The following posts on Love took place between January and February 2005

I have recently become aware of something significant about myself. I'm not sure why i'm sharing this, perhaps to hear of other people's experiences.

I am still in love with all of the people that i've liked over the years, I still love my childhood sweethearts, past girlfriends. In fact when I meet a women, have a relationship, and things don't work out, I feel that my feelings don't change, but theirs do. They fall out with me, but I don't fall out with them.

It's as if the 'normal population' seem to have flitterings of the feeling they call love, but it's really only a mild 'i like you', and not real love or it was love but it could not be sustained. People seem so quick to change their feelings, that I am quite astounded how artificial people are.

It's as if my love is solid and neverending, and the general populace only experiences 'shadows of love'. I have not experienced what I would call a full head on loving relatinship, which makes me wonder what it would be life. I will give up everything to know if need be.

They say that love is a state of being, so perhaps i'm connecting to them on a deeper level with Self.

How does sharing come into this ? What is the relationship between love and sharing ?

Thanks for listening.

R M

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Well, you aren't alone! :)) I still feel the same way (well, maybe not quite!) about all my past and present loves.

As long as you are not "attached" and wish them all well, I think it's a pretty healthy way of relating.

It is enough simply to love! That is in part what unconditional love is all about!

H

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I have the same feelings about loving people as you do. always thought I was 'the only one in the world who felt like that...I'd be interested in hearing/reading what others say about this../as I've always just buried this thinking, 'how in heaven's name could I still love that person'!

JT

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yeah i feel the same way too.
i was actually jut talkin to someone about this last night. not much surprise really. K sure has a lot of fun with synchronicity.. peace

L A

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Thatīs exactly how I feel too. Iīve been giving it a lot of thoughts lately and for me it is like the past is still here, in the now. The love fading away on the side of my lovers and not on my side. And still after many years, I feel like I would just be able to step in old relations because I feel so much love for each of them. And if I feel so much love, there has to be a mutual basis, otherwise, how could I feel so much love?

But reality is different, as real day to day life shows by its facts. Maybe itīs the difference between love and attraction. Thinking over my relationships, expecially the last ones, I still get those warm feelings in my chest, like my heart chakra opening. But I learned that is not enough for a real relationship. It also needs tension, standing in your own shoes, being independent, sexual attraction. Just loving and loving more to overcome issues wonīt work. It did not in my case.

Maybe itīs not love but need. Or maybe it is real love but the world is not ready for this. Maybe my love is real and theirs wasnīt. Maybe itīs the fear of Separation that keeps me attached to previous lovers, the feeling that I need a lover to be loved. Does it matter in the end?

What is confusing for me is that I also connect to them on a deeper level. I feel when they think of me, when they are about to call me or send me an Email. When I need to call them because something needs to be settled. Sometimes I can feel the difference between between a persons soul and the ego, the karmic struggle someone is involved in. And how that is played out between me and that person.

Each soul is a beauty on its own, a reflection of God, one or maybe all aspects of God. So no wonder we should be able to feel endless compassion and love for every soul. But what happens if someone does not love us back the way we love them? How does our ego get involved?

Can we realy feel love for someone else through the concept of love that most people believe in? Or is the only thing we can realy love, the only thing that is realy real for us, ourself? Is loving someone with a desire to be loved back not equal to projecting our fear of separation, expecting them to prove the opposite. Or at leaste temporarily release us from the fear of separation? When you say you would accept giving up everything to have a full connected loving relation, arenīt you realy talking about the connection with your higher Self?

I am still in the middle of this myself but I would *love* to discuss this further on this list.

R Q

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RQ wrote: >And if I feel so >much love, there has to be a mutual basis, otherwise, how could I feel >so much love?

Well that is how stalkers tend to think... but it isn't true.

I've had people in my life who I love, who turned out to be really bad for me, empathy with their stuff was damaging to my mind and immune system. Their drama would knock me out of body and if I get stuck there too long it really messes me up. In some cases it got so my body would get a post traumatic stress reaction to them, even to just seeing the name in my mailbox.

Goddess in me, just Loves... but the body wants to be safe, it prefers to be around people I can trust to respect my sensitivity.

People who were obsessed and turned into crazy stalkers... They would say "but I know you love me!"

Yeah I do, and I cannot help that, but you are bad for me so go away and leave me alone. In a few cases it took years for them to respect that.. or maybe they never did, but I moved and changed my phone number so they cannot find me now.

There are people whom I love, but don't like at all! Goddess in me loves unconditionally and without reservation but... me the individual has opinions!

>Each soul is a beauty on its own, a reflection of God, one or maybe all >aspects of God.

yes.

Some sorts of love, like familial devotion... I do not feel it or know what it is like to love someone just because we share DNA. Makes no sense to me. I see it is real for other people, but me... I just love.

I think the difference between people in my personal life whom I love, and loving everyone has to do with loyalty. I am faithful and loyal to lovers and friends, but do I love them more than the client I am working with, in the moment?

Hard to say... but there are other aspects of love besides unconditional. There is affection, loyalty, trust, devotion, familiarity which is given to friends much more than to acquaintances or clients.

>So no wonder we should be able to feel endless >compassion and love for every soul. But what happens if someone does not >love us back the way we love them? How does our ego get involved?

I feel most unawakened folks *cannot* love us the way we love. The capacity for that is not opened in them, the heart chakra is blocked from it.

Unconditional love, is from Goddess... and it is nothing like the projection-illusion of being "in love".

"In love," that romantic follie au deux comes of people projecting the inner Divine Beloved onto an external person.

Usually there is tension in the relationship because of a desire to change the external beloved to make them more like the inner ideal. The external person is not really seen and loved for who they really are.

That defines "love" for a lot of people... to me it does not look like love at all, it is co-dependent addiction, or obsession.

When the heart opens and turns inside out so you see Goddess everywhere, then "falling in love" becomes impossible.. or alternately, you fall in love with everyone and everything so there is no loving one person more than another, or more than a tree or rock.

>Can we realy feel love for someone else through the concept of love that >most people believe in? Or is the only thing we can realy love, the only >thing that is realy real for us, ourself?

All we see, is ourselves reflected. We are All that Is, so all love must be self love.

Thank you for this interesting post!

MAS

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> All we see, is ourselves reflected. We are All that Is, so > all love must > be self love.

Interestingly enough (for me) I am in a relationship with my "twin flame"...I feel very fortunate - most people never find that person in their lifetime (well, never find them and get the chance to "reunite" with them). Of course they do in later lifetimes (in my opinion, and that of some of the people I have read that have written on the subject). I didn't just pull this out of thin air or through wishful thinking or infatuation either...there are many reasons I know that this person is my twin flame. :)

It is, in a very real sense, a self love. So on that, I do believe there are some aspects of that which are different than your average relationship (of which I have had several). It is a completely different animal to me.

Of course, this does not affect my ability to feel warmth or compassion for other human beings as a general sense.

> Hard to say... but there are other aspects of love besides
> unconditional. There is affection, loyalty, trust, devotion,
> familiarity
> which is given to friends much more than to acquaintances or clients.

:) Good stuff. Very true.

> "In love," that romantic follie au deux comes of people
> projecting
> the inner Divine Beloved onto an external person.
> > Usually there is tension in the relationship because of
> a desire to
> change the external beloved to make them more like the inner
> ideal. The
> external person is not really seen and loved for who they really are.

This is definitely not the case in my situation fortunately. But I do see it all the time in others, and have seen it in myself.

> That defines "love" for a lot of people... to me it does
> not look like
> love at all, it is co-dependent addiction, or obsession.

I agree.

:)

SG

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> I've had people in my life who I love, who turned out to be really bad
>for me, empathy with their stuff was damaging to my mind and immune system.
>Their drama would knock me out of body and if I get stuck there too long it
>really messes me up. In some cases it got so my body would get a post
>traumatic stress reaction to them, even to just seeing the name in my
>mailbox.

> > Goddess in me, just Loves... but the body wants to be safe, it prefers
>to be around people I can trust to respect my sensitivity.

thanks, i needed to read this
i still struggle with clarity over this whole subject
i have to reread threads such as this one to remind myself

> All we see, is ourselves reflected. We are All that Is, so all love must
>be self love.

this has become a sort of mantra i hold in my mind for myself and with my clients it used to feel lonely or solipsistic in its subjectivity or confusing in mismatched projections

but it is really helping me land in my body and my heart in such a greatful way

thanks for this interesting thread,

L

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>Thatīs exactly how I feel too. Iīve been giving it a lot of thoughts
>lately and for me it is like the past is still here, in the now. The
>love fading away on the side of my lovers and not on my side. And still
>after many years, I feel like I would just be able to step in old
>relations because I feel so much love for each of them. And if I feel so
>much love, there has to be a mutual basis, otherwise, how could I feel
>so much love?

RQ,

You've summarised it better in words than I ever could.

Osho says that the ego is the past.

That's exactly how I feel ! I feel like I could instantly step into the same role years later.

Maybe the amount of love is stable, however as our consciosness expands, we become more aware of love, so we label our love as growing.

The esoteric meaning of love is that it's our natural state of being, so to me that means that our consciousness and love are somehow intertwined. They say that consciousness is one(God/existence/the sea of consciousness) and to me this closeness, this sharing is the best way that I can think of to explain love (i'm going partly on feeling here to try and put it into words.

Love = oneness or completion.

So maybe our love is not really ours, it does'nt belong to the I, it's universal, it's like a well that we're all tapping into, just some are permanently connected to the well and others dip their feet in.

>But reality is different, as real day to day life shows by its facts.
>Maybe itīs the difference between love and attraction. Thinking over my
>relationships, expecially the last ones, I still get those warm feelings
>in my chest, like my heart chakra opening. But I learned that is not
>enough for a real relationship. It also needs tension, standing in your
>own shoes, being independent, sexual attraction. Just loving and loving
>more to overcome issues wonīt work. It did not in my case.

This is interesting. Lately I have become much more aware of the warmth in the chest, I can feel those with affection towards me, this is the heart chakra opening. Sometimes I can feel this from quite a long distance when i'm very highly tuned up.

Perhpas the tension is required for insights into the ego, so that you can grow by becoming more conscious of the ego, thus going deeper into it, so that you can give it up !

The path is through and not over.

>Maybe itīs not love but need. Or maybe it is real love but the world is >not ready for this.

If not now, then when ? I say it is. The masters have all had real love, why not the populace.

>Maybe my love is real and theirs wasnīt. Maybe itīs
>the fear of Separation that keeps me attached to previous lovers, the
>feeling that I need a lover to be loved. Does it matter in the end?
> >What is confusing for me is that I also connect to them on a deeper
>level. I feel when they think of me, when they are about to call me or
>send me an Email. When I need to call them because something needs to be
>settled. Sometimes I can feel the difference between between a persons
>soul and the ego, the karmic struggle someone is involved in. And how
>that is played out between me and that person.

When I can see the difference between someone's ego and heart, I feel compassion for them because I understand them. I also feel comfort from this because I feel safe in this knowledge.

>Each soul is a beauty on its own, a reflection of God, one or maybe all
>aspects of God. So no wonder we should be able to feel endless
>compassion and love for every soul. But what happens if someone does not
>love us back the way we love them? How does our ego get involved?

The ego lives on desire and attachment. Much can be said here.

>Can we realy feel love for someone else through the concept of love that
>most people believe in? Or is the only thing we can realy love, the only
>thing that is realy real for us, ourself? Is loving someone with a
>desire to be loved back not equal to projecting our fear of separation,
>expecting them to prove the opposite.

Yes.

>Or at leaste temporarily release
>us from the fear of separation? When you say you would accept giving up
>everything to have a full connected loving relation, arenīt you realy
>talking about the connection with your higher Self?

Perhaps i'm saying that I would give up my entire identity(ego) to reach Self, so that I can feel love and therefore be loved but not in return, in harmony.

RM

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To me it was society that decided that we needed to have different levels of love for one another.

I believe that we 'could' love everyone and maybe that is what all this enlightenment stuff is about in the end.

To love everyone...to become ONE and not separate in love.

But. society, as I said sets a precedent in each persons mind that you only love certain people certain ways. Maybe when this was all set up someone dropped the ball in order to control certain tendencies in humans to be animals not humans.

I experience deep love for many people that I never would have experienced before "K" awakening. I am finding that love is leading me to a different belief and consciousness that we are to LOVE everyone and feel that oneness of love .

Sigh...

I don't have it all figured out, but I sure enjoy the feelings that I have NOW compared to what life used to be.

Love

E.A.

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www.katinkahesselink.net/kr/love.html

The above link has an inspiring take on what love is IMO.

ShalOM

KK

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Dear RM, JT, and RQ

I have a quick question for you lovers of people. This is what I have been trying to figure out for about a year. LOVE. I too would be interested in a conversation about it.
OK my question is... did you have a different level of love for one person then the other? Did you love one more then the other? In other words are there levels to your love or did you love them all the same? I am not comparing your mother or sister to your lover. I am strictly talking about love relationships.
I look forward to your answers.

Love to you all,

RWB

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Well, I think that the love was intense for the time and the person. Wether it was a friend, a lover, a family member a colleague. each situation or relationship was unique in itself, so i don't compare them. but i feel like I retain the essencee of that love for that person in my heart. the relationship may be over and the emotion that went with it, but the essense of love remains in my heart. Everyone I know has a space equally the same in my heart, and there's always space too. I never really dwelled on it or was bothered by it, just kept it kind of... there, which was fine and comfortable, i guess. as I mentioned in my first post in reply to Rick's post. I don't know..that's just how I perceive it.

JT

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I would'nt call this an answer, just a fumble in the dark.

Surely love is, or love is'nt, there is no measure or quantity of love, only the mind can measure it, and if so then it's not really love.

Love for the mother, sister etc is still love.

Sex is just a physical expression of love which we share in a different way.

What you mean is in your sexual relationships was there a different quantity of love, well I guess I just shared my thoughts on that.

RM

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>I would'nt call this an answer, just a fumble in the duck.

i aggree with every thing!..its all one great big yes..

> right now, its spiritually easier to give up love & take up sex.. aka..the shite worth going through, to be more open, or more understanding in a slightly little moment, is more = to good sex..

sex cannot be good, without love.. unless its good sex...

or really good sex...

guess, the time peroid in my life currently, it is good for me to give up my ideals of "love" to pursue a more open + positive/healthiy sexual additude.. or maybe i dont really want love and ween away from it..

what is love??? love is what excites you??

-hides from roommates and pretends to be grounded * fearless???--

*leafz* **

*** ****v weird..

J

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Oops, I was so sleepy when I sent this I just replied without pasting in the group address!

What an interesting question! Well here is a small 'two pennyworth' from my sleep befuddled brain, so excuse if it doesn't make much sense.

> I am still in love with all of the people that i've liked over the years,
I
> still love my childhood sweethearts, past girlfriends. They fall out with
me, but I don't
> fall out with them.

Me too :)

as Shakespeare said
'Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

1) In the world of Maya/illusion we pass judgements and choose to love only such a tiny part of it all. It is easy to love someone who likes us and is kind to us, but what of the person that dishes up the hard knocks of life that in the end result in more understanding and therefore more love?

I had a weird dream once and I awoke just after i heard myself saying with great love, 'how could i not love the Church'...then in a flat voice...'after all it has done to me' and I just knew what it had done was physically seriously torture me. (I felt sure it was another life being referred to.)

2) One day very many years ago I walked home just after meditating in beautiful countryside which i loved. I then passing someone walking. Just an ordinary rather unattractive person, meant nothing to me but i felt a great wave of total love for that person, an unattached, non sexual non judgemental
love, indeed they could have been an axe murderer, it would have made no difference.

For me it was a 'peek over the garden wall' just so I knew what to aim for.

Of course with love to you all,

Dormouse G'night all.....zzzzzZZZZZ

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RM wrote:

>The esoteric meaning of love is that it's our natural state of being, so
>to me that means that our consciousness and love are somehow
>intertwined. They say that consciousness is one(God/existence/the sea of
>consciousness) and to me this closeness, this sharing is the best way that
>I can think of to explain love (i'm going partly on feeling here to try
>and put it into words.

Yeah. "God is love" + "Goddess is all that is" = "Love is all that is." The non-dual perspective.

>So maybe our love is not really ours, it does'nt belong to the I, it's >universal, it's like a well that we're all tapping into, just some are >permanently connected to the well and others dip their feet in.

I feel that is so, but with tiny differences.

In session the other day I was explaining to someone that chakras are infinitely tiny points of light in the spine, but what we feel is the area of influence around the chakra, like the corona of the sun or the gravity well of a black hole. When there are blockages to that field, it is like putting a candle under a bucket. The candle is still there, shining its light but the light cannot be seen or used.

The process then, is not so much about opening the chakras, as demolishing the bucket and opening to being able to sense the chakras. The connection is there, present in everyone but there is a roadblock in most folks.

>>But reality is different, as real day to day life shows by its facts.
>>Maybe itīs the difference between love and attraction. Thinking over my
>>relationships, expecially the last ones, I still get those warm feelings
>>in my chest, like my heart chakra opening. But I learned that is not
>>enough for a real relationship. It also needs tension, standing in your
>>own shoes, being independent, sexual attraction. Just loving and loving
>>more to overcome issues wonīt work. It did not in my case.

In my twenties, I "fell in love" more times than I care to count, and usually the relationship exploded under the weight of expectations in 3 months or less.
Usually it was because a psychic link developed between myself and my lover I thought it was some sort of sign from Goddess that we were soul mates or some such. Seems so silly now, realizing that they were becoming psychic because of Shaktipat I did not know I was granting.

It was much later, after getting my heart broken by a man who was so unbelievably inappropriate for me, (an alcoholic whose own mother considered a sociopath) I recognised that each time, there had been a moment of decision when I *chose* to fall in love... and that to do so was to give myself away to that which was so not worthy of such a gift!

Serve Goddess within yourself and have none before.

I have clients and students asking when will Goddess give them a mate or lover? My answer is, not until you put Goddess first in your life and are no longer prone to giving yourself away to someone outside of yourself. Usually that is not what they want to hear...

That was my own experience... recovering from the sociopath, I gave up on the BS Cinderella faerie tale that is such a part of our romantic drama obsessed culture and resolved to not give myself away to "in love" again.

Many years later a fella appeared in my life as a client, then a friend, who took me in when my home was sold and demolished, and Goddess kept me there with drama, inertia and a severe back injury until I woke up and noticed how good we were together.

The silly, funny, bald big nosed computer geek engineer, socially inept guy who was a virgin till age 39, whom I call husband is nothing like the men I used to fall in love with, but he is such a blessing in my life! A gift of Goddess that I give thanks for, every day.

The energy that radiates from his heart chakra is so yummy I like to rub my nose in his chest fur and try to crawl right in there... and he smiles and says "you are already there."

I am glad not to be "in love" with him in the cultural sense, glad to have outgrown the concept because with open eyes I can love him for who he really is.

>Perhpas the tension is required for insights into the ego, so that you can
>grow by becoming more conscious of the ego, thus going deeper into it, so
>that you can give it up !

The funny thing is... while I was spiritually awakened always, I can trace my Kundalini awakening to an incident in 1989 or 1990. I fella I was attached to broke up with me, which motivated me to do an exercise in a little book, I think it was called "the magic of your mind" which involved setting aside all judgments, hopes and wishes. I started vibrating and was transported to a bright light heavenly realm where I had a lot of questions about the nature of reality answered. I asked about the man I would marry, and got an image of myself at the altar with someone who was not the fella I was broken hearted over. I cannot remember the face exactly, except he was bald and had a big nose... and resistance to that knocked me out of the state!

>If not now, then when ? I say it is. The masters have all had real love,
>why not the populace.

Because limitless manifestation likes variety, and Goddess does not judge experiences.

>Perhaps i'm saying that I would give up my entire identity(ego) to reach
>Self, so that I can feel love and therefore be loved but not in return, in
>harmony.

When you reach the Self, the love from other people is... optional, not essential... but still beautiful.

MAS

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