WHAT IS lOVE???

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Abogado del Diablo

What question?

"What is lost?"? That's because you said you were lost.

But as I said before, you get the Timothy Leary you deserve.

I think I might have an idea what you are trying to get acrossed.
I prefer to preserve the mystery of love by not fully defining it.
Its like a living thing, a transforming thing. It can be tamed, but not fully controlled. If you try to fully control it, it will be transformed (or maybe corrupted) into something else. {IMHO, of course.}

Why didn't Lao Tzu hand the guard a blank page and go on his way?

Well, according to the stories I have heard, Lao Tzu was disgusted by all of the corruption he saw around him in the Chinease bureaucracy, {where he supposedly worked as an archivist,} and got so fed up he wanted to leave the country. A border guard recognized him and wouldn't allow him to leave unless he left behind some of his words of wisdom. {At least that's how the story I've heard goes. Kinda sounds like Lao Tzu was coerced into writing the Tao Te Ching, according to this story. I like the "hands off" flavor in his response.}

[flowperson]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Well, according to the stories I have heard, Lao Tzu was disgusted by all of the corruption he saw around him in the Chinease bureaucracy, {where he supposedly worked as an archivist,} and got so fed up he wanted to leave the country. A border guard recognized him and wouldn't allow him to leave unless he left behind some of his words of wisdom. {At least that's how the story I've heard goes. Kinda sounds like Lao Tzu was coerced into writing the Tao Te Ching, according to this story. I like the "hands off" flavor in his response.}

If I may break into your lawyerly discussions re: the "mythical" Lao Tzu and his motivations for writing the Tao Te Ching ( by the way Seattle, that's the story I've always heard too), I do not believe that the story is meant to be taken literally.

I believe it is metaphorical because of the mystical nature of the materials that the author felt compelled to write about. He/She knew that to go across the boundary into the veiled territory to retreive the information, a full emotional commitment was necessary on His/Her part. Such a commitment cannot be induced through the partaking of drugs to alter the psyche, although certain native cultures believe that this is so (read your Castaneda... nice try on the Leary reference Abogado !)

Such a series of emotional commitments cannot be engendered either through coercion or deception on the part of governmental or other social institutions, such as the border guard story implies. The border passage to the veiled territory by the author must be an invited passage, "allowed" by the holders of the veiled territory and the "possessors" of the information. In a sense the author becomes the "shamanic figure" on a "mission" for His/Her community to retreive and disseminate the valued information that the community as an entirety is perceived to need. Remember, it was the utility truck driver in the film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, that was chosen.

Now, maybe I'm reading too much into your conversation, but speaking as one who "believes" that he has been placed in just such a situation, several times, I can tell you that being the "shamanic" author is a life-rending experience. Also, the rate of pay is REALLY crappy ! And as one proceeds along the way after such experiences, such people usually cannot be expected to enter into the veiled territory again and again, and pursue such information without being provided "complete trust and security" by the community.

Bottom line, all roads these days have improvised explosive devices hidden along the way, and after a while one just gets sick and tired of the uncertainty and danger, not to mention the severe cases of hypertension and PTSS flashbacks. Look what happened to J.D.Salinger back in the day, Ralph Ellison...the list of "revealers of true things" that were coerced and/or repressed into not doing so goes on and on.

Of course we can choose to believe that Lao Tzu was just an escapee on a donkey trying to pass from China to Mongolia, or we can choose to believe the metaphorical version.

Experience is always the best teacher.

flow....

[Abogado del Diablo]

Originally Posted by flowperson

If I may break into your lawyerly discussions re: the "mythical" Lao Tzu and his motivations for writing the Tao Te Ching ( by the way Seattle, that's the story I've always heard too), I do not believe that the story is meant to be taken literally.

I agree. It's another myth to explain why Lao Tzu would bother to take the time to explain the unexplainable. The first sentence is that the truth can't be put into words. And in saying even that, he is expressing something in words.

The larger point is that we are (it is undeniable) having this discussion by use of words. Words are words because they can be packed with information on one end of the communication and unpacked on the other side. If what is packed on one side isn't the same as what it unpacked on the receiving end, we have a failure to communicate. So the convention for ensuring that the recipient gets the intended meaning is to consider the meanings of the words and symbols we are using to reach an agreement. This idea really seems to bother Seattlegal who seems to view it as an aspect of "political correctness," which she seems to find particularly distasteful. However, some method of creating shared meaning in symbols is necessary for us to communicate with one another. Forcing meanings on others is also unproductive (which, I agree, is the futile aspect of both fundamentalism and 'political correctness'). But imagine if we couldn't discuss the meanings of symbols and arrive at some agreement.

And here's the rub. We use the phrase "God is love" on a forum about comparitive religion. Some people don't get it because they don't know what is meant by those who use that phrase. But if we stop and deconstruct the word as being an expression of an experience, by telling a story of what it means to us (as Ruby does so very well), then other people can recognize the meaning by reference to their own experience and understand what "God is love" means. And perhaps it may turn out that they'll see the words they liked to use to describe their central religious experience aren't that different after all. And if we do the same thing with what others (who don't use the symbols "God" and "love") say about what their experience is, we also may find a common human experience that brings us all together.

Is this dialogue a soul crushing and spiritual rape? It is consensual because the dialogue only happens because both sides want to listen. Those who don't want to listen, don't and shouldn't have to.

[flowperson]

Abogado:

Thanks for the reply.

I entirely agree with you, but if only the world and its people were as rational as you. The fact is that we rely upon symbolic intent in our communications because feeling and emotion, the core experience of love, is pretty much unexplainable by just using mere words. But yes...G-d is love. It may usually only be shown and not read or heard.

You are right about Ruby's stories. They sing with truth. And the value of her experiences transparently pass among us as she relates them. But maybe she would be happier writing nature-based poetry, at least that's what I was going to suggest in a post to her. That's all up to her as it is a world of personal choice and responsibility.

But deception and guile is the rule and not the exception in today's world. It is not realistic to believe in benefitting from listening or reading stories of others' life experiences because we all need to cover some stuff up every once in a while for self-protection. That's why, IMHO, fiction was invented in the first place. But, as I pointed out in my post, even fiction is sometimes too much truth for some people who are always out there watching for transgressors.

And by the way, I recollect that the first three works of modern fiction were likely Don Quiote, Frankenstein, and Dracula. Perhaps they were, taken as a whole, a prescient set of commentaries upon the human state.

Sorry to be a cynic about much of this, but as I said, experience has taught me a lot.

flow....

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by christine.P

So what is ‘LOVE’?

Is IT? Pure Reason and Intuition, is IT? A Soul quality, and not an emotion or a sentiment. Is IT? NOT a "feeling", either, is it something much, much grander and more inclusive?

Maybe Love is the foundation of true Brotherhood, or a divine energy. Maybe Love is unity and inclusiveness.
Maybe Love is the result of the continual interaction between Spirit and Matter on the eternal continuum of Life.

What do you think?
Chris

There are two kinds of love, the emotional, and the decision. One is fleeting and illusory. (it may last a life time, but eventually it ends). It is also potentially veiling (it can blind us to the truth). The other is permanent, and binding. The results of such can not be reversed. It is given with eyes wide open, and clear mind. Sometimes it causes pain, but not out of malice.

When Christ spoke of no greater love than he that lays his life down for his friends...he wasn't talking about the emotional kind (though that may be part). He was talking about the "decision" to do what is best for another, regardless of emotional concerns, or the results that may or may not affect the one who loves.

Emotional Love, can be withdrawn at any time, it can wax and wane. It is fickle at best. Decisional love can never be withdrawn, once acted upon. It marks time, and change. It can move mountains or shake up entire nations. Its ultimate goal is to help, never harm, though harm may come to some along the way (their emotional perception of it).

Love makes men run into collapsing buildings, to find and save those trapped. Love makes a father force a wayward son out into the street, in order to protect his family. Love makes a man throw himself on a grenade, knowing full well he won't survive, but his fellows will.

These three-Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is Love.

v/r

Q

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Abogado del Diablo

The larger point is that we are (it is undeniable) having this discussion by use of words. Words are words because they can be packed with information on one end of the communication and unpacked on the other side. If what is packed on one side isn't the same as what it unpacked on the receiving end, we have a failure to communicate. So the convention for ensuring that the recipient gets the intended meaning is to consider the meanings of the words and symbols we are using to reach an agreement. This idea really seems to bother Seattlegal who seems to view it as an aspect of "political correctness," which she seems to find particularly distasteful. However, some method of creating shared meaning in symbols is necessary for us to communicate with one another. Forcing meanings on others is also unproductive (which, I agree, is the futile aspect of both fundamentalism and 'political correctness'). But imagine if we couldn't discuss the meanings of symbols and arrive at some agreement.

If communication were to become so exacting, and everything was so well defined, would that make the need for people to find creative ways to "reach out" to one another for greater understanding obsolete?

[Abogado del Diablo]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

If communication were to become so exacting, and everything was so well defined, would that make the need for people to find creative ways to "reach out" to one another for greater understanding obsolete?

I don't think so, because, despite the fact that we can listen carefully to one another and find common ground, we infrequently do. And "deep" symbols will continue to have tremendous value in many circumstances.

Among the people in this particular forum, we can be confident that we can productively sound the depths of those symbols.

[Abogado del Diablo]

Originally Posted by flowperson

I entirely agree with you, but if only the world and its people were as rational as you. The fact is that we rely upon symbolic intent in our communications because feeling and emotion, the core experience of love, is pretty much unexplainable by just using mere words. But yes...G-d is love. It may usually only be shown and not read or heard.

I agree. I am endlessly fascinated with language and symbols and how we use them. So it is something I want to open a dialogue about and I am very pleased that there are so many people on this forum with well-considered ideas and great questions that we can all reason together about. That doesn't appeal to everybody certainly. I can understand somebody feeling that deconstructing mythological symbols takes the magic out of them. However, for me (and a few others around here I think), it actually makes them more magical - because you can observe how profoundly little bits of noise affect human emotions, thoughts and actions. Now that's magic. Ever read Confucianism: The Secular as Sacred by Herbert Fingarette? He writes about the magic or sacredness of Confucionism being a function of the order and power of language and ideas. This rigid order of language is set against the chaotic blank page of the Tao within the same society, with both sides recognizing that the other side is necessary. Likewise, we stand astride the order of a life lived in a world of reason and ideas and a life seeking the freedom from those same words and ideas so we can experience the Father or Nirvana or the Tao. A healthy human lives in both worlds at once. As Novalis wrote:

The seat of the soul is where the inner world and the outer world meet. Where they overlap, it is in every point of the overlap.

As you said later in your post, there is a need to protect ourselves and cover things up. There is the mask of identity that we wear in the outer world that we know isn't real and the real self of the inner world that wants to be recognized but can't be. It's no accident that so many stories are about people pretending to be something they aren't and learning to accept themselves. I don't want to sound maudlin, but it reminds me of a song by Chantal Kreviazuk:

I used to carry the weight of the world
And now all I wanna do is spread my wings and fly
I don't know why I was so afraid... all the time
Memories seemed to bother me.. my whole life
I used to carry the weight of the world
And now all I wanna do is spread my wings and fly

I don't know why I was so ashamed
Such a waste of time
And I don't know who I was trying to be
All those lies
I used to carry the weight of the world
And now all I wanna do is spread my wings and fly

Oh and there's always something
Or somebody right behind
Well we're not meant to be everything
We're just a piece
So spread your wings

Oh I don't know why I was so afraid all the time
I used to carry the weight of the world
And now all I wanna do is spread my wings and fly...

Sorry if pop music lyrics offend, but I really like that one.

[flowperson]

Abogado:

Given the limited life choices available to humans these days, I believe that way deep down, almost all of us at times wish that we could spread our wings and just...fly away. Of course R. Kelley seemed to have a lot of trouble come his way when he wrote and recorded a song about just that not too long ago.

flow....

[cavalier]

Originally Posted by Abogado del Diablo

No. "Compromise" means to elevate a large container above a train. "Sterility" means to keep more than four dogs in a oval-shaped enclosure. I don't see how it could do either of those things.

Any chance of a non-pretentious answer?

[christine.P]

Cavalier....

"Love's not definable, it's simply feelable."

Would this sum it up do you think??

In peace Bow...

[Abogado del Diablo]

Originally Posted by cavalier

Any chance of a non-pretentious answer?

Sorry, your last question seemed rather hostile to this whole discussion. Since I'd just written a post about "love" as a word, the next thing to do was a demonstration. I apologize if yo were offended.

Let's step back for a second. You think that talking about a definition of a word renders it sterile, right? Isn't that inherent in the process of communicating using symbols? My earlier response is appropriate in this sense: words are for communicating. If we refuse to explain what we mean by them,they are nothing more than noises coming out of our mouths behind which lurk unreachable thoughts. If talking or writing about "love" makes it sterile, the solution is to not talk or write about it. Yet, here you are, on a forum about "love" (and a whole lot of other experiential and "spiritual" nouns), writing about them.

I've been told by people of the Jewish faith that writing or speaking the name of God (which is rendered "G-d" frequently, though I've never understood how that solves the problem) is a form of idolatry. It takes the essence of the unknowable and puts it into words (or images) of human creation. For Christians, the central imagery of the absolute is often "love" replacing the Hebrew "G-d." Many Christians seem to treat the word "love" with similar reverance. Of course, the visionaries of our world's great wisdom traditions have a habit of deconstructing the existing mythology to find and reinterpret its meaning for a new audience.

Maybe we shouldn't be having this discussion. Maybe this forum shouldn't exist. Perhaps then we'd be one step closer to no longer needing a new prophet every couple centuries to get us back to the source.

[cavalier]

Originally Posted by christine.P

Cavalier....

"Love's not definable, it's simply feelable."

Would this sum it up do you think??

In peace Bow...

Well, I would certainly argue it's not definable, although I would want to add that that, in itself, does not mean we should not try to define it none-the-less.
Is it simply feelable? I'm not sure, perhaps if I just set down my thoughts.

Love is feelable, but more than that, for me, it is knowable. we can know love even when we do not feel it.
There are different kinds of love, perhaps ultimately there is just love, but for us finite beings we cannot see that bigger picture, (if in fact it should exist) and so for us there are different kinds of love. How do we come to know each of them and their subtle or otherwise differences? I can only think that it is by having first felt them.

So I guess I would say that without feeling love, or a love, we cannot know it or understand it. Reason, definition and argument would mean nothing to us.

I hope that makes sense

[Abogado del Diablo]

I am unworthy. How can I reply to you?
I put my hand over my mouth.
I spoke once, but I have no answer -
twice, but I will say no more.

[cavalier]

Originally Posted by Abogado del Diablo

I apologize if yo were offended.

I was not offended and have no idea why you would think that I was.

Originally Posted by Abogado del Diablo

You think that talking about a definition of a word renders it sterile, right?

Wrong. Firstly, I only said that this was a possibility, and more importantly, that comment was only made because the discussion at the time was not simply, "talking about a definition" it was about arriving at a definition, a new and improved definition that set down clearly exactly what love is.
This is possible with other words, maybe even nearly all words, but it is not altogether possible with love.

Originally Posted by Abogado del Diablo

If talking or writing about "love" makes it sterile, the solution is to not talk or write about it. Yet, here you are, on a forum about "love" (and a whole lot of other experiential and "spiritual" nouns), writing about them.

But since this is not what I think...

Originally Posted by Abogado del Diablo

Of course, the visionaries of our world's great wisdom traditions have a habit of deconstructing the existing mythology to find and reinterpret its meaning for a new audience.

But aren't many of the things which people are writing just adding to "the existing mythology" instead of taking it away?



Everyone is different, everyone feels in a different way, and therefore everyone has a different experience of what love is. To think that we can truly define it for all mankind, to think that we can truly define it just for ourselves (since we feel differently at different times) is a mistake. We will leave things out, we will negate another's experience, and overlook our own future experiences.

It seemed you were asking why I was posting on this thread, it is because I feel passionately about this.

I have no problem with dialogue sharing feelings, experiences, beliefs about love. I do have a problem though, with the very idea of an absolute definition of what love is. A definition tells us what something is, it also tells us what it isn't and I do not believe that we should be telling or suggesting to another that what they experience as love, is really something else.