What is Love? - Act 2
Such a bold tittle, do I know what love is, do I know better than anyone else? Nope, I do like to ask questions, without getting too hung up and where they take me. They are free, so why not ask challenging ones?
I wrote a series on healing relationships, when I told my wife this, she raised her eyebrows…I don’t blame her, but what can I say, we learn through trying to fix sub optimal actions. That series left me feeling that I had promised without delivering, now I think I know why.
Optimal Action
What an interesting word “Optimal” is.
Opus - seen
Optimus - Best
Opinion - opinari ‘think, believe
Well they seam to be unrelated, but we can still have some fun with this.
Acknowledgement of Relationship
The enemy of relationship appears to be fear that creates conflict or withdrawal.
Withdrawal is better than violence but the removal of attention can feel even worse than abuse.
To me love is a quality of attention that arises from caring.
Caring is an open display of interest without judgement or wanting to take anything without consent.
By this definition, to stare at a woman, in a way that makes her uncomfortable, is not loving, even if you find her beautiful. That would be taking, and love is never selfish.
Love is never selfish
The outward focus of attention without agenda, without expecting anything in return, beyond the sensations revealed from the focus itself.
A pure sensation is the light, entering my eyes, sound waves reverberating through my ear drums, the pressure on my flesh, the taste in mouth and the tiny particles entering my nose. These may give rise to concepts, ideas and the desire to express them. So long as they do not trigger reactive, defensive or aggressive emotions and a stream of judgemental thoughts we can remain with the wonder of that sensation.
Is love full of wonder, or is wonder full of love?
I do not want to turn this into an opinion, because then I might get upset if someone disagrees with it or fails to validate it. That would pull me out of sensation and back into memory and tension. Love appears to be minus my intensions, unless those intensions lead to unselfish action.
Selfishness and grace
Our natural world has been around a very long time, it was doing such wondrous things long before we emerged. To move in ways that flows with that process, I need to be present to it. When I “think” of self and what I need to change to get something that was not already coming, I must leave presence to some degree and turn to memory.
Memory is part of the wonder also, but I find that the memories anchored with tension and restriction tend to upset me, pulling me deeper into mind and changing the way I move and communicate. All my actions end up being about me and what I think, I stop noticing the wonder unless it aligns with “my” version of reality.
If I get what I want, this may feel great, very reassuring, but pretty soon it just feels lonely, so I start to find new people to agree with me or go and attack those who do not. I mean surely it is their fault that the world is not wonderful?
After the fall from grace
I find that pain is this invitation to let go of my less graceful memories and rigid concepts and come back to the wonder of sensation.
Rather than seeking attention, I give it
Perhaps this is love?
Thank you as always, your attention is a precious gift, perhaps the most precious?
=8-P
Wisdom as Action Series
Act 1 - Do you remember?
Act 2 - What is Love?
Act 3 - Feeling Swell
Act 4 - Bound to be Free
Act 5 - Trust Issues
Act 6 - Knowledge
Act 7 - All you Desire
Great job done ...thanks for sharing it
No one can never understand what is love ??
But the meaning of love define by most beautiful thought .
Nobody can never comprehend what is love ?? Be that as it may, the significance of affection characterize by most excellent idea
love is what remains when we release intension.
We may know it through resonance
Fear creates tension, it is the non allowing, mostly of demise.
Funny how so many philosophy teachers confuse death with suffering
death is inevitable, whereas suffering increases with resistance.
Perhaps if we embraced death as warmly as life we could stay in love?
Exactly. Thanks
Nice one bro, attention is needed to keep a long-term relationship
You did good effort putting your sensation of love in words. Sometimes, I feel that love is expressed only through silence, It is a form of sensation if real and authentic can't be represented by available vocabulary. Not every intense sensation can be put into words because it is not felt by so many people to qualify to have a word, besides the diversity of which we may feel the same sensation.
The diversity of opinions creates wider perspective of every subject, Without getting emotional we can expand the ways we perceive things.
your insights are wonderful, thank you.
I have been having so much trouble with my opinions lately that I am probably over fearing them.
I guess the definition I am searching for would be that an opinion minus identity, or attachment is more like an idea. Ideas that do not cause upset, or tension would not be opinions by that definition.
However, I have learnt much by playing with opinions and identity, so perhaps some trust is due also?
I agree with you about love - it could be called the experience of non separation - but how that feels for each person is unknowable. I guess it goes beyond the concept of "person's" also :)
Thanks for dropping in and for reminding me of silence
Opinions are ideas that meet or might meet resistance from others. So we cling and defend the opinions because they are ours, Which makes them products of our egos.
Our attachment to our ideas can be the result of how important they are to us, as if they are something we depend upon to make good social images, make money, or secure the society we live in in our best guess. The attachment to opinions reveals deeper need for being acknowledged, independent or secure.
Yes exactly. Even well trained scientists, if they do not have a practice of searching for and clearing such attachments, are incapable of objectivity. Meditation or anything that requires deeps commitment to pure sensation can be seen as the practice of developing and maintaining integrity. The drive to develop and share opinions is the central theme of most of this work.
Ironically I have yet to find a way to deliver it in a way that bypasses the filters of opinion, so that it can be viewed as it is... perhaps that is because I have not yet cleared my own? lol..
I guess nonjudgmental observation would help.
Yes desire is often present, if I am present with it, I may be better able to differentiate what is grateful appreciation and what is neediness, resistance or agenda based..biased if you will. When we are soft, we are able to resonate with incoming energy, when we are rigid, we alter the signal. How can we read a signal if we are changing it? Perhaps with great awareness, the way we shape it, and the way we read it are one? I am not in that place, though I can taste it on the breeze :)
Can we break Softness into, Acceptance, no judgment, not trying to find answers, no overthinking, letting go of labeling, and stillness that seems like indifference?
Great question, I know your onto something, but I need to sink into that one for a while and come back to it.
Focus is not indifference, but equanimity is required to stay out of strategy and with focus. So acceptance can be beyond satisfaction when we feel appreciation? When we are out of fear mode, our focus returns to find the place that makes us feel most alive and curious. This is our calling or our music or our art..very beautiful to find people in that place.
Thank you for awesome insight as always :)
➜@bible.com
Yes my attention here is critical. I say that love is acting of peace, truth, freedom and justice" ! Yes love is going to find you out! Takers beware! The Son of Man is here with all glory of the Father by standing Armies to enforce JUDGEMENT that His LOVE has come to set apart in deed, patent, treaty and to totally restore the world by acts of restoration and redemption. Know that His righteous people have cried out to Him and been given their true identities as the twelve scattered lost dark skin tribes of Hebrew Israelite and submitted Gentiles comprising over seven billion of us! Did you identify yourself with his LOVE LAWS?