In fact, I'll go further ...
Posted 1st September 2009 at 10:53 PM by Interference
Updated 2nd September 2009 at 10:29 AM by Interference
Updated 2nd September 2009 at 10:29 AM by Interference
... it's actually impossible to equate human, romantic love with spiritual love, even though they may both originate at the same, utterly pure source.
Romantic, human love will always end, either by dissipating or by converting into some other form. The most optimistic ending is that it becomes spiritual. Less optimistic is that it becomes background acceptance
Most pessimistic is that it will end painfully for either or both parties. In the latter two cases, the ending must result as a consequence of ego involvement. Facts and data become available over time which causes one or other party to review their situation and love ends accordingly, usually one-sidedly but not always. Remove the ego, the charged, emotional investment, and these data become immaterial. By the same token, the torrid emotions involved reduce to negligible as love exceeds the mundane, human, carnal world and emerges into the higher, spiritual plane.
Only in the first case does romantic love achieve spiritual fulfillment where romantic love ends and is replaced by a far more valuable spiritual love. Spiritual love between two or more humans is the aspiration of spiritual seekers, after all: an all-embracing love that excludes all egoic demands and, as a bi-product, also excludes all sentiment. We love one another because we are one other - we are star stuff, after all. This is, perhaps, the subject of several other diatribes
This all-embracing spiritual love is recognisable in the love for a child or a parent or sibling only because self interest and ego are removed from it. Love for family is unconditional, truly selfless. It may begin as a psychic bond between mother and child, a hypothesis which seems to have some veracity in anecdotal evidence.
It may also or instead be genetic. In a true sense whosoever shares my genes is more similar to me than anyone who doesn't. Our cells are closer to being the same cell because in a whole host of ways, they truly are one cell, having shared an origin more intimate than any strangers'. To hate my brother is to hate myself. To dislike my brother does not mean I have no love for him. Attack him and I will leap to his defence. Do we have an unconscious recognition of ourselves in our family relations which is more acute because we share this genetic, cellular connection? Someone else can investigate that, I think.
Spiritual love, of course, can never end. Spiritual love is the essence that binds the Universe, after all. It is the energy that pervades us, and when our bodies die it is what is left of us. It needs no emotional connection to sustain it. It never suffers. It never falters. It never asks for constant reaffirmation. It only gives, never takes.
If spiritual love is the positive, then romantic love is the polar opposite. It is needy, demanding, life-altering, confusing, debilitating; it affects eating habits, routines, how we present ourselves, how we admire ourselves through the eyes of another; it re-sets our limits and our goals; it is purely ego-driven and so, so temporary. The first bloom of romantic love soon gives way to the seven year itch. Ego-driven humans are constantly changing, forever fickle and one person's change is another's metamorphosis; one's growth is another's estrangement. People get bored of people and look elsewhere for fulfillment. The pattern is there throughout the history of humanity. Eternal loves only ever appear in fiction or the few, very rare cases in real life - and most of those are lies for the sake of appearances.
These aren't particularly new thoughts for me. I hadn't ever before contemplated the possibility of spiritual love, but I think I've always had the notion that all love dies without realising that I was really only talking about romantic love. There are some forms that will survive us after death of which I am only now becoming aware.
But they won't get me laid ...
If you disagree with what I've just said, the odds are you're either in love or feel that you need to be in order to complete yourself. If you agree ... we're an independent bunch, aren't we?
Maybe not
xxx
Romantic, human love will always end, either by dissipating or by converting into some other form. The most optimistic ending is that it becomes spiritual. Less optimistic is that it becomes background acceptance
Most pessimistic is that it will end painfully for either or both parties. In the latter two cases, the ending must result as a consequence of ego involvement. Facts and data become available over time which causes one or other party to review their situation and love ends accordingly, usually one-sidedly but not always. Remove the ego, the charged, emotional investment, and these data become immaterial. By the same token, the torrid emotions involved reduce to negligible as love exceeds the mundane, human, carnal world and emerges into the higher, spiritual plane.
Only in the first case does romantic love achieve spiritual fulfillment where romantic love ends and is replaced by a far more valuable spiritual love. Spiritual love between two or more humans is the aspiration of spiritual seekers, after all: an all-embracing love that excludes all egoic demands and, as a bi-product, also excludes all sentiment. We love one another because we are one other - we are star stuff, after all. This is, perhaps, the subject of several other diatribes
This all-embracing spiritual love is recognisable in the love for a child or a parent or sibling only because self interest and ego are removed from it. Love for family is unconditional, truly selfless. It may begin as a psychic bond between mother and child, a hypothesis which seems to have some veracity in anecdotal evidence.
It may also or instead be genetic. In a true sense whosoever shares my genes is more similar to me than anyone who doesn't. Our cells are closer to being the same cell because in a whole host of ways, they truly are one cell, having shared an origin more intimate than any strangers'. To hate my brother is to hate myself. To dislike my brother does not mean I have no love for him. Attack him and I will leap to his defence. Do we have an unconscious recognition of ourselves in our family relations which is more acute because we share this genetic, cellular connection? Someone else can investigate that, I think.
Spiritual love, of course, can never end. Spiritual love is the essence that binds the Universe, after all. It is the energy that pervades us, and when our bodies die it is what is left of us. It needs no emotional connection to sustain it. It never suffers. It never falters. It never asks for constant reaffirmation. It only gives, never takes.
If spiritual love is the positive, then romantic love is the polar opposite. It is needy, demanding, life-altering, confusing, debilitating; it affects eating habits, routines, how we present ourselves, how we admire ourselves through the eyes of another; it re-sets our limits and our goals; it is purely ego-driven and so, so temporary. The first bloom of romantic love soon gives way to the seven year itch. Ego-driven humans are constantly changing, forever fickle and one person's change is another's metamorphosis; one's growth is another's estrangement. People get bored of people and look elsewhere for fulfillment. The pattern is there throughout the history of humanity. Eternal loves only ever appear in fiction or the few, very rare cases in real life - and most of those are lies for the sake of appearances.
These aren't particularly new thoughts for me. I hadn't ever before contemplated the possibility of spiritual love, but I think I've always had the notion that all love dies without realising that I was really only talking about romantic love. There are some forms that will survive us after death of which I am only now becoming aware.
But they won't get me laid ...
If you disagree with what I've just said, the odds are you're either in love or feel that you need to be in order to complete yourself. If you agree ... we're an independent bunch, aren't we?
Maybe not
xxx
Total Comments 19
Comments
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What can I say, beautifully put. Only once again you are looking at the effect and not the cause. Think morePosted 2nd September 2009 at 01:01 PM by katiafish
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Sorry, hon, I think you skip-read again. The cause is ego, as is pretty much implicit in each line.
Love has one source, I'll accept that for now. Once it reaches the human organism, it has two potentials. Selfless purity or ego-tainted selfishness. There are very, very few humans who don't choose the latter where it comes to relationships with members of the opposite sex. It's by far the most short-term satisfying. The results are instantaneous. But it is never, ever eternal.
Being in love contains its own expectations of longevity. Expectation is the real enemy, of course.
I applaud and recognise relationships that survive lifetimes - my own parents are an example of this - while at the same time I realise that the love that began the relationship is highly unlikely to be the love that it becomes, through many phases, throughout it. In the end, perhaps it does become spiritual love, as long as the people involved stay with it.
If I am to think more, it will be in light of new, contradicting evidence. Anyone have any?Posted 2nd September 2009 at 01:46 PM by Interference
Updated 2nd September 2009 at 03:59 PM by Interference -
With some people, all you get is ego, ego ego.
Posted 2nd September 2009 at 05:46 PM by Ursa major - What I was talking about is the initial constant or "pure" love frequency that is communicated to the Egomind throught the Self from the Unity. In order to be experienced by the egomind, as in, become conceptual love, ego attributes to it the qualities that you have described above.
My point is that both ego "romantic" love and the "spiritual" love come from the same source and both "translated" by the egomind in order to experience them. The Self does not experience anything as it does not possess emotions, experience is a quality of the egomind.
Will that get you laid?
Posted 2nd September 2009 at 09:40 PM by katiafish - That little fact is in my first sentence.
It is in the translation that things tend to become corrupt. Pure love remains pure when it is experienced as a connection with all life. In this state, you could no more harm a pig than you could harm yourself, and loving your enemy as yourself is a walk in the park. It is, in this way, a factor of your being, not an experiencial thing.
Romantic love, however, deviates from this somewhat as ego imposes expectation on its outcome. Ego love, romantic love, physical love, all stem from selfishness and, to some extent, self importance. It feels good, but it's transient. Ego re-assesses it and re-defines it constantly.
One origin (absolutely and unarguably at this point), but two destinations. Actually, only one destination. The other can never really arrive anywhere as long as it's fuelled by an ego-driven need for fulfillment. Let's say Love starts in Shepherd's Bush, but at Euston Station, it divides and one part takes a train to the Lake District while the other goes to Southampton. One reaches a destination while the other has to choose where to go next. Always, it's "next" for romance. Always it's "whenever" and "if". Only the spiritual can conceive of rest in "this" and "now".
And it'll take a lot more than that to get me laidPosted 3rd September 2009 at 03:46 PM by Interference - I agree on a principle, however, I'd like to point out that what you are expressing here is the translation that your Egomind is attributing to that particular representation of the "pure" love.
When the Pure frequency is initially passed on through the Self, egomind has a choice how to translate it, what particular set of experiental conditioning, emotions and feelings to apply to the future experience. So it is the egomind that is choosing to attribute the qualities that you are describing above to the experience of the romantic love.
Understanding this fact and bringing it to our conscious view will potentially give us an incredible release from the circle of the "same" experience that humans in general seem to follow, because it gives us freedom to choose the attributes of the quality of the "spiritual" love to the "physical" love, if not in whole, then partially.Posted 3rd September 2009 at 04:04 PM by katiafish - Absolutely my point. Ego perverts pure love, to paraphrase Ursa -- though, I don't see there can be any compromise involved. Pure love must exclude egoic demands completely. There should be no selecting of attributes from the corrupt to enhance the pure, that just isn't possible. The choice is only to love all or to love yourself through others.
No one needs another person to make them complete. Only to make them feel complete. And where does feeling come from?
I thought we might be on the same page, after all, but I wasn't entirely sure.Posted 3rd September 2009 at 04:55 PM by Interference - Hehehe Glad to see you are using my own terminology against me
I am not saying that the love the egomind feels towards the other human being in a romantic relationship is Pure, as the Pure love is an absolute, a frequency that can only be communicated and resonate with the Self.
What I am however saying is that when the information is passed on to the egomind, it has a choice to apply positive or negative attributes and emotions to the experience of love. Therefore there is nothing to say that the experience of the romantic love can't be of the same quality as the spiritual or any other form of love that egomind can perceive.Posted 3rd September 2009 at 08:59 PM by katiafish
Updated 7th September 2009 at 02:31 PM by katiafish - Your terminology is the best there is, honey
But you misread me. I don't contend that romantic love is only ever emotionally negative. Pain may await, but bliss is always in its midst and true, positive emotions can be extremely satisfying.
But an emotion is an emotion and it comes from the ego and is thus undisciplined and not always or entirely in resonance with the Self. It can't be, because the Self eschews emotion and responds with pure insight and acceptance, there is no such thing as good or bad at that level and the impact or otherwise of emotions isn't relevant.
Emotional attachment, in whatever form, is ego-attachment. And ego must be brought under some measure of control for the Self to be allowed its full rein/reign and for ultimate spiritual development to be attained.
Just in summary, for anyone who is interested, my personal views are no reflection whatever on those among us who have found Love, and we know of several couples on Chrons as well as some who found their heart's desire on other fora. The test of romantic love is really, I suppose, take away the hugging and the kissy-kissy stuff and will it still stand the test. Again, we are all in awe and feel only the best of all possible wishes for L and S, around here, myself most definitely included - and that ain't a contradiction.
Just because I choose to seek my Self without combining my identity with someone else's, that's a matter for my ego and my mind to resonate over
and I promised I wouldn't say any more on the subject
Oooh! Blue smiley. Tha's perrrtttyyyy ...Posted 4th September 2009 at 01:45 AM by Interference
Updated 4th September 2009 at 04:19 PM by Interference -
The saddest thing ever, I think, is that all love will end in indifference. I'm sure someone else said that originally- and probably better- but it seems the truth.
People fall in love than turn indifferent. Others fall out of love and into hate, but even that is destined to cool off to nothing. And, sure, Love can be sliced away at its fullest bloom by death, yet death is the greatest indifference of all.
But that's this universe for you, I guess. The stars will eventually cool down and collapse into a soupy heat-death of sheer ambivilance. Everything's on a slow boat called Entropy.
Yes, its the saddest thing of all. But do I let it get me down?
Nah, I got laid last night.Posted 5th September 2009 at 05:50 AM by J-WO -
That makes everything just peachy DPosted 6th September 2009 at 04:10 AM by Interference -
If I may be so bold, I will make a statement. True love is not a feeling. True love is a commitment, attended to with integrity. I have been trying to explain this to various souls I've known well for years. The emotion that people feel when the romance begins - the euphoria, floating on air, the silliness, etc. is all meant to trick you into sticking around long enough to get to know someone. Then you find that the person is fallible, just like you. Some are disappointed by this. Some think that this means "the honeymoon is over". Some try to keep faking it long after those feelings have gone. I'm sorry but, as you can see my premise leaves little room for the existence of a "soul mate." You are paired up with someone, usually with very different personality traits than yours (even if your interests are similar). This is the ideal situation for you to grow spiritually and emotionally from. You must learn to accept others, with their faults, and learn to listen without ego when they point out yours. This is the only way I have found to understand how long lasting love works. Like many things in life, you get out of it what you put into it. Sometimes one (or both) of the pair does not learn this, and does not grow or profit from the relationship in a non-material sense. This is (as far as I know) the most common reason that relationships don't last. You must do things out of love, even when you do not feel the love inside. This investment will pay off if both people can manage it. Sometimes, you can even fall in love with the same person all over again. That is what I believe.Posted 14th September 2009 at 03:16 AM by Granfalloon - I think you are talking about Yung's idea of anima and animus, as in when a thinking man who has severely undeveloped feeling side "falls in love" with the feeling woman, in fact projecting his anima and in that way falling in love with himself. As the man developes, he starts to see his partner for what she represents and regects her.
I am talking however about the frequency with which The Divine Unity communicates with the Self incarnate, through dreams and intuition, sensations of the soul. That is what I call Pure Love.Posted 14th September 2009 at 01:38 PM by katiafish - Ahh... Well. I must admit, you purvey an interesting reply, but you are adding to the context of my basic kind of "straight forward" explanation with many terms that are not necessarily universal in nature. Jung was an amazing thinker I will agree, but if one is not familiar with enough of his work, I'm afraid they may miss your point. Actually, I wasn't saying anything about the "inner selves" of either the man or the woman, I was taking a much more pragmatic approach. If I may also point out that you appear to be contrasting and/or comparing my phrase "True Love" with your phrase "Pure Love", and those two things may very well be very different. I am talking purely about how it is possible for a relationship to withstand the "test of time". (Which is a process that may include the factors of which you speak). Also, what "The Divine Unity" and/or "the Self incarnate" means to me, and what it means to you, or what it means to others might also be quite ambiguous in the sense of an agreed upon meaning. Are you by any chance a psychologist, or therapist of some type? It seems to be the angle your coming from. I apologize if I am mistaken. Your reply also has a very "new-age" resonance to it, for lack of a better term, and I don't mind that at all. Some of the music I write is very "new-age" in nature. So, I guess what I'm saying is, could you clarify, and tell us more?Posted 15th September 2009 at 12:11 AM by Granfalloon
- I'll hold your coats.Posted 16th September 2009 at 02:49 PM by Interference
- Thank you. You wouldn't happen to have a seersucker you could put mine on? I know it's a bit OC, but I just like to avoid getting it wrinkled, you know?Posted 16th September 2009 at 03:00 PM by Granfalloon
- I'll have a look and see what's in the Lost and Found Posted 16th September 2009 at 05:08 PM by Interference
- I will send you a pm Granfalloon, if you desire, something tells me Inter is getting a bit impatient with my intellectual prowessPosted 16th September 2009 at 05:37 PM by katiafish
- Oi! no secrets, you two If you guys are gonna get all enlightened, I wanna bask in the reflected glory!Posted 16th September 2009 at 07:28 PM by Interference
