Is 'falling in love' harmful for spirituality?

[hellabomer]

Originally Posted by Gem

Yea, but spiritually is 90% codswallop teehee, and the reality is, everyone loves some specially, and others are not much liked. If we were 'supposed' to love in some way, love becomes an obedience, but love is completely irrational and subscribes to no form of reason. "Madly" in love. I'm "crazy" about her. Yep. Reason can never explain madness.

But "madly" and "crazy" is generally used to describe infatuation, puppy love or addictive kind of love. When we talk about unconditional love, it's quite far from maddening. Right? It's full of peace, liberty and happiness.

[hellabomer]

Originally Posted by Starman

Better than trying to love everyone equally is to do no harm to everyone equally. There are many levels of love; puppy love, romantic love, etc., the love you have for your mother or children is different than the love you have for a spouse, girlfriend or boyfriend, etc.

It is great to keep your heart open to everyone but you must also protect your heart and you do not give the same intimacy to everyone that you might give to your significant other. You love your siblings, brothers and sisters, differently than you love a spouse.

There are many levels, or different kinds, of love and some believe that “Agape Love” is the highest form of love or affection. Eros love is passionate with sensual longing, mania love is a type of obsessive and possessive love, etc. You can research different kinds of love online. Spiritually we are taught about unconditional love but even though we live in a conditional world we can separate people from their behavior, as we would children.

We can love a person but not like, or love, what they have done; Humanistic Psychology is all about separating a person from their behavior and always giving unconditional positive regard to that person. Most people will demonize a person because of their behavior but we do not usually do this to young children because we feel they may not know any better. Still. It is also a practice which we can use with adults as well; unconditional positive regard. Demonize and offer correction for the behavior but show positive regard for the person.

If you love yourself from the depths of your core that love will radiate from you and touch others regardless who they are to you, friend, stranger, etc. If you nurture the relationship with your deeper being light will emerge from within you and shine forth from you, and when you, or others, feel that light it will feel like incredibly sweet and intoxicating love.

You don’t have to think about this; just regularly connect with your own heart, your own core, quiet meditation is very good for this practice, and with practice you will feel the presence of love. Love without having an object or person to love; that is how we spread unconditional love. It has nothing to do with what we may say or do for others and has everything to do with our own presence. We give to each other the work, or lack of work, which we have done on ourselves.

Thanks a lot for your reply. I understand what you are saying. But the thing is, even when we love someone unconditionally, they might not reciprocate it back. At that point, should you continue giving unconditional love to them (even if you are away from them) and don't you think it would clash against having relationship with another person because you still pray for another person's well-being?

[hellabomer]

Originally Posted by Within Silence

Instead of striving to love everyone, simply cease judging them and accept them as they are. If you can help then help, if you cannot help then just don't harm, as, to stop harming is to help.

To strive to love everyone equally is to live a lie, but to accept everyone equally as they are is to set oneself free.

Until you have given the whole world its freedom, you cannot have yours.

But isn't it distracting to love someone anyway? It can lead us to not dedicate all our time in spirituality, and keep our thoughts engaged in the object of our affection.

[7luminaries]

Originally Posted by Starman

We can love a person but not like, or love, what they have done; Humanistic Psychology is all about separating a person from their behavior and always giving unconditional positive regard to that person. Most people will demonize a person because of their behavior but we do not usually do this to young children because we feel they may not know any better. Still. It is also a practice which we can use with adults as well; unconditional positive regard. Demonize and offer correction for the behavior but show positive regard for the person.

If you love yourself from the depths of your core that love will radiate from you and touch others regardless who they are to you, friend, stranger, etc. If you nurture the relationship with your deeper being light will emerge from within you and shine forth from you, and when you, or others, feel that light it will feel like incredibly sweet and intoxicating love.

You don’t have to think about this; just regularly connect with your own heart, your own core, quiet meditation is very good for this practice, and with practice you will feel the presence of love. Love without having an object or person to love; that is how we spread unconditional love. It has nothing to do with what we may say or do for others and has everything to do with our own presence. We give to each other the work, or lack of work, which we have done on ourselves.

Starman...first I completely agree with the above. Very nicely said.

Originally Posted by Starman

Better than trying to love everyone equally is to do no harm to everyone equally. There are many levels of love; puppy love, romantic love, etc., the love you have for your mother or children is different than the love you have for a spouse, girlfriend or boyfriend, etc.

It is great to keep your heart open to everyone but you must also protect your heart and you do not give the same intimacy to everyone that you might give to your significant other. You love your siblings, brothers and sisters, differently than you love a spouse.

There are many levels, or different kinds, of love and some believe that “Agape Love” is the highest form of love or affection. Eros love is passionate with sensual longing, mania love is a type of obsessive and possessive love, etc. You can research different kinds of love online. Spiritually we are taught about unconditional love but even though we live in a conditional world we can separate people from their behavior, as we would children.

...but I disagree with the big idea underlying what I read here, as I understand it.

Nothing on you per se and I think you have articulated very well what many would read and agree with as common-sense truths.

I think we are in process of learning many things as a species, and much of it has to do with recognition and naming and conceptualising things with ever greater clarity so as to better apprehend the underlying truths.

For me, however, when I read that the love we have for partners is different to the love we have for our children or parents or beloved friends and fam -- I cannot agree in any sense except that the love we have for every individual is individual. Beyond that, love is ultimately universal and IMO we lower and limit and often debase the love we have for partners by saying that it is categorically different to the love we have for all others.

It is only true that we are sexually intimate with our partners and that we are not sexually intimate within our other relationships...although TBH this is a moral and ethical ideal which unfortunately is not yet fully honoured (incest, rape, infidelity, FwB, etc...all of which are more or less rampant).

But my point is that the authentic love (wills and seeks the highest good of the other equally to the self and for no other reason but wanting their best) is something that many...perhaps even most...do not and cannot feel for a sexual partner because their reasons for partnering are not and never have been about authentically loving the other. They have been exploitative, codependent, coercive, deceptive, need-based, control-based...and so forth. This overarching structure can be mitigated by respect and kindness and so forth...but it remains and within such vast inequalities and imbalances, the odds of coming together based on authentic love are nearly nil.

Thus, although it is CURRENTLY true that for most, we do not love our partner the way we love our beloved family and friends (whom we do love authentically and for whom we do want the best, full stop, and nothing to do with what we get from them or what they do for us)....

I believe very deeply that we are called at this point as a species to bring authentic love into our partnered relationships. That's exactly as it sounds. First, bring the authentic love which arises in the context of knowing and appreciating others as others...as unique individuals. Simply as they are and with no expectations or demands or requirements other than perhaps building a true and loving friendship. Then, commence the lovemaking in the flesh when both partners agree to meet in an authentically loving partnership

That is...the authentic love we give our children, our parents, our beloved friends and fam...the good we seek and support for them at all times for no other reason but their good.....

All of this is no less than our partners deserve. This means a shift from defining the core aspect of the partner relationship as sexual first and loving secondarily....as many are not and never will be authentically loving.

It means a shift to defining the partner relationship as authentically loving first and foremost, within which we make love (sexual love) with our partners. It's time to rise to this, and we have the potential to do so right here and now...it's simply a matter of love and will.

It's time to rise to more, and this clearly is the biggest "love issue" facing our species at this time, simply because we have existed within structured relationships since time immemorial and now many have swung over to a totally amoral, physically-based definition of relationships -- one which guts us spiritually and critically stunts and hobbles so many on their path.

Peace & blessings
7L

[hellabomer]

Originally Posted by Within Silence

Instead of striving to love everyone, simply cease judging them and accept them as they are. If you can help then help, if you cannot help then just don't harm, as, to stop harming is to help.

To strive to love everyone equally is to live a lie, but to accept everyone equally as they are is to set oneself free.

Until you have given the whole world its freedom, you cannot have yours.

But isn't it distracting to love anyway?

[hellabomer]

Originally Posted by shoni7510

The day we are able to love everyone equally is the day we would have evolved as the human race. We can try and love the people we meet in our life journey unconditionally without prejudice or judgement. Spirituality is teaching us how best to evolve and eventually ascend collectively and as individuals.

But if you are loving your partner, it will end up causing you to get attached to the worldly pleasures. How can you still move ahead and maintain detachment?

[hellabomer]

Originally Posted by Jyotir

Hi hellabomer,

Oneness is a great ideal, something to aspire to, and should be attempted as much as possible. It's based on the essential equality of all life as being part and parcel of the Divine. However, that essential equality of life in its untransformed status, is fraught with ignorance and ego which confuses, limits, and prohibits the manifestation of that ideal in practice - like with human relations, including so-called 'love', which is usually a dissatisfying vague uncertain amalgam of hopes, expectations, wishes, desires and attachments and possessions and the unpleasant secondary artifacts.

The core teaching of spirituality* is to love God, first, only; serve the Divine in the Creation; God's Will be done.

All other 'human' issues individual and collective are eventually resolved in and through that, which is the safe clear passage (although a work in progress) simply because to approach all the issues any other way requires solutions based in ignorance.

Go to the Source first, then everything else comes from the Source.

That is the spiritual way, in its various forms and traditions.

* vs. intellectual, moral, ethical

~ J

Yes. I know that. Thank you for mentioning it in your reply. Loving the source is our foremost goal. But the moment you 'fall in love' with a human, you get consumed by their thoughts, and you end up getting attached to them. Ultimately, it steers you away from the spiritual path and hence God ends up being second. So, isn't it profitable to renounce all earthly relationships?

[LadyMay]

I feel if anything loving someone romantically would enhance our spiritual growth. It gives us someone to focus on specifically, it's easy loving humanity as a whole, but loving one person completely and totally? Very hard. A romantic relationship forces you to face and confront things in your own life, and if you are both devoted to spiritual growth, then even better...

[Gem]

Originally Posted by hellabomer

But "madly" and "crazy" is generally used to describe infatuation, puppy love or addictive kind of love. When we talk about unconditional love, it's quite far from maddening. Right? It's full of peace, liberty and happiness.

I guess I don't understand it all that well, but I like the poem, On Love, by Kahlil Gibran. That one seems to tell it well.

[Jyotir]

Originally Posted by hellabomer

Yes. I know that. Thank you for mentioning it in your reply. Loving the source is our foremost goal. But the moment you 'fall in love' with a human, you get consumed by their thoughts, and you end up getting attached to them. Ultimately, it steers you away from the spiritual path and hence God ends up being second. So, isn't it profitable to renounce all earthly relationships?

Not if you love the Divine in the person you've formed a relationship with as the primary intention*...make that the sincerely consecrated ideal and purpose*, the means - it then informs all subsequent action. A relationship based on that (mutually) can really go somewhere, evolve. But that assumes both people come together for the purpose of serving the Divine in and through each other for the Divine. So how does that 'steer you away from the spiritual path'? - - It can become the very means of it in practice.

God being first is never dependent on condition - just one's orientation, need, attitude, which spiritually speaking, must become unconditional (not dependent on condition, expectation, etc.). That is the spiritual way, which most don't really want - too many sacrifices of the status quo. But here we are on a spiritual discussion site, so this is what we talk about - (ironically) why spirituality presumably 'doesn't work'. iow, We end up discussing the resistance of ego/ignorance in various forms ("...you get consumed by their thoughts, and you end up getting attached to them...", etc., etc.)...but there is the work to be done. So how will one do it?

Example: One apologizes to their spouse for a 'wrong action', not to get sex or dinner, but to recognize and acknowledge the imperfection/ignorance/wrong action to the divine in themselves, and to ask forgiveness and for new opportunity from the divine in themselves/their spouse (same Divine, btw) to move forward in the process of perfection of thought and action towards increased satisfaction, happiness, etc.

...isn't it profitable to renounce all earthly relationships?

Ultimately, that boils down to the relationship one has with God in their own life - which determines all else in the life - that is the central relationship and my original point. If you renounce that, what is there to work with? What then is the purpose of life...to hide from life?

If one embraces that primary, essential, central Relationship, it then determines everything else, including human relations**.

That's what spirituality is in practice...it's that simple.

Consciously consecrate one's life to the Source in All.
Equality in action, eg., Oneness, issues forth from that.

* which, btw, is the secret to finding the 'right' relationship to begin with. Many, or even most,
don't recognize this and simply 'go shopping' (unconsciously) with a check-list of attributes
which merely project/re-create various ignorant complexes in their own personal 'psychology',
and then wonder later, "why is this not working out?"

** there is protection in that as well, something (imo) Starman alludes to in post #4

~ J