What is Love?

[Budaheart]

Hi 58andfixed...

I don´t consider love as an idea myself although for the purpose of talking, we are creating an idea of love, indeed!
The rest of your post describes a scenario I am not sure I can agree with, in the sense of, allow me to paraphrase...
if the intention is GOOD, and Free will choice was granted, but the consequence is Bad and evil...then,
either Source didn´t consider the consequences of its intention and the grant of free will, or it actually did consider the consequences, and therefore, "good" and "evil or bad" are also part of the "goodness", the original intention, and therefore, are just fine, part of the play...included in the package for possible different purposes...(that´s another story, the purposes, the "whys")

Cheers,
Barbara

[The Mad spirtualist]

What is love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me no more.........

[Bright Garlick]

Hi 58andfixed - I believe that the universe is. It is non dualistic, nondual and dualistic and non dualistic. When we feel the suffering of others we see that we are not separate. Love arises as we feel our connectedness to them. This usually happens in those closest to us first. Shallow love is an attachment to surface features. Deep love is a feeling for all and has no attachment.

We usually suffer with love because it becomes our strongest attachment. Few among us is free of this attachment.

[Cottage Rose]

Posted by Icecold (here)

Posted by Cottage Rose (here)

Posted by Icecold (here)
I t may be functional to an extent, but it will be severely limited. Agnostics and Atheists are intrinsically Service to Self.

I disagree with this, Icecold.

Can a gentle, honorable, sailmaker who spends his days creating dacron masterpieces for others, never charging more than he would expect to pay himself, really be without god and service to self? A man with a bookshelf full of comparative religion/sacred science/egyptian hystory material? A man who sees all the "religious" around him acting very foolishly and making mistakes because of it? Could it be he has just not found enough facts to prove his own personal God hypothesis? Could it really be semantics?

Can the "athiest" sailmaker, worried about his dyslexic son (who has worked for him since he was a toddler) be "service to self" when he forgoes expensive medical procedures to assure his son receives the nestegg he has planned for him?

My grandfather professed to be an agnostic. Can an amateur philosopher housing contracor (who joined the Navy at 14 and never finished highschool) who takes the care to lovingly teach his young granddaughter about Plato, Aristotle, Thoreau, Emerson, Pythagoras really be considered service to self?

Thanks for this story about your grandfather CR. He sound like a very spiritual man, whatever he thought about religious dogmas. OK, he was an agnostic? I'll pull myself up on that. Yes, they do not have a specific belief in a particular god, but are open to the question. Whatever he said about existing religions, by his actions, there seems little doubt that his soul was heavily influencing his consciousness. He was a spiritual man. He just had no way of putting an appropriate label onto that desire.

I'll strike agnostics from the above statement. I obviously wasn't thinking clearly enough.

Thanks for setting my mind straight on that. My only defence is that I have not considered agnosticism for such a long time.

I notice you are holding your original thought on the atheist. I have pondered this.....

Perhaps, I am guilty of looking at the situation the way I wish it were. I admit I definitely thought service to self might be the case in the past. He and my brother treated my Grandmother terribly when my mother died.

Mine was an unusual situation. My maternal grandmother and my paternal grandfather married and my parents met and married. The grandparents lived in the same house or duplex all my life and I spent more time with them.

By all rights my grandmother was financially entitled to her side of the duplex when my mother passed. But, Dad and my brother, kicked her out and pawned her off on my Aunt. Grandma was a sweet, empathic, artistic woman who had friends and sisters nearby. She had the means to support herself. It broke her heart and she never spoke to either of them again. I think she died of a broken heart. She and my mother were so close. To lose her daughter and her home at the same time left her without the will to live. My father promised my Grandfather on his deathbed he would take care of Grandma. But, they said they would not have time to "take care" of her and my brother wanted to move in her place with his girlfriend. It was immediately after the funeral, my brother told me "Grandma's going to have to move." That really took me aback. Then those two went dining and drinking with my brother's girlfriend and her mother immediately after the funeral. I never saw my brother shed a tear.

Thanks for making me think, Icecold.

[58andfixed]

Posted by Bright Garlick (here)

I believe that the universe is.

It is non dualistic, nondual and dualistic and non dualistic. When we feel the suffering of others we see that we are not separate.

Love arises as we feel our connectedness to them.

Thanks Bright Garlick:

I'm not at all clear on your point on dualism is.

You might be endorsing me, you might be agin' me -- I just can't tell which.

Maybe it might be worth a visit to Wikipedia for a closer look on the concept:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism

"Most religious systems have some form of moral dualism - in western religions, for instance, a conflict between good and evil."

That's NOT what I 'believe' or *know*. I 'believe' that The Creator desired that we all experience 'good,' and also endowed us with "Free Will Choice."

As a consequence of mortals not recognizing the consequences of poor choices, other mortals have bad &/or evil experiences.

It might simply be due to innocent ignorance, or it might be due to malevolence [the people that hire 'Charles'] -- it doesn't matter which -- both deliver the consequences of similar result. Some we refer to as the 'evil elitists' and some we refer to as 'apathetic.'

There wasn't a 'Plan' by Her to have some kind of 'balance' of good and evil -- dualism.

That's what I meant when I referred to the term.

I think visiting the concept of dualism ties in closely with a succinct & clear understand of what "Love" is, because the clearer each of us are about "Love" the more likely it is for "Love" to be manifested.

HTH

- 58

[58andfixed]

Posted by Budaheart (here)
Hi 58andfixed...

if the intention is GOOD, and Free will choice was granted, but the consequence is Bad and evil...

then, either Source didn´t consider the consequences of its intention and the grant of free will, or it actually did consider the consequences, and therefore, "good" and "evil or bad" are also part of the "goodness", the original intention, and therefore, are just fine, part of the play

...included in the package for possible different purposes...

Cheers,

Barbara

Thanks Barbara / Budaheart:

No. You have not understood what I'm trying to communicate -- at least by what you are attempting to say back to me.

Intention is one thing that is necessary and "Love" can be a part of intention, but it's not me that is attempting to wrap the two together in a definition of "What is Love ?"

I'm saying "Love" can be most succinctly and pragmatically defined as the "DESIRE to do good."

The doing of good, the appropriate perception of how, when & why this 'good' is delivered in not the necessary nor the functional part. DESIRE is. Desire of what ? DESIRE to do Good.

That would be how I define a functional approach to "What Love is."

Associated with good or "Love" on this ORB, not so pleasant things exist in abundance, just as frequent LACK of other things are -- and this planet has a plethora examples of this. Just as we have plenty examples of "Love."

Let's not worry about what SHE expected, other than to understand HER wisdom is infinitely patient, and focus on what the individual must be clear about in manifesting "Love."

Mortals are in control of this ORB. That is the consequence of "Free Will Choice" -- our choices come without interference.

The individual controls what is manifested in their life in what they do, not in what happens to them. So, if we can consider that each of us bears the consequences of our individual actions [we are one] we contribute to the solution of manifesting "Love" at the point of control, our thoughts and our actions.

This thread wasn't about what the Divine Source might be considering or did consider, this thread was to explore "What Love is," with an implied - by mortals - because that is who has physical access to computers, an account & profile at PA, and operate though a conscious cognitive faculty.

HTH

- 58

[Budaheart]

58andfixed thanks for clarifying your view which I may have misunderstood.
I get your pragmatic definition of what love is according to you
my understanding is that love is.
then we can add
Love is a living force
holds things together
gives birth to the desire to be
embraces all
and so forth...

Love to you
Barbara

[benevolentcrow]

Love has no desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving. ~Kahlil Gibran

[58andfixed]

Posted by Budaheart;139056

58andfixed thanks for clarifying your view which I may have misunderstood.

I get your pragmatic definition of what love is according to you

my understanding is that love is.

then we can add

Love is a living force

holds things together

gives birth to the desire to be

embraces all

and so forth...

Love to you
Barbara

Thanks Barbara / Budaheart:

Thank you for the observation of the pragmatism of my approach in defining "What Love is."

From my observations of many people, on a topic I have discussed at many dinner parties throughout the evening and well into the morning ...

... that "Love is energy" (feeling, and an energy, and a vibration, and a state/being/an identity) (one truth) (absolute by nature) (that which you spend your time thinking about) (living force) (something outside of us) (connects living things) (smooshy & fuzzy) DOESN'T help to communicate an idea of/with clarity and might as well simply be represented by **** and isn't even in a dictionary.

[Please see one of my earlier post #4 https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...l=1#post122168 ]

.. and recent Bibles can't be trusted source to help us define an act of "Love."

If engineers, scientists and mathematicians used a key concept like "add together" [ aka the + sign ] but people could used it to do stuff like 2 + 2 = 7, and that would be OK, because "+" isn't defined accurately and understood to be precisely one thing, would this loosy-goosy grey-zonish version of "+" be functionally reliable ?

I take the same approach when the thread was opened, and not only no specifics were offered, this word "Love" which has so many sundry & varied uses was even encouraged to have some additional modifiers [ unconditional, eternal, undefined, resolved in eternity ].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

"Cognitive bias is a general term that is used to describe many distortions in the human mind that are difficult to eliminate and that lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, or illogical interpretation."

"Belief bias – an effect where someone's evaluation of the logical strength of an argument is biased by the believability of the conclusion."

So, yes, I DO take issue that the ambivalence with which we understand what "Love" is, in innocent ignorance, contributes to the confusion of manifesting "Love" as I perceive "Love" was intended by The Eternal Divinity, for all beings throughout The Universe, not just on this planet, and most of use have been deceived through our biases about a need to have clarity about one of the more important concepts required to bring about the 'direction of disaster' this ORB is on, and stop looking for people to take the blame.

Even if we do find the 'alcoholic' that is causing such a 'hangover' for this ORB, could we ever force them to stop ?

If we are asked in some point in eternity about "what was our contribution to effect "Love on Planet Earth" ?

Would we reply "I was too busy looking for people that were causing the problems" ?

Or would we want to reply "Yes. First I discovered an understandable version of "Love" and spent my lifetime manifesting "Love" whenever I could."

Which would be the accountable & responsible approach ?

Just some other things to consider.

- 58

[Maria Stade]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Q_bzuNWnT-Q

[Budaheart]

58andfixed

And still...Love is




Love
B

[Kindred]

I've written this before, but it bears repeating.

LOVE is the Desire, the Willingness and the Action of:
GIVING ALL THAT YOU ARE, ALL THAT YOU EVER WILL BE,
And expecting Nothing in return...

[Linden]

Shezbeth: *For one's love to be unconditional IS a condition. 'Without boundries' IS a boundry. 'Undefined' IS a definition. 'Infinite' IS a limitation.*

I'm seeing a flow here. So is it cyclical and is not only a spectrum, but a complete cycle that flows continuously?

[Linden]

Love is void of ego. It is being open and vulnerable so that it frees the spirit to commune with the other droplets of the source which makes everything *one*......We are ultimately and always shall be ....... *Love*

[Icecold]

The Shaman's experience of love......

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=6_Dbl_ANww0

[Icecold]

For my friend Waya.

May his soul soar like the eagle......on its silent journey

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=VdFIDeK8_t0

[Maria Stade]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=fOJzKMZCdCA

[Maria Stade]

You are beautyful !

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zRn_hmp7Jeg

[ace]

A Love Story

I shall seek and find you.

I shall take you to bed and control you.

I will make you ache, shake and sweat until you grunt and groan.

I will make you beg for mercy.

I will exhaust you to the point that you will be relieved when I leave you.

And you will be weak for days.

All my love,

The Flu

[Maria Stade]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=2JvlXVQoO3M