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disappears, because your own love cannot increase however much love you receive. Bear in mind that the thing which cannot be diminished through giving it away cannot be increased through receiving it. These phenomena happen simultaneously. So be aware also that you have no experience of love as long as you need to demand it from others.
It is not only the children but the grownups too! -- all of us demand love, and go on demanding it. Throughout our lives we beg for love. Psychologists say there is only one problem in our lives, and that is our anxiety about how to get love from others. All our tension, all our cares, fears and anxiety are attributable to this single dilemma; and when we can't find love, we search for substitutes. Throughout our lives we strive after love; we are hot on its scent, and in constant pursuit. Why? In the hope that our stockpile of love will increase if we get it. And all this means is that we have not yet known love, for that which increases in the getting is not love. No matter how great the amount of love received, love will remain as it was.
So the person who understands this sutra of love fully also understands these two facts. First, however much I give of it, my love will not diminish; and secondly, however much love I receive, the love in me will not increase. Even if the whole ocean of love rushes into me, my love will not increase one iota, nor diminish one iota if I give it all away.
AND WHEN THE WHOLE IS TAKEN FROM THE WHOLE,
BEHOLD, THE REMAINDER IS WHOLE.
This entire universe comes out of God. It is not small -- it is endless, limitless, without bounds. It has no direction, no beginning, no end. God remains whole even though such immensity has been born out of him. And even when all this vast universe returns into that highest totality -- existence -- and is once again immersed in it, God will remain whole. There will be neither increase nor decrease in it.
Let us try to understand this phenomenon from another direction. We know the ocean: it is an experience seen and felt by our sense organs. It can diminish, and it can be augmented. Vast as it is, it is not limitless. Rivers flow
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