Falling in Love Part 4
March 11, 2026
Falling in Love Part 4
What are the ingredients of love?
Whenever two people love each other, there is a meeting of needs and qualities. These can be physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. We are drawn to those who satisfy something essential in us. This is true of romantic love, familial love, and friendship alike.
From the outset, we acknowledge that not everyone desires or requires an intimate partnership or even a close friendship. Yet, for most people, love is needed and desired in many forms and on many levels. Whether romantic, familial, or platonic, who we love is shaped by what we need, and by whether another can meet those needs. If the love is healthy, it is also based on whether we can give something back. When this occurs, love arises, and the two beings fit together. Then their needs and qualities interlock to form a living relationship.
This interlocking mirrors the most fundamental structure of life itself: DNA. Two complementary strands form the DNA ladder; each strand carries sugars that recognize and bind to those on the other strand. This precise mutual recognition allows the DNA to have a structure, and for life to replicate and endure. In much the same way, love arises when two people recognize and interlock with one another at the level required for that relationship to thrive. Their “sugars” are the qualities they need and supply, and that make them an entity
Some forms of love operate primarily on the ego level. The ego seeks certain qualities like validation, social affiliation, security, stimulation, and resources. The exchange of these qualities between two people makes up their attachment to each other. Such relationships are often transactional: each person provides what the other needs to thrive. These relationships can genuinely be called “loving,” but the love exists mainly on the surface, on the shell of our being.
The deepest kind of love, however, is soul love. This love may exist between lovers, friends, or family members. It is not merely an exchange of needs, but an interlocking of qualities found in our depths. The soul attachment is not forged by quid pro quo, but by a profound resonance of being. This love gives freely and may even mean self-sacrifice. It is not primarily transactional; it is existential. Grace in action, it supports the other by offering the very qualities that allow their soul to flourish. It is reciprocal, though not necessarily equal.
What are the qualities exchanged in soul love? They are known as the Essential Aspects of Being, those irreducible qualities of essence itself. These include Boundless Love, Merging Love, Personal Essence, Spiritual Identity, Spiritual Guidance, Will, Abiding Joy, and Spiritual Power. They also include the virtues: Diligence, Serenity, Humility, Truthfulness, Equanimity, Relinquishment, Courage, Sobriety, and Compassion or Innocence. These are not personality traits; they are qualities of the soul. And the deeper these qualities are shared, the deeper the love becomes.
Spiritual practice/self-inquiry: What Essential Aspects are given and received between you and someone with whom you share soul love? How do these qualities nourish the deepest levels of your being?
Prayer:
Dear God, May all my love arise from my depths. Amen.
