, through our innermost self, to the deep root of our attention, we allow the ocean of love to touch us, to infuse us.

The sacred energy of love and compassion, the Great Heart of the World, embraces us all, without condition, unifying all of life, unifying the whole creation, manifesting in us as the warm spirit of kindness, caring, and appreciation, where everyone you meet is your beloved sister, your beloved brother. In some instances of community, in some communal worship, meditation, discussion, or other shared engagement, the substance of this boundless ocean of love may envelop the whole assembly. It may enter a true marriage and may inform the bonds between parents and children. Whenever we look into another person's eyes and recognize the sameness behind appearances, recognize we are not really separate, this is love. We have a choice: to live in the surface differences, or to seek to live on all levels, in both the differences and the sameness.

Despite evidence to the contrary, Divine love and compassion suffuse every corner of the world, even our own. Divine love stands before the awesome contradictions in our lives: our God-given freedom that offers the promise of profound joy as well as the suffering attendant on living. The Divine heart of compassion celebrates the beauty of freedom within each person, a celebration made bittersweet by the price and promise of freedom: the inevitable consequences of our destructive, short-sighted choices and the unexpected benefits of our constructive actions.

When we hear of or see another person's misfortune, and we feel the pang of their suffering, and are moved to extend the help that lies within our power, this is compassion. For this we need strength, because suffering lies all around us. The daily news litany of catastrophes and evil deeds, large and small, could devastate us, were we awake to the whole of it and lacked the strength to bear it. But awakening through spiritual practice brings its own strength. And the suffering we see is balanced by the joy that flows to us along with love, protecting the compassionate from being overwhelmed by the suffering.

Universal love has a pale imitation in the lower energies, where emotional attachment turns from "love" to hate, jealousy, or despair. Nevertheless, the world is so constructed that it remains within our possibilities to participate in love knowingly. But that can only happen to the degree we empty ourselves of ourselves and drop behind our own unique individuality into the Unity.

Self-referential motives, self-centeredness, attachment, expectation of something in return, grasping, setting of conditions, partial-heartedness — none of these have any place in love and all of them block the action of love. Putting ourselves first and at the center forecloses the possibility of love. Yet moments do come even to us, perhaps with our family or our pets or unexpectedly with a stranger, when we are briefly free of egocentric attachment and the true heart of objective love opens within us. In unguarded moments, our natural response to people is friendship, one of the faces of love. To be able to love is a goal lofty and worthy enough to sustain our long journey on the path, drawing us ever forward.

Our common mother, the Earth, also loves, loves each one of us and all life in her biosphere. By our inner work, by opening to higher energies, by purifying our will and intentions, we help cleanse our collective human will, raise our collective level of being, and give back to the Earth and to society. And we do this for love.

Love manifests in many forms, but always reveals our inherent oneness. Love’s unmistakable hallmark dissolves our veils of isolation and separation, allowing us to become more fully ourselves within the sweet scent of merging. Out of love we are born, and into love we depart. In between, we seek love and love seeks us.

The world of universal love is a world beyond all forms, beyond even the world of light. Yet it will inform our heart if we let it, if we allow ourself to be embraced by the Ocean of Love.