I can’t think of a way to start his article that isn’t boring so I’ll begin four times.<\/p>\n
Since you’re reading this blog you’re probably familiar with the idea that pure consciousness has no objects. I suggest that pure love — love as it really is — has no objects. When we feel love, it seems to be love for somebody but it isn’t really. I suggest that this is an empirical fact. You can observe it. I’ll come back to this.<\/p>\n
Here’s beginning number two. Since you’re reading this blog you’re probably familiar with the idea that you’re not really a person. You’re not your personality or actions or body. You’re not even something that can possess such traits.<\/p>\n
If that idea is true for us, it’s also true for the people we love. It seems like we love them for their personal characteristics: personality, behavior, etc. But if that idea’s true, those characteristics don’t belong to them or to anyone. So either our love is a kind of mistake or delusion, or what we really love is different from what we seem to love or… or maybe something even more radical and profound is going on.<\/p>\n
Third beginning. Years ago one of our cats was on my lap purring and I was petting him. There was a very strong feeling of love. For some reason I paid close attention to the love and noticed for the first time that love simply exists; it’s not something I generate and the cat wasn’t the target. It’s more like something I tune into. I suggest that this is easily observable. Wait for a moment when you feel strong love and observe it.<\/p>\n
Moreover, I soon recognized that love is the same no matter who it seems to be directed at. People sometimes describe awareness as a sort of field that permeates the universe; at best this is a potentially misleading metaphor but it applies equally well to love.<\/p>\n
You may object, “Freddie, you’re crazy. The love I feel for my spouse is very different from the love I feel for my children.” My reply: It seems that way because the thoughts and urges you associate with love vary. But the love itself is the same. I’ll return to this in beginning number four.<\/p>\n
The first written expression of these ideas, as far as I know, is in Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 2.4.5.<\/p>\n
Fourth beginning. Another useful metaphor: Shankara’s idea of superimposition (adhyasa). We “see” what we are not, body and mind, overlaid on what we are, the Self, and confuse the two.<\/p>\n
Let’s extend that idea to love. We ‘see” what our loved ones are not, body and mind, overlaid on what they are, the Self, and confuse the two.<\/p>\n
I’m writing this article because of the conversation yesterday in comments about the pain of watching somebody we love slide into dementia. They lose many personal characteristics. If we love them for those characteristics, the loss is potentially very painful. But what if that’s not why we love them? What if that’s not what we love? What if the love isn’t even something we do? What if we are<\/i> love?<\/p>\n
John’s first letter in the New Testament says, “God is love.” I can’t prove this is true but if there is any experience we have that is a direct sign of God’s existence, it’s love. A suggestion: When you feel love strongly, observe it carefully. Notice what it is. I suggest to you that if it’s not God’s signature then nothing in our lives is God’s signature. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I can’t think of a way to start his article that isn’t boring so I’ll begin four times. Since you’re reading this blog you’re probably familiar with the idea that pure consciousness has no objects. I suggest that pure love — love as it really is — has no objects. When we feel love, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-6517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-love"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6YVpx-1H7","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6517"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6526,"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6517\/revisions\/6526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freddieyam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}