♥What is love?♥

Spirituality
#1

Yesterday I puled out from he shelf Buddhist Meditation Book. One of the meditations is Wishing LOVE. It starts with creating compassion for all … no problem with that. Next step is to create LOVE toward all.

GOT SO FRUSTRATED HERE… what it feels like to love the clerk in the bank, some chick on the parking lot, Adolf Gitler… even my own relatives and parents… i can describe it as attraction, attachment, but not love… i realized that I HAVE NEVER EVER FEEL THAT love … love to everything in the universe…

do u think it is possible to cultivate this kind of “god love”?

have you experienced this like of love? how it it feels?

Thank you

#2

I do not love myself, therefore I do not think I can truly love others.

#3

[QUOTE=a.mi;66024]I do not love myself, therefore I do not think I can truly love others.[/QUOTE]

Thats the thing I think… that love can not be towards yourself or others … it is just LOVE to all. This LOVE is either in your heart or it is not.

Also I suspect that this can be fixed:) through meditation and other practices…

HOW does it feels thought…:confused:

#4

Its a practice. Metta Bahavna I believe.
If you can’t do it at first, it doesn’t mean you should stop trying.
I have been told this practice was part of a larger practice to prevent aspiring students to utilize their powers for bad or mischevious reasons. Generally, it was a method to end a meditation session.

#5

[QUOTE=CityMonk;66040]Thats the thing I think… that love can not be towards yourself or others … it is just LOVE to all. This LOVE is either in your heart or it is not.

Also I suspect that this can be fixed:) through meditation and other practices…

HOW does it feels thought…:confused:[/QUOTE]

Try to remember when you were a kid and you felt in sync with your surrounding world…
I guess most kids have a natural state of kindness in their heart, and at the same time a feeling of secure, comfort inside down which let’s them just be - As I remember, I would describe this state as love, being ‘within’ everything, as the outerworld and myself was flowing into eachother. (In other words, ‘harmony’.)

I assume what our hearts make harder and loose this innocence, when we start to develop a consciouness as we are getting thrown into adult life, and our mind starts to develop ‘moral’, ‘values’ which lead to a cycle of judgment and expectations towards ourselves/the world.
Which will end in disappointment, and generate bitter feelings towards others and ourselves. I guess that’s where this disconnection with our surroundings stems from, and leads to a ‘me’ and ‘everything else’.

Not sure though, how to get back into this state of innocence, as I would have completely to re-set my mind and rid it of any judgement. Not sure if I even want that? Would be kind of dangerous to survive in this world…

hope that makes sense, sorry english is not my mother tongue.

#6

trivia… I thought about childhood too…but still…I cant recall THAT LOVE… kids can be very mean and assertive as well…

#7

Think of a time in which you were laughing so genuinely; the feeling of joy that was coming from the perception of that thing that was “silly” - the feeling of looking at something so completely, so entirely understanding of the thing itself, maybe even more than the thing understands itself, that you found it overwhelmingly amusing/cute/fascinating and from that perception comes the uncontrollable feelings of joy/love.

Example (JUST an example) - A small kitten that you find so cute is trying to open a cupboard that holds his food, but being a kitten he does not know how to open a cupboard, so he is tirelessly pawing gently at the cupboard door, not making any progress…you are watching this and starting to laugh deeply and lovingly because you understand the entirety of the situation…this is much like how the gods and God view humans/animals and other spirits… the feeling that you might get in that circumstance, and the following experience and tingling in the physical body around the medulla oblongata IS love/joy/bliss/god/yogic energy.

Possibly you can connect with this, maybe you cannot; either way you eventually get there if you have persistence and never give up. Also, some things are karmic and you might be facing difficulties inside of yourself that have existed for many lifetimes. This is even more reason for you to dedicate your mind.

Blessings and love.

#8

omshanti, thank you for creative example! It was cute:)

the confusion again… joy is not love…adoration is not love…bliss in not love neither… feeling happy does not creates love for all…

[QUOTE=JSK;66045]Its a practice. Metta Bahavna I believe.
If you can’t do it at first, it doesn’t mean you should stop trying.
I have been told this practice was part of a larger practice to prevent aspiring students to utilize their powers for bad or mischevious reasons. Generally, it was a method to end a meditation session.[/QUOTE]

I do… and I did…yogic way, christian and budhist way… do not feel what I have to. Strange, but I know what if feels like… I felt it before, but somehow I’ve lost it and did not notice it till now,:frowning:

#9

I wouldn’t put too much importance on it.

If you want to attain that emotion, then practice metta bahavna, but remember that there’s more to love than the feeling. You may want to try to serve others in some fashion and see if that brings it back.

#10

I believe that love is a judeo-christian concept and it always surprises me when I see it creeping into Buddhist and Hindu teachings. Anyway, for what it’s worth, the Greeks had a couple of different words for love. Eros is the love between a man and a woman, then there is Agape which is the sort of divine love that christians (and apparently Buddhists too) talk about. I guess my point is that there is a distinction. It’s obvious to everyone what eros is, but agape is not so obvious, and the interpretation is likely to differ depending on who you talk to.

#11

Very good reply form my old friend Asuri.

I must state a few things where I disagree.

  1. Love is not a concept. It is a real thing.
  2. Using the term “creeping in” denotes a slight of aversion on Asuri’s part.
  3. Once aversion comes into play, the lack of prejudice cannot be expected.
  4. Eros is not that obvious. I have spent years (actually decades) trying to find answers to this mistery, with little results. Of course if we identify eros with sexuality, than we might think we know Her, as we are sexual beings. But so are animals. I am not saying that animals don’t expereince eros, I actually think they do. But I think, that humans are only capable of having a distorted, reduced kind of eros, what lacks love. The pig is not indecent and never can be such, but men can be “pigs”. We say this because they do not make love, but they satisfy a so called "animal need’. But animals do not satisfy their needs this way, only humans do. To cut it short, eros is not sex, but love manifested through and on this level of existence. Proof to this is the shere size of romantic poetry, or prose, or other art forms created throught human history. And especially when eros is restricted form it’s field of natural play, espeacially in those cases the power of Love acting in it becomes obvious.

As about agape, I think, that would be a state, when one having become free of prejudice and atachment on the lover levels of existence (hatred, inddiference, simpathy-antipathy, eros) and becomes able to witness and get in tune with divine love, or the power by what all created things are animated.

When you are able to see the reason, wisdom and purpose in a very bad thing, you are practicing agape. CityMonk, you are not expected to love things what awake aversion, repulsion, or hatred in you. At least not the way we usually use the word love. You are not expected to like evil, or bad things. But what you are expected as a human being, having the ability to discern, and to aquire knowlede and experience, is to try to understand it. That does not even mean you have to accept it, but you must be able to witness it, to maintain it on the screen of your awarness, and without your prejudice or aversion coming into play. Than you create the chance of a deper understanding.

We really learn form the thing we can hardly face. The difficulty you face is a blessing and an opportunity.

#12

Bad wordage. I was trying to say: only humans are capable for a distorted kind of eros, not that they are only capable of this.

#13

[QUOTE=JSK;66271]I wouldn’t put too much importance on it.

If you want to attain that emotion, then practice metta bahavna, but remember that there’s more to love than the feeling. You may want to try to serve others in some fashion and see if that brings it back.[/QUOTE]

Thats the thing… i do not thing this is an EMOTION… I suspect that this kind of love is a state of mind or something like this… more GLOBAL than emotion or just a feeling

#14

[QUOTE=Hubert;66449]

As about agape, I think, that would be a state, when one having become free of prejudice and atachment on the lover levels of existence (hatred, inddiference, simpathy-antipathy, eros) and becomes able to witness and get in tune with divine love, or the power by what all created things are animated.

When you are able to see the reason, wisdom and purpose in a very bad thing, you are practicing agape. CityMonk, you are not expected to love things what awake aversion, repulsion, or hatred in you. At least not the way we usually use the word love. You are not expected to like evil, or bad things. But what you are expected as a human being, having the ability to discern, and to aquire knowlede and experience, is to try to understand it. That does not even mean you have to accept it, but you must be able to witness it, to maintain it on the screen of your awarness, and without your prejudice or aversion coming into play. Than you create the chance of a deper understanding.

We really learn form the thing we can hardly face. The difficulty you face is a blessing and an opportunity.[/QUOTE]

I think that this is a good description of agape. It is really not about love in the traditional or “eros” since that I am guessing that CityMonk wishes to attain. Would you say that when people love themselves that this is more of an “agape” rather than “eros” love? For me anyway, I have always had a hard time loving myself. I have never been able to accept myself without judgement and/or prejudice. In sum, I am harder on myself than I am with any other human being on this earth. I guess it is the perfectionist tendency in me.

Love is such a confusing thing for me.

#15

[QUOTE=a.mi;66644] For me anyway, I have always had a hard time loving myself. I have never been able to accept myself without judgement and/or prejudice. In sum, I am harder on myself than I am with any other human being on this earth. [/QUOTE]

a.mi,
That has been the situation for me too, for a very big part of my life, and that unloving recently showed up again though in a diluted form. For me, heart focus dissolves it.

I have had love in my life for a long time but I do see now that it has been love restricted by fears. The fears have been related to my imagined inability to love myself, and the imagined causes of that inability.
(I use the word ‘imagined’ as I now consider them to be just that, however they have of course been very true and almost tangible to me at some point. Perspective has shifted since!)

Self-love… Not sure what to call it but it seems to consist of internal watching, smiling, forgiving when needed, openness, trust. We are radiance and limitlessness. No fear allowed or even possible, very odd at first :wink:

#16

I believe that Christians characterize agape by the sacrificing of God’s own son so that sins can be forgiven. I find two aspects to this:

  1. God “loves” the world intensely. This is very different from Hindu teaching. God is not seeking liberation, he loves the world.
  2. There is such a thing as forgiveness. Karma does not always have to play itself out to its rightful consequences, and so God reveals himself as merciful.

In practical terms, we can see agape as a sort of non-sexual love, like that of a mother for her children, or between brothers and sisters, or comrades in arms. It can be seen as a willingness to sacrifice one’s own interests for the sake of another or a community as a whole. It can also be found as a willingness to forgive, or to let the hurtful things of the past flow away like so much water under the bridge.

#17

[QUOTE=Asuri;66366]I believe that love is a judeo-christian concept and it always surprises me when I see it creeping into Buddhist and Hindu teachings. Anyway, for what it’s worth, the Greeks had a couple of different words for love. Eros is the love between a man and a woman, then there is Agape which is the sort of divine love that christians (and apparently Buddhists too) talk about. I guess my point is that there is a distinction. It’s obvious to everyone what eros is, but agape is not so obvious, and the interpretation is likely to differ depending on who you talk to.[/QUOTE]

Compassionate love would be the same as Agape, right?

#18

“Love”, like all words, will mean whatsoever one wants it to mean. When I use the word love, I am simply referring to a certain compassionate intelligence that happens once you are living in communion with existence. Once you are in tune with your own original nature, one will immediately come to the realization that the same nature pervades all things. Out of this - to be compassionate is just a very natural quality. Otherwise - you can call “love” whatever you want. Unfortuately, for most people - what they are calling love is nothing more than lust which happens out of the force of attraction, you are just trying to use the other as a way to nourish ones ego.

I would not focus too much on what “Love” is. Whatever one means by that word, love is a limiting quality. Come to know of that which is simply empty of all limiting qualities and forms - when you are awakened to the boundlessness of your own true self - then whatever may happen - love or hate - it will be impossible for it not to be included as part of ones enlightenment.

#19

@Amir

I can see you, but I can’t hear you. That’s because you’re on my ignore list FOREVER. So much for agape.

#20

There are lot of meanings of Love…For me, Love is real & it’s different for everyone…Love can understand only those persons who are in love …Am I true guys??:confused: