Teilhard de Chardin, the spiritual writer silenced by the catholic church in the last century said, “Love is a sacred reserve of energy: It is like the blood of spiritual evolution.”

For most of us, it is money that makes the world go round— and the main reserve is a federal one.

But Teilhard makes the increasingly popular point that the central driving factor that makes the world go round is not money, or atomic energy, or some other force of nature yet to be discovered by scientists, but love.

Of course, that begs a definition of love and an understanding as to how it all fits together. But all in good time.

The starting point for this conversation has to be enlightenment.

We cannot begin unless we are on the same page as to the reality of the universe, and through the ages the enlightened ones tell us that we are all part of a unitive consciousness or beingness.

That is the reality that ‘being enlightened’ conveys to us, and if we are not on the same page here, then probably best to turn this page right now rather than wasting your time.

But if we are on the same page, then we are accepting that all which is apparent in the universe, all of our consciousness and everything else is, as Wayne Teasdale, Thomas Keating’s colleague describes it, “One system in which all parts are interrelated.” We are a part of that system, and our enlightenment tells us that we are the universe made conscious of itself.

That consciousness was manifested at the big bang and has gradually, through 13.7 billion years, evolved through space, planets, and atoms into life. Then into more complicated life forms, driven not by a selfish gene, but driven by conscious awareness of possibility. The light outside the water drawing fish from the sea. Animals becoming more conscious that as Teasdale puts it, “Everything is possible.”

And then humanity appears. Able to self-reflect. The Universe becoming conscious of itself. And more than that, we can reflect on our origins, and take that next step of the evolution of consciousness, the consciousness of the higher self, or enlightenment.

The Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and Lao Tzu all demonstrated the ability to understand that they were one with the divine, or whatever we want to call the primal source of all. (Which by the way, we can never know—we can only know our place within it.)

And so we come to ourselves—in the present moment. Aware of our place within the great scheme of things. What should we do?

Well, we are now aware that we are a product of the evolution of consciousness, and our role is now to consciously become a part of that evolution.

You can see an evolution of consciousness in recent time; the changes in racial consciousness, gender consciousness, and most profoundly in the rise of global consciousness, especially with modern communications.

Each of us has a role to play in that evolution, and the currency we are given to be a part of that role is the currency of love.

My definition of love is ‘giving with no expectation of a return.’ Giving with no bargain involved. No outcome to be negotiated. No end point in mind. Just giving.

The universe came into being in this way. It was given with no expectation of a return. And we were given our lives in the same way—with no expectation of a return.

In this way everything comes into being as a gift. Trees, plants, animals, humans, we all appear as a gift with no expectation of a return.

For the last 13.7 billion years the universe has evolved in this way. A consciousness that has given of itself with no expectation of a return.

So, when we love, when we give of ourselves with no expectation of return, we unite with the universe and become one with that currency that has always been at the center of everything. When we give with no expectation of a return we become love, and we become at one with the deep purposes of the universe.

How does that work?

Well, it is all about the way we respond to life as it comes to us. If we are all of a one with the cosmos, then those things that uniquely happen to us in our lives are what we are given by the universe to use as a way of bringing love into the world.

Everything that happens to us, good or bad, is there to enable us to respond with love, and therefore make our contribution to the unfolding of the evolution of consciousness.