What is the difference between what K calls love and what commonly is considered as love today ?
From my vantage point, many express love in a selective manner. For example āI love that song,ā or ālove thy childrenā¦ā Is Kās love an inexhaustible energy that sustains the cosmos?
When it comes to the question of love I have to be extra careful. Am I attached to something and call that attachment love ? I have to understand attachment,my attachment to people and things.
Why are you asking what K calls love? Doesnāt the question demand speculation, interpretation?
Can you remind me what is āwrongā with speculation, interpretation?
This morning the air was cold and the river calm. Small fish in numbers I had never seen were breaking the surface. I observed them. Then the thought arose : āwhy are they doing that this morning?ā I was curious as to the reason they were behaving this way? I wanted to add to the perception of their action, the reason behind their doing it. Speculation.
Itās just a guess at what someone else means. And with K, there is no possible way to confirm if it is correct. So it is meaningless.
So why use a word like āloveā which everyone uses in different ways: I love to exploit people ie, etc and say it doesnāt mean any of those ālovesā but something very special. How are you going to consider what he meant (because you want to understand) by his using such a common, loaded word without āspeculating ā about what his different āloveā means?
If one is being simple, and not unnecessarily contrarian, then one has a sense of what love means - otherwise the word would have no meaning at all. Anyone with any sensitivity has a sense of what love means (it obviously does not mean the āloveā of exploitation, which is simply greed), just as anyone with any sensitivity has a sense of what beauty means.
But it is one thing to have a sense of something like love or beauty; it is another thing altogether to have that sense purged of all thought, all emotional baggage, all personal sentiment and memory.
You must not be a serious K student. Speculations has no meaning when it comes to the teachings.
Maybe but arenāt you speculating about what he meant by āloveā? With all that āpurgingā?
I hope Iām not! K referred to that relationship as being ādestructiveā to both parties.
Iām not speculating about what K said about love, because he said it over and over and over again! If I could suggest, please donāt be contrarian about these matters. It only complicates what is already - for most people - already complicated enough.
This is Michaelās āguessā (speculation). Bob says itās meaningless. James says itās love but purged of all the things he James mentionedā¦how does he know that? Isnāt that another guess? Whatās wrong with guessing? Thatās my point. Someone uses a word we all know but says itās not what we knowā¦but donāt guess what I mean?
Iāll go with Michaelā Guess.
K student??? K student!!! What is going on here? This is nonsense. Iām out of here.
Thatās what I said. Didnāt you read it?
As I said already, James āknowsā it because K talked about it a lot. K often used the word love - along with its synonyms care, affection and compassion - to talk about a quality of relationship that sometimes occurs between people, as well as between ourselves and nature. But he also said that this love - the āflameā - can only truly be when there is no longer attachment, greed, envy, fear, sorrow, hate, jealousy, etc - the āsmokeā.
By doubling down on what you feel to be the need for speculation it seems to me that you are neglecting a very simple thing - which is the value of perceiving our lack of love.
Yes that is what is missing in us, Love (the Other). āWhere the self is, the Other is not.ā
- Your Question: What is the difference between what K calls love and what commonly is considered as love today ?
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My Responce(s) to your question:
#1 āLove has no oppositeā
#2 āLove is not an emotionā
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Not just āthe otherā, but ordinary, everyday kindness and consideration. We often miss this in our obeisance to some kind of great sacrifice or speculated perfection we have reified.
The self as it manifests in daily life - as memory, thought, psychological interference with the present moment.
Is the conflict and disagreement we undergo contained within boundless love?