Love is Necessary

[dragonfire]

I find it quite weird regarding heart energy "LOVE" since I have been practicing. Before I started practice I

could not differentiate between emotional states. I never really thought much about whether I was angry or feeling love. After practicing for a while now, I know why buddhist and Taoist preach compassion and love. I can force myself to feel love. Love seems to amplify and you can definitely feel it. I am able to notice this because I also notice that anger is also amplified. Is it possible to eliminate anger completely and just feel love?

 

I saw a video of a buddhist monk who said he could not tell the difference between beauty and ugly, and also could not feel anger.

[sheng zhen]

I find it quite weird regarding heart energy "LOVE" since I have been practicing. Before I started practice I

could not differentiate between emotional states. I never really thought much about whether I was angry or feeling love. After practicing for a while now, I know why buddhist and Taoist preach compassion and love. I can force myself to feel love. Love seems to amplify and you can definitely feel it. I am able to notice this because I also notice that anger is also amplified. Is it possible to eliminate anger completely and just feel love?

 

I saw a video of a buddhist monk who said he could not tell the difference between beauty and ugly, and also could not feel anger.

It is possible to love anger aswell

 

So it is not eliminated, just loved.

[dragonfire]

How do you love anger? Isn't anger the opposite of love?

 

It is possible to love anger aswell

 

So it is not eliminated, just loved.

[sheng zhen]

How do you love anger? Isn't anger the opposite of love?

No, there is no opposite of love. Love just is. If there is something not worthy of your love, you are not really loving wholeheartedly. You would instead be putting limits to your love. And thats not what we want, right?

Edited October 15, 2008 by sheng zhen

[Gerard]

Compassionate love to all sentient beings part of bodhisattva's and Buddha's nature, yes.

 

 

 

The other love is simply attachment, and attachment only brings suffering.

 

 

 

[dragonfire]

I guess what doesn't make sense to me is, anger and love are two different emotional states. When I'm in love

I don't feel anger. When I'm feeling really angry I don't really feel love. So if you are angry, do you just tell yourself I love when I'm angry and this is supposed to calm you down?

 

I often thought the heart was a like a coin. One side is love and the other side anger. You cannot be in both states at once. Or am I wrong?

 

 

 

No, there is no opposite of love. Love just is. If there is something not worthy of your love, you are not really loving wholeheartedly. You would instead be putting limits to your love. And thats not what we want, right?

[sheng zhen]

I guess what doesn't make sense to me is, anger and love are two different emotional states. When I'm in love

I don't feel anger. When I'm feeling really angry I don't really feel love. So if you are angry, do you just tell yourself I love when I'm angry and this is supposed to calm you down?

 

I often thought the heart was a like a coin. One side is love and the other side anger. You cannot be in both states at once. Or am I wrong?

Well, you are not wrong, your understanding is just not complete. We might say there are two kinds of love. One is the human and emotional love that make us connect to eachother. The other is the divine and spiritual love that make everything connect to everything else. The spiritual love transcends everything and is independent of everything. Even anger.

 

When you connect to the spiritual love it affects and increses the emotional love. But because it transcends it also accepts everything. This way you can be angry and still feel this love. You can look at someone you dont like, and still feel spiritual love. And you can see your own or others flaws and love them.

[i_am_sam]

No, there is no opposite of love.

 

Isn't fear the opposite of Love?

 

Doesn't everything have an opposite? Else how can you recognise/define it?

[sheng zhen]

Isn't fear the opposite of Love?

 

Doesn't everything have an opposite? Else how can you recognise/define it?

Its the opposite of "emotional love", yes.

[zanshin]

Its the opposite of "emotional love", yes.

 

I think fear is the opposite of compassionate love rather than emotional love. Emotional love can even cause fear, we feel both at the same time, we love the person but we're afraid they don't love us back, or we'll get hurt, or they'll stop loving us back. But without attachment, perfect love casteth out fear.

[elcaminante]

Well, you are not wrong, your understanding is just not complete. We might say there are two kinds of love. One is the human and emotional love that make us connect to eachother. The other is the divine and spiritual love that make everything connect to everything else. The spiritual love transcends everything and is independent of everything. Even anger.

 

I just found your words very appropiate, I would like to ask you one question though.

 

How would you suggest we may develop our spiritual love?

Edited October 16, 2008 by elcaminante

[Unconditioned]

[doc benway]

This is a wonderful discussion. I'll throw out a few points I've picked up from a variety of sources that have resonated with me.

 

Love is not an emotion.

 

Emotions are states that flow in and out of us that teach us, heal us, and guide us.

They vary from minute to minute or day to day.

So anger is extremely valuable - it's what gets us to speak up for ourselves or others, to want to right wrongs and so forth. Fear keeps us out of the dark alley or has us prepare for the needle stick and so forth. All the emotions are there for good reason and are natural and necessary. We don't always handle them skillfully or naturally and so alot of emotional pathology is out there.

 

What many of us confuse with love are emotions of lust, attraction, attachment to a relationship and so forth.

If you can strip away all of the attachments, the thoughts, the distractions in our lives, and connect with that which you truly are, which is what we all are, the wholeness is restored and that is love. It's always there as the ground substance but is usually obscured.

[.broken.]

Love is selfless.

 

Love requires no appreciation, acknowledgement nor reciprocation.

 

Love is a river in which we swim.

 

Love simply is.

 

Open your heart, and you will flow with the river.

 

Yours, in love,

James

[dragonfire]

Yes. I also studied some books that also said love was not an emotion. Or spiritual love is not an emotion. Emotions are states that come and go. Unconditional love does not come and go even when we are angry. My question is how do we develop unconditional love or spiritual love so that it is so strong. I'm not used to giving love, just feeling love when it happens... say when I fall in love. I've been practicing trying to feel love for others during meditation. When I do this I can feel changes in my body, heat rises, an aura of energy flow.

After I do it I feel good, but it doesn't really last very long. Is this how its going to be?

 

I went to a panichealing treatment once and felt great for one day. I didn't feel anger at all, but after I started meditation again, the emotions come back.

 

This area is so difficult to understand because it requires feeling. I can grasp concepts, but when it comes to making you try to "FEEL" something like love all the time, its very difficult.

 

The fact that you can LOVE someone that hurt you is really difficult. Or say you have unconditional love for someone that is trying to kill you is tough to swallow sometimes. I know this is extreme, but isn't this what unconditional love is?

 

 

Well, you are not wrong, your understanding is just not complete. We might say there are two kinds of love. One is the human and emotional love that make us connect to eachother. The other is the divine and spiritual love that make everything connect to everything else. The spiritual love transcends everything and is independent of everything. Even anger.

 

When you connect to the spiritual love it affects and increses the emotional love. But because it transcends it also accepts everything. This way you can be angry and still feel this love. You can look at someone you dont like, and still feel spiritual love. And you can see your own or others flaws and love them.

[doc benway]

My question is how do we develop unconditional love or spiritual love so that it is so strong. I'm not used to giving love, just feeling love when it happens... say when I fall in love. I've been practicing trying to feel love for others during meditation. When I do this I can feel changes in my body, heat rises, an aura of energy flow.

After I do it I feel good, but it doesn't really last very long. Is this how its going to be?

It is there, always there. It is the very fabric of our being. It is already stronger than we can ever imagine.

It is simply a matter of stripping away all of the conditioning and attachments that have brought us away from it, but that is extraordinarily difficult.

It takes enormous energy and yet one can't be attached even to the goal of achieving it.

Even that attachment will be the greatest obstacle.

Look thoroughly and deeply at yourself, your habits, desires, relationships and all that. If you can look so deeply that you ultimately see through yourself, it will be there waiting and it will be absolutely unmistakable.

But it requires patient attention and awareness to maintain, it is not like turning on a lightswitch but more like fanning a spark.

Don't give up!

[Stigweard]

The sun lights the earth

All things equally embraced

Unconditional

[sheng zhen]

This area is so difficult to understand because it requires feeling. I can grasp concepts, but when it comes to making you try to "FEEL" something like love all the time, its very difficult.

 

The fact that you can LOVE someone that hurt you is really difficult. Or say you have unconditional love for someone that is trying to kill you is tough to swallow sometimes. I know this is extreme, but isn't this what unconditional love is?

Yes, but you know, when you love even your own anger you can kick the killer in the balls and break his neck and still forgive and love both yourself and him while your doing it

 

But it is difficult in the beginning. We are so stuck in our own conditioning and patterns that it is difficult to see anything else. We are simply not able to understand anything that transcends our own patterns and conditioning.

 

The remedy for this is stillnessmeditation, thats my opinion and experience. Stillness is the only thing that quiets our conditioning and makes us able to recieve new impulses and develop our selves. It is the only practice that makes you able to really transcend. Visualizations for transcending would still be created within our conditioning and therefore will never be able to transcend it. You can not transcend the physical reality by building a plane.

 

But with stillness we open ourselves up and transcendence happens naturally, almost like diffusion.

Edited October 17, 2008 by sheng zhen

[Unconditioned]

This area is so difficult to understand because it requires feeling. I can grasp concepts, but when it comes to making you try to "FEEL" something like love all the time, its very difficult.

 

The fact that you can LOVE someone that hurt you is really difficult. Or say you have unconditional love for someone that is trying to kill you is tough to swallow sometimes. I know this is extreme, but isn't this what unconditional love is?

 

A couple quick points to add to all the other great posts. Forcing yourself to feel love all the time is very difficult indeed! It shouldn't be forced in my opinion. Can we force a flower to bloom in the spring? No, but we can create the right conditions. Similarly, we can create the right set of conditions with ourselves to receive divine love.

 

Some of the practical advice given here is spot on (in my opinion) - specifically, once you realize who/what you really are, you will see the same in others, in all things, in complete equanimity.

 

As far as loving someone that is about to murder you, you can love them and love yourself at the same time. In that example, you love yourself enough to flee or fight back to survive. You love the person doing it, but not their actions, motives, etc.

 

If you find a path that resonates with you and stick to it, you will experience divine love. Stick with it!

 

All the best,

Nate

[dragonfire]

So key points are stillness meditation and developing spiritual love (different from loving someone). I guess even to love someone is considered an emotion. Even love for someone changes overtime doesn't it. Or is that not real love then, just mistaken love for some other emotion.

 

I see what spiritual love is now. The prerequisite is to love the world and everything. With that

you can love everyone, but not their actions, even if they are to harm you.

 

I find it difficult to love someone, even though they are out to harm me. I understand the difference between the harmer and his actions. I guess my spiritual love is not developed yet. I think for most people, this

is where they are. Only the spiritually developed can possibly love a person out to do harm. A spiritually developed person has seen the other world and understands this world is not the end, thus he can differentiate.

 

Hopefully I can see that other world someday.

[.broken.]

As it has been mentioned a number of times - what a great thread this is and there are some exceptional truths that have been imparted. I laughed when I first saw this thread because it was created on the same day I was having indepth discussions about the nature of love with a colleague... Much of what came up in our conversation has been covered here. I thought I'd reply to a number of things that have been posted, but first I would like to talk a little about the word itself.

 

'Love' is a term that is used widely in the English language. Ranging from, "I love chocolate", to, "I love."

 

The term 'in love' is rather destructive in the sense that it automatically implies that one can fall out of love too. This 'love' creates feelings of wellbeing which gives birth to good deeds toward the object of one's affection - usually in the form of romantic gestures. The general result is a softening of the recipient's feelings toward the perpetrator of the good deeds allowing for the opportunity of physical closeness and the sensual pleasures that are likely to follow. Essentially speaking, there is always an object of desire.

 

Love without an object would imply that there would be no one to acknowledge and return that love. As such, everything is equal and the self is ultimately reflected in everything. Good deeds perpetuate from the selfless as love and compassion go hand-in-hand.

 

Look thoroughly and deeply at yourself, your habits, desires, relationships and all that. If you can look so deeply that you ultimately see through yourself, it will be there waiting and it will be absolutely unmistakable.

But it requires patient attention and awareness to maintain, it is not like turning on a lightswitch but more like fanning a spark.

Don't give up!

 

Steve... I couldn't have put it better myself The spiritual path is all about losing our conditioning through awareness and patience. Along the way are the many realisations that the individual must attain, of which love is arguably the greatest of all lessons.

 

The remedy for this is stillnessmeditation, thats my opinion and experience.

 

A very valid opinion indeed, as it is wisely based on experience. It is, however, not my experience. I have never seriously practiced stillness meditation, yet I have come to the same realisation.

 

If you find a path that resonates with you and stick to it, you will experience divine love. Stick with it!

 

I concur. All paths seem to lead to similar realisations. It is perseverence that is of utmost importance.

 

I see what spiritual love is now. The prerequisite is to love the world and everything. With that

you can love everyone, but not their actions, even if they are to harm you.

 

This is the only time where I will disagree with what has been written. You can love their actions, even if they harm you. Love is without bounds. Love is without differentiation. Through true compassion one can bare witness to the experience of another's conditioning and as such gain true insight into their understanding and interpretation of the world. This creates the underlying notion that you and him are the same - actions and all.

 

I find it difficult to love someone, even though they are out to harm me. I understand the difference between the harmer and his actions. I guess my spiritual love is not developed yet. I think for most people, this

is where they are. Only the spiritually developed can possibly love a person out to do harm. A spiritually developed person has seen the other world and understands this world is not the end, thus he can differentiate.

 

Hopefully I can see that other world someday.

 

A wish to leave you with a few words...

 

Do one thing and do it well.

 

Yours humbly,

James

[doc benway]

Through true compassion one can bare witness to the experience of another's conditioning and as such gain true insight into their understanding and interpretation of the world. This creates the underlying notion that you and him are the same - actions and all.

 

_/\_

[h.uriahr]

Anger, hate, fear are all negative emotions do no good. Getting cut off on the way to work and getting angry and wanting to beat the guy up isnt healthy. Hating other races of people, etc isnt healthy. Fear of anything isnt healthy aswell.