MarriagePeace.net

"I love him/her, but I'm not in love with him/her," is often the proclamation made by the exiting spouse who has sadly rediscovered the heat of passion with another. I have also heard it from frustrated spouses after years of marriage, often as a threat to the other to heat it up or else!

This seems to indicate that the idea or concept of love that they desire is defined by some kind of frenetic and furious action or passionate behaviors that in some way demonstrate "love." In my work I have found that this often points to some degree of sexual desire or, as some couples report, "we have sex, but we no longer make love." Of course, we all know what sex is, but what is love!

LOVE?

The fact is, we really do not know what love is with any conclusive degree of accuracy. Although we have a seemingly infinite array of concepts and definitions to describe love, the problem is that our concepts often conflict and rarely do we all agree on what 'love' is.

Yet, I believe we can agree that we all do tend to "experience" love at times, and we seem to identify when it is lacking, but rarely can that experience be defined intellectually (although many have tried and failed to capture anything useful since, in much of the world today, loves seems to be seriously lacking).

Love is a many splendored thing. In fact, it may be too many "things" and this is what makes it problematic in terms of attaining some degree of mutual understanding between intimate partners.

We have the love of the 'lover,' which is different from the love for our children. We love our parents different from our siblings and pets seem to be in a class all to themselves. We love our friends, our job, our car, our house, money, food, we love the weather, that song, those blue shoes, the way you smile and the things you say. And of course, we often don't love these things and at times we even hate them, depending on our mood and the changes that occur with these aspects of our life. Love seems to ebb and flow like the tide and change with the weather.

Yet many will proclaim that love can be a glorious experience and love songs consistently teach that to be without love is NOT to experience 'living' ("can't live, if living is without you").

But it can also be a royal pain in the ass too, since external events, situations and people often fail to conform to our "concepts" or beliefs about love and our concepts often have hidden agendas which are called "expectations." Our concepts of love are often very specific and based on particular conditions. Of course, what discussion of love would be complete without addressing the ultimate concept of love, unconditional love?

Unconditional Love

It seems that "unconditional love" exists nowhere in this whole wide world, yet many ancient spiritual masters proclaim it is 'everywhere' and 'always,' but they teach that our conditional mind just can't grasp the idea (they tend to talk in paradoxes which can be confounding to our rational minds).

However, for us, unconditional love is also a 'belief,' or simply another concept of love. But, it is a belief that we relate to as a kind of 'perfect love' that we believe we can never really attain. It is often a model that we tend to aspire to, yet after years of attempts at ‘loving,' it seems we conclude that unconditional love is unattainable by we mere mortals. Therefore, we generally allow our concepts or beliefs about love to conform to the same parameters as our concepts of everything else in reality and everything in reality 'changes.' Nothing stays the same in the world, so shouldn't our beliefs and concepts about love change as well?

But, I know when it's not there

Maybe we cannot definitively conclude exactly what love is, but since we can agree that we do experience love, can we seek to recognize and understand how we may block or obstruct ourselves from that experience? In fact, this may be all we can ever hope to understand and that's because the experience of love does not require we conceptualize or intellectualize that experience.

The problem may be that our belief about love is so distorted and confused that what we superimpose upon the experience, our beliefs and ideas about what it should be, tend to muddy and distort the purity or clarity of the experience. This results in disillusionment and we often tend to carry over our disillusionment into all our intimate relationships and even our not so intimate relating. We wonder why love does not "happen" for us. Yet, maybe the fact is that we seem never ready for it and thus, we block love from "happening," except in the disillusioned way it has happened in the past, which has never sustained us.

So how can we know that love is our experience? Well, many report that we should experience a sense of intense happiness and that seems to happen, at first. Problem is, our various concepts of "happiness" are often as elusive as our concepts of love. Everybody seems to know what will make them happy and this is often different for everyone. Not finding happiness seems as endemic to the human race as not finding love.

Let's face it, often after years of trying and failing to find love through our partner, or series of partners, we may decide to base our personal happiness on something less elusive and nebulous, like career satisfaction, living vicariously through our children, amassing personal wealth or becoming immersed in religious or spiritual pursuits, etc, etc. It often seems that folks tend to give up on love and seek out happiness in more concrete pursuits. But even then, we still tend to hold on to a belief or a hope that maybe somehow, someday, we will be happy "when love comes to town."

Love and Peace

You may need to ask yourself if your concepts of love bring you peace. Is your love of your spouse peaceful or full of conflict? If your love relationship is punctuated by conflict, is it what you or your spouse do that is at fault, or might it simply be your beliefs and concepts of what love SHOULD BE? Obviously, if two people's beliefs about love are NOT at least partially equivalent, conflict is sure to arise.

Many spiritual paths point to a love that is completely free of conflict and is an experience of absolute peace. This 'spiritual' love is free of conflict and in that absence of conflict, the void is naturally filled by a perfect peace which inevitably feeds love and allows it to grow.

A peaceful love does not rely on passion or some belief in the need for "great sex." It can exist, yet it need not be present. In an absence of conflict it may be possible for peace and joy to enter of its own accord, since there are many theories that proclaim that joy is our natural state of being.

What is love for you?

You can listen to all the love songs, read all the books, get a Ph.D. in psychology, meditate on the mountaintop, and eventually you will still only be stuck with your concepts and beliefs of love and not much else. Love exists in the interior of your ‘self' and must be sought for inside to be shared or extended with others.

You can be taught to respect and be kind to others, but that doesn't mean you will love them. You can choose to love your spouse and your children, however, many choose not to and seem not to suffer from that choice (although we suffer with how someone could not love their children, but the fact is, many do not).

Nevertheless, if you do choose to love, what concept of love is that based on and is it based on an expectation of returned love? Do you ever really ask yourself 'what is love' or do you just take it on face value that somehow you know and have always known?

In todays world, love is a choice and what concept of love you decide to apply to that choice is solely your decision and no one can make it for you (or are we simply conditioned to believe that love must be experienced in a particular way that we were taught to experience it?).

Obviously, this post has not in any way defined love and it seems I'm as befuddled and confounded by the concept as you are. Yet I have learned one thing in the past 25 years of working with couples, and in negotiating the twists and turns of my own relationships.

Love cannot be known through conflict. To my mind, unconditional love can be experienced. A mother's love for a child may be initially unconditional, but even this can be destroyed through anger and fear and therefore, may not be as "natural" as has been frequently reported. Yet, even that concept of love began as pure peace and the mother's love for the child was completely free of conflict, until the world's values took over and changed perception.

Of course, I'm not saying that if you're seeking to increase love between yourself and your partner you should not have conflict. That would only result in fear and anxiety each time any petty or insignificant disagreement arose.

No, what I am pointing to is not a reduction of conflict, but an ever increasing presence of peace. Peace is the environment through which love can grow and transition into ever greater levels of affection, caring and, yes, even passion. Peace is the foundation we should seek to build love upon. When a peaceful foundation is set firmly in place and not ignored, love will endure. Yet when the condition of peace is absent, inevitably love will collapse into a series of ever more intense attacks and deep resentments. In an environment of domestic war, love may fade forever and no longer be available, no matter how hard you try to bring it back.

If you are NOT at peace within yourself how can you expect another to find peace through your love. If your are NOT at peace in your most significant relationships, the experience of love will continue to be what you seek, but never find.

In my work with couples I have found that peace does not necessarily result in an absence of conflict. However, the conflict that does arise is often easily and effortlessly extinguished since both partners have agreed to peace as the ultimate goal. Conflict no longer immediately erupts at the slightest provocation, spinning out of control and thereby, wreaking irreparable damage to the durability and endurance of the relationship.

When peace is the goal and the foundation of the relationship, unkind words and personal attacks rarely appear in disputes. Couples become amazed at the degree of compatibility they have attained naturally through the desire for peace above all else. Rules of engagement for conflict have one goal in mind - seeking to maintain the peace!

The world seems to frequently reflect war. Diplomats work exhaustingly to achieve a degree of peace between warring states and often no amount of diplomacy can dissolve the desire for conflict. Countries have often lived in deep suspicion of one another ready to attack at the slightest provocation and clearly, in these global examples, peace was rarely the foundation and often never the goal.

Is your relationship prepared for war or have you negotiated a lasting peace?

In your little corner of the world there is no war and conflict is brief and undramatic as you have both seen to it that peace is the foundation of your state of mind and the underlying goal of every conflict that should arise. In this way your world is completely immersed in peaceful negotiations where conflict is never feared, but looked on as a way to attain ever greater levels of committed love through an enduring peace.

If you have been a regular reader of these posts you may have noticed the consistent theme that continues to appear in almost every post as the paradox of the "One and the Many."

How can we embrace the truth and beauty in the Oneness of life and still attend to and glorify the truth and beauty of the parts?

This is often referred to as "the Paradox of non-duality." Yet, it is noticeable that the questions I ask in the posts evolve primarily from my experience of being a separate self amidst other separate selves or one among many. In most cases the answer I receive is opposite my perspective of separation, which is undeniably my own, and teaches of wholeness or Oneness.

I would like to quote a reader who has provided an excellent comment pointing to this "seeing" of the One in the Many, which I feel is an apt interpretation of our spiritual path.

"Ahh... The One Mind. You, We... the "All" are learning. You will know when the student and teacher are one. When the student and teacher are One, there will be no more questions of what to teach, nor what was learned, nor whom learned or taught.

Pretend for a moment, that all the universe is a body. And, similar to how our bodies fight to digest food, humans are just another type of "specimen" of the whole.

Pretend there is only one universe. Pretend the universe is truly a body. Pretend that your emotion is a small part of the sum of the whole... part of the unity of the One

Now pretend that when Jesus speaks, he speaks to the body of universe (or whatever other concept you require). Now, it is not speaking to Michael, but an aspect of the One Mind's true body, the universe. Thus, there is only one student, one teacher.

No more questions means proper teaching. Ignorance is not asking questions when they still exist. Learning is asking the question without prejudice. Knowing is having learned.

You, we, All are learning. One aspect of the One Mind at a time :)

Then again, I could be wrong :)... I still have questions :)"

Be well.

Michael H

I believe if you roll this comment around in your head you may begin to grasp the paradoxical nature of our spiritual seeking. I use the word paradox because I feel that we need to be aware of something Michael has parenthesized, "(or whatever concept you require)."

To attain Oneness through the Many makes no sense to the mind that is rationally seeking ‘truth' IN "the many." To be separate and unified, whole and part, one and many, is the paradox, yet our concepts seem unable to aid us in fully grasping this Truth. Attending to wholeness may deny our diversity as parts, while seeing only the parts loses the bliss of Oneness. To focus exclusively on the parts may impede realization of wholeness. But if reality is nothing but a conglomerate package of "concepts" in the mind, what concepts can aid us in glorifying both the One and the many?

Our mentally constructed concepts of truth seem to make sense until some other concept comes along and collapses the logic requiring we develop another concept, which is also equally annihilated, resulting in our constant chasing of concepts in the desire that eventually, we will get IT. This seems to be the method of many spiritual paths that rely solely on the intellect to attain truth.

If you are a regular reader, you might even see this in the posts. We get the message that we need "do nothing" and then we get a whole host of things to do, only to again come back to
"do nothing."

But what is it that we are supposed to GET?

Something? Which demands that we seek it

Or nothing? Which demands that it is not available to be sought.

What is that "something" that is "nothing" that the ancient masters speak of, but that few, if any, can find and teach? Paradoxically they inform us that what we seek to find is "nothing" and therefore, not there. Yet, in some way we still must "seek" it.

The same wisdom appears to be found in the message of Christ Mind (similar to Buddha Mind). These Truths consistently inform us that this elevated "consciousness" is certainly something we want in order to transcend suffering, but it is nothing we can have through the usual thought processes we employ in understanding the world/reality. In fact, it is nothing we can have because there is no need to have what cannot be attained simply because we have IT and have never lost IT.

Do we embrace who we are, or change who we are, OR BOTH? Our very existence is unmistakably pronounced by fluctuation between the two extremes of accepting or rejecting. We seem to live out our lives in this manner, always and forever evaluating what we want and what we do not. But based on what criteria? How can we make such assessments when clearly we have not effectively evaluated the premise of our existing or Being? Who am I and who are you?

Is there a middle ground that will result in the convergence of the extremes of rejection versus acceptance or is this the constant struggle that defines our living? Can we seek, but not seek. Can we have both ignorance and wisdom. Relative and absolute, form and formless, One and many.

I keep getting the sense that I need to develop better questions if I'm to acquire an answer. I seem to be directed to the idea that the answer will be found in the question and not in the answer to the question. This is because the question and answer are somehow one and the same and require that we teach this in order to learn it. This seems to be an answer to the paradox between the one and the many. In some non-intellectual method of apprehension, we must "experience" such a convergence of opposites in the realization that opposites (One and Many) never existed in the first place. We need to exist between the extremes and not at either pole.

There is no "you" or "me" in the world. There is only "you-ness" and "me-ness" and "world-ness." We place interpretive veils or shrouds over this Truth in order to make distinctions between forms because we believe the many forms are the 'truth.' (in this sense Heidegger was correct in his philosophical definition of man as "Being-in-the-world" or what he calls "Dasein"). There are no distinctions between the self and the world as they are One and the same, simply being perceived through a shroud which highlights the distinctions of the many, as opposed to the convergence of the many as The One.

Therefore, the teachings of the masters, through Christ Mind/Buddha Mind interpretations of reality, are bringing us home to One Mind. They are doing this in a way in which the many can be used in traversing the hypothetical distance between the two interpretations that we have constructed. As such mind/body, inside/outside, here/there, etc, can be seen and must be seen as encompassed as One. You have to love the many to know the One.

I leave you with some choice quotes from the Ashtavakra Gita which is an ancient Hindu Vedanta Advaita text with no known author (translation by John Richards)

Burn down the forest of ignorance with the fire of the understanding that "I am the one pure awareness," and be happy and free from distress. 1.9

Your real nature is as the one perfect, free, and actionless consciousness, the all-pervading witness -- unattached to anything, desireless and at peace. It is from illusion that you seem to be involved in samsara. 1.12

You have long been trapped in the snare of identification with the body. Sever it with the knife of knowledge that "I am awareness," and be happy, my son. 1.14

When you analyse it, cloth is found to be just thread. In the same way, when all this is analysed it is found to be no other than oneself. 2.5

All this, which has originated out of me, is resolved back into me too, like a jug back into clay, a wave into water, and a bracelet into gold. 2.10

Truly dualism is the root of suffering. There is no other remedy for it than the realisation that all this that we see is unreal, and that I am the one stainless reality, consisting of consciousness. 2.16

Recognising that all this and my body too are nothing, while my true self is nothing but pure consciousness, what is there left for the imagination to work on now? 2.19

All this wells up like waves in the sea. Recognising, "I am That," why run around like someone in need? 3.3

Seeing this world as pure illusion, and devoid of any interest in it, how should the strong-minded person, feel fear, even at the approach of death? 3.11

Who can prevent the great-souled person who has known this whole world as himself from living as he pleases? 4.4

Rare is the man who knows himself as the nondual Lord of the world, and he who knows this is not afraid of anything. 4.6

All this arises out of you, like a bubble out of the sea. Knowing yourself like this to be but one, you can find peace. 5.2

Alternatively, I am in all beings, and all beings are in me. To know this is knowledge, and then there is neither renunciation, acceptance, or cessation of it. 6.4

I am pure consciousness, and the world is like a magician's show. How could I imagine there is anything there to take up or reject? 7.5

Liberation is when the mind does not long for anything, grieve about anything, reject anything, or hold on to anything, and is not pleased about anything or displeased about anything. 8.2

Unmoved and undistressed, realising that being, non-being and change are of the very nature of things, one easily finds peace. 11.1

Recognising oneself in all beings, and all beings in oneself, be happy, free from the sense of responsibility and free from preoccupation with "me." 15.6