Questions About Love? - Ask Here

[Nexeternity]

Hey Leo.  I have a question... sometimes I have seen the power of love turn around negative relationships.  Like when people have treated me badly I turned around and treated them well and it eventually led them to them treating me well too.  Other times it has felt like I have let others abuse me or have felt like I gave too much to the point of feeling bad and having to close down and pull back.

I feel its a fine line and I try to err on the side of giving and loving more.   

Its like being open and vulnerable is a beautiful thing that can do wonders in many situations but sometimes it feels like you over expose yourself to others who might hurt you.

I feel like when you are totally alligned you can just bulldoze your way through everything with love transforming and uplifting people´s energy as you go but other times I have felt like I am just kidding myself and just overgiving or sacrificing.

I guess honest communication with yourself and with others is the way to go, but its hard to know sometimes in the middle of a situation.

Any thoughts on navigating this?

 

[Average Investor]

@Nexeternity Realize that you relationships are meaningless. Usually, for someone to hurt or abuse you they are acting out of survival. You need to explore the idea on your own though. Are relationships nothing more than favors? Thinking of how your interactions play out in survival with others. This is my direct experience in it. I have been a door mat for long enough. Not to say that you cannot help others in need, but look how the relationship will evolve around that. What do they need you for?  

 

I am sure Leo might carry a different perspective. But I thought I might share my epiphany from the other day in a similar situation to yourself. I've been in abusive situations for most of my life. 

Edited August 22, 2019 by Average Investor

[Extreme Z7]

I guess I've been curious as to how to properly distinguish between Love and Attachment. They sorta feel like the same thing but also they have different ways of manifesting themselves.

[Gili Trawangan]

What exactly is meant by Love? If it's not an emotion, what is it?

Also, doesn't love need an object? Doesn't the act of loving involve one who loves and something which is loved? How does that fit with nonduality?

And finally, how to become conscious of Love? 

[Leo Gura]

32 minutes ago, Good-boy said:

Does Love completely dissolve the ego?

No

Egotism itself is an expression of Love. Just a limited form of it.

[Leo Gura]

25 minutes ago, Nexeternity said:

Hey Leo.  I have a question... sometimes I have seen the power of love turn around negative relationships.  Like when people have treated me badly I turned around and treated them well and it eventually led them to them treating me well too.  Other times it has felt like I have let others abuse me or have felt like I gave too much to the point of feeling bad and having to close down and pull back.

I feel its a fine line and I try to err on the side of giving and loving more.   

Its like being open and vulnerable is a beautiful thing that can do wonders in many situations but sometimes it feels like you over expose yourself to others who might hurt you.

I feel like when you are totally alligned you can just bulldoze your way through everything with love transforming and uplifting people´s energy as you go but other times I have felt like I am just kidding myself and just overgiving or sacrificing.

I guess honest communication with yourself and with others is the way to go, but its hard to know sometimes in the middle of a situation.

Any thoughts on navigating this?

In practice I think it's always going to be tricky. Relationships are soaked through with survival issues so there's always a give and take dynamic. A careful dynamic balance is required. See my video on the issue of Balance.

Think of relationships like surfing. You're balancing dynamically so it's always temporary victories and occasional wipe outs. But the more you practice the better you get and the less wipe outs you have.

Relationships definitely require setting some boundaries. You can't just be lovey-dovey all the time. Setting boundaries is part of Love. But of course being more empathetic and unconditionally loving of yourself and your partner generally helps. Most relationships are ruined with judgment, criticism, and disrespect.

[Leo Gura]

3 minutes ago, Keyhole said:

But I can't say that I felt any love in the process over it, just compassion and a bit of boredom.

That was a good start. You must deepen your appreciation for life. Keep at it.

You are surrounded by infinite beauty all day long. You just gotta train yourself to appreciate it. Survival rips your attention away from the beauty of being.

[Harikrishnan]

44 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That was a good start. You must deepen your appreciation for life. Keep at it.

You are surrounded by infinite beauty all day long. You just gotta train yourself to appreciate it. Survival rips your attention away from the beauty of being.

Isnt that same as gratitude. Is gratitude and love  u say the same if we fully feel gratitude instead of doing it mechanically . Or is there a disntinction?

[Leo Gura]

@Harikrishnan There is some important overlap between love and gratitude, but I wouldn't call them the same thing.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Extreme Z7 said:

I guess I've been curious as to how to properly distinguish between Love and Attachment. They sorta feel like the same thing but also they have different ways of manifesting themselves.

The highest form of Love is most detached. Attachment limits love. But it is easier for egos to do attached love.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

It apparently went something like this here:

1. it was seen clearly, deeply, in daily life--with no doubt left that there is no 'doer' and no free will. we are simply aware (awareness)
2. distinctions and separateness fell away
3. love was all that was left. this love is what we are. it is unconditional--it shines like the sun on everything. always. for no reason. it needs nothing.
   1. and the illusion simply covers it.

[Harikrishnan]

8 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Harikrishnan There is some important overlap between love and gratitude, but I wouldn't call them the same thing.

I would love to hear where the difference is in your video.

[Dylan Page]

@Leo Gura What do you think about inanimate objects “following” the “laws” of physics? Is a meteor flying through empty space doing it out of love? What if someone dies by freak accident? Like they trip or whatever, is there love in that too?

[Bluebird]

1. Are Love and Bliss the same thing?

2. Isn't Love (Total Non-Duality) only possible through the contrast of not feeling the love? Why not infinite love all the time?

3. Is it possible to love "another", or only to the degree which you can see yourself (or your Self) in them?

4. What is the relationship between love and sexuality/intimacy/affection?

5. Practices/contemplations to increase Love?

6. Can ego love, or can you only love to the degree ego is released?

7. Fear is the biggest block to love, we are afraid of losing love. In being afraid to lose love we contain, limit and resist it. In containing it, we don't feel it. Why are we afraid of losing love? And why is our solution to not love?

[Bluebird]

(I don't know if this is true) Why is it that the ability to say self-inquire is heightened by Love.

[Wlangr]

Is Absolute love transformative? 

I had a experience few years back of what some community call a hearth opening, it felt like a energetic flood of love  going through my body. It was so powerful that it knocked down some defence mechanism like repression forever from my mind. 

I heard that the hearth is seat of atman and the higher kundalini. 

Does absolute love come more from a particular place, like the hearth? It feels like it comes both inside and outside. 

And most important.

How does someone become more loving?

I feel closed off from some persons and situations and don't seem to find the reason or "cure" for it. 

Edited August 22, 2019 by Wlangr

[student]

Love furthers you to the elimination of yourself. It furthers your bigger picture. Your "seeing things from above".

People who didn't discover "love" yet are still biased, still getting deluded, not understanding the illusion around them.

I am talking about love teaching you a very important lesson.

Do you know how hard it is for me to love the people that did me wrong?
How hard it is for me to love the people that abused me? How hard it is for me to accept and tolerate those people?

It is hard, but this is exactly what I need to do. And I don't want to. I want to hate, even if I understand fully the perspective of my abusers.

Because everything is understood.
If you do not understand, it is because you do not have the capability to see the bigger picture of what's happening. You are too deeply immersed in the "content".

But as soon as you understand the other's perspective, as soon as you can put yourself in the other's shoes, the lack of love that you feel becomes a conscious decision which you are maintaining.

It is a matter of ego here.

That's why love is important.
If you can really accept it and open your heart, open yourself to everything, becoming vulnerable, it furthers your liberation.

You feel freedom

I had this experience of feeling love for everyone. I can understand what Leo is referring to by "love". In one degree or another.

It is a love for everything and everyone. Everything that happened and will happen.

And in that love you see the absolute.
It is not just "love", it is also an absolute sense of freedom. You are not only realizing love.

All your problems are vanishing away. Love vanishes them. All your hatred and resentments are vanishing away. There will be a very great clarity of what is happening. What is your life, who are your abusers, who are actually the "bad" people.

Everything is being understood and accepted.

Why? Because it can be understood, and maintaining hatred instead of love is just that, a decision of maintaining, which has to do with you, being caught up in the sand, in the content.

You are not seeing things from above.

Everything ultimately can be understood, that's why evil doesn't exist.

Evil is a construction, here, on "Earth". It is constructed in the illusion. It is not something truly real.

Just get your head out of the sand. Do that everytime, and love will just come.

But yes, it will be pretty hard, to do the counter-intuitive thing.

Edited August 22, 2019 by student

[tsuki]

Hey Leo, my question is:

Why is it important for us, egos, to blind ourselves to absolute love through survival?
What purpose, function, does this blinding serve from the "point of view" of absolute love?
How does this blinding serve the egos and absolute love itself?
 

Edited August 22, 2019 by tsuki

[Angelite]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

 The devil has co-opted all religion to use as a control mechanism. Fear (of Hell) is a powerful control mechanism. Many humans do no know how to follow basic rules of decency unless they are threatened with eternal Hell.

When a child misbehaves, the easiest way to make it behave is to threaten it with a beating. Then the child quickly falls in line and obeys. Like a dog. This is the level that many people function at.

The devil has co-opted love to use as a control mechanism. In the name of love, killing innocents. 

Nature will take care of itself. 

Behind every creation, there is a Creator who protects them from the evils of Egos. 

Hell is created for Egos. For those who follow their lower self. 

Not for the ignorant, not for the genuine, not for the sincere. But ego. 

....

Everything = Nothing

9 = 9

0 = 0

10 = 10

- = + 

Everything will balance itself out, sooner or later. It's wise to be balanced from the beginning. 

Edited August 22, 2019 by Angelite

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, tsuki said:

Hey Leo, my question is:

Why is it important for us, egos, to blind ourselves to absolute love through survival?
What purpose, function, does this blinding serve from the "point of view" of absolute love?
How does this blinding serve the egos and absolute love itself?

Without survival you could not experience anything. So survival is the #1 requirement of any kind of formed existence.

The purpose is to have you experience the multiplicity of Creation, the formed world.

You are just like a droplet of water which has to break off from the ocean, fly up into the air, and then re-merge with the ocean. The purpose of this is to experience what it's like to be separated from the ocean and then to rediscover what it's like to be the ocean. You can't appreciate being the whole ocean without first breaking off and being a drop.