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Love...what is this strange thing?

Migrated topic.
PH0Man

PH0Man

Rising Star
Dear Nexians,

I've recently been hearing the word "love" being thrown around a lot, I'm curious how different people would define it.

One thing that I have heard that I can't help but feel bothered by is the idea that it's good to love everyone, and love oneself, unconditionally. Naturally, this would mean that everyone is equally good, and deserving of this love? What about "unvirtuous", people that don't strive to be good, or better? Or, if I love myself unconditionally, what drive do I then have to "fix" faults in my character or bad habits etc.? Should I love murderers? Accept them?

To give an example, this is the view I disagree with:
anamnesia (In the topic entitled "Vanity and Fake People" ) said:
Then I praise you for loving yourself providing me the opportunity to love you truly.
What we dislike, all of us, is falseness. There are not very many people alive today, actually. They say billions, I say millions.
By alive I mean conscious. The few that are conscious, always seem to have in common the trait of being conduits of love, which happened as a result of finding approval of oneself in the eyes of oneself. And this is call loving yourself.
If you love yourself, this energy attracts that which is like itself from others around you.
Loving yourself, you become lovable indeed.
Click to expand...

I think most people do have the equal potential to be the best person they can be, but few have the "virtue" to actually do it, or be driven to try. If I do happen to find one such rare person, it would be an honor to love them, to be loved by them, and have them as part of my life. I then want to devote as much my time/energy/life to that person, because I feel they "deserve" it, but also because I hope to build something more.

What about you?

Looking forward to your replies as always :)
 
Here are two threads that work to answer your question:



And of course:
😁

As for your question, there are different kinds of love in my opinion. Paternal, maternal, friendship, platonic, and romantic love, as well as many others. The love I have for all my fellow people is different from the love I share with my partner, but it all has this same kernel of emotional appreciation and respect.
 
RAM said:
...there are different kinds of love in my opinion. Paternal, maternal, friendship, platonic, and romantic love, as well as many others. The love I have for all my fellow people is different from the love I share with my partner, but it all has this same kernel of emotional appreciation and respect.
Click to expand...

I would suggest that all these forms of love are subsets of one type of love..what is that?

Also, do you believe everyone to be unconditionally worthy of respect and appreciation?
 
There are different things defined as Love, but the big L is simply an acceptance and openness with whatever thing/place/concept/person/entity. The more you Love something the more you accept it and are open to it - to the point of it becoming part of the definition of 'you'.

This was one of my first lessons in hyperspace. To open and accept, to Love - all that you find, whatever its motives or however it looks.

As humans Love tends to come with baggage, desire - ownership - hormones - need. But the underlying Love just is, you don't create it with chemicals or effort. It is what is there when you let go of all that stuff.
 
For me, love is connection. If I can deeply connect/synchronize/harmonize with someone (or a group of people, or all humanity/planet/existence), then I call that love.

I think that it's good to aim to find that connection to people. Does that mean that I need to accept every negative action and damage caused by others ? Not IMO... Sometimes to love might mean these people need a 'slap', like the DMT love giving us a hyperspacial slap :D
 
endlessness said:
Does that mean that I need to accept every negative action and damage caused by others ? Not IMO...
Click to expand...

This seems to be the crux often missed, differentiating between "to be" and "to behave like". The detachment of a certain behaviour and the identification with a state of being. F.e. we all can behave like reckless egosits but we are not.

tseuq
 
PH0Man said:
Also, do you believe everyone to be unconditionally worthy of respect and appreciation?
Click to expand...

Everyone in my opinion is worthy of these things, but maybe to a different extent. While I do love everyone, some people must be detained and/or simply avoided. We may appreciate the life and consciousness of a mass murderer, but this person must arguably be kept separate from society in order to not harm anyone else. Love and letting people do whatever they wish are different things!

Like endlessness wrote, sometimes people need a "slap" for their best interests and to be pushed in the right direction, which may end up being a healthier path for them.
 
Love cannot be thought about, love cannot be cultivated, love cannot be practised. The practice of love, the practice of brotherhood, is still within the field of the mind, therefore it is not love. When all this has stopped, then love comes into being, then you will know what it is to love. Then love is not quantitative but qualitative. You do not say, "I love the whole world" but when you know how to love one, you know how to love the whole. Because we do not know how to love one, our love of humanity is fictitious. When you love, there is neither one nor many: there is only love. It is only when there is love that all our problems can be solved and then we shall know its bliss and its happiness.
~Jiddu Krishnamurti
 
Glad I saw this or was about to create and add another in my history of strange threads.

Struggling with this one big time right now. I was doing great, on my merry way into yet another foray to another part of the country, setting up, getting my sh** together and feeling steady and more confident than I have felt in a long time. Then earth day goes and throws a spanner in the cogs and I'm all F'd up now and I don't know what to do and don't feel there is much choice regardless but it doesn't feel right at the same time.. It's been a little while, and just like the time before, I am feeling completely slain.

I can articulate, divulge and magnify and expand and record the many fingerprints and shapes and sizes and vocabularies of love at length, in my own way but thoroughly and convincingly just the same. And then there are all of you and others with these amazing revelations and your own explorations into the question and the heart and the idea of things. But its all too easy to reflect, with seeming crystal clarity, on something while it doesn't have me by the scruff of my neck. And when it does, I am scared shitless and just as lost as anybody.

It is clearly an illness, otherwise it would not F me up so consistently and so completely. I am of the opinion that love cannot be trusted, that it is pathological.. it needs to be overcome, somehow. Don't give in, however incapacitating the ache and however wrong it feels in your body entire to ignore it.

I am not talking about the philosophical concept of it, which is reducible to the sentiment common with the word 'connection', coupled with that of 'positive energy'. I am talking about the inescapable, meat grinding mind shredding blood sinew bone, the nuts and bolts of the human genome. The duality.

How does one conquer the duality? It makes me ill.
 
thymamai said:
Glad I saw this or was about to create and add another in my history of strange threads.

Struggling with this one big time right now. I was doing great, on my merry way into yet another foray to another part of the country, setting up, getting my sh** together and feeling steady and more confident than I have felt in a long time. Then earth day goes and throws a spanner in the cogs and I'm all F'd up now and I don't know what to do and don't feel there is much choice regardless but it doesn't feel right at the same time.. It's been a little while, and just like the time before, I am feeling completely slain.

---

I am not talking about the philosophical concept of it, which is reducible to the sentiment common with the word 'connection', coupled with that of 'positive energy'. I am talking about the inescapable, meat grinding mind shredding blood sinew bone, the nuts and bolts of the human genome. The duality.

How does one conquer the duality? It makes me ill.
Click to expand...

I'd be very interesting in knowing more about the nature of your struggle... I've have been caught amidst an ever more complex love triangle of the worst kind for the better part of 8 months... I know what incredible pain love can lead to..

What's this duality you refer to?
 
PH0Man said:
...if I love myself unconditionally, what drive do I then have to "fix" faults in my character or bad habits etc.?
Click to expand...

Maybe its the other way around? Perhaps if you don't truly love yourself, you won't have a genuine drive to improve yourself.

PH0Man said:
I think most people do have the equal potential to be the best person they can be, but few have the "virtue" to actually do it, or be driven to try. If I do happen to find one such rare person, it would be an honor to love them, to be loved by them, and have them as part of my life. I then want to devote as much my time/energy/life to that person, because I feel they "deserve" it, but also because I hope to build something more.
Click to expand...

Do you love your family? Are they all driven to be the best people they can be? Do you have children? Would you not love them even if they were not "deserving" of it? Would your love for them vary depending on their current drive towards self improvement?

Another question, do you believe you have the ability to determine if someone is or is trying to be the best person they can be? How do you make this determination?


To me it seems to me that true love becomes apparent at times when it is specifically not "deserved".
 
ehud said:
1.Do you love your family? Are they all driven to be the best people they can be? Do you have children? Would you not love them even if they were not "deserving" of it? Would your love for them vary depending on their current drive towards self improvement?

2.Another question, do you believe you have the ability to determine if someone is or is trying to be the best person they can be? How do you make this determination?


3.To me it seems to me that true love becomes apparent at times when it is specifically not "deserved".
Click to expand...

1. Loving one's family vs. falling in love with someone.. I would be less tempted to fall in love with someone who makes a habit of lying and hurting people, though I would be more tempted to fall in love with someone who does these things but also has a clear (and honest) drive to change.

2. Yes, I can certainly have a valid opinion.

3. Caring for someone does, but I would suggest that the need to stay in love with someone that doesn't deserve it is actually a really negative side of being in love. Loving someone who is abusive for example.
 
Love is like a hangnail. Nip it in the bud before it snags on something and leaves a little hole in the topside of your finger.

I am just fine, but thanks for your consideration, PH0. Will skip the details and save myself the embarrassment.

I love my life. That is the only love there is that is real. All other "kinds" as I thought of them before, are but byproducts.
 
I think it's important to differentiate between romantic love, platonic love, and compassion.

If we call Buddhism a religion of love we need to be clear what we mean by love, or more precisely, what forms of love we are including. Because freedom is the guide, the measure, and the ultimate goal of all things Buddhist, Buddhist love includes those forms of love that are characterized by freedom. Love that involves clinging, lust, confusion, neediness, fear, or grasping to self would, in Buddhist terms, be seen as expressions of bondage and limitation.


The Buddha’s Teachings on Love – Insight Meditation Center
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Love is the answer, but again, I feel there must be some confusion when things like this are said...

Romantic love has its functions, and isn't in itself negative, but it's not what I'm talking about when I say I promote love at all costs.


I think it's great to contemplate love, but we must also be mindful to define what it is that is meant by the word "love"




-----


How can we win if we're taking psychedelics (which erode the ego) I think that what we have to say is that we must win by example. You know, the I Ching says you must never confront evil directly, because then it learns how to defend itself. The hippies were certainly no threat to the government as a military force, but as an example, as a model for others to follow, I think they scared them to death. They were probably very happy to see them all turn into Weathermen and begin hurling molotov cocktails. *That* they understood. They could relate to that. But flowers in the barrels of their guns spelled ruin and defeat, and they knew it.
Click to expand...

This was an example of how by using simple love, the 60s counter-culture had the establishment baffled, they did not know how to react, and it wasn't until the counterculture degraded to the level of the establishment that the establishment was finally able to defeat it...

Nothing can be changed except ourselves...

... and by living by example, and by practicing love and compassion in every aspect of our daily lives, we know that we are at least doing all that we can. You can not force anybody to understand you or except your values, and often there's no point in even trying, you don't have the right to tell another what values to hold, but, by living by example we can put as much love and positivity in the world as possible, without violating the rights of others around you.

-eg
 
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