Love After Increased Consciousness

[eskwire]

So, luckily, this video just went up where Peter Ralston discusses love and compassion. I had some confusion about this.

After having some transcendent experiences, my capacity to love (as I previously understood it) diminished. The loyalty and weighty concern about individual people have lifted. And I expected it to be replaced by an unconditional emotion of love for humanity. Instead, I just don't really care. The flipside of that is that I am more present during interactions. Also, the converse feelings of frustration, disappointment, and hatred have lifted. 

Basically, the egoic love is gone. The one with expectations, riddled with needs deficiencies. But I expected a replacement with something altruistic and analogous. That didn't happen. Does anyone else have a similar experience?

[faith]

Hi Eskwire,

I am undergoing similar experience. I am having trouble connecting to my girlfriend. She misses the old me who was always smiling and had a zest for life, but if you ask me, I feel so much more at peace and comfortable with who I am now than ever before. But I don't know how to love anymore, it seems, I, just like you, don't care. I would like to appreciate my girlfriend and my parents, and everyone I come into contact with, but the compassion is not there. I don't understand it myself.

[eskwire]

@ashashlov Right, it's like the compassion is there in that everything is clearer and not caught up in what *I* wanted, needed, believed, etc. But it doesn't feel like anything. 

My aunt thinks my heart has turned into a lump of coal, but I feel less hateful, more peaceful, than ever. 

Edit. Take that back. My heart was a hateful lump of coal for a while. She probably remembers that. 

Edited April 27, 2017 by eskwire

[Martin123]

@eskwire it will grow

[faith]

I was angry and confused for a while too, but things have more clarity now, less doubts, better handle on values, yet............where is all that love that the Buddha preached? If anything I feel indifference, which according to Jack Kornfield, is the near enemy of peace (aka equanimity). Jack's books have been a gift sent from heaven and what gave me faith in spirituality in the first place. Here is an interesting excerpt from an article related to Jack's idea of near enemies in spirituality:

The ego, like the quick hand of a three-card Monte dealer, can be creatively deceptive — now you see it, now you don’t. The ego deceptions masquerading as spirituality are legion. I call them the near enemies of spirituality. Far enemies, like the seven deadly sins, are so clearly antithetical to spirituality, you won’t have trouble spotting them in yourself and others: anger, greed, jealousy, insatiable lust, hatred, violence, restlessness, apathy, laziness, and so forth. But near enemies appear so much like genuine spirituality that the ego lurking behind the mask continues to run the show — the tail wags the dog.

Here is the full source:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernard-starr/buddhism-near-enemies_b_870911.html

[faith]

According to Jack, the near enemies are as follows:

• The near enemy of compassion is pity.
• The near enemy of loving-kindness is attachment.
• The near enemy of equanimity is indifference.
• The near enemy of joy for others is jealousy/comparison.

Jack says that in spirituality, these things are hard to spot because they mask themselves so that you feel like you're being more and more spiritual, but it's actually the ego resisting. It's really interesting, worth contemplating about.

 

[eskwire]

@ashashlov Ha! I wondered if it was a back to square one issue.

But I also considered it to be part of a transitional period, as @Martin123 said. Maybe our whole concept of love just got shattered and now there is a new process beginning. 

[Prabhaker]

30 minutes ago, eskwire said:

Love After Increased Consciousness (as I previously understood it) diminished

A relationship is a lower state. The highest state of love is not a relationship at all, it is simply a state of your being. 

38 minutes ago, eskwire said:

And I expected it to be replaced by an unconditional emotion of love for humanity.

Here, you have to learn…just being loving. If you grow in love, meditation will happen like a shadow. Love and meditation are two aspects of the same coin; if you have gained control of the one aspect, the other follows. If you meditate, love will follow; if you love, meditation will follow. This you have to choose. Meditation is easier, love is difficult. Unless you want to move into the difficult unnecessarily – that is for you to decide; otherwise with meditation love comes automatically.

[Martin123]

@Prabhaker holy shit I so disagree on the love being harder part.

It is very individualistic.

[Prabhaker]

Just now, Martin123 said:

I so disagree on the love being harder part

Whole modern education consists of reasoning, logic, intellect, mind. To much emphasis on intellect and reason makes us lopsided. And love is not capacity of intellect , it has a different focus.

[Martin123]

@Prabhaker il. I feel like the system failed to sheep me down. Always been a stubborn kid with dreams of love and harmony.

But nevertheless my path to love started with meditetion. Now love is my path to god.

[Martin123]

@Prabhaker but the more I love the less im tolerant to the system. Im a student and studying is becoming more and more difficult.

It no longer feels like im in the same world as my fellow schoolmates and lecturers. We speak a different language.

Edited April 27, 2017 by Martin123

[Prabhaker]

8 minutes ago, Martin123 said:

the more I love the less im tolerant to the system.

That’s what is happening to you: somehow you have been blocking your love energy. May you are expecting love from others , in return. Love is an unconditional gift, it is not a bargain. Shower as much love as possible, and let it be unconditional, with no expectations. Just give it for the sheer joy of giving... not even for the future, hoping some day you get returns. The moment the idea of return enters into the mind, love dies.

[Toby]

Meditation is a good test if the love is even real. If you cannot sit still in silence for 15 minutes it's probably not love that you are tapping into. Love is your very being and can only be accessed through being silent. At least that is my experience.

Edited April 27, 2017 by Toby

[Martin123]

@Prabhaker true words son.

I love you

[Martin123]

@Toby I used to meditate on hours on end but then it somehow became redundant. Now I meditate rarely. There are still times meditation practice is welcome.

[electroBeam]

@eskwire

Do you still feel connected to the body mind in any way? Because love comes when no separations are present. When you become whole, that's when love is produced. 

With increased frustration etc, it sounds to me like an egoic reaction to a heightened state, which egoic reactions always come, but always go away after a while.

[Toby]

2 hours ago, eskwire said:

After having some transcendent experiences, my capacity to love (as I previously understood it) diminished. The loyalty and weighty concern about individual people have lifted. And I expected it to be replaced by an unconditional emotion of love for humanity. Instead, I just don't really care. The flipside of that is that I am more present during interactions. Also, the converse feelings of frustration, disappointment, and hatred have lifted. 

Basically, the egoic love is gone. The one with expectations, riddled with needs deficiencies. But I expected a replacement with something altruistic and analogous. That didn't happen. Does anyone else have a similar experience?

This is normal. A lot of people have similar experiences. (Adya also talks about certain traps - the state you describe is one of them - in his "End of Your World" audiobook).

@Martin123 If you can rest in your being without formal meditation that's fine too I guess.

Edited April 27, 2017 by Toby

[WelcometoReality]

@eskwire The trancendence is freeing in many ways but it's a birds eye view. It's like taking an elevator up to the highest point in a tower and looking down. It's detachment from everything you see down there. In one sense it is complete. You have seen truth and you will never forget that.

On the other hand it's not a big trancending moment and BOOM it's done. It's a continous deepening of the realization. The elevator will start to go down and you will get a more complete view of truth.

You have learned alot about spirituality and you have expectations based on them. It is only theoretical. Drop it and let the experience guide you.

[eskwire]

9 hours ago, electroBeam said:

@eskwire

Do you still feel connected to the body mind in any way? Because love comes when no separations are present. When you become whole, that's when love is produced. 

With increased frustration etc, it sounds to me like an egoic reaction to a heightened state, which egoic reactions always come, but always go away after a while.

Frustration is gone not increased. 

I did not feel love during my enlightenment experiences.