Love

elwestrand

It is the reciprocation between the self and the unself. The self is the individual sense of being a complete individual even in the absence of everything else perceived. The unself is the reservoir of beingness from which the self origionates- it is like the sunlight from which plants grow- yet the two are just two aspects of the same. The relationship between them is always love, it cannot be anything else. The self, who cannot exist without the unself, contains unself as a glass holds water, has as a property of its unique form the ability to "love" according to its uniqueness. You do not love, you are love's insturment. Love is unself (beauty)
perceived and Beauty is that love embodied within all form.

The reason why we do not love everything is because our unique self acts as a filter. It blocks some of the unself radience. metaphysically, although we contain unself, as the glass contains water, we are not transparet against all of it. Thus, we radiate a portion of unself according to who we are and we also perceive it radiating from others accoring to who we are. Plato theorized that we perceive beautry that reminds us of, or resembles "pure form." And he theorized that the place from where our knowledge of pure form comes from is from before our birth. And to believe any of this you must believe that existence transcends birth and death. Plato was right. Love is beauty perceived and beauty is love that is our existence.

Polly

The first and last and no less superficial thought is: No wonder our partners are called the better halves. [6)] Maybe more latter, love is a profound subject.

Polly

This is shocking, none of us have anything to say at all about the most celebrated notion and arguably the greatest driving force of all times? It does say something about the members.

Anyway I do not have anything to add that has not been generally said, except perhaps the agreement that LOVE IS A MANY-SPLANDID THING and it is the closest experience of heaven you can get on earth. And if you ever have a chance, fall in love, but not without first procuring a copy of Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus - it is a life saver.

THANOS

Love is a survival trait. Without feeling a sense of oneness with what ever we are doing or interested in we wouldn't really do it. Eating is a sense of oneness which keeps us alive and the food we eat becomes a part of our body. What we love to do keeps us going. Also hate has an equal part of our survival. We hate pain so we try our best to aviod it. But it's when they collide that people usually get mixxed up. It is the stronger emotion that will win.

For example: a bulimic person who throws up, they do not like the pain of starving and the pain which the acids do to your troat. But they like the feeling of being thin which makes them more acceptable then being fat. They hate the feeling of rejection from certian sports, or someone they try to impress. Or even from family or friends. So The feelings which have the most emotions of hate or love will win over. Maybe they almost die from it then they decide to quit and recover. But the emotion of living on and fear of death will exceed the feeling of trying to impress and be fat in thier eyes.

elwestrand

Hi Polly. I have come to learn that the overwhelming majority of posters here are reductionists--- they don't "believe" in love aside from a biochemical or evolutionist perspective. Moreover, they have no grasp of love aside from a sexual or romantic relationship. They have no grasp of love outside of any give-or-take circumstance. This is very sad because love is not limited in this way at all. They do not grasp that there can be any basis for the mind beyond the level of the substrates of the brain. This is their postulate, their axiom. I have encoutered many reductionist philosophers in my high iq experience. The members of this forum do not accomidate a transcendentalist like me-- They are not formidable or worthy as they are incapable of debunking transcendental tenets from transcendental postulates. They are not equipped to conceive of any postulates ouside of their own.

Hi Thanos. I do not think anyone "loves" eating. If they claim as such, they have not experienced love really. Note that in my exposition, love is the intrinsic relationship between two souls. At the current moment, people seldom love in an absolute sense due to their consciousness acting as filters to their soul. The purpose of life is to make consciousness transparent to the soul and expereince love completely. This is the process of self-discovery. This is why we inhabit a physical body. This is why we exist. This is why everyone wants to reproduce and continue the species but doesn't know why. The why is so that we will have an opportunity to incarnate amoung our progeny to complete our process of self-discovery. Um, a complete philosophy.


There is one more thing to say of cousre, it is very precious knowledge. As a leaf gathers sunlight for all parts of the tree, all emotions are variegated forms of the same longiong. The longing in its purest, most complete form is love. Even fear or hate are incomplete forms of love. I think you will see that this is true. Even the emotions which cause people to deny the existence of love, are made possible by love. That is beauty.

THANOS

You may not love "eating" but if you love "life" then eating is a part of that "realationship". Like if one loves thier "mate" and if they are asked to do an important run which meant alot to your loved one. You may not love doing that "run" but it is a part of the relationship. Otherwise what would happen if you said "NO" and didn't do the important run for you loved one? In other words what happens if you said no to eating for you life?

elwestrand

I think--- the only reason we "love" life is because it makes any other love or feeling expierience possible.

one_raven

Actually, I didn't reply because I thought your hypothesis of what love is was not only silly and, if I am understanding what you are saying, unfounded at best, but it doesn't really say anything worthwhile.

Flowers love sunlight?
We can not exist without love?
You do not love, you are love's instrument?

I think it is all far too typical absurd pseudo-Eastern new agey rhetoric that is meant to sound profound and open to make people feel nice and squishy but actually says nothing at all of substance.

I also think that your hypothesis is what is limiting to love, not the one's you accuse of doing just that.
If the flower and sunlight are two aspects of this etheral love relationship (in effect the flower loves the sunlight) then you are saying teh humans love food, water, oxygen and everything else that any individual deems a necessary component of their personal survival. Doing this does a true disservice to romantic love and the passion that it ignites and the flames it stokes, by reducing it even further than momentary lust and even simple desire to gross survival. If you love any inanimate object that serves as nothing more than sustenance fuel for your body, then it is you, not them, that has no concept of what love is, in my opinion.

THANOS

you can't deny the feeling. But even if you look up love in the dictionary it also means a sense of oneness. Now you may not have a "romantic" or "passionate" feeling of love for things that keep you alive. Love can mean many things for there are differnt types of love. You can love a child and protect them from as much harm as you can. You can love a hobbie or a collection which makes you feel better about your life. See most love towards life is unconditional which means that no matter how bad it gets you will try to keep going. Which is almost the same kind of love a good parent gives towards thier child. But i say love is a survial triat because without it we wouldn't be alive. And giving life is also a part of keeping a part of yourself alive.

elwestrand

You have confused me with someone else. I did not say that a flaower loves sunlight. I said that the relationship between unself and self is LIKE the relationship between a plant and sunlight. It is just a metaphor. I do not believe that it is possible to love an inanimate object or an idea. That is why I said one cannot "love" food. Of course, you are welcome to think that my "absurd pseudo-Eastern new agey rhetoric" is silly. :) Are you assuming that I don't enjoy being silly? And what is "of substance?" That is a very subjective thing.

elwestrand

"love can mean many things for there are differnt types of love. You can love a child and protect them from as much harm as you can. You can love a hobbie or a collection which makes you feel better about your life. See most love towards life is unconditional which means that no matter how bad it gets you will try to keep going. Which is almost the same kind of love a good parent gives towards thier child. But i say love is a survial triat because without it we wouldn't be alive."

Exactly Thanos. Although I still disagree that you can love a hobby. You are not completely off track of course. SOMETHING is always loved. In my theory, it isn't even that we would die without love, it's that it is not in our capacity to not love, like it is not in a stone's capacity to float. When we feel that we love life or eating or a hobby, it is actually self-love that we feel. The soul must love itself too. We project our self-love onto these things like our hobby and such. Personally, I don't think any other subject can compare in substance. Perhaps it is not intellectually stimulating enough for Raven_one? But in my definition, substance is not what stimulates the mind, but what stimulates the heart -- merely because we are emotional creatures and all we truly seek is happiness. It is love that makes it possible for raven to consider the theory silly-- the theory says that you know.

one_raven

Well, like I said, this is if I understood correctly.
Perhaps I haven't.
Maybe something was lost in the translation from pseudo-Eastern new agey to English [;)].

Maybe you could try and reword it and be more succinct for purpose of clarity?[:D]

hypnagogue

Actually, I believe that love in the absolute fullest sense engulfs even inanimate objects. But it is very rare for one to attain that sort of emotional state.

elwestrand

True-- well it all depends on what level the individual is at really... but it the purest sense, even above loving "everything," actually nothing is loved. Merely, it is just the presence of love longing for itself. The force may be within all things, but it is even an illusion that we feel love for those things. One of the stupidest things I heard was a quote of TV (afn, unfortunately I am in the military). "If a man does not love his country, he can not love anything" Nonsense. Nonsense for me anywhays, maybe he was at a level where that was true for him. In the spirit of my original post, love only deals with souls-- living things. Of course a rock has a soul too but until we are at the level where we can perceive it, how are we capable of that kind of love?

hypnagogue

Depends what you mean by 'soul.'

I prefer not to think in terms of some objectively existing essence, but rather, a subjective experience of it. Sometimes a moment of quiet contemplation will reveal to one a profound sense of awe/reverence/beauty/love about existence. Whether that level of spirituality is best described as a revelation of actually existing souls or spirits, or simply as a profound spiritual feeling is an open question, but for me it is best left to the subjective realm.

Under this interpretation, your question of how one can perceive the soul of a rock in order to love it reduces to a question of how one can engage in a subjective state such that love is felt even for rocks. And it is a very difficult question, even for those who have experienced it momentarily. The true shame is that it seems that most never even approach such a state, even if temporarily. It seems there is no proven formula to achieve it, only ways to actively approach it and be lucky along the way. There is a saying: "Enlightenment is an accident, but some activities make you accident prone."

elwestrand

Hi. Thank you for talking to me.

At this moment I am feeling a surge of love. I am the type of person who falls very deeply in love, very haphazardly! At the age of 12 one night, I lay in bed and I listened to and felt the beating of my heart. And I felt profound love for all life at that time, tears streaming down my face. Oh I am convinced that the basis for love is a force that is not limited to our perception. And I am convinced that that force is actually alive and it is through it that we are alive. I can feel it in my heart chakra right now. If I could describe it, I would call it feverish. It is a sensation in the actual subtle body near the physical heart-- not the physical heart itself, and there is no lust. I do not rely on religious scriptures to define "soul" for me. I have experienced it myself through dreams. The soul is like an infinitessimal point or speck of consciousness. It is not even "alive" in the sense that it is not an organism. This is not my conjecture, but actually what I experienced through dreams and other expeiences like when I felt my heart beat. I felt that the actual substance of my soul was an intense longing. Consciousness is secondary perhaps, but first the longing. It is longing, simply for love. Now, odd, that that longing force itself IS love. The ancient mystic poet Rumi wrote that love longs for itself and in my experience that is true. So, I would not say that love is subjective or objective, niether external nor internal. It is all of those, paradox.

According to my theory, our soul is covered up by our mind, personality and so forth. But there are inevidably areas that are transparent, where the soul "shines through." It does this according to who we are... moreover, it does this to others in the same way. The two right combinations who can both sense the light of the soul, emanating from the other-- they love. And so I think this is the only "subjective" nature of love.

Anyways, right now I think I am falling in love with this friend of mine. I've never actually had a satisfying love. I've always had my heart broken, never even had a first kiss. (mostly because of my integrity and I don't send the right signals--- young girls respond to sexual signals, subconsciously. I'm not interested in sex, only love.) But anyways is is my Filipina pen-pal. She lives in Cebu, Philippines. I called her on the phone this weekend-- she has the most adorable voice I have every heard! she literally sounds like a child. I'm 21 and she just turned 20. In May I am going to go see her in the Philippines. Hehehe. Once I accidentally called her "katipan." she said "oops why are you calling me katipan?" and she explained that that word means girlfirned, but she forgave me for not knowing and said I may consider her my girlfriend anyway because she is a girl and she is my friend. I made a joke saying I should have called her kapitan (captain). Then I wrote her a sonnet called "you are the captain of our friendship"

"Have a happy natal day (birthday)
Think joyous thoughts and laugh
you are loved beyond what words can say
I hope our friendhship lasts"

I have a feeling, that she might fall for me too. i've never loved anyone aged 20, so mature compared to my past loves. Recently she said to me "muna katipan not kapitan" Anyone read Tagalog? I think it says "first sweetheart/girlfriend not captain"

MushinMunen

Love is a word that we use to describe a feeling. Like all feelings, love can be controlled. But for someone who has spent their life believing that it is a powerful force that, in a sense, chooses for you what you'll love, and guides you through tough times...well the thought of being able to control your emotions seems impossible and downright ridiculous. But I think that the power of the emotionless mind is unparalleled. Although, if you would cease to feel for things (whether it be hate, love, pity, ect.)...if your emotions were "blocked", it would most certainly prevent you from being able to function in our society. In other words: You would likely find yourself in a straight jacket and dubbed criminally insane. Because without our emotions we feel no remorse for disregarding that which is obstucting us from our goal. I think that this would be an excellent experiment if conducted under constant observation. One ought not attempt to seriously try this while still interacting with our civilization because firstly: There can always be injuries and severe mental trauma (which would increase the chances of even more injuries) that usually means government interaction. Government or laws could not interfere in something like this because the emotionless mind is without morals. Secondly: It is probable that if you would ever succeed in accomplishing your goal and ridding yourself of feeling (which is unlikely...so the best test subject would naturally be an infant, which would naturally be considered imoral), you would lose sight of your previous goal, for you would no longer need proof of the power of your mind and proving it to others would be out of the question because congratulations means nothing without pride and gratitude. Basically what I'm saying is...it'd be very dangerous. If you've seen the movie Manhunter, you can deduce that it is phycologically damaging to disregard your own thoughts and feeling in exchange for feelings that are "foreign" to your being. Now imagine ridding yourself of all feeling and knowing that all obstructions preventing you from gaining all possible knowledge must be dealt with accordingly.

...I suppose I went off topic a little. It's just neccessary for me to ramble.