Don't Fear Love-1

Smiles and kisses speak a language of their own that transcends cultural boundaries, but it's really the feelings behind them that are universal. But often we are superficially unified (or divided) by the things we fear, too, especially in our relationships with others.

We often hear it said that sex sells, but I say what really pays real dividends are our "love cells". What I mean is that we need to see love at a cellular level. Something which is completely fundamental to our way of being; part of the will of life not just to procreate, but to appreciate and be the drive to bond and interact with all species of life, to afford life the dignity and sacredness it deserves just for being alive.

Only then can we really call ourselves enlightened, because this presents a path that brings dignity, confidence, and wisdom to every facet of life. Some believe that an enlightened society can in fact be actualised in our lifetime. But what is stopping us? Very often it is fear. Author and coach Dawn Gluskin says that this fear has us living well below our full potential:

Is there something that you are really passionate about and just know you're supposed to move forward with in your life? But does your brain step in and have you second-guessing your ability to do so, or questioning if you deserve it? It sounds crazy, but it happens to the best of us and on a regular basis! It's the classic ego mind at work, and it pits us against the intuitive calling of our hearts and inner-guide. Our ego is designed to keep us "safe", and it does so by leading us from a place of fear. Fear of change, rejection, failure -- you name it. But this "safe" place doesn't really serve us at all. In fact, it can force us to dwell in negative behaviours that have us living unhappily, unfulfilled, and well below our pure potential.

We want something more than what our environs offer, but we fear doing anything about it. We are unable to make changes in their life, and do not understand why we keep sabotaging our efforts. Our lives feel like failures, and we fear to think we deserve better than our lot in life. This type of fear is not only debilitating, it can make us out-of-touch drifters in our own lives, never really knowing we are alive. Living with fear is living just in half. It is a waste of a precious gift.

Read how to discover your passion.

You can alter the power of fear through life experiences. Fears can lessen or take different form over time, from subsequent life events, experiences, and - especially - self-examination. A step in the right direction is to shine a light on your fears, and be like a child before we knew such evils existed. Because often this fear, which exists inside all of us, is deep and remote. It conjures our earliest experiences and the dread that we feel when we are exposed reminds us of our most harrowing questions of childhood. But try and imagine the child you were before then.

The world can be fantastic and beautiful, and our young know this better than most. I have always been enamoured of that child-like innocence and in-awe view of the world, and as adults we have to regain this "childish" enthusiasm for living. This is neither unrealistic, nor impractical; rather it is very practical. It is great motivation to remind us that the very best of ourselves is the child inside of us.

Sacrificing our inner child on the altar of "getting real" to pay homage to some mean dark world we think we inhabit is what really kills us. The fear that we must do this is what makes our life feel like a cage, in which we slowly starve ourselves from the nourishing energies the universe has to offer.

For example here in England, although studies show that the vast majority of new arrivals from different countries to the United Kingdom enhance and enrich our society, both economically and culturally, we are in fear of the "other" because of the global economic woes the banks have placed us in, and treat "immigrants" with underhand - if not wholly open - discrimination. But speaking out against a community that acts unified in such fear is never easy.

Bravery doesn't always feel good. I've heard it said that "courage is being afraid, and doing it anyway". And when one blogger decided to speak up against a small American community in Steubenville, Ohio, appearing to protect two rapists because they were the epitome of the Hollywood teen sporting hero, it was no small Herculean task. The crime blogger Alexandria Goddard first exposed crucial evidence in the rape case of a 16-year-old girl at a party by taking screen shots of incriminating social media posts, photographs and videos, before they could be deleted. The hacker group Anonymous picked up on Goddard's posts and released shocking video from the night of the assault - illustrating how quickly we lose our childish innocence.

This led to the two high school football players being found guilty, but how many of the young men at that party in Steubenville knew in their hearts that what was happening was wrong, but still they remained silent? They were afraid to ruin their own hard-earned reputations, afraid of what their peers would think of them. They were afraid of getting in trouble, afraid they wouldn't know what to say.

Similarly, the silence spoke volumes when a British woman jumped from a hotel balcony in India fearing a sexual assault, when she shouted for help for more than an hour and no one came to her aid. In a BBC report she condemned as "disgusting" fellow hotel residents who had not helped. In an interview with Indian television, two Belgian tourists staying in the hotel said they had heard shouts and banging noises for over an hour.

Courage can be demanded of you at the most inopportune times. And we must teach our children - and ourselves - that bravery can be terrifying, but that we must have expectations that are brave enough to rise to the occasion. Love can show us how. At the end of the day, we need the world to be inherited by kinder generations. We all want our tiny, fragile, helpless baby boys and girls to grow up to be kind. In a world where men are honoured for killing other men but dishonoured for loving one, teaching empathy, compassion and awareness needs to begin as early as possible; a toddler can learn how to use words of kindness, and be brave in showing kindness, when no one else has the courage to take a stand.

We must give our children the tools they need to protect themselves and each other. We must also use them ourselves in all our relationships. Case in point: Can your loved one call you in the middle of the night, no questions asked? Can they tell you the truth, without you flipping out and getting angry? Do they trust that you are on their team, that you will sit down and talk things through with them, making a calm plan together? Every relationship needs to be given a framework, to promote understanding of the issues and challenges that need to be met in life.

Fear in relationships linger for many reasons. In parent-child relationships, for instance, we feel indebted to those who took care of us in our infancy; we feel we have to put up with our parents even if we feel they can be annoying, and children will blame themselves, if not their parents, most their lives when things go wrong. Children are vessels of youth optimism and hope, but when we are younger we are programmed not to show weakness through a misguided belief that it's for our own protection. Somehow we think people will think less of us, so we never show it. We keep things bottled up inside, and never let them out. But that isn't who we are - we are a caring, sensitive species at heart.

As we get older, and yearn to open up, we realise we are afraid to do it, because we are not comfortable with who we are. Until we accept who we truly are, we will not be able to finally open up and just be ourselves. In your life, if you're able to do that, to truly operate as yourself, really good things start to happen. You start connecting with people who are operating on that same level. You also inspire them with your passion, to be comfortable with just being themselves.

This is certainly true on the subject of sex. In twin flame relationships, I talk of cultivating the special energies from this connection via the practice of tantric sex - and in the higher stages of Tibetan Buddhist tantra, for instance, sexual relations (especially with twin flames) are a means of enhancing spiritual insights. It breaks inhibitions, and old taboos and allows us to release our fears, but it needs to be cultivated in a trusting relationship.

Dating can often be fraught with uncertainty and self-consciousness, and sexuality is a powerful thing, one fort which we are solely responsible. The framework and buttress of a healthy relationship can give us an understanding that sex carries an enormous responsibility, not just to ourselves, but to our partners. Sex on its own can trick you into thinking that you are receiving what you need (physical satisfaction, comfort, companionship, love, respect) because it taps into our core energies, but it is an adult power that can be used irresponsibly, and needs to be taught - especially to children, because without instilling in them an adult sense of responsibility and ethics there will be many more cases like Steubenville.

Parents are hugely responsible for the values they instil in children, and the labels we're given as infants has a bearing on the person we will become. Yet it requires more. Kids are hugely influenced by their environment, so what should our society portray? Young people are under tremendous pressure to have or maintain often unrealistic, over-sexed body images portrayed in the media, fearing criticism of their own bodies. And if the world is showcasing a sorry state for us all - where we abuse and trample over one another to get at fleeting self gratification - then it's no surprise people think it is correct to take advantage of someone at a disadvantage, if this is what we are constantly and consistently shown by the media.

If we want a different society, we must be more unified and proactive as parents and in general as members of society, and rewards should not be based on being the pretties, the trendiest, or even the best at kicking a ball. Rather, rewards should be based on how much someone has contributed to creating a mutually responsible society - by example and by result.

Critics say that our negligence has led to this world where crisis upon crisis reveals the level of greed and corruption we have allowed because we've been led to believe it is correct to do so, as long as "no one knows". From sporting heroes to high-earning bankers, we've allowed corruption to foster and spread in most of our traditional institutions. It's time an inner change of heart leads to a mutually responsible society - where we challenge and openly face our fears.

The institutions of fear

Our human history is scarred by violence; we are still very much territorial, towards our planet and other people, and the torture and mistreatment of those we perceive as "weaker" than us is still very prevalent in even the most democratic societies. Europe still displays a fascination with Nazi Germany - its paraphernalia and culture is still very heavily present. There is the popular culture, the films - the symbolism is still represented, and it has been picked up by a younger generation who did not live through the horrors it wrought on human beings.

It seems to be a world where historically the strong has dominated the weak, and the rich have looked down on the poor - but how far have we come from that? Religion teaches us that compassion is a god-given gift instilled in all of us, and scientific studies have shown that kindness is as inherent in our genes as violence - yet far too often it feels like we choose the latter over the former.

Is war an innate part of human nature?

Arguably, we have done the same with religion - rather than use it as an expression of our faith, we have used it to express the dominance of our faith. Religious fervour has had us destroy, knock down, forcibly convert, and become intolerant of other people's beliefs. But religion was once an manifestation of the childlike awe the world inspired in us; it was about questioning and seeking answers to how the world worked. Regarding religion, influential music artist David Bowie has commented that questioning his spiritual life had always been germane to what he was writing. Describing his stance as being "not quite an atheist", in a 2004 interview "What I've Learned" for Esquire he stated:

I'm in awe of the universe, but I don't necessarily believe there's an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance. The incense is powerful and provocative, whether Buddhist or Catholic.

Bowie talks of a fluidity that many major religions lack today, and some believe it is this rigidity that invokes religious fervour and fear. But the relationship we have with religion has constantly been redefining itself. In his book God: A Story of revelation, New York Times best-selling author Deepak Chopra takes his readers on a journey to discover the evolution of God. He focuses on the lives of historical prophets, saints, mystics and martyrs whom he believes were touched by a higher power, and how humans have a constantly changing perspective on divinity and God. The book reveals some the defining moments of some of the world's most influential sages and attempts to uncover the universal lessons of the true nature of God.

The development of our spiritual landscape is rich and diverse, and religion, like society, can tell a lot about the people that practice in worship. Britain is home to some of the most beautiful holy places in the world, and some say our religious heritage and architecture is more varied than virtually anywhere else on Earth. Our horizons are dotted with religious ruins, such as the fading grandeur of ruined abbeys, which we painstakingly preserve long after their purpose is over.

The British fascination with ruins is said to be part of the fascination with our past; our passion for the fading architecture of the past fulfils a nostalgic warning by human sites left to be reclaimed by nature. In medieval times people were haunted by the ruins left by ancient Roman settlers, while the medieval Gothic of the Saxon times - as different religious practices were becoming unified - was itself revived in the 18th Century to react against the prevalent thinking of humanity's dominance over nature. The focus was on spiritual development and contemplation, but it also harked back to ancient fears of strange elements that filled us with awe, because it was felt to be more powerful.

This feeds itself very much into the Gothic novel, which began to take root in the 19th Century. This perspective of awe over the past and the secrets it guards against later generations - a past holds a kind of terror simply because it is so strange - inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula. The impact of his creation cannot be understated; Halloween has become a major secular festival with Dracula and vampires as one of its cornerstones, while the Twilight series is merely a reworking of 19th Century Gothic.

This blend of sex, death and beautiful domed youth are now one of the mainstays of popular culture - and it goes deeper than nostalgia. We seem to have attached ourselves to what proves enduringly unsettling. In one sense, we have become fans of fear. We celebrate fear. And although this celebrated taste for the Gothic and romanticising ruins might have felt like a radical idea in the 18th Century, nothing is ever really new. Fear is an old "friend" - and fear makes us either historical jackdaws or vultures.

Because when we say times are changing, sometimes they're merely changing back again. History forever repeats itself; although we may suffer from generational amnesia, it feels like we genetically remember to instinctively act out the replays of things gone before. For instance, the ancient Egyptians used mouldy bread as a form of medicine applying to heal wounds, but why it worked wouldn't be understood for thousands of years. Mould contains penicillin, which we in the West think we discovered, and yet the ancient Egyptians fully appreciated its benefits over 3,000 years ago.

In the same vein, enjoying sex was as important to ancient Egyptians as it is now. As further proof that we are hard-wired to be interested in and find joy in that very fundamental part of our existence, the Turin Erotic Papyrus - a kind of sex magazine - seems to make it clear that people thousands of years ago were as enamoured with sex as most of us are in contemporary times.

The papyrus shows a couple actively having sex - a man with an enormous phallus pleasuring a nubile, and very agile, female. Some academics suggest it indicates a desire to tap into the erotic, with the drawings translated as showing women actively engaged in acts of love, rather than simply as objects for male pleasure. Thus some believe this ancient erotica was a way to provide sexual inspiration for couples to use sex as a kind of leisure or a way to entertain each other. It portrayed sex as more than just a bodily function to do, but as a way for loving couples to come together.

Looking back at widely differing ancient civilisations, we can see how as a species we are unified in central themes. Sex is a basic human need, common to all people at all times, but so, too, is family, love - and fear. But when we instinctively incorporate the masonry of the past with which to build our own lives, we either try to appropriate some of the spiritual prestige and keep a continuity with the past, or else we try to consume and eradicate it, thinking we are replacing it with something wholly new or better. Medieval Christianity itself came under attack, after King Henry VIII decided to break with the Church of Rome and suppressed the monasteries in Britain, taking the land and riches it in turn had taken from the public. With the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s, such estates reverted to the Crown; religious orders were evicted from their homes, which were plundered to use in the construction of new buildings.

What had been done in the name of Christ to pagans, was being done to monks in the name of Crown, and surviving 12th Century monasteries are very rare in the UK because most of them are now ruins. This reformation in 16th Century Britain, forming the Protestant revolution, effected a call for a complete break with the medieval past and an end to the reverence for relics. This did the opposite, however, creating hundreds of architectural ones with the looting of the monasteries and abbeys and the like. Such abandoned holy places lost their resonance, but retained the power to awe and inspire as relics. Some say this is because they mark seismic shifts within a country - from the fall of the Roman Empire to the transition from Celtic Christianity to Roman Catholicism, to the shift to Protestantism from Catholicism 1,000 years later - as signposts to what people can do in times of fear.

No period of Britain's deep history has left a greater legacy than the centuries of Roman rule. Right from the moment of their violent invasion, the Romans left their mark on this island, leaving cities that prospered from medieval into modern times, shaping who we are today - even giving us our name, Britannia (way before Angle Land was coined to become the England we use for part of Britain today). What often doesn't spring to mind is late Roman Britain in the 4th Century, straddled on the edge of a dying empire when Rome had started to decline, heading for extinction after embracing Christianity and heralding in what is known as the Dark Ages.

Read about the myth of the Dark Ages.

Likewise when Greeks converted to orthodoxy, and ransacked and destroyed the greatest architectures of their ancient forefathers with religious fervour, or when Muslim strongholds in Afghanistan destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas decrying them as "idols", such shifts in ideologies irrespective of the century leave scars on nature's landscape. Again, a Catholic theology was replaced with a Protestant one in 16th Century Britain, it was fear that left a far deeper scar.

Monks were murdered, abbeys were made redundant - cathedrals too in Scotland - and they were looted for their riches. History shows that in times of great fear and fervour, no amount of religious pedigree is a shield from the mob. Fiery sermons based on fear roused congregations all across the country to rip down the rich trappings of the previous churches, a stark testimony to the destructive zeal of protestant reformers, as zealous as the Catholic Conquistadors that had brought so much violence to the American continent centuries before.

In many ways the 16th Century Reformation, and the bitterness and division it represents, reminds us of the worst aspects of our religious instincts. Thus, when cultural identity is bound up by deeply held convictions based on fear, it can carry historical divisions through to modern times, to stand stronger than any relic. Such fear has carried the Protestant-Catholic divide and its fervour to their 21st Century incarnations. A prime example, if any were needed, that fear divides us into sides - a "them" against us" mentality that closes our minds to acceptance. When this happens, ruins enshrine not only religious difference, but religious division, too - standing as symbols to humanity at its worst.

However, ruins can also become symbols of how we overcome our fear to show us at our best. The cathedral in Coventry is one such relic. The English city's cathedral was destroyed in November in 1940, during a night of destruction that rained upon Coventry in the Second World War when over five hundred German bombers attacked the city. Four thousand homes destroyed, over five hundred civilians were killed, with the cathedral left a burnt out shell. The Nazis hailed it as a success - going so far as to coin a new term for the near destruction of an enemy town as having been "coventried".

It would be understandable, after suffering such a terrible act of violence, if the city had adopted its shattered cathedral as a symbol of defiance, or triumphalism when the Allies beat the Nazis, but courageously the people of Coventry chose a different route - almost immediately after their night of destruction. They preferred to focus was on reconciliation and forgiveness, as well as remembrance.

We are often fearful of forgiveness, because we mistakenly believe it equates with forgetting - but we never forget, so that we may remember to forgive. It was in this spirit, the city of Coventry fashioned gestures of reconciliation from the rubble, and sent them to German cities that had also suffered during the war. Some would say it is such acts that lend religion its real sense of purpose, rather than those ideals based on fear.

The institutions of faith

Fear has power, but love is what makes spiritual practice personal. We are drawn to the ruins in our lives because of the things we have lost - whether it is part of our history, or those that we have loved. The reason could be that implicit in every ruin is a scattering, a breaking apart, as time opens up our decaying religions to the elements, but the spiritual essence remains to draw us back, suggesting it is something deeper than nostalgia that pulls us to holy ruins long after their religious use is over.

Older than the pyramids, Stonehenge is one such monument in England, that still draws people from far and wide ever since it was built some 4,500 years ago. A henge is a sacred enclosure - designed to mark out a sacred space, which many believe was a refuge for the faithful of those times. The specific activity of a henge, however, still guards its mysteries - some have stone circles like Stonehenge, some hold ritual burials, while others are curiously empty in their centre, thought to be observatories, but no one knows for sure.

What we see of Stonehenge today is not quite what was there some time ago. Before its importance was realised stones were used by locals for a variety of building purposes; some of the stones have also fallen down. It was quite possibly twice as big as it is now, but Stonehenge is a place of religious significance and pilgrimage in paganism in Wiltshire. And over the county border in Somerset is the small town of Glastonbury, at the heart of which lies an ancient battle between paganism and Christianity that has rumbled on for 2,000 years because of fear.

Paganism is believed to offer different spiritual paths that traditional religions fail to provide, and such older beliefs that existed in Britain before the arrival of Christianity was at the heart of a spiritual history spanning different beliefs and thousands of years. But between the 4th and 7th Century these beliefs were ejected by the fervour caused by Christianity. Academics say we can view it as one culture or religion imposing itself on another, or we can look at it as a sort of evolution or development - where it starts life as one type of spirituality and religion, and changes to another one - part of a natural order of things, like extinction has been throughout Earth's history. But one caused out of human fear, not evolution, to create seismic shifts that scarred its landscape and left ruins in its wake.

As a collision of beliefs, paganism and Christianity have been rubbing up against each other for the best part of 2,000 years, and the relationship between pagans and Christians has always been an uneasy one; the tensions between them have been based on fear. By building churches on ancient pagan sites and henges, the dominating religion saw this a spiritual continuity, but also as a way to stamp out any rival, idolatry practices; the medieval Christians were making an emphatic statement about their cultural dominance - it was part of a deliberate policy.

Very often quoted, but rarely in full, is a letter sent by Pope Gregory to Abbot Mellitus, who was about to join Augustine in England, in the year 601; we know of it only through Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, written in 731 (book 1, chapter 30). Those who wish to demonstrate the origins of traditional customs and lore in pagan times take it to mean that the Church in England initially adopted a general policy of appropriation rather than direct confrontation. On the matter of the English people, Pope Gregory had said:

The temples of the idols in that nation ought not to destroyed; but let the idols in them be destroyed; let water be consecrated and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected and relics placed there.

For if those temples are well built it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God; that the nation seeing that their temples are not destroyed may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God, may the more familiarly resort to the places to which they have been accustomed.

As the appeal of Christianity has declined in the 21st Century, these alternative belief systems have reoccupied the hearts of many in Britain - and at the heart of paganism is a deep felt connection with the Earth. Being the case, to pagans all trees are religiously significant, tying ribbons and totems on their branches to give thanks, or as a request symbolic of their wish to be healed or achieve a particular goal. Such symbols, grown out of the resurgence of pagan practices, involves trees as living beings that have lived through the pre-Christian and Christian eras, and signify a link between the earth and the air - two of the central elements in pagan belief - representing the physical bridge between them, as do hills, mountains and rivers.

And as Christianity spread across Britain, it had to confront its fear of paganism in the old religion's holy places, and adopt its spiritual pedigree. In time, the pre-Christian sense of sacredness melded together with the medieval Christian sense of the sacred, with both deeply connected to the landscape, and where people intuitively or instinctively saw trees as a gateway between the two worlds of life and death, the temporal and spiritual.

Trees are a very profound symbol that have captivated us for centuries. Even on sites with a spiritual heritage heritage stretching back thousands of years, one of the most enduring things are trees. On some sites Christianity may have come and gone, but earth magic never truly goes away. In earlier times, when Christianity was the dominant intellectual force, pagan explanations or interpretations for the mysteries of the world were replaced with their new interpretations - and the Book of Genesis, the earliest book of the Bible, contains numerous references to sacred trees. In the middle of the Garden of Eden we find the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Knowledge, with its forbidden fruit. Further on in the text, Abraham encounters God next to trees, so is it too fanciful to see these references as remnants of an earlier system of nature worship?

Academics say when the Judeo-Christian scriptures were first written they needed to acknowledge trees in nature, because they were the dominant ideas in older religions - they needed to find ways of acknowledging and then incorporating them. As time has gone by, mainstream Christianity has moved away from the power of nature as a central part of its philosophy, but nature still appeals to many people emotionally. It allows for a multiplicity of interpretations, some based on superstition, some based on religion - but perhaps at root they're not that different.

Superstition and religion are both forms of belief rooted in fear, it's just that religion holds a much higher status or level in society. A fear of death (or Christian hell-fire) is one such obsession; many of us find the idea of communicating with the dead so tantalising, so appealing, and yet so elusive that it's easy to see how normal psychological mechanisms can be co-opted into making us believe in the unbelievable. Some believe that deep down fearing the reaper is why everyone is so messed up in the head; they know the end is nigh, but there is nothing they can do about it, and it drives people nuts living with one eye on the clock. Not all religions were fused with this fear; the ancient Egyptians' relationship with death was very different than ours. For them, life was a dress rehearsal for the perfect afterlife they were trying to reach.

Death was the most important moment of life, and the ancient Egyptians invested heavily in it. They spent much of their life preparing to live on after their death - tombs, chapels, amulets, books of the dead describing how they wanted to spend eternity - it was a huge industry that every ancient Egyptian invested in, from kings to commoners alike. But although they didn't fear earthly death, seeing it as simply a passing from one plane of existence to another, they did fear spiritual death - for them, all evil souls betrayed by a heavy heart were consumed and blocked from an eternal afterlife.

The ancient Egyptians believed the heart was the seat of all learning and intelligence, and when their spirit was in the presence of the gods in the next world, they had to account for their actions in life. In the modern West, it is all too easy to see these elaborate preparations for death as completely pointless - death is death, and that is that - and yet these ancients had universal themes that link us all. In the BBC documentary two-parter "Ancient Egypt - Life and Death in the Valley of the Kings", Dr Joann Fletcher investigates what everyday life was like in ancient Egypt for an ordinary person, and the second episode on death reveals how many would want to spend their afterlife with their loved ones. And while the ancient Egyptians revered death over life, paganism, too, was undaunted by death in its own way - by seeing it as a natural process of life.

Our fear of death was given a new voice - one of rebirth - when Britain's pagan landscape was overwritten with a Christian narrative. Entry into the religion was with a ritual central to the Christian tradition. Full immersion baptism provided a psychological route into this new way of living, as the old life was metaphorically washed away. Because they used water to symbolically purify their converts by baptising them with it, water became central to this new narrative of being born again.

Many converts professed to a profound change, or even found it uplifting to suffer the cold water of a holy pool - some even claimed miracle cures from the water's healing properties. There are many that still visit such holy sites today to be healed. Holy water, we believe, can make us healthy, be that spiritually or physically, holy and wholesome are two words that share the same root, so holiness and healthiness are not that far removed from each other.

Water has shaped and defined our spiritual history in Britain in another way, too, as the sea was a gateway from which this new belief system came to change our society forever. But the sea has always been a powerful metaphor within the Christian tradition, its turbulence and unpredictability mirror our own lives, and the sea's appeal is timeless and universal like water. It crops up constantly as an essential element in some of our holiest places, and the primal powers of water appeal to something very deep within us. Nothing is more fundamental to life than water, and historians say water springs became holy because they were life-giving in the most literal sense.

Read about the mysteries of water.

It could also be argued that pagan traditions infiltrated the Christian way of doing things in other ways, for instance, they influenced the sites of the first Christian churches because it was thought that would stop pagan ceremonies on the site taking place covertly, while taking on the value and sacred nature of the site itself at the same time. Islam also adopted the Christian approach of consecrating previous religious places to their own belief during its initial genesis, and rather than destroying buildings, as Pope Gregory suggested, they destroyed the idols instead and turned the buildings - churches and temples - into mosques.

In a sense, Rather than destroying the old symbols of paganism, Christianity merely subsumed them. The first actions of medieval Christians grafted Christianity onto paganism, rather than doing away with it entirely. This wasn't just on physical holy sites, or in the usage of religious symbols, but by adopting their holy days, too. Today, many pagans argue that Christian celebrations like Christmas and Easter are really derived from pagan celebrations of the cycles of nature, or gods and goddesses ascribed the powers of nature through folklore.

Thus Christianity set up camp on pagan beliefs in a fearful attempt to stop its practice of the old religion, and across the country this led to many churches being built on top of many hills and mountains, literally staking out the moral high ground. In Britain, to emphasise this policy, such hill top churches were dedicated to the archangel Michael - in the Book of Revelations Saint Michael is depicted as the leader of God's army who drove the satanic forces from the heavens. The iconic church tower on top of the hill at Glastonbury is dedicated to him, so, too, is St. Michael's mount in Cornwall.

This portrayal of a warrior angel leading the forces of light against the forces of darkness has arguably imbued Christianity with a "crusade" like mentality to go after different views and beliefs as being "evil". This fear has always kept Christianity in conflict, because it has never quite able to embrace the natural landscape it is faced with without bumping into earlier belief systems. This has been melded into Western society, combined with the ancient Greek's creation of xenophobia - fear of hatred of the "other", showing them as barbarians - to have us today divided into camps, looking across our borders in fear of people that are just as human as we are.

In Britain, later Christians thought the country's conversion from paganism was unfinished business, and in the 17th Century the puritans decided to finish the job once and for all. Religious symbols can be divisive; trees once seen as holy were hacked down, women practising herbal medicine were branded as witches and were put on trial and executed, druids were hounded and murdered. The obsession of pagan idolatry spread fear, and as today we have demonised people from the Islamic faith, in the past pagans were demons Christianity pursued with religious fervour.

If we let our fear overtake our actions, we are likely to overstep the mark - fear makes us lash out disproportionately, even when done in retaliation to a corrupt establishment, or for a ideology we passionately believe in. Sadly, not many have taken up a this non-violent way to redress wrongs, although Mahatma Gandhi, the pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India, is arguably a good example of how to go against the establishment of the day without resorting to violence.

Another peaceful following are the Quakers, or Friends, members of a family of religious movements which collectively are known as the Friends Church or the Religious Society of Friends. Some of the early Quaker ministers were women, and the Friends are known for their historical refusal to participate in war and opposition to slavery, and their philanthropic efforts, including abolition, prison reform, and social justice projects. Interestingly, such a well-meaning religious institution was founded out of the puritanical fervour of 17th Century Britain; in 1652 George Fox wanted to rid his Christian faith of its lingering superstitions, and thus founded the most stripped down Christian movement of all time.

Following the belief that there is something of God in everybody, the Quaker movement did away with all the rituals and sacraments that marked out other churches, because Fox was "moved by the Lord" as he put it, after he had a vision on Pendle Hill in Lancashire, like Jesus giving a sermon on the mount, "of human souls ripe for harvest". Again interestingly, while putting such importance on inner transformation and avoidance of all outer rituals, the founder of the Quaker movement was still impelled, as many others before him, to come up a mount in order to receive a vision - as though instinctively the pagan sacredness of hills was inbred in the human animal.

According to Fox's beliefs, his followers rejected all the trappings of religion - there are no ceremonies of baptism, their meeting houses have no altars, and their services are not conducted by priests. Quakers set out to rid themselves of pagan idolatry, and it's even said Fox wouldn't use the months or names of the week derived from pagan gods, but the very place that inspired the leader of the movement is one that would be equally powerful to a pagan or a Christian. It could be said that in the following years, the Quakers replaced one form of idolatry with another; some Quakers have founded banks and financial institutions including Barclays, Lloyds, and Friends Provident; manufacturing companies including Clarks, Cadbury, Rowntree, and Fry's (which introduced the legendary confectionery of Turkish Delight to chocolate).

But looking back in its history, the Quaker movement is a clear illustration of how the British landscape has been a battleground between the early history of Christianity and paganism - a battle of how human fear can corrupt even the most well intentioned individual or idea. It's also a battle we've had with Nature, ever since religion has promoted us to exert our dominance over her, and the deep fear that nature - even our true nature - is far stronger than any religious idea.

And indeed nature features in many faiths; its greatness lies in the fact that it belongs to no one. Nature, like true love, is non-denominational - trees and mountains are beyond dogma; they inspire within us feelings that are mystical, of being one in a large family of life, where we come closest to the divine. Family is not always those in closest proximity to you. Family is found anywhere you are loved and cared for, and perhaps the secret guarded in the mists of history is this: we need not fear those things that appear alien to us, because we are all members of the same family.

If we have faith in this idea, then although there will be times we fail, the idea of our struggle for co-existence will remain intact. Just as family members will come and go but the institution of family remains, in the same way, although we might be fearful of the future, the idea for a better future remains when faced with love - and like all stories of hope, ideas never die. We need to put our trust in that, and in the idea that fear - like anger - can be either constructive or destructive, too.

Because if we fear the truth that nature is greater than we are, and try to dominate it as a result, then in our destruction of it we will also destroy ourselves - and we won't have learned a thing about existing in harmony with each other. But if we trust to approach our fears with love and understanding - instead of acting out of fear - then we'll have learned a valuable lesson. That there is nothing really to fear about the "other" at all, because we are all one with love.

Read more in this series: -2 -3

Yours in love,

Survive Creatively with Love

Life often seems like a battlefield; and why shouldn't it? When we go by warring opinions that result in very different perceptions of the same events in countries an hour's flying time apart, how can we be expected to get along with one another when neighbouring countries find it impossible to co-exist peaceably together?

We fight about who owns what - brave lives are lost over land, ideologies and resources. And when we damage the important ecological systems of our planet, in our greed and desire for greater and greater profitability over our resources, how can we not expect the survival of future generations to be a battle, too? For danger is a great equalizer - everyone is on the same level when our survival is in question.

Some believe we ignore contrary opinions to our own, and pillage natural resources, at our peril. We live in a world where the challenge is to use more, but to consume less, and recycling can be immensely innovative on that score. Indeed the universe is all about recycling; giving back what is taken in one form or another - so why are we so lazy about this issue? We still don't understand the true implications of altering our terrestrial ecosystem, let alone the impact of meddling with deep ocean environments, and yet it seems we still haven't gotten rid of our short-term, throwaway mentality.

After all life is about the long run; and who can deny the durability of the human spirit? As we shift towards healthy eating and busy lives, humans are living longer than previous generations, but reports are saying that as nations we are "woefully under prepared" for the social and economic challenges presented by an ageing society, and an ageing workforce. Health is the most talked topic on the internet, and the focus of the future will be on care.

Empathy is always difficult, however, during times of personal hardship; more people than ever on the Earth, less to go around it seems - more so with the economic climate remaining so unstable with a yet-to-be-tried miracle cure for our economic malaise no closer. Even nations that once prided themselves on looking after the less able in their societies, like the United Kingdom, have now begun to tax the unemployed poor and disabled to claw back as much revenue as it can, while cutting financial aid to them at the same time.

Taking a step back and looking at these hard times as just a decade, a period or moment in history can in many ways help us to carry on and look forward with a more than a modicum of hope for the future. Things always get better; history and its archivists show that as one period ends, another begins, and that is just the nature of things. Music, and drama, and other artistic pursuits can all help us work through out troubles, while also help others with similar challenges. And sometimes the talented amongst us throw into the turbulent mix works that speak directly to the moment to become a documenter of our times.

Art has been used to illustrate and illuminate history for centuries, from the Bayeux Tapestry to the poets of the First World War. Sometimes popular music can act as a historical record, too, capturing the sentiment of a time and place. From the Motown movement in the 1960s which reflected the growing racial integration to maybe just one song like the Beatles "All You Need Is Love" released in 1967 - known as the summer of love. And the unique musical history of Coventry, in England, highlights a decade that is very relevant to our current times, when it captured the thoughts of a generation like no other. The music itself struck the right note with young people all across the country, driving home a message that defined their decade.

Like many cities in the UK during the late 1970s and early 80s there was a huge recession, and Coventry was under a great strain of unemployment and political right-wing racial tension, with riots exploding all over the country. It was on the backdrop of that that the 2-Tone music label was founded in Coventry. Blending ska, reggae, pop and punk, it was a mix of black and white music, with new dance moves and retro clothing - but more importantly it had a message that everyone could identify with, making haunting, doom laden tracks about the UK in decay.

The social aspect and issues of racism were suggestive of the name 2-Tone, black and white to represent racial harmony, but the music was also about the man-woman, rich-poor divides, too. The ideology of togetherness wasn't just expressed in music, it became a fashion statement - but the music became iconic through the monochromatic artwork. It was about mixing the stereotypes and the music, and supporting each other through hardship. Musical historians today say the energy created by 2-Tone musicians during their live gigs in the 70s was magnetic, because it drew recognition to the fact that everybody hurts.

Music speaks volumes about history, and as history repeats itself, so does the music, and so will we until we learn the lessons of the past. With high unemployment, a struggling economy and racial issues still making the news, it seems the message of 2-Tone is still very relevant today. For we are caring beings; we have the potential to understand our responsibility for all life on our planet, and to take care of those less well off than ourselves. In the UK, celebrities and the public have helped this year's Comic Relief charity telethon raise a record £75m so far for those in need. Caring needn't be a burden, either; our societies are ageing, but older people need to be cared about, not just cared for - because there are many people who remain fit and active well into their nineties.

It's all how we look at things. Times change, and we must change with the times. In our relationships, too, there is now more focus on the emotional bond between a man and a woman, but this is far from global. While countries like India struggle with its demeaning attitude towards women, in the West although many women are in powerful positions, their presence and importance is still not properly acknowledged. Even in developed countries, women still feel as though they need to choose between a career and motherhood, while crossing gender boundaries, free societies are still having to fight to allow marriage equality for same-sex couples - many of whom face daily discrimination.

But the freedom and happiness of others will stop being a threat to our way of life when we realise that life is about getting a balance between our feelings and our conscience. Likewise, with our technology and Earth's resources, we need to bring enrichment to our lives that is not at the cost to the natural world. We can take lessons from the music scene in Coventry in the 70s, and opt for more harmony in all areas of our lives.

Love is the true balancer in life.

Being human, and surviving in the world, seems to get more and more complicated the more complex society becomes; but are there any rules we can follow to help us - kind of like a survival guide? Some believe life is a like a huge budget movie going on in your head, and that it is up to you what we script. So, let's think about how we can script our survival. The physical boundaries may be a given, but we have a choice in the decisions we make.

Are there rules for being human?

Providing ten rules to being human, author and life coach Dr. Cherie Carter-Scott references Helen Keller, an American deafblind activist who said that life is a succession of lessons that must be lived to be understood. Here is a brief summary and explanation of Carter-Scott's "Rules for Being Human".

The ten rules for being human

• Rule one - You will receive a body. You may love it or hate it, but it will be yours for the duration of your life on Earth. So accept it. What should count to YOU is what's inside.
• Rule two - You will be presented with lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called "life". Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or hate them, but you have designed them as part of your curriculum. You might not choose the curriculum, but you can choose when and what lessons to take. Simply put, life is a constant learning experience, which every day provides opportunities for you to learn more. These lessons are specific to you, and learning them is the key to discovering and fulfilling the meaning and relevance of your own life.
• Rule three - There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of experimentation, a series of trials, errors and occasional victories. The failed experiments are as much as a part of the process as the experiments that work. Your development towards wisdom is a process of experimentation, trial and error, so it's inevitable things will not always go to plan or turn out how you'd want. Compassion is the remedy for harsh judgement - of ourselves and others. Forgiveness is not only divine - it's also the act of erasing an emotional debt. Behaving ethically, with integrity, and with humour - especially the ability to laugh at yourself and your own mishaps - are central to the perspective that "mistakes" are simply lessons we must learn.
• Rule four - The lesson is repeated until learned. Lessons will be repeated to you in various forms until you have learned them. When you have learned them, you can go on to the next lesson. It has been given as a definition of insanity when we repeat something expecting different results, and what manifest as problems and challenges, irritations and frustrations are more lessons - they will repeat until you see them as such and learn from them. Lessons repeat until learned; your own awareness and your ability to change are requisites of executing this rule. Also fundamental is the acceptance that you are not a victim of fate or circumstance - "causality" must be acknowledged; that is to say: things happen to you because of how you are and what you do. To blame anyone or anything else for your misfortunes is an escape and a denial; you yourself are responsible for you, and what happens to you. Patience is required - change doesn't happen overnight, so give change time to happen.
• Rule five - Learning does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned. While you are alive there are always lessons to be learned. Surrender to the "rhythm of life", don't struggle against it. Commit to the process of constant learning and change - be humble enough to always acknowledge your own weaknesses, and be flexible enough to adapt from what you may be accustomed to, because rigidity will deny you the freedom of new possibilities.
• Rule six - "There" is no better than "here". When your "there" has become "here" you will simply obtain another "there" that will look better to you than your present "here". This is the "grass is always greener on the other side" syndrome - the other side of the hill may be greener than your own, but being there is not the key to endless happiness. Be grateful for and enjoy what you have, and where you are on your journey. Appreciate the abundance of what's good in your life, rather than measure and amass things that do not actually lead to happiness. Living in the present helps you attain peace.
• Rule seven - Others are only mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself. You love or hate something about another person according to what love or hate about yourself. Be tolerant; accept others as they are, and strive for clarity of self-awareness; strive to truly understand and have an objective perception of your own self, your thoughts and feelings. Negative experiences are opportunities to heal the wounds that you carry. Support others, and by doing so you support yourself. Where you are unable to support others it is a sign that you are not adequately attending to your own needs.
• Rule eight - What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. Take responsibility for yourself. Learn to let go when you cannot change things. Don't get angry about things - bitter memories clutter your mind. Courage resides in all of us - use it when you need to do what's right for you. We all possess a strong natural power and adventurous spirit, which you should draw on to embrace what lies ahead.
• Rule nine - Your answers lie inside of you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust. Trust your instincts and your innermost feelings, whether you hear them as a little voice or a flash of inspiration. Listen to feelings as well as sounds. Look, listen, and trust. Draw on your natural inspiration.
• Rule ten - You will forget all this at birth. You can remember it if you want by unravelling the double helical of inner-knowing. We are all born with all of these capabilities - our early experiences lead us into a physical world, away from our spiritual selves, so that we become doubtful, cynical and lacking belief and confidence. The ten Rules are not commandments, they are universal truths that apply to us all. When you lose your way, call upon them. Have faith in the strength of your spirit. Aspire to be wise - wisdom the ultimate path of your life, and it knows no limits other than those you impose on yourself.

At first glance it might seem cruel that we are condemned to forget lessons only to learn them the hard way, but looked at from a different perspective, it is the best way to learn. Being spoon-fed lessens the power of knowledge; it is only when it becomes experience does it gain the requisite gravitas to mean something to us.

The correct application of knowledge is bound by the meaning we attach to it, while the journey of discovering is - some say - the real answer to that age old question about what it is that makes us human. It is like an archaeological dig into our humanity, as we go over old ground walked by many before us.

And yet in each of us, there is a little voice that knows exactly which way to go. We can all learn to listen to it, even though it can cause so much grief and havoc, because following your heart is the only answer. Rather than carry a "knapsack of unfinished business" that cannot be unshouldered, our road is a multi-directional road with many turns to make, so we have to make the best of what makes the best out of us.

What is helpful, though, is that we don't respond to what is not calling, and that we remember that it's all about joy, if nothing else. Humanity seems to have forgotten that this planet is for joy, and the journey in between what you once were, and who you are now becoming, is where the dance of life really takes place.

If you look at the advancement of humanity, it fundamentally depends on creative innovation and the enjoyment of it. Psychologists have looked at how we make the leap to creative insight, and in the past decade there has been a surge of interest to understand how insight works. These are the moments when without thinking logically and methodically we come up with a flash of insight.

Get creative with challenges

Insight is a critical element in the creative process, because creative solutions are about overcoming assumptions - it is about realising there is a third way or other options and solutions to discover when we think "out of the box". But the thing about these insightful or "a-ha" moments is that they are fleeting and elusive, and it's very hard to study why and how insight works in our brains.

Studies have looked if one hemisphere is generally more involved in generating insight - the left side of the brain traditionally associated with logical thinking and language, or the right side, often linked with spatial awareness and intuition. One study has shown that the right hemisphere is more sensitive, and more likely than the left to make that connection that leads to a sudden flash of insight. Other research has shown, however, that the brain is not nearly as dichotomous as once thought, and it is believed that our mind is actually strongest when both halves of the brain work together.

Thinking creatively is a defining feature of the human species, and it's important to try and understand all the different mental processes that together help make us creative - how they work in our brains - because if we understand them we might all become a bit more creative. The ability to think in novel and useful ways can all help our survival, as we try to rise above our personal and global challenges that face us today.

Scientists believe creativity has been essential to the success of humans; every single conceptual leap forward by our species, in some way, was a form of creativity. Many of us associate creativity with artists and music and dance, but science and technological innovation is just as creative. It helped us to fly to the Moon, to cure illnesses, to develop micro-processors - you can see it everywhere. What is invented by humans, had to first be dreamed by them.

In the past, studying creativity was limited to what could be measured from the outside by observing human behaviour and psychology, but now the tools of neuroscience have allowed scientists to look inside the brain, to try and capture inspiration as it strikes. It's a new science, but it is already come up with a systematic way to induce "a-ha" moments that spark our creativity.

There has been scientific debate about whether the brain processes that induce insight is separate from other processes (because it feels different), or not - but studies have shown that we really are thinking differently when we have a creative moment. A striking increase in high energy brainwaves called gamma waves erupts from one spot in the right side of the brain. An interesting fact about meditation is that it can help induce such brainwaves, and artists that have used meditation for inspiration now seem to have scientific backing for its use.

More on creativity at Mickie Kent Love is Creative Love Your Imagination Love-Zap Your Stress

Although the two sides of the brain mirror each other, it is believed that there is a subtle, but very real, structural difference. The neurons differ subtly on the left and right hemisphere of the brain in the ways they are wired. The way they collect information seem to branch differently in at least some of the neurons on the left and right side of the brain. Characteristically they seem to have a broader branching on the right side of the brain, so that each neuron is collecting information from a broader source of input. This allows them to find connections that might not otherwise be evident.

Thus, studies into insight in creativity suggest that brain cells on the left is useful for pulling in information nearby, while the cells on the right branch out much further, and pull together distant and unrelated ideas. So, it's here that novel connections between concepts get made in a flash of insight.

This "a-ha" process is not instantaneous as it would appear to be, though, because before the gamma wave spike that marks the moment an idea pops into our awareness, there are other energy waves at work. There is a burst of alpha waves in the right side at the back of the brain, which is an area known for visual processing, while alpha waves are known for brain areas "shutting down" as they occur when we are relaxed or calm - like when we meditate.

Read about the power of meditation.

Effectively the brain's visual cortex is momentarily shut down; the brain "blinks" seconds before the burst of gamma waves, to allow the emergence of an insight. What begins as an idea rumbling around the unconscious mind, requires the effect of alpha waves to cut us off from distractions - to go not with what the eyes see, but what we feel - to get that burst of creative inspiration, helping us summon a new solution into awareness. If our attention is drawn inwardly, we are more likely to solve the problem at hand with a flash of insight. Furthermore, the scientific evidence suggests if you want to have more insights, cutting off distractions from the outside world for a short period of time could increase creativity.

Scientists tell us that insights don't appear as if from nowhere, they unfold from a chain of events in the brain, and it begins with a problem - one that logic cannot solve. And increasingly we are seeing that the challenges being thrown up to our survival require more creative thinking than ever before. Love might seem illogical, working from a perspective of joy even more so, but when we are led by the heart and not the eyes, that voice inside will often show us an innovative solution to a current problem.

Possibly this is the real - and only true - rule to being human. Although insight on its own is just one of the mental processes that make up creativity, it is the spark that ignites it. And for us to shine that light into all the dark corners of our world, we need to cut through the superficial distractions, and see the real issue - that we are all one family, living in one home, and we will either all stand, or else all fall, together.

Yours in love,

The Science of Twin Flames-3

Click here to attract your own twin flame NOW!

In the first and second part of this three-part mini series covering the "science" of twin flames, we looked at the eternal energy of the universe that binds us all, and how we can tap into and understand this energy via our senses. If twin flame love exists, then it must exist in the physical relationships we make, and so it is just as bound by physical laws and our biologies as every other living thing on our planet.

Today, however, we live in a world of commodities with shorter and shorter lifespans, where our attention is cropped by viral parodies and the meme of the month, and this short attention span has leaked over into some of our relationships, too. Social pressures can make us more negative to one another, even in the animal kingdom. It happens, because our social activities train our habits to some extent. When we start looking for the next "flavour of the month", then we stop looking at things in the long term. Relationships become as throw-away as the latest viral video, or the processed food we eat.

With just under half our time on a computer spent communicating with other people, in our desire to be desirous many of us look for sex outside of trusting relationships. Websex has become a new addiction that has begun to afflict our young, with technology and easy access to sexual materials warping their views on acceptable behaviour. Blamed on a toxic combination of marketing, media and peer pressure, the pace of modern life is so fast that some say it is even snatching away the precious wonder years, and changing our perception of childhood. This affects us in adulthood also; it takes time and maturity to learn that trust is a major building block in any relationship, and without trust your life can be turned upside down - even if the love is real. Because true love takes time, it takes teamwork, and it takes trust for it to be sustained in a coupling. Twin flame love does not die, but for it to thrive in a pairing, it needs to be fought for and worked at, like every other relationship.

In a world of 72-day celebrity marriages, a 73-year marriage is nearly unimaginable, but it does happen. Sacrifice sounds like a corny word now, but in times past people died for their loved ones. In short, twin flame lovers need to rely on each other for their "survival", and although people do find a difficult time living together in this era of self-reliant independence, our human make-up actually thrives on interdependence when we can trust and rely on another. In a relationship, this means showing tangible signs of caring and of empathy, to give our loved ones mental and physical space when needed, but also to respect them unconditionally - rather than just aiming for the unrealistic expectation of unconditional love.

The reason for this is that modern human love is conditional and impatient (whether we want to believe the opposite or not), and can raise unrealistic expectations, but when two people respect and show care for the other's feelings, true love is nurtured and insulated against the challenges that will invariably come our way. And the one simple thing that can change whether we survive or not is information - or specifically data and the sharing of it.

Data is increasingly defining us - from the information we share on the web, to that collected by the numerous companies with whom we interact. We are living in the information age, and in today's world, what really separates those who are achieving success in their relationships is information - learning and understanding the "science" behind something can often give us an advantage. I always say in tantra that you don't need to know the how to feel the pow, but rather than completely rely on physical and intuitive senses, sometimes understanding the why can give you the eye on how to make things work.

Taking away the mystery doesn't necessarily take away the magic - like some card trick, because pulling something apart to see how it works can increase our wonder that it works at all; today we are in an information where we want to know, not to demystify our faith, but to increase our wonder and acknowledge its existence. Science is coming forward in leaps and bounds, and we have at last the tools to explore subjects that were deemed to elusive for scientific research in the past. In regards to the science of twin flame relationships, we are not talking about a love that is "too good to be true". If something feels too good to be true, you can lose trust in its authenticity as a whole - so the data of interest here is in the metaphysical dimensions of life, such as the question of the soul, and its relationship to the body and the physical world.

Although sticking to terms is difficult in subjects where terms are not easily defined, metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, where the soul can function as a synonym for spirit, mind, psyche or self. In many mythological, religious, philosophical, and psychological traditions, the soul is the incorporeal and, in many conceptions, immortal essence of a person, living thing, or (in some beliefs) object.

Physically we are constantly being inspired by the sheer power of biology and nature - but what about spiritually? Indeed our biology is hard-wired to the heavens, and some believe it's only when we connect to our core (or Self) we can have an instinctive understanding of our place in a solar system where our moods and feelings are joined to the Sun and the movement of the planets. Astrologers, for example, would be the first to agree with this school of thought.

It is thought that many twin flame believers look to astrological clues, or are more in tune with their star signs, to help guide them to their twin flame - and so, astrologists, numerologists and the like are beginning to target twin flames as a recognised niche, like a kind of genetic astrology. Although the term soulmate is used more often (and this creates some confusion between the two) generally what most people do, when they're not sure if they've met "the one", is to test the waters, so to speak, and if their feelings are strong enough, then they take a risk. For many not in tune with their feelings, or core, however, this could feel akin to flying blind.

But it's believed that it's these connections to an eternal universal energy that steer us through life. Tapping into this, is what some call getting "into the zone", or into the flow, when we meditate or practice to master our senses for greater awareness. And while some believe that activating change in how energy flows through your body can promote deep healing, there is also evidence of the effects of meditation on the genetic structure within the body.

These homing instincts are thought to be carried on a river of genetic information that flows through each human, and each living thing. It is a river of DNA; a pack of genes each of us is born with, a genetic hand of cards passed down from our parents. It holds, for example, instructions of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins - the building blocks of all living things - on how to build the physical bodies that house us.

Scientific discoveries have revealed that our DNA has an incredible resistance to destructive change, and that relative stability means it can pass from generation to generation. Because genetic code is highly resistant to error, that fidelity means that translations are faithfully translated from parent to child. And although we think of life as a constant, continuing evolution, our DNA stays the same fundamentally - so, for example, while we are separated from the orang-utan by 14 million years of evolution, our DNA is still strikingly similar.

Orang-utans have many of what we consider human traits, they look after young until the age of 8 - which is a long time in the animal world - and they have memory, which they learn from and pass on through the generations. And that deep connection extends far beyond orang-utans, our DNA contains the fingerprint of 4 billion years of evolution. All life on earth is related and connected, as some will share the same genetic code no matter how different they superficially appear to be.

This sense of belonging is a deep feeling we all share. Every living thing we know to exist is found on our planet - and the thing which makes our planet a rich, colourful living world is the same science behind what makes twin flame love so inherent in our genes. Some even believe that some species of animals in their mating show twin flame tendencies, the swan, golden eagle, angelfish and grey wolf for instance, are all thought to mate with one partner for life. Humans like to think of themselves as a faithful species, but when it comes to true fidelity, that natural world shows us that many other animals offer better examples of how to keep a relationship together. Although monogamy and lifelong pair bonds are generally rare in the animal kingdom, there are some animals that pull it off. Thus twin flames are seen as a natural phenomena, as well as a spiritual one.

Likewise, there are studies that suggest our gender and sexual behaviour may be largely connected to our genes, and that we may even "trap" repressed emotions in the genetic expression of our cells. In this same vein, research is revealing how hormones and genetics create and affect our thoughts, behaviours and even sexual preferences. This is why some believe if you are the child of a twin flame relationship, you are already genetically coded to make it easier for you to find your twin flame. There are also some who believe that our genetic expression can be changed by our thoughts, and thus if we can shift our mindset towards our twin flame energies, it will activate our DNA to that end.

Certainly, along with our brain wiring and structure, and the interactions between different regions of the brain, our hormones have a powerful influence over how we live our lives, but there are many other things we need for our biology and our chemistry to work. Scientists often ask why our world is the only closest inhabitable planet we know of anywhere in our universe. The answer depends on a handful of precious ingredients that makes our world a home. Home, like love, is such an evocative word. If our planet did not have the correct atmosphere or temperature, or food and water, then we would not be able to call Earth our home. Love, too, needs the correct ingredients for it to work.

When we talk of love and home, it will mean something to all of us, but in a scientific sense it means the ingredients are there for you to live and interact, and so, too, with twin flame relationships, the correct ingredients need to be there for us to feel we belong, and can make a home out of our relationship. But what are these ingredients? In relation to our planet, for instance, we have all the ingredients you think you might need for a rich and diverse ecosystem - the Sun delivers energy to each and every leaf, oxygen escapes from the plants and trees, which is breathed in by the Earth's animals - who draw deeply from the planet's water supplies for sustenance.

But some ingredients are far more important than others. If there's one thing that unites all life we've ever discovered anywhere on our planet, is that it has to be wet. On our planet, the oceans flow freely between the skies in to every living thing - most species are at least made up of more than half from water. Water usually makes up 55% to 78% of the human body, and within every one of us water is constantly flowing, around each and every cell. For instance, blood plasma is over 90% water, and in it are dissolved everything we need to live - oxygen, the nutrients from food - is distributed around our body in rivers of water.

Read about the mysteries of water.

To understand why life and water intertwine we need to look deeper into one of the strangest substances we know, and I have heard it said that we won't truly understand biology until we understand water. Some believe a twin flame, like water, is as essential and natural to love as water is to life. Until we understand twin flames, we won't understand our own unique biology triggered by our emotions to interact and bond with another we believe to be "the one". Twin flame attraction is a strong bonding glue, like the attraction between water molecules giving them a special force to bend and flow and pull up against any strong challenging force through the team work of its special bonds. In essence, twin flame love is love at a cellular level.

How our world becomes a home

For the next ingredient that makes Earth our home, you have to look beyond our planet and to our nearest star, to the Sun and the rays of light it sends our way. In the first part of this series, it's been mentioned how almost all life depends on the energy the Sun sends our way. Indeed, the "unconditional" aspect of the Sun's life-giving rays is likened to a twin flame relationship, however science also shows us that the Sun is far from a completely benevolent companion. Its radiant rain can be as dangerous as it is nourishing.

The reason for this is that what arrives from the Sun is far more than just what we can see - beyond the visible, on the higher end of the spectrum there is ultraviolet light, for example, and the UV spectrum has many effects, both beneficial and damaging, to human health. UVB, in particular, which gets through the Earth's atmosphere to reach us can be beneficial to life - we use it to produce vitamin D for instance, but because it is a higher energy it can also be extremely damaging. It can damage DNA, and it can burn our skin (as well as give us a sun tan), and ultimately can cause skin cancer.

However, pigments are one of the ways life has evolved to take on the Sun's powerful living light by using chemistry to increase chances of our survival from high energy ultraviolet photons raining down from the Sun. They can be seen at work on our skin. Skin pigmentation in humans evolved to primarily regulate the amount of ultraviolet radiation penetrating the skin, controlling its biochemical effects. If UVB rays hit the DNA on skin, they damage the DNA, and the solution is our skin produces the pigment called melanin.

Melanin is a sea of electrons which behaves to quickly dissipate the high energy from a potentially threatening photon from the Sun - absorbed to dissipate away as heat, and the natural skin colour darkening as a result. It is so efficient that over 99.9% of the harmful radiation is absorbed, and so melanin can help protect us from the potentially harmful effects of the Sun.

Thus although the Sun gives us life, its energy and rays have to be treated with respect, and due care, and in twin flame relationships, the love of your twin flame can be described as the pigment melanin on the skin of the relationship, absorbing negativity from life's challenges. It increases chances of a relationship's survival, but it needs our help. To illustrate the point, I am always reminded of the Benin tribe in West Africa, who follow the cult of the hand. The Benin tribe's religion sanctified hands and heads, the idea being that what you were born with in the way of brains you were born with, but what you did with your hands subsequently was a question of choice. And as we can make or break or relationships, we can also make or break our complex relationship with the nature and our planet.

We can strengthen our hand by doing the right thing when it comes to both, because although pigmentation protects us from the harmful rays of the Sun, by disrespecting the environment we interfere with the ingredients of our planet that help house all life on its surface. Life is resourceful at dealing with the challenges to survive, and we can learn a lot from the science that shows us life is a survivor.

For example, nature did not just use pigments to dissipate energy to protect us, but also used it to harness the energy for its own ends. By doing so, it transformed our planet by introducing a wonderful new ingredient - our life sustaining atmosphere. Thus we can use twin flame by harnessing its energy, and being respectful of that love, to build a home for it within a relationship based on its own "science" of absolute trust and open honesty. Only in such a healthy atmosphere can the fire of twin flame love burn well.

Earth has an atmosphere unlike any other we know of in the universe. Only in the air of our world do fires burn. Only on our world has a gas we call oxygen been released to allow complex life to evolve. This is down to an evolutionary process called oxygenic photosynthesis, where ancient bacteria first used pigment to split water apart to make food. In doing so it turned our molten planet green, and created an incredibly complex process that essentially harnesses energy from sunlight to make energy for the cell, and eventually turns it into sugars as food for the cell.

Interestingly, science shows us that this complex process is actually two systems joined together, and it was only when life coupled these two biological machines together could water be split apart and turned into food. It is a fitting analogy for twin flame love, where for love to be turned into food that sustains us, there is a process just as complex as oxygenic photosynthesis at work. Nature's most important process, which released oxygen into the atmosphere, is a coupling itself, and every tree, every plant, every blade of grass on the planet, everything that carries out oxgenic photosynthesis does it in exactly the same way as it was first done billions of years before - to eventually transform the face of our planet into a home.

And as the oxygen levels grew, the stage was set for the arrival of ever more complex creatures. But on Earth the arrival of complex life required a rather more tangible ingredient. Something that you can't see, touch or smell, and yet you pass through everyday. It is hidden in the biological clocks found in nature - and almost all life shares in these circadian rhythms. They are the evolutionary consequence of living on a spinning rock.

Our world turns on its axis once every 24 hours giving us a day on its billion kilometre journey around the Sun, and each orbit gives us a year. We live inside a celestial clock, one that has been ticking away for over 4.5 billion years - and that's a full third of the age of the universe. We are mindful, or should be, of that fact in our relationships, that our moments are precious, and that we need to allow ourselves time within those precious moments to nurture our love for each other. The best things take time, and come with time. Time, therefore, is the final ingredient that our home has provided.

We are here because our planet has been stable enough for long enough to allow evolution time to play when complex life began to explode in the oceans, and even further back than that - tracing back events of over 3.7 billion years ago on the primordial Earth. Looking back over that vast sweep of time, you could ask yourself the question: do you need such a long space of time to go from a simple form of life to something as complex as multi-cellular life - to a human being? The answer to the question is not known for sure, it seems you need vast expanses of time, but scientists just don't know because we only have one example - there is only one planet where we have been able to study the evolution of life, and it is this one.

And Earth, like love and relationships, is an interesting mixture of stability and upheaval. We are still striving for a better understanding of the birth and evolution of our planet, but during its evolution, when we look at how the ingredients to life came about, we see that it has had an environment which never completely conspired to wipe out life. But it has constantly thrown it challenges. And like the best challenges, the solutions are the very process of evolution to something better that will survive to thrive. Challenges have their purpose - they are the antithesis to stagnancy.

The deep time that our planet has given life has allowed it grow from a tiny seed of genetic possibility to the planet wide web of complexity we are part of today. Only a few of us have ever stepped outside of this world, but those that have, discovered something rather wonderful that told of the origins of their home. It must be innately human, the desire to understand how our home came to be the way that it is, and seen from space it may look like a fragile world (as our lives must seem to us), but seen by science it is a world that has been crafted and shaped by life for almost 4 billion years.

When we look at twin flame love as analogous to the workings in nature, we are on our way to understanding how we came to be here, but as astronauts who went to the Moon will have discovered from their wider perspective, the journey of discovery delivers much more than facts. It gives us a powerful perspective on the intricacy and beauty of life, love and home, and our place in it.

We are a universe governed by a simple set of natural laws, but the diversity of species is immense. These endless forms have emerged from a lifeless cosmos, from a lifeless cosmos ruled by the laws of physics and chemistry, and science had often asked how it is possible that a planet can produce so much wonderful, varied biology. And within each living thing lies a hidden world of complexity - our bodies are built from a diverse group of molecules, the most diverse group being proteins.

To this end, carbon is really the only element that has the appetite for bonding its electrons and sharing them with other molecules, with nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen, and critically with other carbons, to build up the immensely complex chains of amino acids and proteins which are the building blocks of life. And so carbon, like water, like the very pigments on our skin and the complex duo-process that gives us the very oxygen we breathe, can be analogous to twin flame love which itself harnesses the eternal universal energy of the cosmos.

Twin flame love has been described by some as a secret conduit to that energy (or Self) - like a catalyst that allows us to become who we are, the physical senses that send all the right impulses, the chemistry that bonds molecules together - not to make us more than we were before, but to make us more authentic than we were before. For only when we are true to Self, can we be true in a relationship.

Similarly, to understand our planet's endless diversity we have to begin by considering the life giving element of carbon, and the story of carbon stretches back long before there were even stars in the universe. Scientists tell us that almost 13.5 billion years ago, just a few hundred million years after the big bang, the universe was a carbon free zone. It was an infinite sterile gloom of hydrogen and helium clouds until those vast clouds began to collapse with the force of gravity. And long before the solar system, Earth or life existed, the first stars were born.

The birth of the first stars did much more than just illuminate the universe, because that's what set in motion a sequence of events which ultimately is necessary for the existence of life in the universe. And we can still see this playing out in the universe today. From the perspective of life in the universe, in the collapsing of galaxies new stars are formed from the death of old stars as helium nuclei come together to form carbon, a process which has been going on for almost the entire history of the universe for 13 billion years. And it is the formation of stars which is the vital first step in the formation of life, because stars produce the heavy elements in the universe, including carbon.

The forces that bind us together

From the universe's earliest times, carbon has been created inside ageing stars, and over time, this carbon has built up drifting through the cosmos as dust, until some of it was caught up in the formation of a planet we call home today. And on our planet, we can see how this ancient carbon has been brought vividly to life.

The universe is old enough now that countless stars have lived and died, and so there has been plenty of time to synthesise the primordial hydrogen and helium into the heavy elements, and the question of how that carbon gets into the web of life today is answered easily enough. It enters via one ingredient - carbon dioxide, which plays a key role in photosynthesis. As the Sun rises the trees begin to photosynthesise, and everyday across the planet photosynthesis uses sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into simple sugars - what some call the harvesters of carbon.

From its origin in the death of stars, its capture by plants, through insects, mammals and on, the carbon cycle is the real circle of life; the relentless recycling of carbon through the food chain continues - some die so that others will live, as carbon leaps from branch to branch, across the great tree of life. And guiding it on its way, is just one very special form of chemistry. Every living thing is just a temporary living home for carbon atoms that existed long before there was life on Earth, and will exist long after Earth is gone. And the pattern of life, the information needed to build life (a tree or a human) from generation to generation is passed on in our DNA, a helical molecule with a backbone of carbon. And twin flames believer would say that twin flame love offers this "backbone"; as we the harvesters of its energy, through the complex processes of human interaction, reap sustenance from what we sow.

There was a time when the Earth appeared empty, yet 3.8 billion years ago life was already under-way in the form of tiny living specks that probably all shared the same biochemistry. Science says that every living thing on the planet today and every living thing that will ever exist on this planet was descended from that one speck. It is called the Last Universal Common Ancestor or LUCA - and just as the universe had its origin at the big bang, all life on this planet had its origin in that one moment.

Less than a billion years after the planet's formation, scientists say there was already life on Earth. It's possible the biochemistry of such life differs to living things today, and if so, it has long been extinct. It's also possible that the first life may not have been cellular, just living chemistry in the porous rocks in some ancient ocean. Scientists are not sure, but what is certain is that one day a population of organisms showed up with biochemistry that we would recognise. This was LUCA. The first expression of a form of life which in time would throw up a group of humans to emerge from Africa.

We don't know what LUCA looked like, or where it lived precisely, or how it lived, but we do know if you start to trace our ancestral line back over geological time-scales, over hundreds and thousands and millions and billions of years, there will be an unbroken line all the way back to LUCA. We know this because every living thing on the planet today shares the same biochemistry. We all have the same DNA, which code the same 20 amino acids, which build each and every one of life's same proteins that do very similar jobs whether you are a plant, bacterium or bipedal hominid like humans.

All life uses the same fundamental biology, be you bacteria, plant, bug or beast; your design comes from your DNA. This is why it's believed it is this molecule which holds the key to why life is so varied. And what are the natural processes that causes (relatively resistant) DNA to change? Part of the answer lies not on Earth but, once again, up amongst the stars. Cosmic rays in the form of protons from other stars hits the Earth, and hits DNA to change it. Thus some particle that began its life perhaps in a massive supernova explosion, or perhaps outside our galaxy, caused a mutation in DNA to bring about life as it is today.

Such mutations are an inevitable part of living on Earth. They are the first hint at how DNA and genes that code every living thing change from generation to generation. Mutations are the font in which innovation of living things flows. But cosmic rays are not the only way in which DNA can be altered. Natural background radiation from rocks, actions of chemicals and free radicals, errors when the code is copied - and then all those changes can be shuffled by sex and whole pieces of code transferred from species to species - so bit by bit in tiny steps, from generation to generation, the code is constantly randomly changing.

But while there is no doubt that random mutation does alter DNA, evolution is anything but random. The mathematics of probabilities tells us it can't be, because the chances of something with DNA as complex as our own appearing just by luck are very small. There are more possible combinations in our code than atoms in the observable universe. Thus there must be a non random element to evolution - a natural process which greatly restricts a universe of possibilities and shapes the outcome. We call it natural selection.

Over a vast sweep of time, as the shifting geological shape of the Earth changed, life diversified to find its own niche in a variety of habitats, which allows our DNA to change in amazing ways. The landscape of possibilities is narrowed by genes that persist because they best survive in their habitat, allowing to spread through the population - and this same law of natural selection applies to all life. There are some who hold the idea, due to the immense control humans have over their habitats today, that civilisation is ruining the human species making us less wise to our surroundings than tribes with primitive wisdom, but others decry this, saying that real selective pressures have nothing to do with intelligence, but with resistance to disease, and parasites, and hunger.

If you have a mutation that helps you in the struggle to survive, you are more likely to leave more offspring. And in the next generation that mutation is more likely to survive. The sieve of natural selection produces animals that are perfectly adapted to live in their environment, and even creating their own ecosystem. We live on an ever shifting dynamic world that creates islands in abundance. Earth's mountain ranges, river valleys and canyons all create islands for life where, over great swathes of time, life has evolved into diverse forms.

Twin flames can be said to be a form of "higher" natural selection - where we pass on our relationship successes, instead of swinging back and forth from generation to generation on a pendulum of errors, in fear of becoming our parents. The twin flame mythos is that the more twin flame relationships there are, the more loving families are created, and the more children that come from loving environments to ensure healthy (and more enlightened) future generations. And like twin flame love, it is the chemistry of carbon that allows for the existence of the DNA molecule that is able replicate itself and pass information on from generation to generation. There can be random changes in the structure of that molecule, mutations, and they are tested by their interaction with the environment and other living things. The ones that pass that test survive, and the ones that fail that test are lost.

The separation of living things on to such "islands", which may be physical, or just a different area of the same habitat, results in speciation - the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise, bringing about the explosion of living forms highly specialised to occupy niches within niches. These forms of natural selection scientists say is the explanation for the diversity of life on Earth, which 150 years ago Charles Darwin explained in his publication On the Origin of Species, and why life on Earth is so diverse and complex. The insight of Darwin's publication is still revealing itself to us; it describes how our complex tree of life has grown from a once desolate universe. Darwin wrote that there is grandeur in this view of life, and understanding how it happened, surely only adds to the wonder.

As precise as Albert Einstein's theories of relativity, and as profound as thermodynamics, Darwin has given us another universal law - evolution by natural selection. And if evolution is the law on our "island" of Earth, then it will apply throughout the cosmos. Which begs the question, could there be other trees of life amongst the stars? Although some fear other forms of life, it doesn't devalue the existence of our tree, because our tree is unique. It consists of thousands of branches, all interdependent on thousands of others, and the precise structure depends on chance events like shifting geology.

To illustrate this, look at a little piece of your world, your garden, or your park - because there will be life there, and it will be unique. There will be no where else like that in the universe, and that makes our tree from the sturdiest branch to the most fragile twig indescribably valuable. This uniqueness is shared by the small "island" created within a twin flame family, which makes it at once precious and tough, like a diamond gem stone.

And as twin flame love is evolved and constrained within our physical bodies and relationship, evolution doesn't have a free hand, either. It is constrained by the law of physics. The laws of physics governs the lives of all living things. Fundamental properties of the physical laws of nature act together to dictate how we live and how we perceive. We all live on the same planet, but at the same time can occupy different worlds. Shaped by natural selection, sculpted by evolution acting within the physical boundaries of nature, we are the results of evolution shaped by the laws of physics.

Point in being, the forces of nature and the physics of the size of life dominate us. Scientists have discovered that size has a profound effect on how you move, how you feed, even how long you live - and finally looking a little deeper into this may offer up insights into our own twin flame relationships. It's been noted that when something depends on the fundamental properties of the universe that means what goes for this planet, goes for planets anywhere, and thus what affects us, will affect us in our relationships, too. And here, science says it's your size that determines how the law of physics govern your life in your habitat - and which forces work where can depend on whether you are on ground or in water.

Science explains that not only is the relationship we have with the world around us dictated by our size, but our size also influences how energy itself flows through your body. We eat to provide energy to power our metabolisms, we have a high body temperature by keeping active, and the size we are has a direct effect on our metabolic rate, or the speed of life. Your size influences every aspect of your life, from the way you are built, to the way you move, and even how long you live - your size dictates how your interact with the universal laws of nature.

If size influences your form and construction, it determines how you experience the world and ultimately how long you have to enjoy it. The minimum size is set ultimately by the size of atoms and molecules, the fundamental building blocks of the universe. The maximum size on Earth is set by the size and mass of our planet, because it is the force of gravity that restricts the emergence of real giants - but within those constraints, evolution has conspired to produce a huge range in size of animals and plants, each beautifully adapted to exploit the niches available to them.

But like the protein that was there to begin with and was then inherited into all emerging lineages, twin flame love is a cellular force that can transcend size; it has its own gravity that bind us together in our relationship environments - and by extension to our relationship with the world. It has been said that if one could conclude as to the nature of the creator from the study of creation, then it would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles as they are so numerous, but what of us? If we continue our fondness to smash our shared past, to kill animals to extinction, to creating more intelligent killing machines, we will lose focus of some of the serious challenges facing our species at the threshold of this young millennium.

Why the science of twin flames is important

Our planet is faced by serious global challenges such as overpopulation, starvation, climate change and pollution, while some of the best minds of our times are telling us we are at a crossroads, or a point where we must make a choice. It is about looking ahead to see that the choices made will have the power to destroy our planet, each other, and civilisation as we have known it, or to transform it and take it to the next level.

But provoking people is easier than persuading them, and often such talk of planetary emergency runs the criticism of scaremongering. And if we are too harshly critical, we run the risk of being no better than the thing we criticise. Taking a higher ground can give us a clearer perspective, and rather than focus solely on the problems, can we address the problems facing us in a different way? What if we believed that we can clean up our water sources and our habitats, clean up energy and change the mistakes of the past?

We are told that our young are the first generation that has the power to destroy the human race, and they are going to have to decide whether to go for a deep change, or a slow death. This is not a new challenge. Looking back at how life evolved, we can see it has faced this challenge throughout the history of the universe; life is always on the balance between the deep changes of evolution and the slow death proclaimed by the second law of thermodynamics. But is there some way to align our actions with our heart, and tap into the spirit of love that exists within all of us - seemingly in defiance of the empirical clutches of science?

Humans always seem to need an event to rouse them - where something happens in your life that gets you on the right journey for you, and where you can believe in what you're doing to make a better world. Finding your twin flame can be that event. Some believe finding your twin flame is like searching for your doppelgänger; a unique person you're comfortable being completely naked with, a kind of human fusion, where two souls are fused in one body of a true love relationship.

Some describe it as tapping into our higher frequencies, or vibrations. Everything at the quantum level is believed to be vibrations - even down to the smells we sense - so why not the love we feel? To understand and explore love through the physical senses, while believing it works to transform you at a cellular level because it is from an eternal source that created the stars, and is as elemental as carbon, or protein as the building blocks in our lives makes love as natural - and miraculous - as the oxygen-rich atmosphere we breathe.

Does this view unduly raise our expectations of love? Some say it does, while others see it as too much of a good thing. And science tells us you can have too much of a good thing. Even too much vitamin D can be toxic, for example, while not all higher frequencies are beneficial, as the life giving Sun's rays show. This is why some twin flames "run" at first from a relationship, or need space from its sense of overwhelm. But the ideal of love needs to be housed in the practicality of a relationship, as fuel for its machinery. Rather than complicate, real love can simply and unify lives if we let it.

In every good relationship absence can make the heart grow fonder; every one needs mental and physical space at times, and twin flame love is about having the empathy to sense that redemption and forgiveness are bonding issues for the toughest challenges. But what matters most is how in the corners of all our hearts, love, and what it achieves, lives on - and that is something science has yet to explain. And the love we generate and give out contributes to tip the scales in favour of life's continuation. What we do in our everyday lives affects something much bigger than our personal lives.

Research suggests that television is more likely to make us feel emotional than any other medium; we are stagnating on our living room settees when love should be the medium to which we turn. Nothing transforms us as deeply as love, to drive us to be as great as our potential would have us be. Pay attention to the signs - to your gut, to your heart, to how you're interfacing with the outside world, and with awareness the transformation will start to begin.

Love is not only challenging, but an enlightening topic. The primary romantic relationship in our life is often a symptom of our situation - if we keep making the same mistakes over and over every time we choose a new mate then it speaks volumes about the attachments in our lives. This is not about transcending the relationship, but making the relationship transcendental - being able to see under the skin of a coupling to see the beauty that lies in the every day interactions of two people bonded by an investment in each other's lives.

Towards this end, the route to twin flame love is a window to a greater opportunity, where we can discover how to connect with the energy of all living things as members of one family. Science tells us this is so, and it also shows us that the power of change is crucial to our survival. Thus when we choose the path of forgiveness instead of revenge, when we choose the path of reconciliation instead of retribution, when we choose kindness and empathy we shall have chosen the catalysts for real change in our lives, and the world. It will be as rewarding for you, as the people's lives you touch with them.

Science, too, shows us that our decisions are not just about the personal crises in our lives. We are so connected to everyone else through genetic and social networks, and the way we all mix and merge and exchange information with one another, that we start to realise that we are not just changing our own lives, but are actually having an impact on the broader world. In effect, every child born from a twin flame relationship, or nurtured in one, is another strong link in a chain love forges to bind us tighter together. It's about improving the quality of life for people all over the planet.

Join the tribe of humanity.

So, in order to make that change - for the world to become the love it wants to receive - the world inside us has to shift to trust and believe that true love is possible. It is the power of love that gives us the faith and courage of our convictions to believe that everyone can make a positive difference. And if we need to know anything about the science of attraction, then it is this confidence that makes us truly attractive.

When we love each other well, we are making a conscious decision to make a better world, by identifying with the universal culture of love to bind our identities together. If we all make the commitment to align with our twin flame energies, it means we align with the eternal energy that science describes makes up the universe, to take that leap of faith, and enjoy and embrace the persistence of life to endure - as it has been doing, since the birth of the first stars gave light to the universe from which all love flows.

Read the complete three-part series: -1 -2

Yours in love,