-------Original Message-------=0D From: Dolphie Bush=0D Date: 24 August 2001 01:16:06=0D To: joni=0D Subject: Re: in search of the meaning of love njc=0D I disagree wholeheartedly. Love is a feeling. What we do with it in=0D regards to others is the action. I don't know about you or others but tho= se=0D who have received my love, my feelings of love, have received uncondition= al=0D love. Whether they have broken my heart, spurned my overtures, or given m= e=0D some kind of love, of theirs, in return, it did not alter or change my=0D feeling of love for them. Nothing could. For me, to have loved them in th= e=0D first place meant that I would love them forever. And I do. It will alway= s=0D be there and nothing, be that their actions, abscence, indifference, etc,= =0D will or could ever change that.=0D =0D =0D I can see why you feel the way you do. however, the words you use to=0D describe this feeling telll me that what you are feeling is conditional. = for=0D a start it reads like this love you feel is selective-hence condtional.=0D There is nothing wrong with romantic love, as you describe, and I am sorr= y I=0D gave the impression i thoguht there was. It just isn't love in the sense = i=0D was meaning, i. e. uncondtional. I know it is possible for us to deceive=0D ourselves into thinking/feeling we are giving unconditonal love. One reas= on=0D being is we don't have the habit of examining oursleves on a deep level-i= t=0D is too frightening generally, or so we think.=0D =0D If you could be beaten, raped, humiliated(perhaps over a period of years,= =0D perhaps by your own parents) by someone you loved and continue to love th= em=0D then you are truly a saint. Of course until it happens to you, God forbid= ,=0D you can't possibly know.=0D =0D My sense of vanity would love to able to say i turn the other cheek, that= i=0D feel nothing but love for all of fellow beings, that my feelings for peop= le=0D have never changed. Alas, that isn;t so. I am human. However, i would add= =0D that my fellings do not run to hatred and a desire to harm-anyone. .\That= =0D could be considered love-at least in the sense i am discussing. My lack o= f=0D forgivenss towrds some is also not unconditonal love, in that i don't hav= e=0D good feelings towrds some. But again those not good feelings do not run t= o a=0D desire to harm.(but those feelings ahve been experienced!)=0D =0D I undertsaand your feeling that love is feeling. I disagree. I think that= feeling we feel is something esle, more persnal, and not selfless. The d= etached desitre to help and not hinder ANYBODY is much clser to what i th= ink love is. the sort of love I think sprirituality speaks of. The sort o= f love that is dispassionate,(because that love does jot require anything= from me! Does not need me to respond to it because it comes from a place= of wholeness) that is ALWAYS there no matter how far int the opposite di= rection I may go, it is never withdrawn. [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type Image/jpeg]
