M : We learn by practice. If you see someone needing your help, needing your love, you try to express your highest love, your highest helpfulness to them; and by doing it all the time it becomes your nature. Once it becomes second nature, it will never go away. And that's how you acquire it -- not really acquire, you reclaim it. You always have it! It's just that you have to express it! Like you say, "Oh, I love you, I love you!" But what do you do to show it?

Like yesterday, I told you how to take care of your husbands and wives. Even if you call it a "loveless relationship", you have to work at it. After a while your love will become his love as well. Then, mingled together, your loving relationship is reborn again. For example, we women always say that the men run after us. Why don't you run after the men?

Try a new style. Imprint your own life-style. Instead of waiting for the man to buy you a rose or the husband to buy you a rose, why don't you buy him one? I always bought flowers for my husband when we were together. He bought me flowers too, but I didn't always wait. You just be the one you wish him or her to be, or whoever that is with you, to be, then that person can learn too. Maybe he is shy, or maybe the person you come into contact with is shy and doesn't know how to express themselves. You have to be bold and make the move. Show the world. Teach them, lead them. Let them more freely express their feelings through your actions. Not just, "love you, love you" and don't do anything about it.

If you love your husband, hug him when he comes home. Hug him whenever you can. For no reason, give him a present, or give your wife a present. Even not on a birthday, anytime, every day. Renew your love, show your feelings. Don't just say, "I love you. You know that already, don't you honey?" She may know, but she may not know. He may know, he may not know. Men, women are always insecure, "There are a lot of men and women out there! Why me? Why does he loves me? How can he? I'm so ugly, I'm so imperfect. How can he loves me?" He does! But we cannot help feeling insecure sometimes. So renew your love, express it all the time. Then it becomes unconditional because the other knows, "Oh, I'm not perfect. I know I'm not perfect. I made this mistake, that mistake, but she still loves me." And that is unconditional. Practice it. Don't just talk. Do something! Do something all the time.

There is another kind of practice. Easy! You walk on the streets all the time. If you see someone who needs help, just help him and then leave! You see a homeless person on the street, standing there hungry, just hand him some bills and leave! An old woman walking across the street, help her across the traffic lights slowly, lovingly, like a daughter; and leave. Do anything like that all the time. Your neighbor has trouble -- write a loving letter and pop it in the letter-box and leave! Sign your name if you want; if you don't, don't have to also. Or just do something unexpectedly. Anything.

Sometimes you have to look out for the opportunities to serve and to practice unconditional love. Normally you scold your daughter and son all the time. Now instead, reflect. Sit down and see what their needs are. Surprise them with some loving gesture, some loving present, something they've asked for for so long. It's harmless, it's good for them! Don't wait for Christmas! Well, at least Jesus was born, so that you give each other something each year. Any day you can do it, make an excuse even. On your birthday, instead of asking people to buy presents for you, buy presents for the poor people you know. Christmas: instead of waiting to get presents, buy presents for the people you know; or on the streets even, people you don't know also. If you go and seek all the homeless, give them presents. That's the best Christmas.

"Ching Hai Day" if you say you love me so much, buy presents for people, for the loved ones, for the initiate you love, for your husband, for your wife. Don't spend too much money, don't have to! Just something in appreciation. If someone is really in need of something and you know he misses it and you can afford it, then help him! -- anonymously. Something like that. Very easy to practice unconditional love all the time, because it's a natural thing to do. I could think of many other examples. You have to know it's a good practice. For example "Ching Hai Day" you don't always have to celebrate on a grand scale. You can celebrate privately -- to celebrate the love that Christ has imparted to us. To celebrate the unconditional way He sacrificed for humankind. So we can do that on any occasion to remind us of the loving kindness within ourselves.

Hug your colleague! Tell her she is good, she is okay because she sometimes has an inferiority complex; has a problem of her own. Forgive the one who always hates you and picks on you -- buy her a present, compliment her on her dress, make her feel happy as a human being. They can hate you, they can make trouble for you, but you have to always be kind and loving. Their way is hatred and revenge, your way is kindness and loving. We have to choose our own way despite the situation.

The same with journalists or something. If they want to come, they want to interview -- treat them kindly, give them the information they need. Whatever they write is their problem. We have to do our best. Always treat everyone with kindness, compliments and sincerity. Don't push them out. If they want to know you, it's fine, let them know. Tell them that we are spiritual practitioners, that we are not good at formulating headlines, we probably don't know how to speak. So ask them to try their best, to make the best out of whatever they can.

We are not professional preachers, not professional lecturers. So sometimes when we talk, we fumble about here and there. That's why we are afraid of interviews -- wastes their time and perhaps don't know how to bring the information to fulfill their wish. Just warn them like that. Don't push them away.

Have to treat them kindly, because they also have to do their job. They have to earn their living. They are struggling just like you are for survival in this world. It happens that they have to be journalists not by choice or by situation. So we help them to gain more knowledge, to gain a better understanding about us, instead of blaming them or disliking them for what they have written. They just have the wrong information, so you have to supply them the right one. After all your best efforts trying to supply everything and they still write bad things, which has happened many times to me, it's okay too. Forgive them! That's unconditional love too. You see, opportunities all the time, everywhere!