Learning to be Alone - All One

[Dontaskme]

[surreptitious57]

I would much rather be alone for the rest of my life than be in love with someone
Because you cannot guarantee that they will love you for as long as you love them

When you are alone you have no one to leave you because there is no one else
Being lonely is not desirable but being alone can be and there is the difference

Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all
Any answer to this will be subjective but for me it is a definite no

[Nick_A]

Dam, you are describing romantic love. But did you know it is the lowest form of love and produces its opposite. Romantic love is the love of image. People are attracted by the image another produces. But their essential self is not their image. So when the image no longer invites the emotion of love people no longer love and blame the loss on the other person.

The highest form of love for animal man on earth is the love of types. Essential types are attractive when not masked by image so can be drawn to each other by something more genuine than image. Their essences are complimentary so relationships do not have to fall apart.

The highest form of love for human being is conscious love or the love of life itself. It is an evolved form of love in which a person is able to give love for the benefit of another not just demand to receive it as with romantic love. Conscious love is an evolved human potential and a universal principle responsible for evolution.

When we believe that love or the universe is here to serve us a person easily becomes lonely. When a person becomes capable of conscious love then the experience that Man serves the universe does not end in lonliness

[Dontaskme]

Dam, you are describing romantic love. But did you know it is the lowest form of love and produces its opposite.

Yes, I agree Nick.

Romantic love is the love of image. People are attracted by the image another produces.

I agree.
But the image is not all about what something looks like, it also includes what is heard in the form of words.

But their essential self is not their image. So when the image no longer invites the emotion of love people no longer love and blame the loss on the other person.

I agree Nick.

The highest form of love for animal man on earth is the love of types. Essential types are attractive when not masked by image so can be drawn to each other by something more genuine than image. Their essences are complimentary so relationships do not have to fall apart.

Also agree.

The highest form of love for human being is conscious love or the love of life itself. It is an evolved form of love in which a person is able to give love for the benefit of another not just demand to receive it as with romantic love. Conscious love is an evolved human potential and a universal principle responsible for evolution.

Agreed in the sense of the imagined romantical story like in a disney film...but in reality, the concept love is just a love of doing what life loves to do and that doing is often brutal, violent, bloody, self-centred, selfish, greedy, and impersonal, and that all the good bits are just the absence of the negatives, in that the good bits always turn sour and putrid in the end like all deaths. Everything is born of death and returns to death. Everything is fodder for something else so to speak, and human primates are no different, in fact the human has become it's own predator, that's how smart the human got, it didn't get any smarter than that I'm afraid to say.

When we believe that love or the universe is here to serve us a person easily becomes lonely.

Agreed.

When a person becomes capable of conscious love then the experience that Man serves the universe does not end in lonliness

To me, conscious love is knowing the truth that life is a ravaging brutal killing machine that eats itself to survive and that it's only purpose and meaning is to survive at all cost by eating and consuming itself alive to the death.
Welcome to The Good Ship Tragedy. We all go down with the sinking ship. There is no Rose and Jack happy ending here for anyone.
The reality of our reality is an extremely bitter pill for most people to swallow. We're all ground meat for the ground.

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[Dontaskme]

I would much rather be alone for the rest of my life than be in love with someone

Because you cannot guarantee that they will love you for as long as you love them

When you are alone you have no one to leave you because there is no one else
Being lonely is not desirable but being alone can be and there is the difference

Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all
Any answer to this will be subjective but for me it is a definite no

Thanks for your comments.

[Walker]

The highest form of love for animal man on earth is the love of types. Essential types are attractive when not masked by image so can be drawn to each other by something more genuine than image. Their essences are complimentary so relationships do not have to fall apart.

Also agree.

“Essences are complimentary,” sound much too ephemeral.

Types are obviously objectively defined, which means that the love felt for an individual is directly proportional to how closely that individual, as a form in action, is reflecting the characteristics of a particular type.

To be objective, the characteristics of a type must be simple and primal. Preconceptual.

For example, the primal archetype of mother is defined by a person’s actions within the type-characteristics of mother, namely, is the child fed, clean, and warm? If yes, then a witness to the actions of this archetype objectively experiences archetypal love for all mothers in that moment of apprehension, before piecing together the whys and wherefores of the individuals.

The same principle applies to all types. For instance, consider Greta Thunberg in the role of youth. The poor little thing is riddled with angst and nihilism, which is typical for youth-types. Who put all that weight of the world in her head and on her shoulders? And what of her role as oracle? She is young and impassioned which fits a type of oracle, gotta love her for that. However, her role of climate expert authority is a bad fit and more suitable to, kids say the darnest things.

[Walker]

- When Andre Agassi joined with Stephie Graff, he started winning big tournaments.
- Same for Sergio Garcia after he met Martina Hingis.
- Same for Dustin Johnson and Paulina Gretsky.
- Same for Donald Trump and Melania.

Hypothesis: While the romantic ends up "brutally disappointed", perhaps inspired to martyrdom, the opportunist finds new light for old stories at the right time.

[Dontaskme]

....

The likes of the Andre Agassi and Stephie Graff and Donald Trump and Melania kind of relationships may well start off as innocent true soulmate kind of love matches. But in reality, more often than not, where wholesome people are concerned, their affairs turn out to be some kind of business partnership arrangement. Money talks in many successful parterships, the love part is often quite superficial.

It also helps when wholesome people are consciously aware they don't need others, and that the wholesome people tend to make good matches for other like minded wholesome people. People who already live wholesome conscious full lives with or without the need of a partner. Anyone who is already whole and totally self-sufficient can make any partnership work.

People that don't really need each other can surprisingly turn out to be the longest lasting most sucessful marriages, such disipline is rare though.

In general, couples are reactive rather than responsive and responsible. And in such cases of reactive couples, their relationship becomes so toxic that their capacity to communicate breaks down. It's seems that most adults today are still children still searching for their parent subsitute.

Alternatively, people who are whole within them self will never be lonely or seek another for companionship having already made peace with their own self fulfilling solitude. Some people have a sole drive to be totally independant and to want to be alone and are not afraid to be alone as lonliness to such people is unheard of, there is a satisfaction in knowing how to be alone with yourself without fear or of need or the desire to search for anything outside of their own love for inner solitude. The search for love outside of your own love for yourself can often be a precarious and hopeless unrequited and unattainable search. Better to know exactly what you want from the start of your lifes journey and then live out that self mastery lifestyle choice without regret, put your real intentions to the test so to speak.


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[Nick_A]

Shared Inner Life
by Jacob Needleman

“…Who can deny that our world is starved for a new understanding of love, of what it means to live together and work at love and not give up?” What is the antidote to romantic love that all too often exhausts itself over night? Might it be to join with a partner in a spiritual search? “Love to . . . awaken us: Body and Soul to a greater unknown.” Further, what is the work which will sustain a love over a lifetime? By searching for the sacred with our lover we might well find the divine within them. Philosopher and teacher Jacob Needleman suggests love can be a reflection of our spiritual being. He asserts that by the time “we are living together something beyond passion is required;” something intentional and conscious is needed.

In The Wisdom of Love, philosopher Jacob Needleman draws wisdom from myth, religion, philosophy and sacred poetry in an exploration of that which brings two people together in love — of what love is, why we need to give it and receive it, and how it can be sustained beyond the passion and mystery that first draws us together.

Can a couple outgrow the attraction of romantic love and awaken to greater quality of love Prof Needleman suggests? They can but obviously such couples are very rare. Secular influences return the majority to the dedication to image.

Conscious love is not natural for the animal world and the world struggles against in favor of selective love. Conscious love requires something more than the normal dualistic expression of animal selective love. The one saving grace is that even though the world struggles against it, people have the potential for something greater than the approved celebrated norm of romantic love by awakening to its reality

[Dontaskme]

Can a couple outgrow the attraction of romantic love and awaken to greater quality of love Prof Needleman suggests? They can but obviously such couples are very rare. Secular influences return the majority to the dedication to image.

I'm not really sure what kind of greater love Prof Needleman has on his mind.

But for me, conscious love is about allowing life to unfold unconditionally just as it does in the moment without resorting to reactive's or image worshipping. There is no time machine to go and undo the doing that is this ever unfolding unique life in every new moment.

All I know is, who or what ever brought me here, will take me home. I trust only in the natural flow of life itself knowing that what happens from moment to moment is not under my control, nothing is in control for that matter. Total surrender to what is - is the only real love here. What is love anyway but just another fanciful man-made concept. Where's the love when an Alaskan brown bear is ripping your human body, or any other sentient creatures body to shreds in it's desire to satisfy not only it's own hunger but in the desire to relieve the hunger pains of it's cubs in the process. Life is a hunger game full of pain. Bears eat fish so that they live. Fish die so that bears don't. Bears die so that humans don't ..etc..etc..it's all so pointless and stupid.

What does love mean to DAM. It means not wanting anything in life to be any different than how it is naturally unfolding from moment to moment. Certainly not wanting anything from another human being. Can two human beings live and be together in a lifelong lasting marriage and not want anything from the other? I don't think so. Human love is based always on conditions. Humans are pretentious superficial creatures, and their lives are built purely upon the acquisition of knowledge that they use to scheme and plot for their own self-serving selfish advantage. Half of humans live their lives in some sort of quiet desperation, except people like me, and maybe loads more others, simply because if I can then so can everyone.

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[Dachshund]

The highest form of love for animal man on earth is the love of types. Essential types are attractive when not masked by image so can be drawn to each other by something more genuine than image. Their essences are complimentary so relationships do not have to fall apart.

The highest form of love is what the Christian Church refers to as "caritas". Caritas is latin for "love". For example, St John said, famously, "Deus est Caritas" ( "God is love" ) So, note the similarity between the latin word caritas" (love) and the English word, "Charity the have the same etymological root",and It's not an accident. Charity is a selfless giving of one's resources for the sole purpose of relieving the suffering (whatever it may be: hunger, sickness, mental depression, pain, loneliness) of another person/s who is in need of help.

Love as "caritas ( or what the ancient Greeks termed "agape"; "agape" BTW was the love that the Greek's gods selflessly lavished on mortals) involves (1) the total surrender of the ego - (of the "Self") before the beloved (Do you remember an American pop music duo called "The Carpenters in the 1970s? They had a really big hit with a song called "Love is Surrender", they were referring to the surrender of the ego) (2) it then involves placing all of your worthwhile resources: academic, emotional, spiritual, practical etc at the DISPOSAL of the beloved.

For example , imagine you are a can of baked beans who decides he is in love with "X." Caritas/agape is that higher form of love where the can of baked beans takes off his lid ( breaks open his defensive ego) and renders himself completely open (also completely vulnerable). The can of baked bean now places himself before his beloved, "X" and says "All that I have inside me that is good and may be of values to you, I offer. I hereby place my contents entirely at your DISPOSAL. THIS is the act of love called caritas. Now, this declaration of love by the can of baked bean MAY or MAY not be reciprocated by his beloved "X". If it is then the tin of baked beans and "X" are an "item." If "X" does not reciprocate the tin of baked beans love, that might be a disappointment for the baked beans, but not necessarily something that will extinguish his love for "X".

NB: Ironically it is only when an individual forsakes his/her ego, that s/he is truly liberated and begins REALLY live.

Regards

Dachshund (Der Uberweiner)

[Nick_A]

DAM

But for me, conscious love is about allowing life to unfold unconditionally just as it does in the moment without resorting to reactive's or image worshipping. There is no time machine to go and undo the doing that is this ever unfolding unique life in every new moment.

You are describing a dog's natural love which is fine but animal love arising as an earthly quality cannot be considered to be conscious love arising from above the earthly level. Conscious love requires a quality of consciousness we have only as a human potential. A conscious human being will express conscious love. the trouble is the lack of human consciousness and the dedication to deny it in the world.

[Nick_A]

The highest form of love for animal man on earth is the love of types. Essential types are attractive when not masked by image so can be drawn to each other by something more genuine than image. Their essences are complimentary so relationships do not have to fall apart.

The highest form of love is what the Christian Church refers to as "caritas". Caritas is latin for "love". For example, St John said, famously, "Deus est Caritas" ( "God is love" ) So, note the similarity between the latin word caritas" (love) and the English word, "Charity the have the same etymological root",and It's not an accident. Charity is a selfless giving of one's resources for the sole purpose of relieving the suffering (whatever it may be: hunger, sickness, mental depression, pain, loneliness) of another person/s who is in need of help.

Love as "caritas ( or what the ancient Greeks termed "agape"; "agape" BTW was the love that the Greek's gods selflessly lavished on mortals) involves (1) the total surrender of the ego - (of the "Self") before the beloved (Do you remember an American pop music duo called "The Carpenters in the 1970s? They had a really big hit with a song called "Love is Surrender", they were referring to the surrender of the ego) (2) it then involves placing all of your worthwhile resources: academic, emotional, spiritual, practical etc at the DISPOSAL of the beloved.

For example , imagine you are a can of baked beans who decides he is in love with "X." Caritas/agape is that higher form of love where the can of baked beans takes off his lid ( breaks open his defensive ego) and renders himself completely open (also completely vulnerable). The can of baked bean now places himself before his beloved, "X" and says "All that I have inside me that is good and may be of values to you, I offer. I hereby place my contents entirely at your DISPOSAL. THIS is the act of love called caritas. Now, this declaration of love by the can of baked bean MAY or MAY not be reciprocated by his beloved "X". If it is then the tin of baked beans and "X" are an "item." If "X" does not reciprocate the tin of baked beans love, that might be a disappointment for the baked beans, but not necessarily something that will extinguish his love for "X".

NB: Ironically it is only when an individual forsakes his/her ego, that s/he is truly liberated and begins REALLY live.

Regards

Dachshund (Der Uberweiner)

Are you saying that caritas or agape refers to equality in materialism? Did Jesus die on the cross for the purpose of material equality? Conscious love refers to something far greater than pursuing a materialistic agenda. IMO it refers to awakening to the reality of what we ARE in the light of the conscious human Christian potential for human "being."

[Dachshund]

Are you saying that caritas or agape refers to equality in materialism? Did Jesus die on the cross for the purpose of material equality? Conscious love refers to something far greater than pursuing a materialistic agenda. IMO it refers to awakening to the reality of what we ARE in the light of the conscious human Christian potential for human "being."

No. I should have explained the metaphor of the "can of baked beans" in more detail. I was trying to say that human beings are like a can of baked beans. The can of baked beans is tightly seal by its tin lid, this lids prevents access to the goods that are inside it. The human ego can become an obsession with the "Self" that tightly seals up all of the individual's resources: intellectual, emotional, spiritual, cognitive, etc; within him or herself. Caritas/agape is the act of love whereby a human being surrenders his/her ego - lays it as a sacrifice at the feet of the beloved so that all of his: intellectual, spiritual, cognitive, emotional, sense perceptual, etc; resources are accessible and placed at the disposal of the beloved for him/her to use in whatever way they wish and to whatever extent they wish. The act of love is where the lover "says" to the beloved . "All that I have of any value I hereby humby and gladly offer to you for your use, if you feel any of it may be beneficial. You are most welcome to take from me whatever, and as much of, what is worthwhile and good within me as you like. THIS is the act of offering love (caritas), it necessitates the annihilation of the ego,- the total surrender of the subjective "Self" and all of it pride, arrogance, vanity, greed, cupidity and will to power. Thus it is a radical act of personal sacrifice. The lover may hope for but cannot expect that his offer will be reciprocated. If it is a mutually enhancing inter-subjective relationship is established. This relationship is a "Communion wherein each partner yet retains a sense of their own identity. It is was Buber calls an I-Thou relationship.

There is no "mathematical, formulaic material "equality about this love; "caritas" is not some form of intimate egalitarian socialism , it is not established when each of two lovers (a male and female , for example) agree to contributes 50% of his and her total subjectivity (i.e; conscious emotions, cogitions, spirituality, propositional attitudes, rationality, moods, perceptual sensations), to create the inter-subjective, I-Thou communion that is love.

It is difficult to put this stuff in words, because true love ("caritas") is, of course, a transcendent and eternal phenomenon. It is "of God" and thus ineffable, but nonetheless very real. You will know it for what it is when you experience (feel) it. (NB: It's kinda scary, but in a blissful way; scary because you realise that you are also hooked up with the Almighty).

Does this make any more sense ?


Dachshund (Der Uberweiner)

[Nick_A]

Are you saying that caritas or agape refers to equality in materialism? Did Jesus die on the cross for the purpose of material equality? Conscious love refers to something far greater than pursuing a materialistic agenda. IMO it refers to awakening to the reality of what we ARE in the light of the conscious human Christian potential for human "being."

No. I should have explained the metaphor of the "can of baked beans" in more detail. I was trying to say that human beings are like a can of baked beans. The can of baked beans is tightly seal by its tin lid, this lids prevents access to the goods that are inside it. The human ego can become an obsession with the "Self" that tightly seals up all of the individual's resources: intellectual, emotional, spiritual, cognitive, etc; within him or herself. Caritas/agape is the act of love whereby a human being surrenders his/her ego - lays it as a sacrifice at the feet of the beloved so that all of his: intellectual, spiritual, cognitive, emotional, sense perceptual, etc; resources are accessible and placed at the disposal of the beloved for him/her to use in whatever way they wish and to whatever extent they wish. The act of love is where the lover "says" to the beloved . "All that I have of any value I hereby humby and gladly offer to you for your use, if you feel any of it may be beneficial. You are most welcome to take from me whatever, and as much of, what is worthwhile and good within me as you like. THIS is the act of offering love (caritas), it necessitates the annihilation of the ego,- the total surrender of the subjective "Self" and all of it pride, arrogance, vanity, greed, cupidity and will to power. Thus it is a radical act of personal sacrifice. The lover may hope for but cannot expect that his offer will be reciprocated. If it is a mutually enhancing inter-subjective relationship is established. This relationship is a "Communion wherein each partner yet retains a sense of their own identity. It is was Buber calls an I-Thou relationship.

There is no "mathematical, formulaic material "equality about this love; "caritas" is not some form of intimate egalitarian socialism , it is not established when each of two lovers (a male and female , for example) agree to contributes 50% of his and her total subjectivity (i.e; conscious emotions, cogitions, spirituality, propositional attitudes, rationality, moods, perceptual sensations), to create the inter-subjective, I-Thou communion that is love.

It is difficult to put this stuff in words, because true love ("caritas") is, of course, a transcendent and eternal phenomenon. It is "of God" and thus ineffable, but nonetheless very real. You will know it for what it is when you experience (feel) it. (NB: It's kinda scary, but in a blissful way; scary because you realise that you are also hooked up with the Almighty).

Does this make any more sense ?


Dachshund (Der Uberweiner)

It makes sense but I think you re missing one important point: that love is a quality of energy. Christian love is a quality of energy that is not natural for the earth. Agape is a description of a quality of earthly love but conscious love exudes a power to further awakening.

Jesus didn't attract the apostles because of speech making or surrendering. They were able to experience a quality of energy which allowed them to experience what they were looking for.

A Christian more than in name only would be able to transmit this quality of light we call love. Throwing a life preserver to a drowning man would be a normal expression of earthly love. It is a good thing but at the same time should not be confused with Christian love and its power to awaken a person to what they are looking for at the depth of their being.