Love
Question: What is it about loving and being loved that makes it seem impossible to live without - and yet (at times) impossible to live with? I'm so confused!
Answer: In many ways the whole of this life is a special kind of preparation for Love. We begin this endless Relationship through our various associations with people and the sacrifices and learning lessons these relationships both provide and demand. But in the end, meaning as we ready ourselves for our own further inner development, and the deeper, more fulfilling relationship with Love that attends each of these steps, we come to an amazing finding: The more we would possess anyone or anything, the greater the unconscious sense of separation we experience. As this becomes clear, and our need for Love continues growing, we come to an astounding revelation: What we really want is not to possess, but to be possessed. What our heart is seeking it finds in giving up the self that strives for Love. And in its place, Love -- real Love, timeless Love -- appears.
Excerpted from Seeker's Guide to Self-Freedom
Question: I'm thirty-two years old and have never even had a girlfriend. I am constantly reminding myself that I will never have a relationship, that it's just "not meant to be." Is this cynicism, or is life actually telling me that I will never find love?
Answer: If you had a parent that loved you and you were out playing, and your parent called you home, can you imagine him locking the door just when you got to the front porch? Of course not. Our longing for love is Love calling for us. Keep your wish alive.
(Chatroom Classroom Transcript 2000)
Question: How many levels or types of love are there for people?
Answer: The Greeks have four words for love: eros - romantic love, philia - brotherly love, storge - family love between parents and children, then the most powerful is agape - love based on principle. For our purposes here, we can say there are two kinds of love: the first is the emotional type. This is the love that we all are given to know and to work with by our very creation. This love is good, natural, and provides the basis from which it is possible to move into the next or higher order of love. This Higher Love we can define for now as being an inclusive love in that it is impersonal. The principal difference between these two kinds of love is that the emotional love arises from and tends to create the "self" that loves. It is always a form of identification. The Higher Love that originates from God's love feels no need to possess what it loves because this love is whole and complete in itself. In the New Testament, Christ asked Peter repeatedly if the love Peter had for him was of this higher nature. Peter didn't understand the difference between his love and the one Christ spoke of, and his denial of Christ (moments later) revealed the difference.
Excerpted from Seeker's Guide to Self-Freedom
