RE: Not so brave....
ORIGINAL: Moonfeather
Is love a way of explaining 'attachment' to something or someone? Maybe sometimes certainly, but, human love can go very deep. Inexplicable actions of courage are achieved in the name of love for one example.
As are personal sacrifices.Question - do we all experience 'love' differently?
Answer: yes, I think we do. 'Love' can become trivialised and shallow, used for selfish reasons of connection and support or even co-dependency. Many people cry "But I love you!" without any real concept of what love truly means or is. (which is what I think Xia is getting at)
Below the surface of selfish love, you may find self-less love, which is what Gillyann explains above; acts of courage and true self sacrifice and also those where someone is released despite the pain caused because it is better for that person in the long term.
And deeper still is compassion, where each and every person/animal/living thing is regarded from the standpoint of the ever-lasting connections between them and accepted as such, without judgement or condemnation or false 'love'.
That's my pov, anyway.
Moonfeather
I think that there is no self-less love. I think all love is selfish, and I don't think that that is *bad* by any means.
Compassion is not a kind of love in my book.... compassion means just to walk in another's footsteps, to *try on* their life and have some understanding of their burdens, their stuff that they are going through. I can have compassion without loving someone.. in fact, the real nastyest people are the people I have most compassion for some times. I don't love them at all....
X
RE: Not so brave....
Well, .Xia. I don't personally see that personal sacrifice is based on self importance, but I am open to looking at this from another viewpoint.;)
How I see this is that if we are programmed for survival at any cost, which we are, and we sublimate this quitissential part of ourselves to help someone we love, then, surely we are putting THEM and their needs first and our own last. In this way we are showing that our ego, our self preservation instinct and our fear of our own death, is put aside to serve the needs of the one we love. We are therefore turning away form any self importance or selfish needs of our own.
Love Gxxx
RE: Not so brave....
ORIGINAL: gillyann
Well, .Xia. I don't personally see that personal sacrifice is based on self importance, but I am open to looking at this from another viewpoint.;)
How I see this is that if we are programmed for survival at any cost, which we are, and we sublimate this quitissential part of ourselves to help someone we love, then, surely we are putting THEM and their needs first and our own last. In this way we are showing that our ego, our self preservation instinct and our fear of our own death, is put aside to serve the needs of the one we love. We are therefore turning away form any self importance or selfish needs of our own.
Love Gxxx
But where is proven that we ARE programmed for survival at any cost? That is simply not true - if that were true then we wouldn't EVER sacrifice ourselves.... if that were true, we would not eat junk food, we would work out - it would drive us to make sure we held on to every last possible moment - no matter what the cost...... maybe we are not programmed for that after all????????? Maybe we are programmed for something else? Or for many things?
It could be that we are programmed to self-worship at any cost.....
RE: Not so brave....
Xia—loosely from the bottom of your post to the top. It just seems to flow that way.
Xia: it is my belief that no thing has happened in my life for no reason, or without any value to me.... ALL things within my experience of existence have contributed someting, not just love.
Many things happen in your life that have no reason, unless you believe that you are a puppet being manipulated through life, and everyone else is too. But to believe that, you must believe that you have no choice in life. Therefore those who believe something different to you are just doing what they are supposed to do and there is no point to this conversation.
Now to say that all things have value (to you) in one way or another is very different. You do learn many things simply by being alive and some are helpful and some are not—which could be translated to mean good and bad if you want.
Xia: I think *love* can be examined more deeply..... maybe *love* is just a way of explaining something else?
EAW: But what IS the something else? And what words do you use to speak of it? How do you describe it in ways that someone else can understand, especially if they have not had the same experiences that you have? Could it be the same “the nature of existence” you refer to? This is the closest we have come to an answer, but welcome new ideas and new twists on the old ones.
Xia: No! Love is not the nature of existence in my view.. you misunderstand me. For me, love is a manifestation of connection and also self importance. *the nature of existence* is not love.
Notice that we never stated that Love is the nature of existence. We asked if that which you seek and call “the nature of existence” could be that “something else” that you said we, collectively, call love. Our question to you is what could that something else be?
Xia: For me, I say *there is no battle*...... if we see ourselves as being at war with our lives, we will always see battle, battle, attack, attack, injury, and naturally run for cover and safety, naturally want love more than anything....... but for me, there is no battle - the great vision of my life is just that, a vision, here to be walked, experienced down to the last moment, the last connection
And our reference to “battle” is not a war with life, but an affirmation that there are things that hurt, intentionally or unintentionally. Hurting, to my way of thinking, is not helpful to my getting the fullness out of this life and therefore I choose actions like divorce to find a place of un-hurt. Living “the great vision of my life” does not exclude choices for me to make.
Validity of life, just is. Are you alive? Then your existence is valid. Do you choose to acknowledge love? Fine either way. Do you choose to express hate as the mainstream of your existence? Then do so. Do you prefer to challenge the beliefs of others, to shame them by slimy platitudes, or to encourage them to find the meanings that are significant in their sphere? What difference does it make to the whole? Each of us determines what we will embrace as our values and what things, ideas or ideals we will choose to accept or reject.
Meanwhile, the earth turns, eons pass, and life continues—regardless of our actions or our beliefs.
EAW: I do have to judge everything everyday in order to determine what I want to include in the orbit of my self.
Xia: That which is in the orbit of yourself is in the orbit - ignoring stuff does not make it go away
That which surrounds me is in the orbit of my living, but that which I accept into my “self,” those things I accept as part of my being, need not be ignored, simply released. If I assign a value to an experience, a good or a bad, and I keep that memory and the connection to it, I accept it as part of my being. But if I acknowledge that an experience was hurtful (or not) and then let go of the emotional attachment, it is no longer a part of my being. I have not ignored it; I have given it a different sig
RE: Not so brave....
...out of self importance we place huge emphasis on love, for the most selfish reasons - it makes us feel good. For me, I need more than just to feel good.
...love has been over emphasised in to being the answer, just because no one looked past it......
Sorry to cut and paste so drasticaly but these points demanded answers...
Okay, you say you need more than just to feel good. So - what do you need?
And if no one has looked past love (which I doubt, but I'm not versed in philosophy), then what is past love?
Moonfeather