WHAT IS lOVE???

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christine.P

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So what is ‘LOVE’?

Is IT? Pure Reason and Intuition, is IT? A Soul quality, and not an emotion or a sentiment. Is IT? NOT a "feeling", either, is it something much, much grander and more inclusive?

Maybe Love is the foundation of true Brotherhood, or a divine energy. Maybe Love is unity and inclusiveness.
Maybe Love is the result of the continual interaction between Spirit and Matter on the eternal continuum of Life.

What do you think?
Chris
 
I don't see it as some "force" or energy either, but a product of the will: yours, mine, God's, whoever.

Love, if it is to be define, must be contrasted to what it isn't. It isn't hate and it isn't selfishness. As cliche as this chapter has become, I still think the Apostle Paul seemed to sum love up nicely:

"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails." - I Corinthians 13:4-8
 
Desire is an emotion. Affection is an emotion. Love is a quality, or rather, an Aspect of our being. It is the 2nd Aspect. Will is the 1st, Active Intellect is the 3rd. In the personality, these reflect as emotion (or sentiment), concrete (or scientific) mind, and the ability to act (a body).

Love is the root and Foundation of our entire Solar System. It is the fundamental nature of the Godhead, even above Will, or Spiritual Intellect (Divine Mind). Thus, the basis for that most esoteric of statements, God is LOVE. :)

That's my heady definition, but Christine, you had it better to start with.

Another approach might be to focus on the Greatest exponent of the Quality of Love that this planet has ever known, the Bodhisattva, the Christ. Both He and the Buddha are on the 2nd Ray line of Love-Wisdom, but of these two, Christ was and is the embodiment of Love as a Divine Principle. The Buddha before Him embodied LIGHT, or Spiritual Intellect. And upon Christ's return, which is NOW, He will be showing us more about the WILL than Humanity has ever known.

Even in terms of the Ray of Love-Wisdom, a Soul generally comes to perfect one, or the other, of this dual quality. So both the Buddha (who was a Bodhisattva prior), and the current Bodhisattva, the Christ, were Avatars, yet the Buddha's focus was stronger on the Wisdom side, while the Christ's was/is stronger on the Love side. One doesn't have to be an esotericist to recognize that. It just rings true intuitively, does it not? ;)

I think in speaking of love, it's not necessary to get heady about it, but it is a mistake to get gushy and all touchy-feely, or sentimental.

Love is all-inclusive, and knows no boundaries.
Love gives all, while asking nothing for Herself.

Namaskar,

andrew
 
taijasi said:
Desire is an emotion. Affection is an emotion. Love is a quality, or rather, an Aspect of our being. It is the 2nd Aspect. Will is the 1st, Active Intellect is the 3rd. In the personality, these reflect as emotion (or sentiment), concrete (or scientific) mind, and the ability to act (a body).

Love is the root and Foundation of our entire Solar System. It is the fundamental nature of the Godhead, even above Will, or Spiritual Intellect (Divine Mind). Thus, the basis for that most esoteric of statements, God is LOVE. :)
<...>
I think in speaking of love, it's not necessary to get heady about it, but it is a mistake to get gushy and all touchy-feely, or sentimental.

Love is all-inclusive, and knows no boundaries.
Love gives all, while asking nothing for Herself.

Namaskar,

andrew
Click to expand...
Love operates like the glue that joins everything together, or the mortar that allows the bricks to stand together, and patches the holes (or heals the injuries) we inflict upon ourselves and each other, if we allow it to do so. :)
 
Love is the loss of self. Love is when the the curtain between "me" and the one "I" love is torn, and their joys and their pain become "my" joys and pain.
 
At first I denied love being the loss of self....thought it exactly the opposite, learning that self is the entire universe, learning that to harm in any way shape or form something/someone has a deliterious affect on me.

So to love myself and the extension of the same was what it is about. And that love is simply compassion, caring and concern for anything.

But then I agreed, because it isn't that I need to love everyone as my self, just need to lose the sense of self, and realize oneness.

thanx for the contemplation.

to me love is knowing oneness and acting on it.
 
taijasi said:
Desire is an emotion. Affection is an emotion. Love is a quality, or rather, an Aspect of our being. It is the 2nd Aspect. Will is the 1st, Active Intellect is the 3rd. In the personality, these reflect as emotion (or sentiment), concrete (or scientific) mind, and the ability to act (a body).

Love is the root and Foundation of our entire Solar System. It is the fundamental nature of the Godhead, even above Will, or Spiritual Intellect (Divine Mind). Thus, the basis for that most esoteric of statements, God is LOVE. :)
Click to expand...

Uh, k......

I'm still thinking emotion, though. :)

I might be willing to add that it can also be an attitude and a type of act, but it seems to be saying too much to make love an aspect of our being. It would be better to say that the faculty of emotion, along with the faculties of will and active intellect, are aspects.


eudaimonia,

Mark
 
Eudaimonist said:
I'm still thinking emotion, though. :)
Click to expand...

This has a common sense sort of appeal. But what does it mean?

What does it mean to say love is an 'emotion'?

Do you mean that it's a result of a firing of certain chemical neurotransmitters in the brain?

Do you mean it in the sense of the latin root "emote" is taken from, which literally means "to move through or move out"? If so, what are we moving when we emote love and in what way are we moving it?
 
Christine, you always come up with such good thoughts and ideas !

I believe that most of the foregoing posts describe the effects of love, if not its essence in a human sense. There is a new (about twenty years old) type of scientific study known as the study of complex systems and how they operate. Using its terminology I would define love as the impetus for "harmonic convergence". This is something that happens when love is present and infuses the material world/universe with the impetus for disparate entities to converge and combine in harmonic ways; rather than a combining coerced through deception, collision, manipulation, threat, conflict, or repression. I think of it as the impetus for transparent change that is foundationally "good" in its nature and being. I think of it as having something to do with light as opposed to darkness.

Of course love expressed between a man and a woman, and within a family are obvious examples. There exists an entire codification of symbols at the roots of cultural history that exemplifies what I'm describing here. There is even evidence that this systemic presence has been "designed" into the biological realities of the microscopic world around us when one considers the seeming intentionality of the "lock and key" designs for "docking" mechanisms such that cellular and sub-cellular entities may interlock and function harmonically at the foundational levels of biological life.

I'm not pitching a commercial here for intelligent design at all. Far from it. But there does seem to be an energizing complex throughout the universe that brings about combinations for the sake of "good" as opposed to actions that bring about destructive episodes that separate material entities and force them into separate states of existence. I wouldn't necessarily term the latter to be bad since this is one of the mechanisms that propels evolutionary forces. Rather the two together, like light and darkness, function in balance to bring about the realities that we all experience around us. That the "whole" even continues to exist moment-to-moment is proof to me of an ultimate and universal "love" for creation by some higher entity.

flow....:cool:
 
Guess we have to break it down to the various forms in order to discuss.

I've usually heard of three...

Eros- infatuation, husband/wife, boy/girlfriend, significant other, sexual love

Familia - brother, sister, family love

Agape - G-d = Love, unconditional love (of course biblical love if using literal translations appears highly conditional)



Eros I'll agree an emotion, and if you believe that segment of what the bleep actually an addiction to some chemical/electrical reaction...
 
BTW, thinking about loss of self reminded me of a certain song by Paul Simon, though I'm not entirely clear why. I'm sure everyone's heard the song.

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away

I know a man
He came from my home town
He wore his passion for his woman
Like a thorny crown
He said "Delores
I live in fear
My love for you's so overpowering
Im afraid that I will disappear"

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away

I know a woman
Became a wife
These are the very words she uses
To describe her life
She said "A good day
Ain't got no rain
She said a bad day's when I lie in bed
And think of things that might have been"

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away

And I know a father
Who had a son
He longed to tell him all the reasons
For the things he'd done
He came a long way
Just to explain
He kissed his boy as he lay sleeping
Then he turned around and headed home again

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away

God only knows
God makes his plan
The information's unavailable
To the mortal man
We work our jobs
Collect our pay
Believe were gliding down the highway
When in fact were slip slidin' away

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away
 
In as far as the question is meaningful I think 'it's a sensation' is possibly the only answer I can find that satisfies me. You got better?
 
Abogado del Diablo said:
Do you mean that it's a result of a firing of certain chemical neurotransmitters in the brain?
Click to expand...

I'd say that an emotion is a psychological phenomenon that we experience consciously and, yes, it is the result of brain activity, as dull and boring as that may sound.

An emotion is something you feel.


eudaimonia,

Mark
 
christine.P said:
So what is ‘LOVE’?

Is IT? Pure Reason and Intuition, is IT? A Soul quality, and not an emotion or a sentiment. Is IT? NOT a "feeling", either, is it something much, much grander and more inclusive?

Maybe Love is the foundation of true Brotherhood, or a divine energy. Maybe Love is unity and inclusiveness.
Maybe Love is the result of the continual interaction between Spirit and Matter on the eternal continuum of Life.

What do you think?
Chris
Click to expand...

Reading this I can't help but think, "what the hell?"
I don't know, maybe I don't think about things enough, but this just seems to be too much. Why do we need to put everything in a box?
 
cavalier said:
Reading this I can't help but think, "what the hell?"
I don't know, maybe I don't think about things enough, but this just seems to be too much. Why do we need to put everything in a box?
Click to expand...
Amen!:D
 
Abogado said:
Love is the loss of self. Love is when the the curtain between "me" and the one "I" love is torn, and their joys and their pain become "my" joys and pain.
Click to expand...

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Gal 2:20)

"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. " (1 John 4:16b)

The veil is torn. "38The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and[d] saw how he died, he said, "Surely this man was the Son[e] of God!" (Mark 15)
 
cavalier said:
Reading this I can't help but think, "what the hell?"
I don't know, maybe I don't think about things enough, but this just seems to be too much. Why do we need to put everything in a box?
Click to expand...
Namaste Cavalier...

For me, I'm not trying to put love in a box (I do appreciate the irony though that the system when you pressed quote effectively put it all in a box for you) I've got no interest in putting love in a box, but I think it brings clarity when we know we have a defintion that we agree on when we are utilizing certain words. Many reference G-d=Love....which would make them both already in the box, but not able to be kept there.
 
wil said:
but I think it brings clarity when we know we have a defintion that we agree on when we are utilizing certain words.
Click to expand...
I don't believe that it is possible to have a definitive definition of love. Is it even desirable? This desire to define our existence will serve only to limit this existence.
wil said:
Many reference G-d=Love....which would make them both already in the box, but not able to be kept there.
Click to expand...
Exactly, they can't be kept there.
There is surely a difference between putting something in a box for the sake of debate, and having a debate for the sake of putting something in a box.
 
From a theological perspective, it's a pretty important question. After all, as Luna already noted: "God is Love." This means either that Love is something larger than God of which God is only a part or that "God" and "Love" are one and the same. The answer to "What is Love?" should be the same as the answer to "What is God?".

From a linguisitic and social perspective, "love" is a word. Words are symbols used to convey meanings between people. If we make a conscious decision to not settle on what a word means, is it even a word? Enganging in a dialogue about the meaning of symbols facilitates understanding, commonality, and . . .














. . . Love. :D And if you're into "God" you gotta be happy with that, because God is Love.:cool:
 
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