What About Love?

love |l?v|   noun
 
1 • an intense feeling of deep affection : babies fill parents with intense feelings of love | their love for their country. • a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone : it was love at first sight | we were slowly falling in love. • ( Love) a personified figure of love, often represented as Cupid.  • a great interest and pleasure in something : we share a love of music. 
 • affectionate greetings conveyed to someone on one's behalf. • a formula for ending an affectionate letter : take care, lots of love, Judy.
 
verb [ trans. ]feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to (someone) : do you love me? • like very much; find pleasure in : I'd love a cup of tea, thanks | I just love dancing | [as adj., in combination ] ( -loving) a fun-loving girl.
 
What about love? Is love a thing? an action? an energy? Does it have levels, varieties, nuances, qualifications and rules? While I feel called to write about love, I'm still learning and wondering about love.  
 
I've been told that there are different types of love: romantic love, erotic love, familial love, and spiritual love or agape.
 
Let's address erotic and romantic love first. I think that this is one of nature's schemes for survival of the species. It's a well orchestrated hormonal/chemical trick to get us together. Initially, our sex hormones set us up for being interested in pursuing intimacy with someone. Then, once you meet a secial someone and are "in love" your brain is adrift in a sea of dopamine and norepinephrine which produce elation, intense energy, craving, and focused attention. We also produce phenylethylamine, a feel good chemical also found in chocolate. When you add sex to being in love, oxytocin and endorphins are released into the mix. Oxytocin creates the experience of bonding, and edorphins produce a general state of well being, including feeling peaceful and secure. Even hearing a voice mail from one's love object elicits this bliss cocktail, which can induce a psychological/drug dependency on the "beloved."  
 
All of this serves to get us together long enough to procreate, and, hopefully, long enough to successfully raise our children. That's where familial love comes in. For mothers, there is a strong bonding experience which is enhanced by the release of oxytocin every time her infant suckles at her breast. Mothers are strongly protective of their offspring and contribute much to ensure their nourishment. We love our children. 
 
As the family develops, love among family members; familial love, or love based on kinship ties arises.  "Philia", mentioned by Aristotle, meant a dispassionate, virtuous and unselfish love. We make sacrifices for our family, and if love is present, accept them as they are.
 
agape 2 |ä?gä?p?; ?äg?-|noun Christian Theology Christian love, esp. as distinct from erotic love or emotional affection.• a communal meal in token of Christian fellowship, as held by early Christians in commemoration of the Last Supper.ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from Greek agap? 'selfless love.'
 
 "Agape" means love in modern day Greek, but in ancient times referred to a pure love without sexual connotations.
Agape is that aspect of love that is unconditional and universally directed towards all that is. This pure, or spiritual love is far more likely to arise when one is in touch with the spiritual dimension of their own being. I'm not talking about spiritual in a religious context, although that is one possible path to "know thy Self." Not in an intellectual context either, but in a direct here and now experience of Self. 
 
This happens for me when turn my awareness back upon it's Source, the Ground of Being that gives rise to the experience of me, my, and I. What I find is silent, empty, peaceful, without form, and always here. Even though I, as a personality, may be deeply disturbed by some event, the Ground of Being, consciousness, remains tranquil.
 
Perhaps, this Presence is love. That would fit with my favorite definition, which is that love is focused awareness, full attention without resistance. I feel that I extend love when I am fully present with another, attending to them with nothing added, except, maybe, appreciation. So, when a parent is simply watching, gazing upon their child, they are loving that child. Perhaps, when you "meet" someone for a few "eye to eye" moments, that too, is loving.
 
What about other ways that love finds expression? It could be a simple as cooking a meal, or doing the dishes. Love could be as heroic as risking your safety to rescue someone, or as a simple kindness such as volunteering at a shelter for the homeless, or even allowing another driver to pull in out front of you in heavy traffic. Sometimes, what appears to be a loving act is psychological codependency - unconsciously trying to make someone appreciate you out of your pattern of neediness. Loving action is more likely to occur when you begin to identify with your heart instead of your head, with your connectedness rather than your separation. At the level of consciousness, there is only one of us here.

To quote Hal David's song from the sixties, "What the world needs now is love, sweet love." Most of us would agree, but are unsure where to begin.
I've heard myself say "I know how to love," yet I find defining love to be anything but simple. So, can I really make such a claim? . . . Yes, I know how to love. I get better at it over time. I extend that love to the people, creatures, and world around me.
 
In that extension, I recognize that what is seeing and being seen are not separate. From the context of love, there is only one of us here. Yet, the very appearance of another is as good a reason as any to extend my gaze, to extend that energy, to extend what I am at the core to the apparent "other." In that extension, I find I am even more myself. Sometimes, in a deep meeting with another, I disappear. What a mystery!
 
Here's what one of my teachers, Jeshua (aka Jesus), has to say: He is quoted in John 15:17 as saying to his disciples "These things I command you, that ye love one another." My take on his teaching is that is a call to love.

So, what gets in the way of loving, mostly fear and judgement. Another quote from 1 John 4:18: There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear" When I am loving, there is an absence of fear and judgement. Both of these close the valve on love for me. Part of my practice/dicipline is to catch myself in judgement, point to it, name it, and attempt to let it go. Sometimes I'm successful, sometimes not.
 
In The Course in Miracles, Jeshua, says "All love is God's love." So this implies I am not extending "my" love, I am extending something that flows through me, but is not of my creation. It comes from Source, or God. What is mine is the willingness to open, to allow love to flow. Source takes care of the rest.
 
Am I making sense here? What is your experience? When you feel love flowing to your child, your lover, your pet, is it something you are creating, or something that flows through you? Is it yours, or are you the channel or recipient?
 
While there are circumstances, people and creatures that open me to love, love does not need an object or a reason. If you only love in response to a love object, your loving will be seriously limited. This is one of the pitfalls of limiting yourself to romantic love. While it serves nature's purpose of bonding together to insure the species reproduces and survives, it is often a crash and burn scenario when your love object misbehaves or disappears. I recommend learning to extend love for it's own sake. Consider doing the "Love without Object" exercise on the side panel to the right. 
 
Here's my challenge of the moment: can I extend love to those I hate?  There are some politicians that bring up my judgement and impulse to attack in a big way. Can I arrive at that necessary aspect of love which is acceptance? To quote Rumi "If someone asks, But what is love? answer, Dissolving the will." OK lover boy, surrender.

From the perspective of Ho'oponopono it's all my creation, and the first step is "I love you." With some politicians and corporations I find myself gulping just before the I love you part, but I'm working on it. I still sign petitions and call senators, but I try to do it from a position of asking for what is needed, rather than attack or blame. I will say that acceptance is easier on the body/mind than resistance. I surrender.
 
 
While love may move us to acts of kindness, political action, or generosity, love itself is a form of medicine or nourishment. So far, I have discovered no bottom to the depth, or limit to the abundance of love. I find opening to love, and extending that love to be a marvelous strategy for living. I'm feeling it right now.  Loving is nourishing. Loving bears sweet fruit. Loving is fun.
 

My prescription: Love more. Love deeper. Love now.