Can love be cultivated?

Jiddu Krishnamurti once stated that love cannot be cultivated, a view many people contest. However, his statement holds true, at least in the conventional sense of cultivation.

Love is not something that can be manufactured through deliberate effort or willpower. The common understanding of cultivation suggests that through discipline, practice, or determination, one can bring love into being. But authentic love doesn’t arise from such efforts — it emerges spontaneously and naturally. It cannot be forced into existence, and Erich Fromm’s suggestion that love can be deliberately cultivated misses this essential point.

Thich Nhat Hanh’s teaching, “to understand is to love,” sheds light on the nature of love as something that arises not from an act of will but from a deep insight into the essence of others and ourselves. Genuine love is the natural response to truly understanding someone’s suffering, vulnerabilities, and humanity. This understanding doesn’t come from judgment or intellectual analysis, but from recognizing our shared fragility and interconnectedness. When you see that the person before you is not separate from yourself but a reflection — an extension of your own being — empathy and love naturally flow without effort.

The love born of understanding is authentic because it is not shaped by external pressures or ideals. It’s not a duty or…