Monday, June 27, 2005
What Love Is
I've been posting anonymously to my brother's blog on a very interesting topic. Of course, I may blow my cover if anyone follows the link from his blog to mine, but... whaddeva.
Here's some of what is going on over there on the subject of love, and what I had to say about it:
Stella:
my final total summation of love, apart from notions of romantic love, then love is the reflection of the divine as experienced through the lens of another, whether it is a person, nature, art, pets, an act, or endless list of possible ways to experience love the divine, whatever it is that takes us outside ourselves and into a higher state of being. that is love, to me.
Me (posting as "Anonymous"):
Stella's definition comes closest to what I think of as Love. Love is the divinity within us recognizing the divine within another.It is not dependent on any particular object and it isn't dependent upon any favorable judgment of mine. God is in everything. The degree to which I can realize this and love everything is the degree to which I am sane.Love is the eye of God seeing its creation and saying "This is good."Love is a kind of worship.
My brother:
Anonymous: "Love is the eye of God seeing its creation and saying "This is good."Have you gotten hold of my book manuscript?! That's fairly close to a quote!Great amplification on what Stella said."Isn't dependent on any favorable judgment..." What about on the qualities of the loved one? That's something which, if I recall correctly, Freud had problems with. How, he wonderered, could love not depend on the beloved having laudable qualities? He thought the idea of a universal love, or "agape," rendered the idea of love meaningless.I'd need to know more about what "worship" means to follow that one.
Me:
Then you would like Meister ekhardt --- "The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me."
Maybe universal love only renders the conventional idea of love meaningless?
When you love a person for their particular qualities that is only the tip of the love iceberg.
When you love the whole iceberg (including yourself) without reservation, it becomes something closer to worship.
God seeing God with the eye of God. Unity.
Pretty interesting stuff. See the whole thread.
Here's some of what is going on over there on the subject of love, and what I had to say about it:
Stella:
my final total summation of love, apart from notions of romantic love, then love is the reflection of the divine as experienced through the lens of another, whether it is a person, nature, art, pets, an act, or endless list of possible ways to experience love the divine, whatever it is that takes us outside ourselves and into a higher state of being. that is love, to me.
Me (posting as "Anonymous"):
Stella's definition comes closest to what I think of as Love. Love is the divinity within us recognizing the divine within another.It is not dependent on any particular object and it isn't dependent upon any favorable judgment of mine. God is in everything. The degree to which I can realize this and love everything is the degree to which I am sane.Love is the eye of God seeing its creation and saying "This is good."Love is a kind of worship.
My brother:
Anonymous: "Love is the eye of God seeing its creation and saying "This is good."Have you gotten hold of my book manuscript?! That's fairly close to a quote!Great amplification on what Stella said."Isn't dependent on any favorable judgment..." What about on the qualities of the loved one? That's something which, if I recall correctly, Freud had problems with. How, he wonderered, could love not depend on the beloved having laudable qualities? He thought the idea of a universal love, or "agape," rendered the idea of love meaningless.I'd need to know more about what "worship" means to follow that one.
Me:
Then you would like Meister ekhardt --- "The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me."
Maybe universal love only renders the conventional idea of love meaningless?
When you love a person for their particular qualities that is only the tip of the love iceberg.
When you love the whole iceberg (including yourself) without reservation, it becomes something closer to worship.
God seeing God with the eye of God. Unity.
Pretty interesting stuff. See the whole thread.
