Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Sticks in the mud

It's got a light side and a dark side and it binds the galaxy together... no, not The Force... no, not duct tape.. love. Actually, there is so much confusion around this term that the human race has spent the better part of the last million years figuring it out. Over the years, some have shown insights and others have failed miserably, albeit spectacularly. So what's the deal here?

As usual, there is a conventional explanation and a conscious one. From the conventional side of things, there are a bizillion books about love (which I'm designating with a lower case "l" here.) The scientific side of it can also be found in those books, and it's actually quite interesting! The feelings we associate with love cause our bodies to release endorphins which activate the same receptors in the brain that addictive drugs like morphine and heroine activate! In fact, do you know how the word "endorphin" came to be? The person who discovered endorphins is Candace Pert, who is also now a spiritual teacher and an interesting read, and she came up with the term "endorphin" as a combination of two words: endogenous morphine. Basically, endorphins are the body's naturally made morphine. So hell yeah it feels good!!

When you fall for someone in this way, you are actually addicted to them just like a drug, because seeing them gives you that high in the same biological way that a drug like morphine or heroine would. Unfortunately, there are some side effects to all drugs, especially this one.

Eventually your body builds up a tolerance. Seeing that person will eventually produce less and less of a high, and this is totally natural. It doesn't mean that you don't "love" them anymore. Actually, from a biological standpoint, other hormones begin to get released after the endorphins go away, and these hormones are responsible for feelings of security and stability.

However, sometimes people get addicted to an image of a person, and not the person's true nature. Often this is the case. When you do that, you build up a mental image of the person and you associate with the mental image rather than the person. The mental image you have of the person is idealized, and when you are addicted to that image, you have no idea what the real substance behind it is. So the old scenario tends to play out: You move in with the person while addicted, or worse, you marry them. Then the addiction wears off. You still associate with the mental image of the person, but mysteriously that person does not live up to the image anymore, and you begin to get annoyed with them on a regular basis... you start to fight a lot, or worse. Violence erupts.

Keep in mind that the other person may also be going through the same thing. Their addiction is ending and they are associating with a mental image of you rather than the real you. That makes two egos fighting the battle.

Aw well that just SUCKS!! What's the point of love then?? *sarcasm there* (Right now everyone reading this is probably hating me, especially female readers!)

I've been though this, like most people. During one of the summers when I was training with Draja, I experienced a big breakup. I went through the regular stages of grief, but my habit of holding things inside and hiding feelings made my expression of grief incomplete. It wasn't until the NEXT summer, a year later that I had this conversation with Draja one night during our session:

"It's been a year and I'm still hurting. This really sucks. I'm so sick of it all. Not only is this happening, but my parents are also divorcing. It's all so dumb: love. What's the point? All it does is cause pain and suffering. What IS love, Draja? I don't get this."

Draja handed me a tissue because I was sobbing like a baby and began, "Love (as experienced by the ego) is the palest reflection of what a being feels for its creator. Your true self doesn't really desire anything except to realize its union with the Creator, with the One, with Consciousness. "

"So all these warm and fuzzy feelings are just that, bullshit?" I asked.

"Well it depends on what you mean by bullshit. Are they beyond the ego, meaning are they real? No. Conventional love is generated by the ego. Your ego doesn't really understand that even it is inexplicably pulled towards union with Consciousness, and it thinks that this love is the ultimate thing, when really it's just a poor substitute." he answered.

This made me a little angry, and I responded, "That's tough to believe. All these feelings and these wonderful things are really just our egos barking up the wrong tree? There's GOT to be something Real about all this. Love MUST have some purpose."

He smiled and countered with, "Josh, egos cling to things. Egos defend things, and they demand purposes. There IS such thing as True Love. You know what it is? True Love is acceptance of what Is Right Now In The Present Moment. When you enter the Present, and you accept everything and everyone just as it is, without letting your desires to change or control get in the way, then you experience Love. You experience the Love that Consciousness has for itself, for the Real You."

Take a while and think about all this.

Do a thought experiment. What is the logical or emotional conclusion to love? Union.

Males: What do you tend to want out of any love interest? A great round of sex, or ten. What is the end result of good sexual experiences? Orgasms. What do you feel after an orgasm? Ultimate release, complete stillness, even for only a few seconds. Union.

Females: What do you tend to want out of any love interest? A soul mate, and an emotional counterpart. What could be the physical conclusion of that? A fabulous dinner in a fantastically romantic location, where you wind up staring into his eyes or snuggling in his arms for eternity... maybe even sex too, but at the end of all that, what do you feel? Ultimate buildup to ultimate comfort and bliss, complete stillness, even for only a few seconds. Union.

So even our experiences of love in the world of form are trying to point us in the direction of Oneness. The problem is that we let our egos run them and this always leads to suffering.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love is the "light" in enlightenment. Love is no mere reflection... it is a spark in and of itself as well as a part of the infinite Oneness.

When you feel Oneness, not just theorize about it, you feel the most incredible love - infinite and pure. You are warmed, healed, bathed in it... encompassed by what you truly are...

There is no distinguishing of love as conventional/form vs. formless/ there's just love... may it be that for the creator, your beloved, relatives, friends... all are sparks of Oneness - differentiated only by the absolute magnitude and purity of Oneness.

You’ve got some great cohesive theory, Josh, and it is helpful for personal development. I honestly look forward to reading your work a lot. But you miss the mark on love entirely and perhaps that’s the area of your development that needs the most work.

Love is light. Love is the creative force. Pain and suffering are not related to love. They are directly related to illusion, fear, impermanence and such and your blog describes fantastic ways of handling it. But don’t invalidate love because you’ve been burned. You’ve been burned by something other than love. When you allow love back in, you will feel Oneness and not have to intellectualize it.

Josh said...

Hi!

If you are inclined, take another read at the post and some details that are there. Mainly, because I agree with you 100% and I'm not sure how the post disagrees with anything you've said! :)

Like this:

"There IS such thing as true Love. You know what it is? True Love is acceptance of what Is Right Now In The Present Moment. When you enter the Present, and you accept everything and everyone just as it is, without letting your desires to change or control get in the way, then you experience Love. You experience the Love that Consciousness has for itself, for the Real You."

I hope I was clear also about the confusion around the term "love". For the Love you speak of, no question. You are totally on the mark IMO. However, maybe what I was unsuccessful at portraying was that there are a lot of egoic emotional cravings out there masquerading as "love".

Those ego cravings which are akin to addiction are what we need to be conscious of when they occur. They can be told apart from real Love, as you describe, by several factors:

Egoic cravings are conditional. They have opposites, i.e. hate/anger. Those opposites can flip back and forth pretty quickly. They are never satisfying, i.e. when you get what you think you are in "love" with, you are soon onto bigger things, more demands, etc.

Those things are not the same as the flowing energy of Consciousness that you mention.