What is love?

[Greta]

Another angle. If we disregard the various names given to physical forces and social dynamics, reality is just a lot of pushing inwards and pulling outwards.

Love acts as a bonding force between social animals and their environment, just as hatred acts to repel. Gravity brings matter together at grand scales. One pole of magnetism and centripetal force bring matter together at less huge scales. At subatomic scales we have the nuclear forces. For biology, attraction can occur via love, lust, appetising smells or a need for shelter, for example.

When it comes to the physical movements of nature, it arguably matters less whether one is drawn to another intending to mate with, kill, eat or groom them so much as you simply connect - what happens after that is another story

[Nick_A]

Hi Walker

Hello Nick,

The energy of love is not an addition. It is an alignment of forces. Love aligns, or redirects, or orders existent energy upon attention directed towards the beloved. This is effortless, and natural. The experience of love is the experience of no conflict, and that energy freed from conflict allows the steady, non-distracted attention upon the beloved, although that freed energy can subsequently be squandered in conflicts that may follow love. Love orders attention into a singular focus, upon the beloved. The lover experiences thought, movement, and intent all ordering into alignment with a common purpose (the beloved), like photons in a laser beam*, and it feels good.

I agree that love has an effect but what is its source? I agree that pure love as the highest energy of unification is by definition without conflict. However can’t the experience of no conflict also come through drugs? The energy of love seems to have a greater value than promoting no conflict

Do you believe in animal love? Can a dog experience grief from the loss of its beloved? Is animal love more pure than human love? Do you agree with the following:

Human love is generally artificial, circumspect, hypocritical… Animal love is unconditionally, true and for a life time!!!.

I ask these questions to show how difficult the question of what love actually is. Believers often say God is Love but what does it mean?

Do you think society as a whole can ever come to understand the energy of love? Do you think society as a whole will ever experience the difference between animal love as reactions to earthly influences and human love which can become capable of the love of God as opposed to idolatry serving self interests?

It seems we need to become open to a higher quality of reason which reconciles the duality of our normal struggles. But as is obvious, all attempts to introduce it in society are violently rejected as with Jesus and Socrates for example. IYO what will be necessary for us to agree on the source of the energy of love and how it is expressed within the confines of our great universe.

[gaffo]

Basicly love is a feeling of appreciation/addiction to something familiar or desired.

concur.

Love is knowing and liking.

It's fascination and fantasy.

not sure here.

Being in love is a rush of overwhelming appreciation/admiration.

to me this seems more "puppy love".

but that is just IMO on the matter.

I was both young and dumb a long time ago and per rememberances - concur.

Love is basicly comfort in the known

agree,

or admiration of something new.

disagree.

In you inner self, love is a "yes feeling" towards a familiar person/object.

agreed

Love can be objectified and explained.

agreed

Love is not supernatural or divine.

agreed

Love is plain and simple.

damn straight it is.

and a great thing nonetheless

[Walker]

Hi Walker

I agree that love has an effect but what is its source?

The source of the energy is both the choiceless species imperative to perpetuate (potential energy), and the Kreb’s cycle (kinetic energy).

[Walker]

Love has no energy. Love is a fantasy. If you look for it's opposite you may find hate. Another fantasy.

It's all in our minds. However, one mind can hold more data, than the entire universe.

If you find energy in love, it's due to choice. Choice is powerful. Love is a choice, not a power.

Love is a good choice, but don't be ignorant/naive.

Evidence of actions, reportage, and readers’ experiences of energy aligned and focused to purpose (the beloved) via love, relegates the assertion to an anecdotal exception that suggests denial, disillusionment, or unsubstantiated rebuttal.

[Walker]

Nick:

I ask these questions to show how difficult the question of what love actually is. Believers often say God is Love but what does it mean?

To say that God is Love is a recognition of the Supreme Ordering Principle of the Universe that orchestrates physics, the motion of the ocean, and also the alignment of forces according to unconflicted purpose that is love, which results in co-existence and perpetuation of the species, which is the current state of world affairs.

I agree that pure love as the highest energy of unification is by definition without conflict. However can’t the experience of no conflict also come through drugs? The energy of love seems to have a greater value than promoting no conflict

Love is the effect of no conflict, not the cause of no conflict.
Conflict is often the effect of love.
Drugs are the effect of conflict.

Do you believe in animal love? Can a dog experience grief from the loss of its beloved? Is animal love more pure than human love? Do you agree with the following:

I think that my dog would sacrifice her life trying to save mine, if she was still alive.

It seems we need to become open to a higher quality of reason which reconciles the duality of our normal struggles. But as is obvious, all attempts to introduce it in society are violently rejected as with Jesus and Socrates for example. IYO what will be necessary for us to agree on the source of the energy of love and how it is expressed within the confines of our great universe.

I’d say gratitude for life and keeping a reference to the absolute, which is identified as principles within unfolding reality, and which sadly and paradoxically results from surviving hard times (suffering).

Gratitude for life looks to the absolute, for life is all we know or can know. Death is a mystery because what happens to existence can only be unconfirmed inference, subject to varying degrees of probability, based on what is known. Obviously, death is the unknown to the extent that the experience of non-being cannot be imagined by anyone, even though all have experienced unconsciousness.

Suffering is rooted in duality, and changes like the weather. A conceptual realization underlying effective tonglin (tonglen) practice is knowing, from the view of the absolute, that the greatest compassion is reserved for those who have the most, for they will fall farther and hit harder when they lose everything, as everyone does.

[Nick_A]

Walker, you’ve introduced many good ideas

To say that God is Love is a recognition of the Supreme Ordering Principle of the Universe that orchestrates physics, the motion of the ocean, and also the alignment of forces according to unconflicted purpose that is love, which results in co-existence and perpetuation of the species, which is the current state of world affairs.

As I understand it, God is Love” refers to the unity of three and ONE - the ultimate unification or triad. However the mechanics of the universe are governed by laws and in particular the Law of Octaves as described by Pythagoras.

"The way up and the way down are one and the same." - Heraclitus

The vertical universe structured on levels of reality or qualities of being is maintained through the complimentary processes of involution and evolution. Involution or the movement of forces into creation and their lessening vibrations results from laws. However the evolutionary movement or return to the source requires God’s love and the increasing frequency of vibrations in matter. So even though the way up and the way down are the same, the creative energies produce creation while the higher energy of unification or love, serves to enable evolution or the return to the source.

Love is the effect of no conflict, not the cause of no conflict.

I respectfully have to disagree but I may not understand what you mean. I( don’t see them as necessarily related. For example even though a turtle and an elephant do not live in conflict doesn’t mean they are an expression of love.

I think that my dog would sacrifice her life trying to save mine, if she was still alive.

True, but would Greta sacrifice her life to save mine? Does this mean an animal’s potential for love is greater than that of a human being?

I’d say gratitude for life and keeping a reference to the absolute, which is identified as principles within unfolding reality, and which sadly and paradoxically results from surviving hard times (suffering).

Does this excerpt reflect what you mean?

"The combination of these two facts — the longing in the depth of the heart for absolute good, and the power, though only latent, of directing attention and love to a reality beyond the world and of receiving good from it — constitutes a link which attaches every man without exception to that other reality.

Whoever recognizes that reality recognizes also that link. Because of it, he holds every human being without any exception as something sacred to which he is bound to show respect.

This is the only possible motive for universal respect towards all human beings. Whatever formulation of belief or disbelief a man may choose to make, if his heart inclines him to feel this respect, then he in fact also recognizes a reality other than this world's reality. Whoever in fact does not feel this respect is alien to that other reality also." ~ Simone Weil

[Harbal]

Do you believe in animal love?

Although it doesn't appeal to me, personally, I am not judgemental about it. All I would say to you, Nick, is, keep your activities secret for now. When I think that, within my own lifetime, homosexual relationships have gone from being illegal to being openly accepted by both the law and society in general, I can't help but be optimistic that, one day, the love of which you speak will also be allowed out into the light of day. But, Nick, until that day arrives, I strongly advise you to keep your special relationship with your dog, cat or whatever, a closely guarded secret.

Btw. If you are interested, I can give you a link to an article I read, entitled "Pets with Benefits", let me know.

[Walker]

Do you believe in animal love?

Although it doesn't appeal to me, personally, I am not judgemental about it. All I would say to you, Nick, is, keep your activities secret for now. When I think that, within my own lifetime, homosexual relationships have gone from being illegal to being openly accepted by both the law and society in general, I can't help but be optimistic that, one day, the love of which you speak will also be allowed out into the light of day. But, Nick, until that day arrives, I strongly advise you to keep your special relationship with your dog, cat or whatever, a closely guarded secret.

Btw. If you are interested, I can give you a link to an article I read, entitled "Pets with Benefits", let me know.

That's one way of looking at it.

[Walker]

Love is the effect of no conflict, not the cause of no conflict.

I respectfully have to disagree but I may not understand what you mean. I( don’t see them as necessarily related. For example even though a turtle and an elephant do not live in conflict doesn’t mean they are an expression of love.

It’s like the old story of the Indian Brave and the maiden.

They were from different tribes. They met only once, at a festival, and they fell in love. Their fathers were both chiefs, and this love didn’t follow political plans for the future, so the chiefs forbade it. This wasn’t so difficult to enforce because the tribes lived at opposite ends of a huge lake.

Because he was in love, The Indian Brave had no internal conflicts.

He had realized his purpose in life. He knew why he was put on the earth. It was to love the maiden.

Many circumstances were in conflict with this realization: his father’s forbidding command, the limitations of his people’s lifestyle, the big lake. But none of this was a problem for the lad because he had no more conflicts. All doubts had been swept aside, conflict was swept aside. Every thought, every action, was aligned to his purpose. He was in love.

Since his father had put all the canoe paddles under guard, the Brave also swept aside that conflict.

He simply waded into the lake and began to swim to his beloved.

His love carried him far into the lake, but even though he was strong, the water was too wide, and he drowned.

It was tragic and there was great mourning by all, for the Brave was the best of the tribe, and within him was the potentiality, the hope for a brighter future.

In honor of his memory, the tribe changed the name of the lake. The Indian name is lost in the mists of time, but the translation persists. It’s called, Lake Stupid.

Moral of the story?
Under the proper conditions, ignoring reality is stupid because everything that exists has a purpose, even conflict.

The trick is to subsume all purpose into … God’s purpose, or your purpose?
Answer: Is any purpose other than the best to which you can aspire (given limited knowledge inherent to incarnation and also limited knowledge caused by corruption of that inherent capacity), capable of even approaching such subsumption?

[Nick_A]

Do you believe in animal love?

Although it doesn't appeal to me, personally, I am not judgemental about it. All I would say to you, Nick, is, keep your activities secret for now. When I think that, within my own lifetime, homosexual relationships have gone from being illegal to being openly accepted by both the law and society in general, I can't help but be optimistic that, one day, the love of which you speak will also be allowed out into the light of day. But, Nick, until that day arrives, I strongly advise you to keep your special relationship with your dog, cat or whatever, a closely guarded secret.

Btw. If you are interested, I can give you a link to an article I read, entitled "Pets with Benefits", let me know.

One of the most ignorant and dangerous results of the modern pursuit called education is the loss of even intellectually the difference between love and sex. Under these circumstances in which ignorance is worshiped as education, is it any wonder that Hitler's goal is considered perfectly logical and beneficial

Adolf Hitler stated, "I want to raise a generation of young people devoid of conscience - imperious, relentless, & cruel."

[Nick_A]

Walker

The trick is to subsume all purpose into … God’s purpose, or your purpose?
Answer: Is any purpose other than the best to which you can aspire (given limited knowledge inherent to incarnation and also limited knowledge caused by corruption of that inherent capacity), capable of even approaching such subsumption?

But this isn't so easy. Have you contemplated the meaning and purpose of the universe and Man within it? As we've witnessed both in real life and on philosophy sites, there is nothing more repulsive to secularism than the normal contemplation of the obvious. It is rejected as violently as possible and replaced by acceptable feelgoodisms. That being the case, concern for God's purpose manifested as universal purpose is only possible now for a minority attracted to rather than repulsed by normal impartial contemplation.

[Harbal]

One of the most ignorant and dangerous results of the modern pursuit called education is the loss of even intellectually the difference between love and sex.

Yes, Nick, but it can be a very short step from one to the other. One minute your dog is sleeping on your bed, the next, it's in your bed with you. That is one of the dangerous results of the modern pursuit called letting your pets get away with too much. All I can say is that when you have your way with whatever animal is the object of your desire, you show it some respect afterwards.

Under these circumstances in which ignorance is worshiped as education, is it any wonder that Hitler's goal is considered perfectly logical and beneficial

I honestly don't know if it is any wonder that Hitler's goal is considered perfectly logical and beneficial, Nick, I thought we were just talking about you shagging your pets.

[Walker]

Walker

The trick is to subsume all purpose into … God’s purpose, or your purpose?
Answer: Is any purpose other than the best to which you can aspire (given limited knowledge inherent to incarnation and also limited knowledge caused by corruption of that inherent capacity), capable of even approaching such subsumption?

But this isn't so easy. Have you contemplated the meaning and purpose of the universe and Man within it? As we've witnessed both in real life and on philosophy sites, there is nothing more repulsive to secularism than the normal contemplation of the obvious. It is rejected as violently as possible and replaced by acceptable feelgoodisms. That being the case, concern for God's purpose manifested as universal purpose is only possible now for a minority attracted to rather than repulsed by normal impartial contemplation.

Folks comprehend existence, but understanding existence begins with, know thyself.

This is true even if the tradition of understanding existence, is secular.

Question: Do you think that secularism denies the absolute, and that awareness of the absolute is necessary in order to know thyself?

[Nick_A]

Walker

Question: Do you think that secularism denies the absolute, and that awareness of the absolute is necessary in order to know thyself?

Yes. For most, the practice of know thyself is just psychology and analysis. But the conscious experience of the self necessary to know thyself in the esoteric sense requires the conscious part of our collective being which is open to the vertical line of being leading to the Absolute. This conscious part is not active

Secularism is only concerned with behavior in the world and uses analysis to further its aims. The esoteric practice of "know thyself" is concerned with what we ARE and the human condition denying the ability "to be." The practice of "know thyself" reveals what we ARE as opposed to the secular aim of behavioral indoctrination

The revelation of what we ARE is repulsive to secularism since to be open to it results in the death of secularism. It will fight for its dominance in the world and the fight is not all that pleasant.