Does raising your capacity to love bring you closer to awakening?

[preventingdiabetes]

Leo said that Enlightenment is what fully raises your capacity to love, but even awakened people can have limited and crude forms of love if they're at a low stage of development, no? 

 

Therefore an awakened person can improve their life by developing their relative selves which raises their capacity to love? 

And for people who aren't awakened, raising their capacity to love by developing their ego would bring them closer to awakening?  

[freejoy]

Yes

The True Enlightened One Is Love. Actually everything is love. Even hate is love. 

What matters is intention. 

Practically speaking, if one dedicates themselves to being a loving person they will become aware of judgements and many situations in life where deep contemplation is needed (especially when children are involved).  Love requires letting go more and more of the ego. 

Love is the path of the heart.

Everything is contextual, even the devil loves getting away with his dirty deeds. 

In my view, in the world of the relative you could say there is true love and counterfeit love. Like jealousy would be counterfeit.

Love kind of stairsteps it's way down from the Absolute, all the way down into the hell zones.

What I would say is to set ones intensions then trust in what arises. 

Here's a little quote:

Express yourself completely,
then keep quiet.
Be like the forces of nature:
when it blows, there is only wind;
when it rains, there is only rain;
when the clouds pass, the sun shines through.

If you open yourself to the Tao,
you are at one with the Tao
and you can embody it completely.
If you open yourself to insight,
you are at one with insight
and you can use it completely.
If you open yourself to loss,
you are at one with loss
and you can accept it completely.

Open yourself to the Tao,
then trust your natural responses;
and everything will fall into place.

~The Tao Te Ching
  by Lao Tzu

  Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Edited February 26, 2021 by freejoy

[Moksha]

Love and awakening go hand in hand. It is a path to Self-realization, but it is also the natural outcome of Self-realization. The Bhagavad Gita discusses karma yoga, or the path of selfless service, as one way to awaken. There are other paths, but regardless of how you get to the summit of the mountain, when you arrive, you will directly realize that Love is what you actually are, and you will see the sameness of Yourself in everything.

There is merit in studying the scriptures, in selfless service, austerity, and giving, but the practice of meditation carries you beyond all these to the supreme abode of the highest Lord.

- Bhagavad Gita 8:28

On your last sentence, developing your ego is the opposite of love. The ego is incapable of unconditionally loving itself, or anything else. It is constantly clamoring for love, but it never arrives, because it is a delusion. The only way to discover love is through truth, which requires letting go of the ego, and realizing You are already infinitely abundant.

[Nahm]

Love does not know awakened people, limited and crude forms of love, relative selves, capacities to love, nor stages. Love is ‘who’ you are, which is why these concepts feel off to you love. Love is unconditional, and doesn’t even know people who aren’t awakened.