“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”

— Dalai Lama

Introduction

The Law of Oneness Implies Universal Love

Universal love becomes a natural consequence when we realize that all is one.

Once we dispel the veil of separation that divides us by caste, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, politics, belief, class, or gender, understanding the law of love becomes instant and intuitive.

Since every object, creature, person, soul, planet, galaxy, or universe is not separate from us, their “stuff” is ours, and vice versa.

Every positive, growth-fostering thought, emotion, and action we send out nourishes others and benefits us.

Love happens when we take action that enlarges others’ perspectives, fosters their growth, brings them happiness, resolves their problems, contributes to their well-being, or enhances their prosperity or functionality.

The opposite of love is strife, where we limit another’s growth, perspective, wisdom, well-being, or freedom.

Every act of love opens the mind and soul, connecting us to others until we learn to give for its own sake, without asking for anything in return.

Every act of selfishness narrows the mind, leading us to fall into the illusion of the false self, or ego.

When we love, we dispel that ego and work towards mystical union with others and the all-that-there-is.

Universal and Unconditional Love

The universal love that I speak of is not the kind that a mother gives to her child, the erotic love between lovers, or the beneficial love that comes from marriages of convenience.

I speak of a universalizing, all-encompassing, and cosmic love founded on the principles of universal brotherhood and sisterhood.

It is the kind of love that transcends human boundaries and concepts, which we freely give to others unconditionally.

However, because we are still spiritual beings with a human experience, we cannot fully manifest the kind of intense cosmic love that many near-death experiences have witnessed or felt.[1]

However, we can balance the merits of this cosmic love with the human form.

This means manifesting higher, more encompassing forms of love whenever possible in comprehensible human ways.

However, this is not always possible, as we express love from our current spiritual perspective and level of development.

A person who has a very narrow perspective may believe that love is simply about animalistic sex.

One who lives by a materialistic framework may love others for mutual benefits. Marriages become a contract where one partner provides children and can be divorced if they are impotent.

One who advances to a more relational framework may love one out of passion and the heat of “romantic love.” However, this risks the chance of severe attachment and co-dependency, leading to intense jealousy and possessiveness.

However, when one’s spiritual worldview expands to the whole, love becomes universalized and inclusive. We love someone because they are fragments of the all-that-there-is.

When we love them, we pay homage to their most fundamental nature: free will. We hence perform acts that broaden their capacity for growth and expansion, free from the limitations of earlier stages.

Tetris as an Analogy

The law of love suggests that we acknowledge and accept that everything in the cosmos has value and purpose, no matter how big or small.

In Tetris, one often favors a specific tetromino. Many believe that some pieces are necessarily “better” than others.

However, if one dissolves into the cosmic reality and perceives the panoramic nature of everything, then everything serves a function.

All seven unique tetrominoes have distinct values and purposes, and all are integral to the whole. The whole cannot make do without them.

The S and Z Pieces

For instance, the S and Z pieces are often the best for making T-spin overhangs (roofs).

As a reminder, T-spins are just the main offensive attack in Tetris. It has a T-shaped cavity into which you must insert a T-mino. When it concludes, you pummel your opponent with massive damage.

However, it needs an overhang: the “roof” that lets you insert a T piece underneath:

Diagram Set 6-1
1	2

A T-spin mid-game opportunity exists.

The Z piece is the perfect piece to complete the T-spin setup’s overhang.

In the above situation, a Z piece is the best piece to quickly make a T-spin overhang. If the field is mirrored (left becomes right), you can use the S piece instead.

The O Piece

In some situations, you cannot use a Z piece to make a T-spin overhang. Hence, an O piece might be better:

Diagram Set 6-2
1	2

A T-spin mid-game opportunity exists.

The O piece perfectly fits over the T-shaped cavity, creating an overhang for the T-spin.

The L and J Pieces

Now, let us consider other pieces.

L and J pieces are ideal for flattening the stack:

Diagram Set 6-3
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A rather jagged field.

The L and J pieces are the best for flattening the field and keeping your stacking neat!

What if you use Z and T pieces to flatten the stack? You get a disaster:

Diagram Set 6-4
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A rather jagged field.

The Z and T pieces make the stack even more jagged.

The I Piece

What is the optimal use of the tall I piece? Let us consider:

Diagram Set 6-5
1	2

You placed an S piece incorrectly. It blocks the hole in column 3.

You fit L and J pieces around it and stack the lavender parts.

You insert a tall I piece into the leftmost cavity (column 1). This causes many lines to vanish.

After the line clears, you expose the hole in column 3. The field has been cleaned up!

Here, an I piece is the ideal piece to clean up a misplacement (the accidental placement of the S piece). It cleans up everything and leaves a perfectly clean aftermath!

Hence, each tetromino serves a distinct mathematical function in Tetris.

And just like in life, every creature — from the smallest cells to the most exalted human presidents — serves a divine role in the grand cosmic scheme.

Every being is part of the whole and should therefore be loved, included, cherished, and accepted.

Personal Applications

What does it mean to love on a personal level?

First, it is sometimes difficult to genuinely love another universally unless one has cultivated self-love.

To love oneself, two things can be done: (i) accepting and (ii) forgiving oneself.

Accepting Oneself

Many people face severe self-esteem issues, where they believe they must meet certain societal or cultural expectations to be loved by others.

If they do not reach a specific level of wealth, prestige, or social influence, like living like the Joneses, they deem themselves failures.

Unfortunately, many such people fall into depression, believing themselves to be a problem.

They fall into melancholy and cope with destructive habits such as drinking, gambling, sex, binge eating, smoking, drugs, doomscrolling on their phones, or partying to bury their problems.

The reality is that universal self-love has no conditions. You do not owe society or anyone anything to love yourself.

To begin, accept yourself. I invite you to imagine a garden metaphor.

In a typical garden, a typical gardener may prune away all kinds of weeds and insects. They may plant only specific types of plants or flowers, such as daisies, chrysanthemums, or lilies.

Weeds and insects are seen as pests to be eradicated, while only certain flowers or plants are allowed to exist.

However, in nature, before preconceptions, ego-based beliefs, expectations, and conditioning form, no gardeners favor some species and filter out the rest.

Every plant and creature exists in nature, living in harmony with one another. Each serves a specific purpose, and none are filtered out as inherently useless.

Hence, a perfect garden has no human judge to shape it in his image.

This is also true of human civilization. You do not need others to permit you to lead your life in your own unique way.

By simply accepting that you are both part and integral to the entire functioning whole of the cosmos, you are manifesting the divine nature of the One.

The One needs every being of every variety to be made manifest to ensure its own completeness.

Therefore, being a pauper or a millionaire are two sides of existence that must necessarily exist to complete the divine cosmic canvas.

With this realization, one can then simply be oneself and live authentically. Whether it is the pursuit of art, science, music, architecture, gaming, or one’s hobbies, living to the fullest of one’s given abilities is realizing the Tao within oneself.

One can then easily accept oneself.

Forgiving Oneself

Self-love cannot be complete until one has learned to forgive oneself.

There are no coincidences in life. Everything happens for a reason.

Based on my studies of the afterlife and near-death experiences, souls arrange certain milestone events in their lives.

Some may choose to go through difficult times or be abused to experience negativity and grow from that perspective.

Hence, many circumstances that you face, such as having made terrible mistakes in this life, may have arisen because you had planned for that to happen in this life.

Likewise, the ripples of one’s actions may never be truly known until decades or even centuries later.

One may blame oneself for not having done enough to care for one’s child. However, perhaps, thirty years later, that child may grow into a well-known president. Possibly, the child may have used that neglect to cultivate independence and self-sufficiency — vital skills for such a monumental task.

Even the janitor who believes himself to be useless may have unfelt ripples that culminate years later. He may have cleaned an entire apartment so well that it positively affected the mental state of a scientist who would then develop a Theory of Everything (TOE).

Hence, our inability to forgive ourselves can stem from our failure to recognize our role in the grander cosmic plan.

It can also come from being so identified with the ego that we fail to let it go.

A person may blame himself for losing his entire family’s fortune by making terrible business decisions that led to his company’s downfall.

He then falls into depression because he had grown so attached to outcomes and financial wealth — external things he uses to validate his ego.

Once you transcend the ego and see the greater cosmic picture, self-forgiveness becomes easier.

This is because every act of “failure” exists only as a temporary node that seems like a setback. However, with enough time, even the vaguest actions may lead to something more fruitful.

I illustrate this with how an expert turns a terrible situation into an offensive setup in Tetris:

Diagram Set 6-6
1	2

The player makes a terrible mistake: he places the I piece incorrectly, and it butchers the stack.

However, the player does not panic; he inserts a J piece, clearing 1 row.

This shapes the field into a T-spin.

He inserts the T piece, completing the T-spin.

In step 1, the player makes a tragic mistake. The field seems doomed.

However, this problem is short-lived. In steps 2 to 4, the player strategically places pieces to create a T-spin. The T-spin cleanly exposes the next garbage hole in step 4.

Hence, cleanliness is restored in the long run.

Analogously, “failures” are what we see in the short term. Our conquest and forgiveness of them become long-term successes.

When one sees an ugly tree, it is easy to miss the pristine forest that lies ahead.

Social and Global Applications

Cultivating Universal Love as an Individual

Cultivating universal love begins with perspective and employs a simple reinforcement system from psychology.

Just as we train birds to behave by rewarding them with food, we can train our brains to choose love over hate with simple reinforcements.

The following is my method:

First, take solitary, meditative trips through nature or botanical gardens. Talk to every tree, flower, fungus, lichen, grass, weed, or fern, either out loud or in your mind.

Greet them like people, and confer your blessings upon them by wishing the best for their prosperity and well-being. Accept their role in the park’s ecological, hydrological, or soil cycles.

Next, expand this awareness to animals. Visit zoos or nature reserves to interact with animals. Be it a squirrel or a marmoset, talk to them and cuddle them as if you were treating them as your children (unless they bite or scratch!).

Then, one can move on to people, starting with one’s family. For instance, one can begin conferring more acts of love, such as gifts or counsel, to one’s aging parents. Then, one can move on to helping one’s friends.

One can then move on to the societal and global levels. I often like to walk to the nearby supermall, NEX, from my home. In my head, I would wish others well and bless them to cultivate my love for them (although overcoming my social shyness is still quite challenging).

Doing this eventually dismantles former ego-based separations and rewires the brain towards inclusivity.

Changing the Planetary Mindset towards Universal Love

When enough people embody universal love at the individual level, they can amass and manifest it globally.

Imagine the extreme wealth inequality in the United States.

The top 1% of American households now control one-third of the nation’s wealth while the bottom 50% collectively hold just 2.5%.[2]

Mega corporations, such as Boeing and Monsanto, have maximized profits above all else, rather than ensuring engineering quality and workers’ welfare.

When a new society based on universal love takes root, these corporations can evolve into a socialist, egalitarian system that treats workers well and pays them much better.

Love Defines a Civilization

We may never know how true some alien or UFO stories are. However, their ideas are worth reflecting on (and, admittedly, I find them fun to read!).

I read somewhere in UFO mythology that extraterrestrials who have visited Earth commented on something remarkable.[3]

Because of its technological achievements, humanity regards itself as a civilization. However, in the visitors’ eyes, humans have yet to realize even the first letter of the word “civilization.”

As the famous Taoist, Zhuangzi, would say, there are no universal standards. Everything is relative.

What is a 10,000-square-foot mansion of unimaginable luxury to a commoner would be just a place of squalor to the Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, who owns a skyscraper for a house called Antilia.

Using terminology from Michael Teachings (a system of spiritual self-understanding), Earth is a mid-cycle planet with a young-soul mentality. This corresponds to Ken Wilber’s rational stage, which is what most people on Earth resonate with.[4]

In layperson terms, this means our planet’s average consciousness level elevates external achievement, prestige, technology, and materialism above all else.

Judged from a less expansive young-soul perspective, our civilization can be considered “advanced.”

The more expansive Michael Teachings soul ages of mature and old age (or the pluralistic and integral stages in Ken Wilber’s Integral philosophy) are based more on true compassion and understanding human value.

If we judge humanity by this expanded perspective, humanity lacks the collective empathy to care for its less fortunate. It also lacks philosophical, artistic, and spiritual depth.

From this angle, human civilization is not advanced.

Let us assume for a moment that the earlier-mentioned UFO stories are true. What will advanced aliens who are far more developed intellectually and spiritually think of us?

Can we truly call ourselves a civilization when the following is true?

More than half of people in the USA are living paycheck to paycheck, while the wealthiest 1% own roughly a third of the country’s wealth.
BlackRock and Blackstone are monopolizing and buying up property and assets worldwide to the point where they drive rentals and mortgages so high, yet half of New York’s Billionaires Row apartments are half-empty (because the billionaires bought them only as investments).
Innocent women and children in Palestine are being killed in a military campaign funded in part by US congressional approval.
People working at some large e-commerce corporations are working in tight conditions, with their toilet breaks so tightly controlled.
Workers at McDonald’s who scavenge leftover burgers and give them to the poor are fired the next day.
There are literally prisoners living in solitary confinement for over a year in some developed countries.
Humanity as a whole fails to uphold the Paris Agreement and reduce its carbon footprint to manageable levels.
Monsanto has sued farmers whose fields were found to contain its patented GM crops, even when contamination may have occurred through wind or cross-pollination.
When there are cocoa farmers in West Africa who earn only a small amount for their labor because middlemen appropriate much of the value, keeping most of the profit as cocoa is sold into developed markets.
When people, such as Elizabeth Holmes or Bernie Madoff, appropriate billions of dollars from people in elaborate scams and Ponzi schemes.

Without a civilization that truly loves its people, humanity cannot truly be considered a civilization.

Hence, my proposal for a new Earth:

Have large corporations be subordinated to a global governance in regulating their practices and have them redistribute wealth.
Prevent billionaires or large corporations from funding political candidates beyond a certain amount.
Move towards the mass demilitarization of the planet, keeping only a bare-minimum military for enforcement and emergency purposes.[5]
End dollar hegemony and move towards a fairer multipolar system.
Regulate the market and vastly reduce the speculative elements. Stocks should reflect actual productivity, not paper growth from bubbles.
Create a universal basic income for all humans.
Stipulate a far fairer system, in which the wealth and income gaps between the richest and the poorest may not be beyond five times.
Create a universally free social security and health system for all.
Cut down on government corruption that arises from crony capitalism, nepotism, or plutocracy. Ensure more even, grassroots-democratic representation for people from all social classes.
Ensure that no social groups are disadvantaged economically or are segregated.
Create a system where economic and technological growth is no longer central. Instead, they are subordinated to one primary goal: elevating the individual so they may self-actualize or trans-actualize.
Create a far cleaner green economy, where wealth is sustainable.
Ensure work-life balance and fulfillment in employees.

Prison Systems

Prison systems in the US are known for their extremely penalizing environments.

Often, the inmates are not treated with basic decency, resulting in Amnesty International and the United Nations labeling it as a human rights issue.

While many of them have carried out many extreme deeds, such as murder, my purpose is not to dismiss the harm that they have done.

Many people or governments may go tough on them, but I feel that this is founded on an us-versus-them mentality, where prisoners are sometimes demonized as a justification for their harsh treatment.

As a sociology master’s degree holder, I know that socioeconomic disadvantage is one of the strongest predictors of involvement in certain forms of crime.[6]

A person born into an underprivileged neighborhood would be subject to negative influences from peers who may wish to break the law.

They may have fewer educational opportunities, suffer from neglect, domestic abuse, nutritional deficits, and inadequate social resources or counseling.

In certain countries like the UK and the US, people born into less privileged social classes, who are also minorities or underrepresented groups, experience this in a more magnified manner.[7]

Some are then compelled to carry out certain crimes because of the necessity to pay the next month’s rent or risk homelessness.

As such, half of their crimes arise from sociological or structural factors.

In the US, where billionaire oligarchs own much of the country’s wealth and monopolize assets that raise the cost of rent, goods, and services, the poor are pushed into more dire circumstances.

According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, ending homelessness in America would require an annual investment of around $20 billion.[8]

Likewise, if the US halved its military budget, it could free up funds to implement a universal health system like Canada’s.

Yet these are not being pursued because politicians protect upper-class interests at the expense of the poor.

When we understand how broader sociological limitations contribute to crime, we can then show empathy towards many inmates who are forced by circumstances to commit certain crimes.

And with this broader awareness, we can dispel the us-versus-them perspective, where prisoners are demonized, and reform certain countries’ prison systems towards rehabilitation and humanization.

The Scandinavian countries already do an effective job of humanizing prisons.

Prisoners do not need to wear prison attire, are given a room with generous provisions and decorations, and are assigned a prison guard who also serves as a counselor and supervisor and interacts positively with them.

The result is a very low recidivism rate in the Scandinavian countries, with a system that focuses on rehabilitation.

This happens when our social institutions are empowered by the law of love.

[1] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is frequently popularized with the phrase “spiritual beings having a human experience.” For NDE accounts of overwhelming divine love, see Kenneth Ring, Heading Toward Omega (1984); Raymond Moody, Life After Life (1975).

[2] Federal Reserve Distributional Financial Accounts (2025); Bloomberg, “US Inequality Hits Postwar High” (January 21, 2026).

[3] Stefan Denaerde (Adrian Beers), UFO Contact from Planet Iarga (1969), originally published in Dutch as Buitenaardse Beschaving. See also Michel Desmarquet, Thiaoouba Prophecy (1993). The extraterrestrial Thao’s central message: spiritual development must precede technological advancement, or civilizational collapse follows.

[4] On the Michael Teachings’ soul ages, see José Stevens and Simon Warwick-Smith, The Michael Handbook (1990); on Ken Wilber’s developmental stages, see Ken Wilber, Integral Psychology (2000).

[5] And maybe against an alien invasion, haha, very funny.

[6] Robert Merton, “Social Structure and Anomie,” American Sociological Review (1938); see also Clifford Shaw and Henry D. McKay, Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas (1942) on how structural poverty drives localized crime rates.

[7] bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman (1981). Shows how race, gender, and class intersect to magnify disadvantage for marginalized groups.

[8] US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), cited in Global Giving, “How Much Would It Cost to End Homelessness in America?” (2023).