Love. What it is? How to recognize it? What does it taste like?

* What is love?

To let BE.

* How to recognize it?

If it takes effort it is NOT love.

"There are a great deal of a great many kinds of love." Lytton Strachey to Carrington, 23.3.1917

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"Love is as unproblematic as a vehicule. The only problems are the drivers, the passengers and the road." Franz Kafka

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Khalil Gibran: on love, on friendship, on marriage:
"And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow."

"Love Ain't Nothing but Sex Misspelled" - Harlan Ellison

"Love has no awareness of merit or demerit; it has no scale by which its portion may be weighed or measured. It does not seek to balance giving and receiving. Love loves; this is its nature."
--Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart

Sometimes I try to grab hold of the caterpillar thoughts that crawl across my mind. They are like those shadows or ghosts appearing just outside our range of vision. When we look at them, they are gone.

Like the ghost, I’m looking for those thoughts that lie just outside my grasp.

I think they are like a frightened child who hides behind the couch so they won’t get scolded. Feeling all the while wrong, but not knowing why.

Some thoughts seem like they are part of me. I feel them connected to my soul leaving me entangled with shame. I long to cut myself free so that I might know some innocence of being once more, just a simple joy – a long draught of wonder at the sheer light of living.

My caterpillar thoughts are not my enemy. They are stains left behind after the mud-slide of happenstance – of the boil and roll of one soul’s days lived out in a solitary life.

But, in truth, they are painful. They sometimes bring a sickly odour of shame’s breath right here beside my face, like a wet tongue in my ear from an unwelcome suitor.

Time is more than ticking clocks and linear plans. Time is a builder of fortresses where youthful hopes turn grey behind cold stone walls, where caterpillar thoughts form deep fissures, becoming well trodden tracks across the mind.

Time is also an un-builder of fortresses. Love’s accomplice in the re-knowing of one-self.

Youthful hopes are never lost. They visit afresh despite the greying and the ripening of years. They believe all things. Hope all things. See beyond the range of sight, to that simple joy, that sheer light of being.

Try as I may, I find it hard to fathom how sweet and tender love can, ever so gently, without conscious intent, move those caterpillar thoughts somewhere else.

Love’s arms warm cold stone walls and comfort the child behind the couch, whispering sweet breath beside my face like a welcome suitor who comes courting in the even hour. Comes, even now, after the mud-slide of happenstance into my days of shared solitary life.

i don't know, i've been thinking about this one, probably all my life.

you think i'd be closer to the answer.

I love what you wrote Camelspit.

Attraction is the feeling of pleasure at the sight of another person. Love is the feeling of protectiveness towards them.

I agree!

Love is a choice to care about someone else's interests and well being well before my own, always, continuously, even when it is hard to know.

I'd say, for most people, the process starts with finding out what Love isn't. Even knowing that much is in the eye of the beholder. Sure, we all know that love isn't violence, but what about possessiveness? Is that the same as love?

While one person insists that Love means 'you should never desire to be without my company' another is adamant that Love means being secure enough to separate at times.

One exclaims "I would give up everything for you!" While the other says "I would never ask you to."

What makes one or the other right? And why?

Is the secret in finding the one other person who defines Love the same as we do ourselves?

Reading Mastery of Love helped me to find the best definition of Love I have found so far. It is hard at first to equate Love with Detachment Maitreya, but doesn't it make sense that Love is only ours to give?

"Hold fast to whatever fragments of love are left, for sometimes a mosaic is more beautiful than an unbroken pattern." ~Dawn Powell~ American writer

It seems to me that love has been hijacked by the mind itself. Love can only be beyond the mind and thinking. I don't know that I know it, or that anyone else I know knows it. Apparently, until you are beyond the trappings of the "self" you will not know it. What do ya think??

Love is when you will care about someone, even when they hurt you, or do things you think are really moronic...but you won't really scold them for doing them. You might say a word or two, but it all comes from your caring about them, not your sermonizing or insisting that your point of view is right. at least, that's a form of love that i'm familiar with. i think it comes in many forms. we sometimes confuse it for other things (lust, attachment, etc.), but i think when it's really there, it's unmistakable. the best kind of love is universal, impersonal (but not cold!) love, the kind you feel for everyone you see, even the meanest or most depraved of people. it is hard to feel it. for me, anyway, it takes work and effort to feel it all the time. it's easy when you're happy, of course, and surrounded by people you love. it's harder when people are hurting you. not impossible, just hard. i'm on a journey to try and feel it all the time; perhaps you could call it samadhi, but i'm trying to get at it in a kind of unconventional way...love is compassion. unconditional compassion for all living beings. but i don't discredit or reject the value of personal love, as for family or spouse or bf/gf or dear friends. i do feel special, embellished, specific love for particular people. but i know it's better not to be attached to or possessive of them. bottom line: all living beings deserve your love and respect and compassion.

There is a definition of love from The Road Less Travelled, that is something being willing to stretch yourself to help the other person realise his or her highest potential (this is not a quote, just from my memory since I don't have the book with me).

I think this is an interesting definition. In particular, this book points out that someone who is willing to do anything for you, anything you want them to, is not being loving. This is because they derive some pleasure from it - usually it feeds their self esteem and a nice person or a giver, and because it is not the best thing for you. Having someone who will always give you what you want tends to turn most people into monsters, human nature being what it is.

If people are willing to stretch themselves beyond their comfort zones in order to help another to grow, this takes real dedication.

What is it?
“Using words to describe magic is like using a screwdriver to cut roast beef”
- Tom Robbins

“Who knows how to make love stay?

Tell love you are going to the Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.

Tell love you want a momento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.

Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.”

Again, the phenomenal Tom Robbins.

For me, the recognition of love has come with a letting go of the need to seek and analyze it and just ALLOWING it. A sense of humor helps, too.

A VERY interesting take on "love" comes from U.G. Krishnamurti. In so many words, he states that "love" is a dirty word (a four letter word) because it implies separation - a division.

I am not sure where to go with that statement, but for some odd reason it makes sense. Many non-duality authors are touting "love" as the word that has no opposite. I don't think U.G. would agree :) I'm not sure I do either.

Love suffers long, and is kind;
love envies not;
love vaunts not itself,
is not puffed up,
does not behave itself unseemly,
seeks not her own,
is not easily provoked,
thinks no evil;
rejoices not in iniquity,
but rejoices in the truth;
bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.

"Love has multiple aspects. It manifests Itself as care, tenderness, devotion, self-sacrifice..."

All about love you can read in the book 'Ecopsychology'.
http://ecopsychology.swami-center.org/page_10.shtml

Peace and love to you!

Love is a rainbow: Wondrous, reflecting, prismatic, and illusory.

Love? Love is the answer...uh, what was the question?

"Love means never having to say you're sorry" -- Jennifer (Ali MacGraw), to Oliver.
"Love means never having to say you're sorry" -- Oliver (Ryan O'Neal), recalling Jennifer in life.
-- "Love Story"

"Love means never having to say you're sorry" -- Judy (Barbara Streisand), to Howard.
"That's the dumbest thing I ever heard." -- Howard (Ryan O'Neal), to Judy.
-- "What's Up, Doc?"

One may have a different take on love when no longer twenty. A sentiment which is easily mocked in youth (especially considering the motivation of the author, Erich Segal) may have a different meaning later in life. "Never having to say you're sorry" does not mean that you have never erred, never offended, never owed a retraction, an apology. It can mean that, in saying, "I'm sorry," the other responds, "You needn't say it, I understand." Words are unnecessary because a deeper communication has already expressed the sorrow and the forgiveness. Both know a relationship that transcends human failure.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach...
...I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
-- EBB

I think this is how Jennifer loved in life, how Oliver may have come to love after her life. Perhaps not in the author's mind, but in the mind of an observer of the passing scene.

"Love is not blind. It sees more, but because it sees more, it chooses to see less." ~quoted

I think you know you love someone when you care about them as much as you care about yourself.

Love - When for another human being we should require enough of it to invoke intensity enough to will only for the good of the beloved, and to stay by their side if they so desire.

Yet we must also possess enough of it to allow us, when necessary, to let go.

Because each individual belongs solely to oneself. No ownership in relationship should be undertaken nor demanded.

Love for ones individual being should allow ones lover to belong to themselves.

Love should be shared openly and given openly to the extent that no control be held over another human being.

True Love demands to be altruistic in nature.

The mystery which unites two beings
is great; without it, the world would
not exist

–Plato
“Do unto others as you would wish them do unto you.”

“…a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?” Samyutta NIkaya v. 353

Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” Udana-Varga 5:18
“Do for one who may do for you, that you may cause him thus to do.” –ancient egypt

“What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary.” Talmud, Shabbat 31a.

“Say unto them: Renounce murmuring, that ye may be worthy of the mysteries of the Light and be saved from the fire of the dog-faced one.

“Say unto them: Renounce eavesdropping ?, that ye may be worthy of the mysteries of the Light and be saved from the judgments of the dog-faced one.

–pistis sophia book 3

So the golden rule. The golden rule states one should act with thought, with care, with love towards each other. What does this mean? On a practical level it just means be nice, a good person. Acting like this obviously would make a much nicer place for all human beings, animals and non corporeal beings. If no one was selfish, if we shared instead of took. Simply respected one another.

If the woman had not separated from the man, she should not die with the man. His separation became the beginning of death. Because of this, Christ came to repair the separation, which was from the beginning, and again unite the two, and to give life to those who died as a result of the separation, and unite them. But the woman is united to her husband in the bridal chamber. Indeed, those who have united in the bridal chamber will no longer be separated. Thus Eve separated from Adam because it was not in the bridal chamber that she united with him.

–Gospel of Philip



On a deeper level we know the Golden rule exists as a simple but profound recognition that we are all of one being, one mind, one consciousness…all IS God. YHVH all that was, is and will be…By using the Golden rule we are recognizing the divinity in all things.

When my Beloved appears,

With what eye do I see Him?

With His eye, not with mine,

For none sees Him except Himself.

— ibn al-`Arabi

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Love, the only way to truly know something is to become it.
is the cup half full of water?

is the cup half empty of water?

is there even a cup, water or me?

…………………………………………….

Is a cup full?

Is a cup empty?

These are questions of duality, of mundane consciousness. Dialetic as the rosicrucian intro booklet calls it.

Some are quick to jump on the band wagon and state dualism is wrong. Well no it isn’t. Its just a matter of perspective and perception. Like seeing a piece of paper….with your eyes or with a microscope. On the surface we see paper, if we look deeper we see a whole new perspective.

If we are happy with mundane surface knowledge, episteme, bus time table knowledge then what is wrong? When we are ready to switch on our microscopes we can go deeper toward gnosis. Thus the golden rule…love one another..be respectful of one another. On the surface is a commandment to be “good.” But if we look deeper it is a fundamental command toward mystical union, theosis. Lover and Loved become ONE. So there is no cup or water, it is not empty because it no longer exists.

To explain further:

The Gnostics and Rosicrucians speak of the world as being false or broken. Our goal is to fix things. We are asleep and must awaken. In some forms of kabbala we find the idea of giving and receiving. The word Kabbalah itself means “to receive.” We find that in Kabbalah all reality is made of vessels and light. God gives light and the vessels receive the light. Then there is a complex system of how they get over the problem of light only giving and vessels only receiving. But there we see LOVE, the golden rule. GIVE and RECEIVE. There is no taking….Taking is ultimately selfish and against the golden rule. One is seeking power, when really if one follows the golden rule one should seek to be in harmony. Harmony, love, compassion.

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The time of action does not differ at all from my time of prayer; I possess God as tranquilly in the bustle of my kitchen –where sometimes several people are asking me different things at one time—as if I was on my knees before the blessed sacrament…It is not necessary to have great things to do. I turn my little omelet in the pan for the love of God; when it is finished, if I have nothing to do, I prostrate myself on the ground and adore my God, who gave me the grace to make it, after which I rise, more content than a King. When I cannot do anything else, it is enough for me to have lifted a straw from the earth for the love of God.

–Brother Lawrence

This cycle of give and receive allows for balance and to see that there is no glass, it is not empty or full. We gain a deeper understanding of what is. It is not so much that seeing the glass or the water was wrong it is more our understanding was different. All concepts by their very nature are wrong. Thus seeing the glass or realizing there is no glass are all the same. A piece of paper is a piece of paper whether we use our eyes or a microscope. It is too easily to take scripture, dogma, mysticism, experiences and state “what I see at a deeper level is correct, thus at a mundane level it is false.” This is simply not true..an apple is an apple…

Thus the golden rule as a nice way to get society to work..is not wrong; it is a highly valid expression of a way we as beings should interact with each other and everything! (The world is teeming with life, visible and invisible). At a deeper level we can see the golden rule breaks through all such ideas of duality, transcending our previous perception. Love, love of the divine…all are one.

But concepts are all false. All concepts are merely ways to help us reach a deeper understanding. What is the ultimate understanding? To BE what we seek to understand. Not to be like it, but to BE IT. To be GOD. Not to be a God but to BE GOD. Only then will we see that duality, non duality, the paper,the microscope, the cup and the water do not exist

All veils come from ignorance; when ignorance has passed away all the veils vanish and this life, by means of gnosis, becomes one with the life to come.

–al-Hujwir

So what does the Golden rule teach us? the ultimate truth,,,,LOVE…

by doing unto others we are doing unto the divine…we are becoming what we already are..learning that there is no glass, no water, no paper…there just is….

all that was, is and will be

I hope that touches briefly on some of the themes one can find from the golden rule….

Perhaps this is why the only real rosicrucian “commandment” is to heal……

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People cannot see anything that really is without becoming like it. It is not so with people in the world, who see the sun without becoming the sun and see the sky and the earth and everything else without becoming them.

Rather, in the realm of truth,

you have seen things there, and have become those things,

you have seen the Spirit and become the Spirit,

you have seen Christ and become Christ,

you have seen the Father and will become Father.

Here in the world you see everything but do not see yourself, but there in that realm you see yourself, and you will become what you see.

–Gospel of Philip (Marvin Meyer translation)

“All life is just a progression toward, and then a recession from, one phrase — I love you.”

–F Scott Fitzgerald

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"I gained nothing at all from supreme enlightenment

It is for that very reason, it is called supreme enlightenment"

-The Buddha

Wisdom and love have nothing to do with one another. Wisdom is staying alive, survival. You're wise if you don't stick your finger in the light plug. Love - you'll stick your finger in anything.
-Robert Altman

Underrated Rod McKuen wrote these lines amidst his 'In Someone's Shadow,' I believe:

"There is no misery in not being loved, only in not loving."

(And all it implies)

Everlasting love is a reward for a life lived virtuously.

> 1 What does it taste like?

A: A copper penny.