One of the most misunderstood words I know is "love". We assume it's an abstract noun, the definition of which is something you can't see, smell, hear, taste or feel. This is back to front, because the next assumption we make is that it's the most important feeling of all, and everybody knows what that feeling feels like.
It would be interesting to survey a global linguistic reference to love. Greek, for instance, makes distinctions between four kinds of love: affectionate love, love for a friend, erotic love and divine love. Biofocusing challenges a lingusitic approach to love by asking and answering questions about what one actually means and does in respect of that which is most important to you, which goes to the core of living. Love should relate.
It's commonly understood and accepted that family and friends are the most important aspects of our living. Through them, we are greeted into earthly living, and when our bodies die, they grieve and mourn. These feelings are mutual, communal, inescapable and go as deep as deep goes. The implication is the sense of profound connection which we don't want to be broken. Another truism is that if you love money more than you love people you're on the wrong track, and if you love yourself much more than others, it probably isn't love.
I am convinced that our primary task as a species on this planet is to create love. To make sense of such a statement we need a little bit of analysis, a lot of synthesis, and a great deal of fruitful action. I also need to point out that the actual process doesn't start with us humans, but with where we pop out of. There is a verse in the Bible that says "Herein is love, not that we love God, but that God first loved us".
We are indeed greatly loved, which means that a huge amount of energy has gone into the creating of our bodies, and we should honour that by putting all possible energy into being fruitful in this world.
As I have become older, I have become cautious of accepting that heaven is sheer bliss. Spirit is where we come from, spirit is where we go back to, spirit is where we are, in the present. So we know about heaven, or spirit, or whatever word is relevant. But we don't do it.We are distacted, seduced, commanded, narratized away from the feelings of that path we're really on.
Check your best feelings: favourite team won? Anticipation of favourite food? Sex? Friends and chat? Party? Walking with your best friend? I wonder how common or uncommon mine are: when I meditate or write poetry, study intensively to find connections, or come across something beautiful and allow it to reside, I experience really weird and amazing rolls of ever-increasing energy pulsing through the me of my body, if that's graspable.
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment" wrote Shakespeare.
"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...."
I don't think he meant a light-house, but rather the stars that made navigation trustable.
But in respect of creating love, a light-house is a good metaphor. It's purpose is ultimately one of safety, and my point in this particular writing is that our purpose of creating love is not far from this agenda.
The human spirit has proved to be cruel, as well as loving. It's a knowing, a sense and a choice. Just as light houses have been built on purpose, so does very much more have to be built on purpose. Many inventions have proved to be convenient yet destructive. It's difficult to differentiate between the human element and the material element in some cases. Motor vehicles are a great convenience, yet have killed many, mostly because of human error or negligence, the cell -phone has destroyed much social fabric, and military apparatus, from the rifle to the bomb yet to be invented speaks for itself.
Let's stick with the light-house.
Each life is such. The chaotic ocean is a given. Storms are inevitable. Peace returns. But over the moving surface, there's a job to be done, whether walking on the water, or shining the way. Love is not one thing, but the many actions that create a rare movement designed to be communal. I can't think of one material thing I've built in my life. I was booted out of wood-work, tried to make a small shelf-system that went hollow in the middle, and all my gardening attempts went to dust quite quickly. I do remember, I once put together a model boat that stayed together, and I even painted it, so carefully. That's about it. I admire people who know how to build bridges, engines, buildings and real boats. I often wish I had these skills.
Each life is something built on purpose for achievement, in one way or another. Whether it's to survive one more day, make a massive merger, plan a new surgical procedure, or discover an unknown element, or teach your children well, if it passes the test of acceptability, something is gained.
If the result is shock, disappointment, horror, trauma, pain, disbelief and self-doubt, something is lost.
How to create love goes live for sixty minutes on 10 February 2016 on www.learnitlive.com
The world we should live in won't arrive unless we build it, life by life.
