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Author: juli Added: 14-08-07 Reads: 499 Comments: 0 On 0 short lists |
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What is love?
From the book "In the beginning" by Chieh Wu
Chapter 12
What is love?
This one time during a workshop, the class started discussing the definition of love. It was not surprising that everybody seemed to have a different definition. Some people believed that it is when you care about some one a lot. It is when you find someone that makes you feel special and important. It is when you find someone fun, and can make you happy. In the end most people agree that it simply is a magical feeling when you are with the right person.
These types of responses are prevalent among children, young adults, and even adults. Love is simply a magical feeling. The reason why most people feel this way has its root in the upbringing of the society. The society portrays love in books, songs, movies and religion in almost infinite varieties. From these sources, love is sweet, bitter, painful, wonderful, sexy, and sometimes even hateful.
After being bombarded by a multitude of sources, people are left to make their own decisions. As a result, people and young children often make the most obvious conclusion. Love is something that is earned. Let us for a second place ourselves in young children's position. When you were young, your parents gave you food when you were hungry, gave you shelter to live, and held you when you were scared. From this source kids learn from a very young age to correlate giving with love. What they observe at this age is correct because giving is love. However, kids also observed very quickly that only specific behaviors are worthy of rewards. If they don't act in a certain way, parents have a tendency of taking away rewards and instead punish when kids don't listen. Mommy won't let me have the candy if I don't clean my room. From this obvious observation, giving and love suddenly becomes conditional in the eyes of children. This is a lesson that will stay with most people for the rest of their lives. So from observing this phenomenon, the system of rewards and punishment became the first reason why people believe love should be earned.
From these very same conditions people were impressed upon; it only makes sense if they too have sets of requirements to love someone else. If I have to earn to be loved, others must also earn my love. Whatever that is absorbed within reflects outward to the world. My mate must be blond, attractive, and rich. These are some of the exterior characteristics that people start forming. Because these characteristics are the most obvious to everyone, the first level of requirements is mostly based upon physical and material means. In our society today, we call the people in the first level of requirement "shallow people."
People in the second level think that the first level is shallow because the first level only judges superficial characteristics. Although people in the second level are still basing their love upon conditions, they think they have moved beyond physical measures. By noticing both inside and outside, most second levelers think that they see so much more than shallow people. Even though out of most people that are able to see the second level, very few have let the first level go completely. They are simply adding more requirements for the person that is worthy of their love. At this level, besides physical attraction, people want their mate to make them feel special, feel happy, and feel important. They must be loyal inside and loving inside. And the most definite one, they must love you back.
The list could go on forever for all the requirements that people make up. As a result, fewer and fewer people are willing to love for the sake of love. People think that if love is not free, why I should give it away easily. On top of that, to love also means more opportunities to get hurt. Why would people increase their chances to get hurt? So instead, people spend their life searching for the one that matches everything they are looking for. This is why people always say that there is so little love in the world today. Out of five billion people in this world, how many people do most people love? Nobody is willing to love, because so few people are worthy of your love.
From this perspective, we realize why it is so hard for people to find love. There are so many requirements. People even make up the concept of soul mates to represent the person that meets all the requirements you are looking for. Because of this, love becomes a very specific condition and a need you are trying to fulfill.
Your soul mate must be someone that could make you happy.
Your partner has to love no one else but you.
This person needs to love you back.
Unless these requirements are met, very few people in our American society would choose to love another. In other societies, the conditions might be different. However, no matter how the conditions change, it still doesn't change the fact that people need these requirements met before falling in love.
As a logical conclusion, the love that most people call love is based upon conditions. If the love is based upon conditions, no matter what the condition is, the love cannot be unconditional. Therefore, the love that most people call love is conditional love and a love that based upon conditions/needs/requirements.
If most people's love is based upon conditions/needs/requirements, therefore people's view on love must also be controlled by them. If a person's love is based on needs, this person's percept of love must also be controlled by the same needs. Therefore, if a person's love is base on needs, the needs actually control who the person would fall in love with. It seems like that the person really don't have much control over their love destiny. This is why some people feel as if they are at the mercy of love. Love is something confusing and uncontrollable.
There is a real important point that must be noticed here. What you feel most of the time is nothing but an illusion of need. We all have needs, and when it is fulfilled we are happy. We therefore correlate happiness with the fulfillment of needs. When we are hungry, somebody feeds us. When we have self-esteem needs, somebody makes us feel important. When we correlate the happiness with a specific person, we fall in love because our love is based upon need.
The reason why a love based upon need could be perceived as detrimental is because needs change. You might have fallen in love at a specific time due to a need being fulfilled. After some time, you might feel that your needs are fulfilled and you are searching for higher needs. At this point, if your mate cannot fulfill your need, you will grow distant from your mate over time in search of something else to fulfill the new need. This is how love fades. Even if both parties never once harmed the other, love based on a need will be ended by a new need that the partner simply cannot fulfill. At this point, whether two people stay together is completely up to them. Some people are afraid to be alone so they stay; while others find somebody else to fulfill their need so they leave.
This is observable within our society today. There are many men out there that would date anyone just to fulfill their need for sex. Once this need is fulfilled, they don't treat their girlfriend as well. They start becoming distant unless they are looking for sex. There are women that are gold diggers. They are looking for men not based on unconditional love, but rather a need they need to fulfill. From these examples, you notice that our society has so deeply entrenched needs with love that people no longer can discern the two. The person that can fulfill your needs normally becomes the one that you love.
I need to make it clear that love based on needs is neither good nor bad. It is no less special than unconditional love. The feeling could be just as wonderful. It is simply a love that changes as fast as the moon, and the tide. If you enter a loving relationship based on needs and expect a love that never changes, you are going to be disillusioned. This is when people get hurt and say that their partner has changed. If you have entered a relationship, love can never be constant because needs are never constant. By understanding this concept, you now can explain why America has such a high divorce rate.
Maslow's five needs
At this point, let us go over the needs so you can observe for yourself how the need system affects everybody around you. Although love based on need is a transient love, it is still love. It is simply not love itself but a subset of love, which our society defines and recognizes. Up till this point, the psychologist named Abraham Maslow perhaps best characterizes the needs. According to Abraham, people have five essential needs that they strive for.
The first level is the physiological need. These are the most basic biological needs that everybody has; such as food, water, air, sleep, etc. The fulfillment of these needs is critical for the survival of an individual. Without these needs being met, it is almost impossible for one to concentrate on other needs such as love and self-esteem.
This type of need is mostly prevalent among the homeless third world country children. From living under constant poverty, people grow up fight for survival. Resultantly, they equate love with money because money means survival. Although many people are able to rise above this understanding, it is not likely for the people that are constantly under the pressure of this need. Many young women become prostitutes while many young men become pimps. People's actions follow their need for survival. The reason why some women become gold diggers is because they need to secure their own survival as well as their children's survival. Due to the societal influence, men tend not to become gold diggers because they have the pressure of becoming a provider. Although they correlate the ability to provide food as love, they tend not to seek women that can provide for them. Instead they work hard so they can provide for the woman. In this case, they will attract and be attracted by woman in the similar need range. Love on this basis is therefore formed.
The second type of need is the need for safety and stability. This is also easily observable within our society. Women with this need look for men that would not hurt them and would provide the stability they need. One of the oldest fears that women share is the fear of being physically abused. Very few women start off their relationship thinking that they would be beaten up. However, with so much domestic violence cross every culture, not marrying a psycho is definitely a top priority. Women with this need form their love based around the concept of safety and stability. Love and protecting the ones you love is essentially no different for people under this need. This is why men in the older times would fight in honor for their lady. Many men today become strong, powerful, and successful because they want to make their family feels safe and secure.
The third level is the need for love and a sense of belonging. Women at this level tend to feel the need to belong to someone or something. Most women go through a time where they feel the need to get married. Women at this level search for men that are serious for marriage. This is a need that almost every woman will go through. Some women at this level correlate marriage with happiness. If you are one of the women that has this belief please realize that it is not true. Marriage does not equate to happiness. Happiness is a state of mind; nobody can make another person happy. It is nobody's responsibility but yours to make you happy. When you let others control your happiness, they control you. If you want to be happy, take the responsibility and control your own destiny. In this decision, you will find happiness.
Women at this level are rather demanding, besides marriages they want a fun, exciting, guy that could show them passion. Some women at this level are searching for a grand love just like the movies and the novel. It is a very difficult requirement for men, poor guys. Since the majority of the women fall into this category in America, this is why women always say, "There are so few good single men out there."
Men at this level tend to see love as ownership instead of belonging. Having a nice home, a good wife, kids, and a dog might a good version of what most men in the level might want. Some men see love also as companionship while many others see love as someone to have sex with.
The forth need is self-esteem. Men at this level see a beautiful wife as a prize to be possessed. Women would look for attractive and successful men. Basically anything that could be done to boost the ego would be considered as love for both men and women. Both men and women also have a yearning for attention. They want to feel important and special. As a result, people at this level correlate love with people that can make them feel special, important, and needed. They correlate the amount of attention they receive with how much they are loved. People at this level will work very hard to get attention because they want to feel that they exist. Some might become big time criminals while others become movie stars.
The fifth level is the level of self-actualization. This is when people feel that they need to accomplish their purpose for this life. From the pattern up till this point, you can probably guess that they would be attracted to others that can help them fulfill this need.
Most people are confused to think that one can only have one need at a time. This is not true. People can have a couple needs, or all five needs. The more needs that a person has, the more they are controlled by conditional love. It is very difficult to accomplish the meaning of life when you are starving to death. Each need tend to build on top of each other but people have repeatedly shown the ability to rise above the laws of psychology. It is my belief that people are amazing. They can defy any laws of nature when enough energy is used. It is my belief that there are more needs than these five, but for most cases, these five will probably be enough for you to observe.
Looking at love from this perspective help us realize that most people's feeling are controlled by their subconscious needs. A master that understands these concepts would have the power to make almost anyone fall in love with them. Not only can a master manipulate people's feelings; they can use the feelings to control the mind. It would be as easy as identifying or creating the need and then controlling the supply and demand. Not only can masters manipulate the needs, they can also stimulate phenyl ethylamine at will which could then be correlated to love. Love at this point becomes nothing but biology. Subconscious hypnotism could do the same trick as well as the power of autosuggestion. These are all advanced applied psychology when used correctly could control a person's state of mind. I have not even scratched the surface on how many ways you can manipulate the feeling of love. Just go to the biggest bookstore and search for yourself. You will be surprised how many books are out there to teach you how to hook the opposite sex. This is why I continue to state that love derived from need is an illusion. It is love, but it is an illusion because it is not constant. It is something that is controlled by others because love now depends on the others to fulfill the need. In the end, the needs will change and people will change. Many people end up living with someone for over ten years and one day not recognizing the person.
There are many people out there who believe that they will find happiness when they find love. This type of requirement comes directly from need base system of love. People become disappoint when love falls short of their expectation; when in reality the expectation was simply an unreasonable illusion. Love based on needs and requirements has the tendency of fading while only unconditional love never fades. This is why all the masters choose unconditional love because it is the only way to love that is outside of the illusion. It is the only way to love that is outside of the illusion created by the matrix .
Unconditional love
So how do you love unconditionally? This is the easiest way to love because the only condition for an unconditional love is that there are no conditions. You don't have to figure out if the person is worthy of your love. There is nothing to figure out; there are no rules to love. You simply love.
Love without conditions might be the scariest thought for some people because people have a need of being loved back. Have you ever noticed that when people say, "I love you," the first thing they expect is that the other party says, "I love you" back? This is a deep fear that almost everybody has. What if the person doesn't love me back? I would be devastated. In unconditional love, it simply doesn't matter anymore if you are loved back. To love unconditionally, this need must be taken off like a mask. I want you to remember that you only need to be loved back because you were taught this way. Having someone love you back was never a prerequisite to love in the first place. Love without condition means that you don't even need to meet them or even know who they are. You cannot love someone only after knowing him or her, because the knowing itself would be a condition. You simply love everybody and everything and all that is without fear. This is unconditional love.
I always found it ironic that the concept of marriage instantly nullifies unconditional love. The marriage itself is a system based upon fear of losing the other. By putting a ring around their finger and promise that they will love each other till death, people's fear of losing the other party should then ease. Why do you think women find men that don't want to get married unattractive? Most women are afraid that without a promise, their man would leave. Most women want a man that is willing to make the promise so their fear could be eased.
Ironically, by binding a marriage with a promise, it instantly makes love conditional. It instantly makes love a love based upon fear and need. Love in this case takes on the condition of a promise, a have to. When free will turns into a have to, love can no longer be unconditional. Some of us might have observed this in our society. Some people feel as if they are trapped in a marriage. The need has gone away, love has faded, yet they made a promise. As a matter of fact, people could choose to let the love fade when the vow is broken. Not all the people do, but upon observing our divorce rate, more than enough people do.
Yet we stick to marriage because it was the only way we could figure out to bring "foreverness," or eternalness, into our experience of love. It was the only way a female could guarantee her support and survival, and the only way male could guarantee the constant availability of sex, and companionship. So a social convention was created. A bargain was struck. You give me this and I'll give you that. In this it was very much like a business. A contract was made. And since both parties needed to enforce the contract, it was said to be a "sacred pact" with God-who would punish those who broke it.
Later when that didn't work, you created man made laws to enforce it. But even that hasn't worked. Neither the so-called laws of God nor the law of man have been able to keep people from breaking their marriage vows.
Many readers will be offended and feel like I am bashing marriage. I am certainly not. But the truth is that those vows run counter to the only law that matters in the end, the Natural Law. Marriage by its design violates two of the three aspects of what is true about each human being.
You see, you are what love is made out of. Love is unlimited, eternal, and free. Therefore, that is what you are:
1. Unlimited
2. Eternal
3. free
Now, any artificial social, moral, religious, philosophical, economic, or political construction which violates or subordinates your nature is an impingement upon your very self-and you will rail against it. Wasn't it "Give me liberty or give me death" that founded America? Well, we have given up liberty in our country, and liberty in our lives to marriage. And all for the same thing, security.
Most people think that marriage was the ultimate announcement of love. This is true as we have imagined in our heads, but not as we have constructed. As we have constructed, it is the ultimate announcement of fear. As things are now, we become married in an effort to lower your love to the level of a promise or a guarantee. Therefore, marriage became an effort to guarantee that "what is so" now will always be so. If we didn't need this guarantee, we would not need marriage. And how do we use this guarantee? First, as a means of creating security (instead of creating security from that which is inside of us), and second, if that security is not forever forthcoming, as a means of punishing each other, for the marriage promise which has been broken can now form the basis of the lawsuit which has been opened.
People are so afraid to live, so afraid of life itself, that we have given up the very nature of our being in trade for security. The institution we call marriage is our attempt to create security, as is the institution called government. Actually, they are both forms of the same thing-artificial social constructs designed to govern each other's behavior.
If a promise of marriage makes love unconditional offends you, it was not my intention to make you feel this way. In this section, I am stating the truth without any bias or judgment. Marriage is based on fear and conditional love. You cannot turn conditional love into unconditional by needing a promise. This need for a promise instantly becomes a condition. If there is a condition, unconditional love cannot exist. This is all that I am saying.
The situation we have here is that people don't believe that another person would spend the rest of their life with them if a promise was not made. People are afraid that unless a ring is around the finger, other people might come and take your partner away. The ring therefore became a great tool to tell others that this person is taken. It also acts as a reminder for the person that they have made a promise. The ring is the symbol for the agreement to the conditions of marriage, till deaths do us apart. The ring therefore symbolizes conditional love.
Instead of looking at marriage in a traditional sense, imagine a life long partnership that requires no promises. Can you imagine a partner that is willing to stay with you even without the promise? Can you imagine having someone loving you for forty years not because they made a promise forty years ago, but simply because they want to be with you day after day for forty years? When you give people the free will to leave without the binding of a promise, you are giving them an opportunity to love you unconditionally. You are giving them the option to show their love day after day. They want to be with you because you make them feel this way. When a promise is legally put in place in order for people to be together, something beautiful is lost.
In this book, I am simply showing you the path to a possible destination. If you choose this path, it is as simple as making the decision. If you choose a different path, it is no less special or holy. Even though I tell you that you are taking the long way because you will end up on this path sooner or later. You might want to take your time so you can see more and experience more. You might choose to stay in the physical form because earth is just as beautiful as heaven. But one day when you realize that the love you call love is but an illusion, you might decide to seek the truth. You can choose to let go the illusion anytime you want and it will be the perfect timing. You will not be loved any less whenever you choose. The truth will be the only thing always there when all illusion fades. The oceans may dry and the universe may die, but the truth will never turn into a lie. Sooner or later you will choose this path. But if you are not ready, my friend, take your time. God is not in a hurry because god has all the time in the world to wait for you. Yes, god is willing to wait for you at the edge of the universe and till the end of time if that's what it takes to see you again. This is unconditional love.
At this point, the discussion is still at a very high level. I still have not mentioned exactly what loving unconditionally entails. What is a love that's unconditional? What exactly do you do?
You give everything in the universe what they want.
From a writer's perspective, my roommate walked into the room as I just finished the previous sentence. He looked at the question, and he looked at the answer. He laughed and said this is impossible. Nobody will ever be able to love unconditionally. How do you give everything away and still have more to give? What if you simply don't have what they need? Since desires are infinite how do you fulfill infinity?
Hold your question for a second. Let me answer them the same way I answered my roommate. If we talk about human, it is true that desires could be infinite but there are only few things that people truly want. People say that they want money when in reality they really don't. They want the feeling of having money and what money could bring them. They don't want money itself. What good is money when it cannot get you anything? Money like all things is an illusion; it is not what people truly want. It is simply something that people say they want in place of what they really want. To love is to give others what they truly want. When it comes down to it, everybody wants to be happy. If you can make people realize that happiness comes from within their heart and not something people can make them feel you have loved them unconditionally.
I understand that you must have so many more questions at this point. Before I continue, there are two fundamental concepts that are essential for you to understand about love. By understanding these two concepts, you should be able to answer all the questions yourself.
First, love is a force that moves the universe; it is not the movement itself. People always confuse love with the movement because only the movement could be observed. The force is all around us, but people refuse its existence because it cannot be seen. The movement is only a byproduct of the force, but the movement and the force is never the same. When a force is pushed upon an object, the object doesn't necessarily move. From observing this, most people would say that no force was exerted. But they are mistaken. Even if no movement resulted from the force, as long as the force was exerted, love was there. There is so much more to the concept of this universal force, but the closest thing that most people can picture is the concept of intention. Love is an intention. What's intended might not always happen, but if the intention was there, love was there.
At this point, some people might wonder what good is intention if it is not action. Without action, intention is worthless. This is not the correct way of thinking about intention. If a person says that they have the intention but did not exert force, the person therefore did not have the intention. The person is therefore not saying the truth. This is very different from if someone had the intention, but not enough force to make the change. If the intention was there, love was there. So if you choose to live within this state of intention at all times, you become pure love. With pure love, you will gather love from the entire universe to move a mountain for you.
The second concept is the repeating concept that there is only one of us. We are all one and not separated. I have spent chapters explaining this concept to you. If you have not read the chapter, "I and the father are one," please do so. It is essential to understand this concept before starting see that we are all really just one. If you truly understand this concept, by unconditionally loving one person, one thing, or one of anything, you have loved the entire universe. When you love unconditionally, you simply love all that is near you and you have loved the entire universe. You do not have to travel to the edge of the universe, or solve world hunger. If your intention is love, then love all that you can see. This is unconditional love.
From these two concepts, you can answer all your questions about how it is possible to love the entire universe unconditionally and simultaneously. Think up any question of how it is impossible to love the entire universe, and these two concepts will prove that it is possible. Remember that these are absolute rules without exceptions. If you only love people in your family, then the condition is that they must be related. If you only love your boyfriend or girlfriend, your condition is based upon their relationship with you. If you do not choose to love even one person, you have not loved unconditionally even for your loved ones. In this case, your love for your love ones is based upon that they are not who you do not love. Under this light, loving unconditionally is only as simple as loving what is in front of you and as impossible as choosing not to.
If you choose to love unconditionally, start now. When you see hunger, give food. When you see fear, give comfort. When you see darkness, give light. When you see illusions, give truth. When you see conditional love, be unconditional love. When the whole world hates someone, you choose to love. When the whole world hurts someone, you choose to heal. And when you see the whole world judging someone, you choose to accept. Speak softly, act sweetly, and praise lavishly. Tell people they are perfect in your eyes. Tell someone that they are beautiful when the whole world calls them ugly. Be the comfort, light, and the truth. Kindness is the language that makes the blind see and the deaf hear. Live under these intentions and you shall be unconditional love itself.
Beyond conditional and unconditional love
So far I have still not defined what love is. I have shown you two sides of love but that is not all that love is. By showing you that love exists as conditional and unconditional I have merely shown you a small portion of love that most humans see. What most humans see as love is so narrow within the true realm of love. Even within the subset of conditional love, what humans see is still an infinitely small proportion. So now that I have build up enough suspense, what is love?
Love is everything. Everything that has happened, every thought you ever had, every feeling you ever felt. The illusion of love is love. Unconditional love is love. Even actions and feelings that have hurt you is love. When people kill it is love. Hatred is love. Fear is love. Evilness is love. Everything is derived from love and is love itself.
Since I have already shocked so many readers in this book, I wonder how much more difficult it is to accept that evilness is love. Let's summarize some other crazy things I have told you. In the first couple chapters I told you that you are god and the creator of the matrix. I told you that you are perfect. I told you that you would live forever. I told you that god does not punish you unless you punish yourself. This is also because you are god. This is probably crazy enough for most people, so if you are still reading, I guess you are probably well desensitized.
This is good that you are still reading because hatred and love are really one. I am not lying. If you are still in shock, I see you have already forgotten what I reminded you a couple chapters ago. Hatred and love came from the divine dichotomy, which you invented and keep forgetting. It was your idea that opposites must co-exist to create the relativity. Without coldness, you cannot know how it feels to be warm. Without the people around you, you cannot define who you are. Everything is relative. What is high will become low when you go to a higher place. The divine dichotomy we talked about in the first couple chapters are precisely the element that creates all these illusions. What may seem evil to one is justice to another.
Would you kill if you were trying to defend your family? What if the person you are killing also has a family, which he is defending? Does it make you a beast to kill?
Would you suffer an excruciating death if you can save ten people's lives? If you say yes, this is an act of love. If you say no, this is because you choose to love yourself. The ten people that will die of a painful death might think you are evil, they might even hate you. Their family might hate you, but your action is derived right out of love.
Would you suffer an excruciating death if you can save a million people? If you say yes, it is an act of love. But if you say no, does it make you a monster? There is no such thing as evil because evil is only a relative term. Just like high and low, evilness can be good when you simply change the perspective. Evil does not exist. There is only selfishness, which by itself is still an act of love for the self.
Many readers at this point might catch on that the real difference between beneficial love and destructive love depends on whom you love. If you only love your physical self, this is a destructive love, which is the source of all suffering. This is why people think evilness exists. However if you realize that you and I and any stranger you walk by are really the same person and the same soul, the way you love yourself will become a love for everyone else. Do you see how beautiful life would be if people were to realize this? There would be so much love to go around.
Just to prove to you why loving others gives us more love let's do a little math. Go a head and picture three people in your head, Gwen, Hope and me. If every one of us only loves ourselves, each one of us will receive one love point. Gwen will only love herself, and so would Hope and I. This is a world with selfish people. Now instead of see each other as individuals, we love each other as ourselves. This will give each one of us three love points. Do you see how there will be so much more love to go around? We'll have so much love that we'll never run out of love.
The message is clear. Instead of spending the rest of your life in search of love, go be the love that people are searching for. Do you see how one perspective concentrates on yourself while the latter concentrates on loving others? By changing your perspective, you can change destructive love into constructive love. Stop waiting for love to come to you and let yourself be the love that goes to others. Instead of being afraid that others won't love you back, you ease other's fear by showing that you will love back. Instead of waiting for somebody to make your happy, be the one that makes other happy. Instead of search, simply be. This is love.
If god is pure love, and god is everything, then love must also be everything.
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