The entire law is summed up in a single command, "Love your neighbor as yourself." -Galatians 5:14 (New International Version)

From "Survival of the Most Loving" by Bruce Lipton, Spirituality and Health Magazine (September/October 2005):

You may agree that love is noble, but you may not believe that it can prevail in these times when survival of the fittest may seem more probable. Isn't Darwin right - that violence is at the core of life? Not necessarily.

Chimps, who are the closest to humans genetically, offer evidence that violence is not a necessary part of our biology. One species, the bonobos, creates peaceful communities with codominant males and females, with an ethic that can be described as "make love, not war." When they become agitated, they diffuse their divisive energy by having sex.

Stanford University biologists Robert M. Sapolsy and Lisa J. Share recently found that even wild baboons, among the most aggressive animals on the planet, are not genetically mandated to be violent.

In one well-studied baboon troop, the aggressive males died out from contaminated meat they foraged from a tourist garbage pit. In the wake of their deaths, the social structure of the troop was reinvented. Research suggests that females helped steer the remaining, less aggressive males into more cooperative behaviors, which led to a uniquely peaceful community. In an editorial in Public Library of Science Biology

, where the Stanford research was published, chimp researcher Fran B. M. de Waal of Emory University wrote: "Even the fiercest primates do not forever need to stay this way."

Most human violence is neither necessary nor inherent. And Survival of the Most Loving is the only ethic that will ensure not only a healthy personal life but a healthy planet.

Adapted from "The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, & Miracles" by Bruce Lipton, Ph.D. (c 2005 Bruce Lipton, Elite Books, EliteBooks.biz).