What is Love? A Philosophical Pander.

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One starry night, I was in the fine company of humans, trees, sound healing instruments, insects, ducks and cows. I turned to my good friend and asked him a question about Love:

“For anything to exist, its opposite must exist. (e.g. for love to exist, so must hate; for joy to exist, so must sorrow; for selflessness to exist, so must selfishness). And for something to exist in a strong force or quantity, surely its opposite must too in equal force or quantity. In that case, if we are attempting to increase the spread of love in the world, does that not mean we are energetically increasing the existence of love’s nemesis too, thus defeating our purpose?”

Thus ensued a conversation that continued over several days addressing what love is, the nature of humans, cleaning, and choice. Our conclusions played with some philosophy of love:

LOVE: What is it?

“What is love? Baby, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more…..”

Not what we humans define it as. It is a much higher and purer emotion than the contexts in which we taint it by loading it with condition, expectation and attachment. What we humans call “compassion” – a kind, unconditional, giving form of love – is closer to actual Love in its pure form.

LOVE: Cleaning

Here’s an analogy of a dirty dish. At first, perhaps, one does not notice the dish is dirty, or chooses to ignore the fact. When one opens their eyes and has the courage to shine light on the dish, they see the dirt (awareness). Next, they take action to clean it. The amount of dirt there is will determine the amount of effort and time needed to scrub it (compare a stained teacup with a sufuria that has ugali or rice stuck to it). Once the dish is clean, and the person continues to be aware, it will be very easy to realise when more dirt gets on the dish, and one will have more inclination to clean it. Thus our journey to maintain a clean dish continues.

Hate and impure love are both defilements that need to be cleaned. So-called ‘love’ with expectation, attachment and condition is not really true, pure love. The clean dish is pure Love, while the dirt is any impediment to that pure form of love, be it impure actions or stained love.

LOVE: A Hypothesis

Love in its purest form/essence is so clear, clean, untainted that perhaps no opposite does exist for it. It is a pure form. We clean off all the defiled versions to leave the pure Love.

LOVE: Choice

Everything exists – good, bad, positive, negative, dark, light, love, hate, … It is not that we create more love, and thus hate must increase to balance. Everything exists already (in the same way that no idea is original, and really comes from an existing consciousness and pool of concepts that one can tap into, which explains why multiple people can come up with the same idea uniquely/individually without having ever interacted with each other – post on this upcoming).

It is then up to each human, in each and every moment, to make the choice of what to tap into – the good or the bad, the positive or the negative. We don’t create one or the other (or both) – we tap into what’s already there. Thus being a good, loving person will not energetically increase the amount of hate in the world!

(Gosh I love logic.)

Therefore, we use our free will and choice to respond (rather than react) to whatever situation presents itself to us. It is up to us individually to decide whether to choose good – which will also share the good vibes around us and give others a higher likelihood to choose good too.

LOVE: The Nature of Humans

Standing by the ocean watching distant humans walk by, I ponder. These humans are the essence of potential. Because they have the ability to think and reason, the element of choice in every moment determines their reality – who they are, what they experience, their level of peace and joy.

A human has the potential to be such a force of evil, destruction and hurt. It’s scary to think about. At the same time, a human has the potential to be such a force of good, kindness, love, creation and selfless service. It all boils down to choice.

The potential is unlimited. We can create any reality of who we choose to be and what kind of force we will be in this world. And we can change a given reality too. Just because one is good now, does not mean they won’t morally deteriorate later. Just because one is evil now, does not mean they won’t improve later. What determines the choice towards good or bad in any given moment? Karma? Inclination? Background? Awareness?

Regardless, each moment is a choice – and the more aware we are every moment, the more conscious choices we can choose to make. Leave the past behind and do not let it restrict who you choose to be now. Now is the moment to choose how to define yourself from this moment on. What will you choose?

LOVE: What do you think?

What do you think pure Love is? How have we tainted it, and how can we move back to the essence of Love? Do you think we are at the core good or evil or neither? What level of choice do we have in our actions?

I’d love to hear your thoughts – and the comments section below is our playground!

Love always,

Earth Child

Article originally published at https://nomadgirltales.com/philosophy-of-love/