The Importance of Human Affection and Love

Our general condition in human society is that we all depend upon each other. We are social animals, and we must live and interact with one another. Yet it seems that we have lost any feeling of basic human affection or a sense of relatedness and closeness to others. Our society does not place any value on the idea of love or indeed show much interest in it. With material things being prized above all else, nothing is said, is it, about the importance of love for our fellow human beings? Lacking any such feeling of love, instead we put all our energy into making yet more money. And if we are concerned solely with exploiting others whenever possible, exerting control over them whenever we can, forever hoarding and competing, we will end up using any kind of situation whatsoever to further our own ends. In such an eventuality, the principle of loving our fellow human beings will have no currency whatsoever. Yet without this ideal of human affection, there is no happiness in the family, no happiness between couples, and no happiness between parents and children. However many millions of us there are all living here together, in our hearts each one of us will feel lonely and isolated.

What about the feeling of joy in one another's company? What about caring for other people and feeling they are our friends? What about trust and confidence in our dealings with others? They all seem to be cooling off. They seem to be lacking, don't they?

The reality is that we all have to live together on this one small planet of ours, and, in this day and age especially, we have to depend on one another to an enormous degree. Circumstances dictate that we have to think of the good of the whole planet and of all humanity. Yet we stay stuck in our limited personal views, dominated by ideas of "me" and "us." In the worst of cases, this leads to open conflict. What is missing, or never occurs to us, is a sense of cooperation or pulling together, and this is a recipe for all kinds of disaster. With the world population being what it is, it means we are facing real problems.

-- The Dalai Lama (Mind In Comfort and Ease)