How often do you feel love? [Poll] Checking forum's level of consciousness

[The0Self]

1 minute ago, Moksha said:

Amen, brother...I mean Self. 

? unfortunate username too. Mine, I mean

[Moksha]

2 minutes ago, The0Self said:

? unfortunate username too. Mine, I mean

Nah, great username, but maybe uncapitalize the "S" 

Then your username becomes identical to mine. Moksha means to "blow out" the flame of the self. Emptiness of self is the realization of Self.

[Megan Alecia]

I love art, information. I also love people who are fun to see/watch.

[RendHeaven]

@Forestluv

Hehe, of course~

I asked because in your original question,

29 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

How are you defining "love"? An emotional love? Such as: I love my gf, cat, playing tennis etc?

for some reason (and maybe I'm entirely projecting) I got the feeling that by listing partial forms of love, you were setting up a punchline - mainly, you were waiting to spring upon us the distinction between relative love and Absolute Love - and in doing so, you'd show the greater nature of Absolute love and the lesser nature of partial love.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that is exactly how you replied!

55 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

Absolute Love is not restricted to any emotion, it is all emotions and all things.

Emotional love is a subset of Absolute Love. 

I'd like to point out a possible "trap," if I may.

The trap is this:

• You approach (conversations of) Love by defining, categorizing, and distinguishing - but Love fundamentally undefines, uncategorizes, and undistinguishes.
• Furthermore, by approaching Love with the razor of differentiation, you implicitly disparage one side of your own differentiation in favor of the other (i.e. "Emotional love" is disparaged in favor of "Absolute Love.") - this last point is very subtle. The disparaging that I believe you are doing is not such an obvious thing, but I encourage you to check for yourself. In your mind, it may seem like not such a big deal. To you, it's like: "Hey, all I'm doing is I'm noticing the difference between the partial and the Absolute."

Maybe you are doing more than that, however. Notice your language regarding emotions:

1 hour ago, Forestluv said:

Absolute Love is not restricted to any emotion, it is all emotions and all things.

Emotional love is a subset of Absolute Love. 

The implication is clear: "Emotional love" is lesser.

But what exactly do we mean by lesser? Let's speak a bit of SD Yellow for fun

It seems that Love for you (in this moment, at least) is split into differences in kind (or, even if you insist that the difference is only in degree, this insistence nonetheless creates a rift, in the sense that we conceive one extremity of degree as not-the other extremity).

That is, Love for you is manifold.

From a certain perspective, it's useful to frame Love as manifold - it helps us clarify that the Absolute is not the partial/relative. This framing helps us avoid conflation.

But by what means do we say that these things are not-same? I like the word you used - "subset." It seems like you are conceiving Love more like a Russian nesting doll. In the same way that it would be absurd to take apart the doll and proclaim that the smallest piece is the same as the entire stack of dolls, we then find that it is absurd to fixate on a minute portion of love and to declare that it is the same as Love with a capital L.

I believe this is also where we get our notions of greater or lesser - for we understand that the Whole is greater than the part, and so if we imagine that the relative is contained within the Absolute (but does not occupy it fully), it only seems natural to conclude that the relative is not the Absolute, and hence is lesser - for it omits totality.

But of course, we can always expand our frame of reference to that of the Whole, and realize that all 'lesser' parts must partake in the same substrate as the Whole - so much so that, from the vantage point of the Whole, it could NOT be said that the 'lesser part' is not the Absolute. In fact - the 'lesser part' ceases to be a thing in itself - no longer capable of having definition - and All is Absolute - and the Absolute is Great(er), for it is not contained by anything (other than itself).

Now, to elaborate on the "trap" from earlier:

• For the most part, we tend to lock into the former perspective of Love (which concludes that the relative is not the Absolute, for it omits totality). From within this frame, the Whole is greater than the part, and it therefore makes perfect intellectual sense to disparage the relative in favor of the Absolute. After all, the Absolute is by definition greater. However - recall that from the frame of reference of the Whole, all 'lesser parts' must partake in the same substrate as the Whole. So, even if we find ourselves rightfully disparaging the relative because it omits totality, it would be a grave error and shame were we to forget that all relative love is literally the same as Absolute Love on the level of 'substance.' We may rightfully disparage the branch on the conceptual grounds that it omits the totality of the Tree, but it would be a grave error and shame were we to further disparage the branch on the misconception that it is not literally made of the same substance of Tree-ness!

Or, to bring this down to earth: 

• "Emotional love, such as: I love my gf, cat, playing tennis, etc." is rightfully disparaged for its partial nature, but the wise nonetheless honor it on the basis that love is Love.

Just because "emotions" are (seemingly) not the Whole, it makes them no less Love.

As a thought experiment (or maybe even a heart experiment ) can you envision Love as being wholly contained within Emotion, as opposed to Emotion being within Love?

Obviously, at the ultimate level - there are no withins or withouts.

Nonetheless, just as from a certain perspective, Emotion is contained within Love, I say that from a certain other perspective, Love is contained within Emotion.

Can you bring yourself to see that? Or rather, can you bring yourself to feel that?

[Enlightenment]

9 hours ago, Forestluv said:

How are you defining "love"? An emotional love? Such as: I love my gf, cat, playing tennis etc?

 

9 hours ago, Moksha said:

Are you talking about love, the human emotion, or Love, the realization that we are all the same?

Any love. Yes, while not being on psychedelics it will be mostly like human emotion of love

Metta meditation is a good example of the feeling of love I meant

What I'm not talking about is empty words like "I love playing tennis" but you don't actually experience any love playing tennis, you just like playing it

[Dodo]

You are love now, not in time! Considering we are talking about spiritual love / being itself and not romantic love / good feeling feelings, then it is not something that is experienced, it is the bubble of consciousness within which every experience that happens happens and it is here when you are sad and happy the same - unconditional true love.  It is definitely not something that happens in time, what happens in time is only a fruit of that love, not the love. 

The Love never leaves the here and now. 

You cant have known the love in the past, because it is always here and now and never in time 

 

 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Dodo

[FoxFoxFox]

The love I (often) feel is recognition of phenomena as expressions of the self. It's hard to not love yourself.

[Forestluv]

@RendHeaven Some next level exploration. It stimulated lots of ideas. Thanks.

[Moksha]

10 hours ago, Enlightenment said:

Any love. Yes, while not being on psychedelics it will be mostly like human emotion of love

The human emotion of love is often the nemesis of actual Love. It is usually about possessing, needing, identifying, objectifying, and romanticizing, rather than simply being.

Ultimate Love is nothing more, and nothing less, than realizing that there is no more, and no less.

[Hap E-Boi]

Some weeks I feel love the whole day in everything I see and do, other weeks it's completely absent.

[Nightwise]

I'm actually a rather cold-blooded person, at least when it comes to interpersonal emotions. If I am completely honest, the idea of my parents dying and me getting a big financial inheritance actually pleases me. Not that I would choose such a situation if God magically gave me a button that when I press it that situation would occur and nobody would know about it...

I got that from a good part from my father, this sense of emotional detachment from many things. It's not that I'm not able to empathize or that I don't care at all, it's just that I'm emotionally not particularly moved. Same thing when my cat died in 2014. I liked the animal, but I felt no grief whatsoever when she died and I was able to move on instantly. I naturally tend to be very detached from circumstances that don't directly involve me.

But at the same time I am quite sensitive to others and their needs. I care about the homeless person on the street and I want to help that person. But not on an deeply emotional level, but more from a sense of integrity and caring. It's a bit of a weird mix, and I notice I have a bit of difficulty explaining it accurately. I don't perhaps feel particularly much of these pronounced fluffy and warm emotions, but I do genuinely care about others. Yet it's a detached kind of caring. It's the kind of caring that wants to give, that wants to help, that cares about others and tries to do the best it can for others (without giving myself away), yet that doesn't need anything in particular from others. It's the quality of giving and sharing itself that counts.

Is that love? I don't know. depends on how you see it. I would define it more as compassion than love. Compassion is a quality of Being, a quality of Spirit. Love as many people understand it is something that is more based in the heart, in the emotional center; Something that is far more passionate, fluid and dynamic. Compassion is something that is far more stable, calm and centered.

But if you're speaking of love as this wild emotion felt in the heart, then I have to admit I rarely experience that. I in fact don't particularly feel a lot of strong emotions at all, to be quite honest with you. Mind you, I define emotions differently here than feelings. I have a lot of feelings and moods that I encounter during the day

Perhaps you could speak of one being a human kind of love and the other being a spiritual kind of love.

I would like to feel more strong emotions, though. I'm not denying that desire.

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Nightwise

[snowyowl]

On 07/05/2021 at 0:37 AM, Moksha said:

Nah, great username, but maybe uncapitalize the "S" 

Then your username becomes identical to mine. Moksha means to "blow out" the flame of the self. Emptiness of self is the realization of Self.

Or how about changing 0 to o  TheoSelf, God is the self not a separate me

I feel love about half the time, I believe its ever-present but not aware of it always. 

[Preety_India]

There should be a separation between the meanings of love. Romantic love is very different from unconditional human love.

 

[Moksha]

@snowyowl "You" got it, fellow Self 

@Preety_India Agree, and not qualified to human love. It is all, human and inhuman, ultimately, unconditional love. Not an emotion, a simple realization of the sameness of everything.

[Nahm]

22 hours ago, Preety_India said:

There should be a separation between the meanings of love.

Yet there is not, and could not be what should be, as there is what is. 

22 hours ago, Preety_India said:

Romantic love is very different from unconditional human love.

Human & romantic are the conditions. 

[integral]

@Nahm If the meaning of a word changes from the paradigm its being viewed from. Wouldn't it be useful to coin a new word for it, avoiding communication issues?

[RendHeaven]

36 minutes ago, Nahm said:

Yet there is not, and could not be what should be, as there is what is. 

Quote

!!!

[Nahm]

1 hour ago, integral said:

@Nahm If the meaning of a word changes from the paradigm its being viewed from. Wouldn't it be useful to coin a new word for it, avoiding communication issues?

Meaning as in definition, or as in connotation?

[roopepa]

This was quite an interesting poll, but poorly constructed. You should have defined love.

It would be more helpful to ask something like "how often do you feel a sense of unity" or "how often do you sense a metaphysical / spiritual connection".

Edited May 9, 2021 by roopepa

[Raptorsin7]

13 hours ago, roopepa said:

This was quite an interesting poll, but poorly constructed. You should have defined love.

It would be more helpful to ask something like "how often do you feel a sense of unity" or "how often do you sense a metaphysical / spiritual connection"

What a great point. I don't think I feel love but I do have experiences of feeling highs throughout the day, like a musical note that touches you deeply, and Idk if this was considered love.