What is Love?

[Zigzag Idiot]

What is Love? Are there different kinds of love?

[Zigzag Idiot]

 

I need to watch this one again.

A Course in Miracles says Love can have no opposite because it's all encompassing.

Also the idea that 'the special relationship' is a fallacy, if not actually pathological.

[outlandish]

 

[MsNobody]

 what is love?

It depends. There are as many loves as there are people. Love is a hierarchy, from the lowest rung to the highest, from sex to super-consciousness. There are many, many layers, many planes of love. It all depends on you. If you are existing on the lowest rung, you will have a totally different idea of love than the person who is existing on the highest rung. Adolf Hitler will have one idea of love, Gautam Buddha another; and they will be diametrically opposite, because they are at two extremes.

At the lowest, love is a kind of politics, power politics. Wherever love is contaminated by the idea of domination, it is politics. Whether you call it politics or not is not the question, it is political. And millions of people never know anything about love except this politics – the politics that exists between husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. It is politics, the whole thing is political: you want to dominate the other, you enjoy domination.

And love is nothing but politics sugar-coated, a bitter pill sugar-coated. You talk about love but the deep desire is to exploit the other. And I am not saying that you are doing it deliberately or consciously – you are not that conscious yet. You cannot do it deliberately; it is an unconscious mechanism.

Hence so much possessiveness and so much jealousy become a part, an intrinsic part, of your love. That’s why love creates more misery than joy. Ninety-nine percent of it is bitter; there is only that one percent of sugar that you have coated on top of it. And sooner or later that sugar disappears.

When you are in the beginning of a love affair, those honeymoon days, you taste something sweet. Soon that sugar wears off, and the realities start appearing in stark nakedness and the whole thing becomes ugly.

Millions of people have decided not to love human beings any more. It is better to love a dog, a cat, a parrot; it is better to love a car – because you can dominate them well, and the other never tires to dominate you. It is simple; it is not as complex as it is going to be with human beings.

People are falling in love with horses, dogs, animals, machines, things. Why? Because to be in love with human beings has become an utter hell, a continuous conflict – nagging, always at each other’s throats.

This is the lowest form of love. Nothing is wrong with it if you can use it as a stepping-stone, if you can use it as a meditation. If you can watch it, if you try to understand it, in that very understanding you will reach another rung, you will start moving upwards.

Only at the highest peak, when love is not a relationship any more, when love becomes a state of your being, the lotus opens totally and great perfume is released – but only at the highest peak. At the lowest, love is just a political relationship. At the highest, love is a religious state of consciousness.

I love you too. Buddha loves, Jesus loves, but their love demands nothing in return. Their love is given for the sheer joy of giving it; it is not a bargain. Hence the radiant beauty of it, hence the transcendental beauty of it. It surpasses all the joys that you have known.

When I talk about love, I am talking about love as a state. It is unaddressed: you don’t love this person or that person, you simply love. You are love. Rather than saying that you love somebody, it will be better to say you are love. So whosoever is capable of partaking, can partake. For whosoever is capable of drinking out of your infinite sources of being, you are available – you are available unconditionally.

That is possible only if love becomes more and more meditative.

Medicine and meditation come from the same root. Love as you know it is a kind of disease: it needs the medicine of meditation. If it passes through meditation, it is purified. And the more purified it is, the more ecstatic.

Osho, Unio Mystica, Vol. 2, Talk #4

 

 

[outlandish]

@MsNobody  nice one

[Dumb Enlightened]

The good question would be, can someone really love ? is conditional love true ?

Because the mind doesn't really love, the mind has attachments to the subject of the supposed 'love' because this subject gives some meaning or something to you, so then you love it, because you are benefiting somehow,

[Shin]

17 minutes ago, Dumb Enlightened said:

The good question would be, can someone really love ? is conditional love true ?

Because the mind doesn't really love, the mind has attachments to the subject of the supposed 'love' because this subject gives some meaning or something to you, so then you love it, because you are benefiting somehow,

 

You confuse Divine/Unconditional love with attachment/romantic infatuation.

The former is an energy that goes outward, the second is an energy that goes inward,

In reality it is the same energy, except it is very limited and focused around specific physical or mental object in the second case,

There needs to be a mental condition that fits your agenda to allow yourself to feel love.

In the first case, there is no mental conditions, therefore there is infinite and eternal love for everything you experience.

[Aeris]

 

[Dumb Enlightened]

1 hour ago, Shin said:

 

You confuse Divine/Unconditional love with attachment/romantic infatuation.

The former is an energy that goes outward, the second is an energy that goes inward,

In reality it is the same energy, except it is very limited and focused around specific physical or mental object in the second case,

There needs to be a mental condition that fits your agenda to allow yourself to feel love.

In the first case, there is no mental conditions, therefore there is infinite and eternal love for everything you experience.

Exactly, that's why I said " is conditional love true ?" because most people can't unconditionally love, so when most people are talking about love they have no idea of what they're talking about,

and the ones who can unconditionally love they are conscious of the oneness, so they are loving themselves actually, is THE ONE loving itself, so is there a difference in talking about love instead of knowing, because this loving of everything wouldn't be the same as knowing the oneness of everything ? Can you love without knowing first ?

[Zigzag Idiot]

Conscious love evokes the same in response.
Emotional love evokes the opposite.
Physical love depends on type and polarity.

Faith of consciousness is freedom.
Faith of feeling is slavery.
Faith of body is stupidity.

Hope of consciousness is strength.
Hope of feeling is cowardice.
Hope of body is disease.

- From Gurdjieff's writings. ?‍♂️

[JohnnyBravo]

Love is a mystery to be experienced, and not a phenomenon to be analysed; it can be known, but not understood.

Friendship is the highest form of love because it has the quality of non-possessiveness and respect.

Surrender or devotion is another form of love, because it involves a gradual putting aside of your ego and focuses on the process of *giving love* whilst not being concerned about receiving love from an outside validation. In a sense, devotion is a consequence of love not vice versa. Take the example of loving a pet cat or dog you are responsible for. You give love without the need to receive it back and paradoxically you do end up receicing it back.

Love is a state of being and not a behavior or classification.

The word "love" has been so exploited, prostituted and weaponised for various agendas that this word isnt the best for representing what it is. If I had to pick a word, I would say "respect" is a closer to signal to what love is.

Love is an inherent comprehension that you are connected to the other and you see their inner Godliness. Because of this, behaviour and expression of love is dependent on context.

[outlandish]

Parental love is pretty interesting. Until you have kids you have no idea how strong that is. It's true unconditional love, and it overrides any other love in your life. I believe there's no greater love than a parent's love for their children.

[Zigzag Idiot]

[Zigzag Idiot]

To Really See that Love is Beingness is Not Easy 

What is the implication of this insight? If love is our beingness, our essence, and the very substance of our soul, then what is going on when we have love only in a relationship? It means you are yourself only in certain relationships. If you say that love can exist only with specific others, you’re saying, “I can be myself, my beingness only with specific others and only under certain conditions.” The conditions of the personality will restrict love, will restrict you, and you’re saying then that you can only be yourself under those conditions. If you say, “I only love this person,” what does it mean? What are you saying about yourself? To really see that love is beingness, is-ness, is not easy. You cannot understand it intellectually. The way to understand it is to experience it, to taste it, to be it. You will be able to understand its qualities only when you experience it. Love is not an idea or a concept. If you’ve never seen a coconut, never tasted a coconut, someone could explain to you the taste of a coconut forever, but you would never really know what coconut tastes like. If you taste essence, you know it. If you don’t taste it, you don’t know it. Everything is like that. When people say essence or Being or love is something mysterious, it means they have never tasted it. It isn’t any more mysterious than anything else.

Diamond Heart Book Two, pg. 158

[Aeris]

On 01/03/2019 at 7:40 PM, outlandish said:

Parental love is pretty interesting. Until you have kids you have no idea how strong that is. It's true unconditional love, and it overrides any other love in your life. I believe there's no greater love than a parent's love for their children.

not always. we can find the contrary aswell.

[Zigzag Idiot]

According to Ichazo, Divine Love is “The awareness that though the laws which govern reality are objective, they are not cold, because these cosmic laws inevitably lead to the creation of organic life, and Life itself, like all natural phenomena, fulfills a cosmic purpose. As soon as the mind’s word mechanism is destroyed, love, the natural condition of the mind, appears. Love begins the moment man contemplates the Creation and says, ‘Thank you, God.’ All men feel this somewhat, no animal can feel this at all. Man alone can know that all comes from God.”

The unique wording in this quote caught me years ago. Suggesting almost the necessity for "destroying" the minds word mechanism in order to experience Love,,,,, Doesn't this heavily imply going beyond conceptual labels?

[Shin]

 

28 minutes ago, Zigzag Idiot said:

 

The unique wording in this quote caught me years ago. Suggesting almost the necessity for "destroying" the minds word mechanism in order to experience Love,,,,, Doesn't this heavily imply going beyond conceptual labels?

What do you mean going beyond conceptual labels ?

And why do you think it's needed ?

[Zigzag Idiot]

29 minutes ago, Shin said:

What do you mean going beyond conceptual labels ?

Going beyond one's assumptions of how things are. Whatever internal images that one might have based on personal history.

33 minutes ago, Shin said:

And why do you think it's needed ?

To allow space for objective realization.

?????

[Shin]

6 minutes ago, Zigzag Idiot said:

Going beyond one's assumptions of how things are. Whatever internal images that one might have based on personal history.

To allow space for objective realization.

?????

Ok, is it a question or an affirmation ?

[Zigzag Idiot]

38 minutes ago, Shin said:

Ok, is it a question or an affirmation ?

It appears as a form of Remembering invited by the space of being open through the question.