"What is love, my friends?" he asked, opening his arms as though he wished to embrace us. "What is love? It is not simply compassion, not simply kindness. In compassion there are two: the one who suffers and the one who feels compassion. In kindness there are two: the one who gives and the one who receives. But in love there is only one; the two join, unite, become inseparable. The I and the you vanish. To love means to lose oneself in the beloved. "
Our life has not been an ascent   
up one side of a mountain and down the other.   
We did not reach a peak,   
only to decline and die.   
We have been as drops of water,   
born in the ocean and sprinkled on the earth   
in a gentle rain.   
We became a spring,   
and then a stream,   
and finally a river flowing deeper and stronger,   
nourishing all it touches   
as it nears its home once again.