The mystery of Love is revealed! February 13, 2012

The word “love” is one of the most used and most misused nowadays.

There is little or none LOVE behind what is being sold under this name. But there is still much love between people. And there is even more need of love.

The 14 February is such an example of the mankind’s longing for true love, albite through the cheap selling of the love story. Well I cannot blame the mankind for that 🙂 For I know that behind it there is a vast and deep desire for something genuine, eternal and sacred.

This is a good enough reason to re-post my earlier post about Romantic Love.

This post follows Romantic Love: A book EVERY Western man should read  and  quotes Robert A. Johnson’s bestseller “Understanding the Psychology of romantic love”  . I arranged it the way that it gives the essence of author’s investigations on the topic, but please do read the book, it’s so insightful!

Below you will find the brilliant differentiation between the so called romantic love and true love. After reading this post, be prepared for the next in which you will lean about the amazing potential of romantic love.  In the meanwhile, let’s meditate on the truthful lines below.

WHAT IS ROMANTIC LOVE?

Romantic love is the single greatest energy system in the Western psyche. In our culture it has supplanted religion as the arena in which men and women seek meaning, transcendence, wholeness, and ecstasy…We are so accustomed to living with the beliefs and assumptions of romantic love that we think it is the only form of “love” on which marriage or love relationships can be based. We think it is the only “true love”. But there is much that we can learn from the East about this. In Eastern countries, like those of India and Japan, we find that married couples love each other with great warmth, often with a stability and devotion that puts us to shame. But their love is not “romantic love” as we know it. They don’t impose the same ideals on their relationships, nor do they impose such impossible demands and expectations on each other as we do.

Romantic love has existed throughout history in many cultures. We find it in the literature of ancient Greece, the Roman empire, ancient Persia, and feudal Japan. But our modern Western society is the only culture in history that has experienced romantic love as a mass phenomenon. We are the only society that makes romance the basis of our marriages and love relationships and the cultural ideal of “true love”.

One of the greatest paradoxes in romantic love is that it never produces human relationships as long as it stays romantic. It produces drama, daring adventures, wondrous, intense love scenes, jealousies, and betrayal; but people never seem to settle into relationship with each other as flesh-and-blood human beings until they are out of the romantic love stage, until they love each other instead of “being in love”.

Romance, in its purest form, seeks only one thing – passion. It is willing to sacrifice everything else – every duty, obligation, relationship, or commitment  – in order to have passion.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ROMANTIC LOVE AND TRUE LOVE

People become so wearied of the cycles and dead ends of romance that they begin to wonder if there is such a thing as “love”. There is. But sometimes we have to make profound changes of attitude before we can see what love is and make room for love in our lives. Love between human beings is one of the absolute realities of human nature.

A way out of depression February 4, 2011

image by axinia

Depression, the greatest soul plague of modern humans… I wonder is it really a modern phenomenon or it is just better documented nowadays that in earlier centuries?

What defines depression? It is the act of depressing and the condition of being depressed. Depression is characterized by lack of activity, self-worth, dejection, sad feelings, gloom and inadequacy. When the people are in depression, then their life becomes negative. People in depression often face hopelessness, passivity, indecisiveness, suicidal intentions, loss of appetite, weight loss, sleeping disorders.

Here are some statistics on depression:

• Main reasons of depression in men are separation after marriage, widowed, divorce
• In US nearly 7 million women are clinically depressed
• One in seven men will develop depression within 6 months of becoming unemployed
• Mostly 15 percent of women suffering from severe depression will commit suicide
• Nearly 10 percent of women experience postpartum depression after birth of a child
• 2003 National Comorbidity Study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health 16% of the population that is nearly 35 million Americans suffer from severe depression
• in Austria: every 5th person is clinically depressed and under medication

I guess the statistics on other countries will be not much different. By simply observing that one can get depressed!

Although I am not an expert on this subject,  I would like to share one unique experience I had about being depressed. May be it will help someone out.

An Amazing speech by a female Aboriginal elder April 6, 2010

It is a beautiful  speech by a female Aboriginal elder by the name of Bilawara Lee, about the powers of women, their place in society and the changes that are happening in the world today.  The speech was made in Darwin (Australia), march this year.  It is very insightful, and worth a read.

“Today we are facing a new Era.  The ancient Mayan culture speaks of this change, the ending of their old calendar in 2012, and the beginning of a new age.  They, along with many other Indigenous cultures, also speak that these times as one of a more feminine nature, based in the heart and unconditional love.

But women in our modern world have a problem.  We have begun to become financially and professionally empowered.  Yet the most important need, for spiritual empowerment, is often neglected or ignored. 

Our world is already in the time of transition and it will be a difficult time until the new era blossoms into an age of peace and understanding.  If our world is to survive, spiritually empowered women must take their place in helping.  It’s time for us to step up and step out.  The time of hiding is over.  

Most “aware” people know that it is necessary to heal our Mother Earth if we are to survive.  However, it is equally as imperative to also heal ourselves and each other through unconditional love, compassion and respect.   Moreover, women also need to help our men and boys develop their own feminine aspects of gentleness and sensitivity, compassion, nurturing, and kindness.  We need to help our male counterparts learn to work from the heart.

It won’t be easy but if we don’t do all of this, we can’t help our planet and humanity risks extinction.

Women you are powerful – truly powerful, with unique gifts that are far-reaching.  That is why we are considered a threat by so many male-dominated modern cultures and religious hierarchies.  Women are especially tuned to walk in both the spiritual world and the everyday world.  I have been taught that we are born spiritual; men have to strive hard to attain that state.

We are particularly adept at creating energy and change.  Our great capacity for bonding has made us especially empathic and gifted at understanding and seeing past surface levels.  Ultimately, our roles as caretakers and nurturers have opened our hearts and awareness to many levels of the universe.  Our spiritual gifts are profound.

Unfortunately, women today have begun to lose that understanding of their gifts as they have grappled to survive in the callous male dominated societies of today.  Many live tentative, cold, and fragmented lives as victims of violence, victims of unspeakable offenses against honour.  Too often, their hearts and spirit have become uncertain and lost, awash in grief and fear.  They have forgotten who they are.  They have forgotten their original instructions as human beings and as women.

How to know you are doing “the right thing”? March 24, 2010

When you are working and you don’t feel you are “working”

When you are in relationship/marriage and don’t feel you are “working out something, building relationship”

When you percept anything you do as a natural flow, an enjoyment, a simple and easy thing

THEN

know that you are “in the right thing”.

How to handle the tremendous power of romantic love? February 12, 2010

As many of you have learned from my earlier posts on the awesome book of Robert A. Johnson “Understanding the psychology of Romantic Love” (here and here), romantic love however attractive and delightful it may occur, brings more destruction than happiness.  Romantic love being the single greatest energy system in the Western psyche, is a tremendous power that attracts. If we can learn how to use it in a constructive, not a destructive way… may be the make up of the modern Western society can change for the better!

Let’s see the Johnson’s implications on the channeling of romantic love, please enjoy the way the author is unfolding it, so beautifully and truly:

 Romantic love is a spiritual power

“Romantic love is one of these truly overwhelming psychological phenomena that have appeared in Western history. It has overwhelmed our collective psyche and permanently altered our view of the world. As a society, we have not yet learned to handle the tremendous power of romantic love. We turn it into tragedy and alienation more often than into enduring human relationships. But, I believe, if men and women will understand the psychological dynamics behind romantic love and learn to handle them consciously, they will find a  new possibility of relationship, both to themselves and to others.

When we “fall in love” we feel completed, as though a missing part of ourselves has been returened to us; we feel uplifted, as though we were suddenly raised above the level of the ordinary world. Life has an intensity, a glory, an ecstasy and transcendence.

We seek in romantic love to be possessed by our love, to soar to the heights, to find ultimate meaning and fulfillment in our beloved. We seek the feeling of wholeness.

If we ask where else we have looked for these things, there is an answer:

The play of Male and Female February 10, 2010

This is an incredibly beautiful and profound poem from the Hindu Tradition of Advaita (non-dualism), by Jnanadev (1275 – 1296). I love the way it shows the play between the male and female elements in the Universe…

I offer obeisance to the God and Goddess,
The limitless primal parents of the universe.

They are not entirely the same,
Nor are they not the same.
We cannot say exactly what they are.

How sweet is their union!
The whole world is too small to contain them,
Yet they live happily in the smallest particle.

These two are the only ones
Who dwell in this home called the universe.
When the Master of the house sleeps,
The Mistress stays awake,
And performs the functions of both.

When He awakes, the whole house disappears,
And nothing at all is left.

Two lutes: one note.
Two flowers: one fragrance.
Two lamps: one light.

Two lips: one word.
Two eyes: one sight.
These two: one universe.

Romantic love vs. True love and why happy marriages are rare in the West February 4, 2010

This post follows Romantic Love: A book EVERY Western man should read  and  quotes Robert A. Johnson’s bestseller “Understanding the Psychology of romantic love”  . I arranged it the way that it gives the essence of author’s investigations on the topic, but please do read the book, it’s so insightful!

Below you will find the brilliant differentiation between the so called romantic love and true love. After reading this post, be prepared for the next in which you will lean about the amazing potential of romantic love.  In the meanwhile, let’s meditate on the truthful lines below.

What is romantic love?

Romantic love is the single greatest energy system in the Western psyche. In our culture it has supplanted religion as the arena in which men and women seek meaning, transcendence, wholeness, and ecstasy…We are so accustomed to living with the beliefs and assumptions of romantic love that we think it is the only form of “love” on which marriage or love relationships can be based. We think it is the only “true love”. But there is much that we can learn from the East about this. In Eastern countries, like those of India and Japan, we find that married couples love each other with great warmth, often with a stability and devotion that puts us to shame. But their love is not “romantic love” as we know it. They don’t impose the same ideals on their relationships, nor do they impose such impossible demands and expectations on each other as we do.

Romantic love has existed throughout history in many cultures. We find it in the literature of ancient Greece, the Roman empire, ancient Persia, and feudal Japan. But our modern Western society is the only culture in history that has experienced romantic love as a mass phenomenon. We are the only society that makes romance the basis of our marriages and love relationships and the cultural ideal of “true love”.

One of the greatest paradoxes in romantic love is that it never produces human relationships as long as it stays romantic. It produces drama, daring adventures, wondrous, intense love scenes, jealousies, and betrayal; but people never seem to settle into relationship with each other as flesh-and-blood human beings until they are out of the romantic love stage, until they love each other instead of “being in love”.

Romance, in its purest form, seeks only one thing – passion. It is willing to sacrifice everything else – every duty, obligation, relationship, or commitment  – in order to have passion.

Difference between romantic love and true love

People become so wearied of the cycles and dead ends of romance that they begin to wonder if there is such a thing as “love”. There is.

Romantic Love: A book EVERY Western man should read January 30, 2010

This book is a true revelation, an insight into the depth of a Romantic Love phenomenon. I would strongly recommend this book to every Westerner, but especially to men. For it makes one understand the nature of the so-called love life and how to deal with the obsessive search for love, so common for the Western mindset. The book gives brilliant answer on why relationships in our cultures are in a state of epidemic crisis.

The book is called “Understanding the Psychology of romantic love” and is written by Robert A. Johnson, a world-renowned Jungian analyst and one of 20th century’s most popular depth psychology scholars. The uniqueness of Johnson’s approach is backed up with his long-term visits of India and Japan, profound study of the Eastern philosophy and lifestyle. In his bestsellers Johnson delivers comparative analysis of Western and Eastern approaches which is still a rare take among scholars. Needless to say I am fascinated by him, for his works mirror my own views.

I’d love to share with you here the main idea of the book, but please keep in mind that by no means will my quotation replace the reading of it!

Catharism, the pure love

Psychologically our modern era began in the 12th century. At that time one of he most powerful of the early religions was the Manichean movement, in Europe called “Catharism” (the pure). One of their basic beliefs was that “true love” was not the ordinary human love between husband and wife but rather the worship of a feminine saviour, a mediator between God and man, who waited in the sky to welcome the “pure”  with a holy kiss and lead him or her into the Realm of Light. By contrast with this “pure” love, ordinary human sexuality and marriage were bestial and unspiritual. Many Christians at that time saw Catharism as a reform movement, a reaction against the corruption and politics within the religious hierarchy. The pope declared Catharism heresy, but like every powerful idea, the teachings of Catharism suddenly reappeared in the cult of courtly love (a worship of a lady fair by a knight), in the songs and poems of troubadours and in the “romances”. Some cultural historians belive that ladies and knights who first practiced courtly love were Cathars continuing their religious practice under the guise of a secular cult of love.

 

Courtly love

Thus the ideal of courtly love swept through the feudal courts of Europe and began a revolution in our attitudes towards the feminine values of love, relationship, devotion, spiritual experience and the pursuit of beauty. That revolution finally matured into what we call romanticism. The Western men began to look on woman as the embodiment of all what is pure, sacred and whole, woman became the symbol of a anima, “My Lady Soul”.

Traditional Hindu families – compare to the Western family makeup! January 26, 2010

I’ve just finished an awesome book on LOVE: “We: understanding the psychology of romantic love” by Robert A. Johnson. I tell you, it’s a bomb. And a must for any Westerner!

The things the author (himself an American, lived in India and Japan) reveals about the nature of the so called romantic love and where it leads us are terrific! I am preparing the post on the book and its highlights. And in the meanwhile please check Johnson’s insight into the nature of traditional Hindu families  – I guess it is pretty much same today, although the book was written in 1983:

“One of the most striking and surprising things I observed among traditional Hindus was how bright, happy, and psychologically healthy their children are. Children in Hindu families are not neurotic; they are not torn within themselves as so many Western children are. They are bathed constantly in human affection, and they sense a peaceful flow of affection between their mother and father.

Conscious Femininity: I’m not talking about gender December 23, 2009

It’s becoming more and more clear that the old way is not going to work. We can no longer say I am right and you are wrong. We can no longer make fun of people who don’t think the way we do. There is a shift in consciousness, and that wave that we are all a part of has radically changed. And if you think back to when you were a child, I’m sure you looked at the globe, you know, the world, and you thought China is a long, long way away, I’ll never see China. And all of these parts were unrelated. Where I see the hope is that we are now one world. We’ve been praying that for a long time, that we would be one world.

Now technology has made us one world. And we haven’t got the slightest idea what to do with it. We don’t know morally what to do. Ethically what to do. Politically impossible. And the dangers are becoming more and more terrifying. And what I’m suggesting to you in that dream of that woman coming in on that wave, it is the feminine principle that can bring a whole different thinking process to the patriarchy, as we have known it. Patriarchy thinking that way cannot work.

I mean you can’t have people worshipping God — and everybody saying they’re worshipping God — with totally opposing ideas. The feminine principle would attempt to relate. Instead of breaking things off into parts, it would say, where are we alike? How can we connect? Where is the love? Can you listen to me? Can you really hear what I am saying? Can you see me? Do you care whether you see me or not? Now, these are very, very serious questions. Because the feminine is so difficult, ladies and gentlemen, to talk about the feminine because so few people have experienced it. What I’m talking about here is presence, and relatedness.

When I use the word feminine, I’m not talking about gender. I’m talking about an “energy”. It’s as ancient as the Hindu religion. Shiva and Shakti. And those two energies go right together. Shiva, the masculine. Not patriarchal. I don’t think patriarchy has anything to do with masculinity. It is a power principle that becomes a parody of itself. You know as well as I do that women that are trapped in patriarchy could be worst patriarchs than men. So patriarchy has done as much profound damage to men as it has done to women…