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Veritas

Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
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I love you -- nothing personal!
#7963851 - 02/01/08 08:30 AM (16 years, 17 hours ago) |
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My recent (since 2003) "experiments" with being loving (as opposed to finding someone loveable) have convinced me that I was mistaken in my lifelong ideas about what love is.
Perhaps the limitations we learn to set on our ability to be loving have a "nocebo" effect, in that our beliefs become actualized in our experiences? Once these beliefs begin to regularly play out in our life, we take them as gospel, and become incapable of loving those who do not meet our narrow set of standards--our personal definition of "loveable."
But in my recent experiences, in which I quite deliberately switched the focus onto my own capacity for loving, and away from the qualities I perceived in others, I have found that I am capable of loving everyone. The artificial limit I had set, in which others had to be deserving of love, has been exposed as illusionary.
On that note--Good morning, everyone! I love you! (Nothing personal.)
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Lion
Decadent Flower Magnate



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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7963860 - 02/01/08 08:33 AM (16 years, 17 hours ago) |
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-------------------- “Strengthened by contemplation and study, I will not fear my passions like a coward. My body I will give to pleasures, to diversions that I’ve dreamed of, to the most daring erotic desires, to the lustful impulses of my blood, without any fear at all, for whenever I will— and I will have the will, strengthened as I’ll be with contemplation and study— at the crucial moments I’ll recover my spirit as was before: ascetic.”
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WhiskeyClone
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7963884 - 02/01/08 08:40 AM (16 years, 17 hours ago) |
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I have to remind myself to do this, but it's becoming a habit.
My attitude towards strangers used to always default to suspicion, mistrust, fear...
When I keep reminding myself to love, life seems to resist me much less.
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,532
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: WhiskeyClone]
#7963913 - 02/01/08 08:46 AM (16 years, 17 hours ago) |
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there are different places in the self each a single step apart. in an untrusting environment, I find an inner place of respectible decorum. in a trusting environment, I may find the temple of love. when the times are tough, I find the shrine of peace.
these facilities are like inner architectures. BTW, Veritas, love the images you are showing lately (very architectural - shrine like - beacons for the troubled, and home for the contemplative)
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_ 🧠 _
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MushroomTrip
Dr. Teasy Thighs



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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7963975 - 02/01/08 09:05 AM (16 years, 17 hours ago) |
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--------------------
   All this time I've loved you And never known your face All this time I've missed you And searched this human race Here is true peace Here my heart knows calm Safe in your soul Bathed in your sighs
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backfromthedead
Activated


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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: MushroomTrip]
#7964152 - 02/01/08 10:03 AM (16 years, 16 hours ago) |
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I've been at this for a while but its draining. Egos, masks, complaining... Will it please start raining. Everybody is still learning that brain thing. Death vibrations for the gaining on the flip flop. Christmas tree mushroom at the bottom tinsel to the tip top. Stars on the bottom. One... I hope.
Hop on pop.
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NiamhNyx
I'm NOT a 'he'



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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7964516 - 02/01/08 11:49 AM (16 years, 14 hours ago) |
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Veritas, yes! I've been contemplating the subject in similar ways. I've concluded that the categories we traditionally divide love into are innacurate and illusory structures. For awhile I was bumming out on the idea that love itself was the ilusion, but I no longer think it is. Love is more prevalent and broader than I thought it was. It can't be contained properly in tidy categories. Aspects of different 'types' of love spill over into other areas and constantly baffle our attempts to tie them into perfect packages. Better to let myself love broadly and openly than try and define love into diminished corners!
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MOTH
Wild Woman


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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: NiamhNyx]
#7964599 - 02/01/08 12:09 PM (16 years, 14 hours ago) |
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Quote:
NiamhNyx said: Veritas, yes! I've been contemplating the subject in similar ways. I've concluded that the categories we traditionally divide love into are innacurate and illusory structures. For awhile I was bumming out on the idea that love itself was the ilusion, but I no longer think it is. Love is more prevalent and broader than I thought it was. It can't be contained properly in tidy categories. Aspects of different 'types' of love spill over into other areas and constantly baffle our attempts to tie them into perfect packages. Better to let myself love broadly and openly than try and define love into diminished corners!
Very beautifully spoken, thank you.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: NiamhNyx]
#7964626 - 02/01/08 12:13 PM (16 years, 14 hours ago) |
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Quote:
NiamhNyx said: Veritas, yes! I've been contemplating the subject in similar ways. I've concluded that the categories we traditionally divide love into are innacurate and illusory structures. For awhile I was bumming out on the idea that love itself was the ilusion, but I no longer think it is. Love is more prevalent and broader than I thought it was. It can't be contained properly in tidy categories. Aspects of different 'types' of love spill over into other areas and constantly baffle our attempts to tie them into perfect packages. Better to let myself love broadly and openly than try and define love into diminished corners!
OK you say that love is an illusion and that you believed that but now you don't. (I agree by the way.) But while we are talking about weather it exists or not I would like to hear your definition of the term "love". Rather then look it up in the dictionary I would like to know what it means to you right off the top of your head.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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NiamhNyx
I'm NOT a 'he'



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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Icelander]
#7964757 - 02/01/08 12:41 PM (16 years, 13 hours ago) |
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Well, it's hard to define but if I was going to try to I'd probably say it's a combination of: feelings of affection, concern for the wellbeing of another, sense of relating to another...
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: NiamhNyx]
#7964772 - 02/01/08 12:44 PM (16 years, 13 hours ago) |
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So then I'm guessing you think there are different types of love?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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NiamhNyx
I'm NOT a 'he'



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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Icelander]
#7964795 - 02/01/08 12:48 PM (16 years, 13 hours ago) |
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I think there is a spectrum, but not tidy closed categories. There are many ways to experience love.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: NiamhNyx]
#7964809 - 02/01/08 12:50 PM (16 years, 13 hours ago) |
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Could you name some ways of experiencing love that differ and are not related to a single thread?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: NiamhNyx]
#7964866 - 02/01/08 01:03 PM (16 years, 13 hours ago) |
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Quote:
NiamhNyx said: I think there is a spectrum, but not tidy closed categories. There are many ways to experience love.
Physics has proven that love comes in discrete packets of energy or quanta...
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Icelander]
#7964879 - 02/01/08 01:06 PM (16 years, 13 hours ago) |
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I love chocolate ice cream, but if it were an impersonal, non-object-oriented love, then I would love pistachio nut ice cream as well, but I don't.
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Veritas

Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: NiamhNyx]
#7964902 - 02/01/08 01:15 PM (16 years, 13 hours ago) |
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My current working theory is that love has nothing to do with other people, but is, in fact, the state we experience when we allow ourselves to experience the joy of being alive. We learn to associate this state with our interactions, but it is not dependent upon them. Perhaps it is what we call "bliss" or "ecstasy" when it occurs without an interaction with someone else.
All the other trappings we have piled on top of our experience of love are NOT love itself, but rather attachment, need, desperation, dependence, desire, loneliness, etc...
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NiamhNyx
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7964925 - 02/01/08 01:25 PM (16 years, 12 hours ago) |
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That makes a lot of sense.
Ice: No.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: NiamhNyx]
#7964981 - 02/01/08 01:40 PM (16 years, 12 hours ago) |
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I agree that love is impersonal and unconditional. (the other things we call love are more in the way of self-serving attachments) I think Leary was close to the mark when he said something like "love is a serene, unemotional, unconditional (my addition) merging with other humans or other energies".
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
Edited by Icelander (02/01/08 01:41 PM)
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Veritas

Registered: 04/15/05
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Icelander]
#7965106 - 02/01/08 02:11 PM (16 years, 12 hours ago) |
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I disagree in that I don't think that there has to be any merging with anything. It is happening all the time, but we find ways to keep ourselves from noticing. The difference between loving and not loving is our awareness of what is already happening.
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Icelander
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7965208 - 02/01/08 02:39 PM (16 years, 11 hours ago) |
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By merging I believe he means an unconditional acceptance.
How would you identify love, which you say is all around us, from all the other things all around us?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
Edited by Icelander (02/01/08 02:40 PM)
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Veritas

Registered: 04/15/05
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Icelander]
#7965227 - 02/01/08 02:48 PM (16 years, 11 hours ago) |
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I didn't say that it was "all around us," I said that it was the state of fully enjoying being alive. It is happening (as in--accessible) within us all the time, but we distract ourselves with negative meditation and busy-ness. When we allow ourselves to be in that state, we experience a feeling of well-being and joy that we usually only notice when something stops our distraction process (i.e. being chemically infatuated with a new romantic partner).
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Icelander
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7965262 - 02/01/08 02:58 PM (16 years, 11 hours ago) |
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Sounds like merging to me and I think it's the same thing. To experience the world around us we can look at it and enjoy it (or not), or we can become involved in recognition that "thou art that" so to speak and fully grok/merge our oneness. If you do that there is only unconditional acceptance IMO.
It's just an idea I have. I realize by that definition I almost never experience love but instead self-serving like.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Veritas

Registered: 04/15/05
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Icelander]
#7965459 - 02/01/08 04:00 PM (16 years, 10 hours ago) |
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The state I am describing could occur without experiencing the world around us, though, as it occurs in the world within us. This is why I don't see it as "merging." (Though merging can be fun! )
And if we are one with everything, then there cannot be "merging," as it's all already merged. If not, then we could merge, but I assert that the state of loving has nothing to do with the rest of the world...only our inner awareness of being fully alive.
I notice this expansive state of loving most-often when I am NOT focused on the world outside of myself, not observing, not trying to reach for or push away anything. It sneaks up on me when I relax, when I begin to feel how good it is to be embodied & how "at home" I feel inside my own head. YMMV. 
Words are so imprecise when it comes to describing internal states, but the closest I can come to it is this: It is the state of being alive for no other reason than the joy of it. Not to work, not to play, not to achieve, not to worry, not to do for others, not to gain things or awards...just to live and grow. Like the fern in my avatar, unfurling in a sunbeam.
Edited by Veritas (02/01/08 04:07 PM)
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Icelander
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7965624 - 02/01/08 04:31 PM (16 years, 9 hours ago) |
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So then does love disappear if the "joy of being alive" goes for some reason?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Veritas

Registered: 04/15/05
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Icelander]
#7965690 - 02/01/08 04:48 PM (16 years, 9 hours ago) |
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No, then we are distracted & stop noticing.
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Rebirtha
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7965705 - 02/01/08 04:51 PM (16 years, 9 hours ago) |
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JoseLibrado
return


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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Rebirtha]
#7966384 - 02/01/08 08:01 PM (16 years, 6 hours ago) |
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I believe that more than eve now. I just played around with it and it seemed to work.
This love we speak of, is just being in a state of unity that is uninterupted and flows naturally from our being anyways. What can interupt it is seeing it as an achievment. instead of a state of being.
Really there is no dogma that creates it. It is all there really is, the other feelings are just variations of that flow.
For example, Guilt. Its not actually a specific feeling it simply is negative emotion directed to what the creative spirit understands it the source of our problems.
We then feel guilty because we think that we are the source of our problems, directing that negative unjoyous motivation to feel joyous again, towards ourselves. this SOUNDS LIKE it CONTRADICTS itself, but take a look and notice that love cannot be felt unless there is "non-joyous" feelings as well. However, it still contradicts itself, but if you notice that i said 'Love is all there is" and that i just said that joy "what Is" is only perceivable in reflection to "what is not".
Veritas do you just let this happen? Because right now i find it hard...any tips?
-------------------- The mind is a creative tool. It searches to protect you, through message sensations(feelings). It is no different than a computer, you need to make sure its anti-virus program is in check and that it doesnt have a script that limits your experience, because of to much precaution. And remember the computer does not appear to respond to words of anger and frustration - just give it input, in the form of new meanings that you know to be true and its messages to you and the limits it lays out for you, will change. Guilt is an outcome of believing you are the cause of the problems. Yet, we are not a cause to something, we see is negative or bad - Unless you believe your intentions are directed towards a bad outcome....
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Icelander
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7967811 - 02/02/08 08:00 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Veritas said: No, then we are distracted & stop noticing.
This must be true for all living things then. Not just humans. So most animals (and flora) by nature distract themselves less because they live in the now. They have it good.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
Edited by Icelander (02/02/08 08:01 AM)
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WhiskeyClone
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Icelander]
#7967936 - 02/02/08 09:08 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said:
This must be true for all living things then. Not just humans. So most animals (and flora) by nature distract themselves less because they live in the now. They have it good.
Compared to some of us, they probably do. If they had a human level of intelligence but did not live in a constant state of distraction, they'd be quite powerful.
Wait, plants are conscious?
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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Icelander
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: WhiskeyClone]
#7967972 - 02/02/08 09:34 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Do you have to be conscious to have a default state of love?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Lion
Decadent Flower Magnate



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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: WhiskeyClone]
#7968004 - 02/02/08 09:49 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Wait, plants are conscious?
I would say yes. I would say that everything is conscious, because everything is comprised of consciousness itself. I would also say that I have no way of proving that. Which is why I am not saying any of this, it is just stuff that I would say.
-------------------- “Strengthened by contemplation and study, I will not fear my passions like a coward. My body I will give to pleasures, to diversions that I’ve dreamed of, to the most daring erotic desires, to the lustful impulses of my blood, without any fear at all, for whenever I will— and I will have the will, strengthened as I’ll be with contemplation and study— at the crucial moments I’ll recover my spirit as was before: ascetic.”
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Lion]
#7968034 - 02/02/08 09:59 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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You would say stuff that you would not say?
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badreligion2good
Uncertain


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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7968040 - 02/02/08 10:02 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Thats great Veritas! What a wonderful way to view other people.
Some Buddhists practice metta, or loving kindness to cultivate this same quality you have cultivated. In meditation we direct thoughts of love towards ourselves, our friends, our enemies, and all sentient beings, somewhat systematically. We make expressing love and kindness the object of our meditation.
I know some people in here have mentioned they believed that practicing Metta is useless, but I find it is very rewarding. Perhaps its a personality thing. It has helped me feel more comfortable with people by focusing on their good qualities. By seeing the same faults in them that I see in me, and loving myself unconditionally, I can't help but love them, because I practice loving myself.
-------------------- All I know is that I dont know. Row, row, row, you boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
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WhiskeyClone
Not here


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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Icelander]
#7968044 - 02/02/08 10:02 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: Do you have to be conscious to have a default state of love?
I would think so. But I'm not exactly a love expert.
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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Lion
Decadent Flower Magnate



Registered: 09/20/05
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Quote:
OrgoneConclusion said: You would say stuff that you would not say?
No, I would say it, I'm just not.
-------------------- “Strengthened by contemplation and study, I will not fear my passions like a coward. My body I will give to pleasures, to diversions that I’ve dreamed of, to the most daring erotic desires, to the lustful impulses of my blood, without any fear at all, for whenever I will— and I will have the will, strengthened as I’ll be with contemplation and study— at the crucial moments I’ll recover my spirit as was before: ascetic.”
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: WhiskeyClone]
#7968202 - 02/02/08 11:06 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
WhiskeyClone said:
Quote:
Icelander said: Do you have to be conscious to have a default state of love?
I would think so. But I'm not exactly a love expert.
Me either. I'm pretty good at knowing what it's not though.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Cracka_X
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7968208 - 02/02/08 11:09 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Veritas said: My recent (since 2003) "experiments" with being loving (as opposed to finding someone loveable) have convinced me that I was mistaken in my lifelong ideas about what love is.
Perhaps the limitations we learn to set on our ability to be loving have a "nocebo" effect, in that our beliefs become actualized in our experiences? Once these beliefs begin to regularly play out in our life, we take them as gospel, and become incapable of loving those who do not meet our narrow set of standards--our personal definition of "loveable."
But in my recent experiences, in which I quite deliberately switched the focus onto my own capacity for loving, and away from the qualities I perceived in others, I have found that I am capable of loving everyone. The artificial limit I had set, in which others had to be deserving of love, has been exposed as illusionary.
On that note--Good morning, everyone! I love you! (Nothing personal.)
NO FUCKING DOUBT!!
-------------------- The best way to live is to be like water For water benefits all things and goes against none of them It provides for all people and even cleanses those places a man is loath to go In this way it is just like Tao ~Daodejing
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evolprim
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Cracka_X]
#7974503 - 02/03/08 06:17 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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love is when your pants rise when you see a pretty girl
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MushmanTheManic
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7975237 - 02/03/08 08:49 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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What about romantic love?
Have you read The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm?
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Veritas

Registered: 04/15/05
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IMO, romantic love blends the quality of loving with sexual desire and affinity. This is not to be confused with infatuation, which most people call romantic love.
I have read The Art of Loving, and enjoyed it very much. I don't agree with all of Fromm's ideas, but I like this one:
"Critical and radical thought will only bear fruit when it is blended with the most precious quality man is endowed with - the love of life."
It seems to me that much suffering is created when we confuse or substitute the shared loving we experience with another for this love of life. The love of life can be ours throughout our lifetime, whereas people may leave or die. We can enjoy loving others, but the primary experience of loving is the deep and true love of living. It also seems to me that those who are afraid to love life are those who struggle the most with dying. Perhaps when we have loved life with every fiber of our being, we can gracefully release it when it ends.
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger


Registered: 04/21/05
Posts: 4,587
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7975674 - 02/03/08 10:20 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Sounds good to me!
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BlueCoyote
Beyond



Registered: 05/07/04
Posts: 6,697
Loc: Between
Last seen: 3 years, 16 days
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7977352 - 02/04/08 11:22 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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"[...]Perhaps when we have loved life with every fiber of our being, we can gracefully release it when it ends." Indeed, that grace would be a festival ! Dead would dance with the living and they with him !
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#7979565 - 02/04/08 07:52 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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If you've never read the section of Ram Dass's first book The Only Dance There Is, on Love as a State of Being, I recommend it to you as one of my favorite eye-openers.
It is only when you begin to understand that if you and I are truly in love, if I go to the place in me that is love and you to the place in you that is love, we are "together" in Love. We start to understand that what love means is that we are sharing a common state together. That state exists in you and it exists in me. Now the enlightened being - what happens to him [her] is that [s]he changes the nature of his/her love object to it all, finally. You would say that an enlightened being is totally in love with the universe, in the sense that everything in the universe turns him/her on to that place in him/herself where [s]he is love or consciousness. So I would say that an interpersonal relationship that has any qualities of possessiveness in it, or ego drama of any kind, certainly undergoes changes as the nature of consciousness changes...That is, love and consciousness are one and the same thing. So that as you get into a higher state of consciousness you come closer to being in love. That doesn't mean in interpersonal love. It means being - love. P. 60-61
This having once-upon-a-time whet my appetite for greater intellectual understanding of what was going on in my feelings and my intentions, I read Anders Nygren's classic tome Agape and Eros which are Greek forms (as is Philias) and then the Latin Caritas, which is a union of agape and eros but which unfortunately translates in the Bible as 'charity,' of which we mean something different today. Not being a 'mushy' kind of person, I still had to learn about what was up with love - particularly the form the mystics were writing about. Being 'warm' but disinterested (agape) is clearly different than being 'hot' (eros) for someone, and feeling brotherly/sisterly (philias) is a different flavor again, but these emotionally colored forms all derive from a singular 'colorless' Intention or Will for The Good of 'others.' Ultimately, if one groks the Christian metaphysical stance, "God is love," and love is synonymous with the Ground Consciousness (as Ram Dass stated in his language). Sorry for the circularity.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Veritas

Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
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I have read that book, and found it lyrical and moving. It is so rare to read a book about love which does not focus on relationship. What of our relationship with our own existence? How can we offer anything but grasping and need to another when we are not in love with being alive?
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Xeny


Registered: 02/15/08
Posts: 387
Last seen: 4 years, 2 months
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Icelander]
#8030216 - 02/16/08 05:52 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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I am love itself. I am all other things around you/us. Like they guy said in "From dusk till Dawn" : I believe there is a god, but do I love him?
-------------------- Ik hou van je While you're still sleeping the saints are still weepin' cause things you call dead haven't yet had the chance to be born. -Scatman John
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Gomp
¡(Bound to·(O))be free!



Registered: 09/11/04
Posts: 10,888
Loc: I re·side [primarily] in...
Last seen: 10 months, 23 days
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#8030224 - 02/16/08 05:58 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Unconditional love.. Got to love it!
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ShroomFan
nn dmt

Registered: 03/12/04
Posts: 866
Last seen: 10 years, 11 months
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Re: I love you -- nothing personal! [Re: Veritas]
#8041318 - 02/19/08 01:08 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Veritas said: The state I am describing could occur without experiencing the world around us, though, as it occurs in the world within us. This is why I don't see it as "merging." (Though merging can be fun! )
And if we are one with everything, then there cannot be "merging," as it's all already merged. If not, then we could merge, but I assert that the state of loving has nothing to do with the rest of the world...only our inner awareness of being fully alive.
I notice this expansive state of loving most-often when I am NOT focused on the world outside of myself, not observing, not trying to reach for or push away anything. It sneaks up on me when I relax, when I begin to feel how good it is to be embodied & how "at home" I feel inside my own head. YMMV. 
Words are so imprecise when it comes to describing internal states, but the closest I can come to it is this: It is the state of being alive for no other reason than the joy of it. Not to work, not to play, not to achieve, not to worry, not to do for others, not to gain things or awards...just to live and grow. Like the fern in my avatar, unfurling in a sunbeam.
thank you
-------------------- Fellow Shroomerites, if you Love expressing yourself with a dope tee shirt feast your 3rd eye on www.facebook.com/vicereversa ∞ Conscious Clothing for Conscious Minds ∞ Wear a tee , open a mind Each shirt is spawned to Arouse Awareness <> We believe in Sustainability & Giving back <> Do you know of a community project or persons in need you feel deserves attention? - Tell us on our page And we just might pick the story > develop a tee > and donate the proceeds to that cause. ∞♥∞ Unget it, VICE REVERSA
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ShroomFan
nn dmt

Registered: 03/12/04
Posts: 866
Last seen: 10 years, 11 months
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: If you've never read the section of Ram Dass's first book The Only Dance There Is, on Love as a State of Being, I recommend it to you as one of my favorite eye-openers.
It is only when you begin to understand that if you and I are truly in love, if I go to the place in me that is love and you to the place in you that is love, we are "together" in Love. We start to understand that what love means is that we are sharing a common state together. That state exists in you and it exists in me. Now the enlightened being - what happens to him [her] is that [s]he changes the nature of his/her love object to it all, finally. You would say that an enlightened being is totally in love with the universe, in the sense that everything in the universe turns him/her on to that place in him/herself where [s]he is love or consciousness. So I would say that an interpersonal relationship that has any qualities of possessiveness in it, or ego drama of any kind, certainly undergoes changes as the nature of consciousness changes...That is, love and consciousness are one and the same thing. So that as you get into a higher state of consciousness you come closer to being in love. That doesn't mean in interpersonal love. It means being - love. P. 60-61
This having once-upon-a-time whet my appetite for greater intellectual understanding of what was going on in my feelings and my intentions, I read Anders Nygren's classic tome Agape and Eros which are Greek forms (as is Philias) and then the Latin Caritas, which is a union of agape and eros but which unfortunately translates in the Bible as 'charity,' of which we mean something different today. Not being a 'mushy' kind of person, I still had to learn about what was up with love - particularly the form the mystics were writing about. Being 'warm' but disinterested (agape) is clearly different than being 'hot' (eros) for someone, and feeling brotherly/sisterly (philias) is a different flavor again, but these emotionally colored forms all derive from a singular 'colorless' Intention or Will for The Good of 'others.' Ultimately, if one groks the Christian metaphysical stance, "God is love," and love is synonymous with the Ground Consciousness (as Ram Dass stated in his language). Sorry for the circularity.
much appreciated
-------------------- Fellow Shroomerites, if you Love expressing yourself with a dope tee shirt feast your 3rd eye on www.facebook.com/vicereversa ∞ Conscious Clothing for Conscious Minds ∞ Wear a tee , open a mind Each shirt is spawned to Arouse Awareness <> We believe in Sustainability & Giving back <> Do you know of a community project or persons in need you feel deserves attention? - Tell us on our page And we just might pick the story > develop a tee > and donate the proceeds to that cause. ∞♥∞ Unget it, VICE REVERSA
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