Selected Writings on Love, Divine Love and Intimacy

Richard’s Journal

Peter’s Journal

Vineeto’s Writing

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Discussions about Love, Divine Love and Intimacy

Audio-taped Dialogues | 2 | 3 |

Richard | 2 | 3 |

Peter

Vineeto | 2 | 3 |

Others

Love, Divine Love and Intimacy

1 That state of feeling with regard to a person which manifests itself in concern for the person’s welfare, pleasure in his or her presence, and often also desire for his or her approval; deep affection, strong emotional attachment  2 In Christian use: the benevolence and affection of God; the affectionate devotion due to God; regard and consideration prompted by a sense of a common relationship to God  3 That feeling of attachment which is based on sexual qualities; sexual passion combined with liking and concern for the other  4a The personification of sexual affection, usu. masculine and more or less identified with Eros, Amor, or Cupid of classic mythology  b A cupid; a god of love; a figure or representation of a god of love  6 A beloved person; esp. one’s sweetheart Oxford Dictionary

How is it that love promises so much and yet delivers so little and what it does deliver is fleeting, conditional, demanding, demeaning, consuming, neurotic and erratic? How come it has a ‘down-side’ of dependency, possessiveness, jealousy and when love is spurned can turn to hatred and violence? And yet this feeling is perennially upheld as the only hope humans have to end suffering and violence on the planet – as in ‘All you need is love’ And yet all the love songs and stories are tales of heartbreak and sorrow, failure and despair, depression and suicide?

The feeling of love, or the spiritual version of divine love, has been the direct cause of so many violent crimes of passion, murder and warfare that it requires enormous blind faith to believe it could hold the solution to ending suffering and violence. To evoke, enhance and trumpet one segment of the instinctual passions in order to seek a solution to problems that result from the full package only perpetuates the seemingly endless cycles of the malice and sorrow inherent within the Human Condition. It requires courage to stand in the face of the current fervently fashionable obsession for romantic and divine love that has arisen in the last few centuries. But facts are facts – the feeling of love arises in the instinctual passions and, as such, is inseparable from malice and sorrow and the concept of divine love is no more than fantasy.

Surely it’s time to look beyond what forever promises and never delivers and seek what is actual, available here and now, and that does deliver – a direct and actual intimacy with one’s fellow human beings felicitously available with the extinction of instinctual passions.

Richard: In actualism it is readily experienced and understood that Divine Compassion – which is born out of sorrow – is but a paltry substitute for the over-arching benevolence of the actual world. Similarly, Love Agapé is seen and known to be a pathetic surrogate for the actual intimacy of direct experiencing … Love Agapé and Divine Compassion are deep feelings which the psychological or psychic identity within creates in order to sustain itself and perpetuate its self-centred existence. Love is born out of loneliness … or in the case of the Enlightened Ones, out of Aloneness … and is touted as being the cure-all for humankind’s failings because it imitates the intimacy of the actual via a feeling of Oneness. The feeling of Oneness creates an erroneous impression that separation is ended ... but the self survives triumphant, only to wreak its havoc in the real world once again.

Life can be a grim and glum business in the real world, for separation ceases only when the psychological and psychic entity inside the body – the ego and the soul – is extirpated. In actual freedom there is a universal magnanimity which is so vastly superior to petty forgiveness or pardon that any comparison is worthless.

Actual intimacy – being here now – does not come from love, for love stems from separation. The illusion of intimacy that love produces is but a meagre imitation of this direct experience of the actual. In the actual world, ‘I’ as ego, the personality, and ‘me’ as soul, the ‘being’ – both subjectively experienced as one’s identity – have ceased to exist; whereas love accentuates, endorses and verifies ‘me’ as being real. And while ‘I’ am real, ‘I’ am relative to other similarly afflicted persons; vying for position and status in order to establish ‘my’ credentials … to verify ‘my’ very existence. To be actually intimate is to be without the separative identity … and therefore free from the need for love with its ever un-filled promise of Peace On Earth. There is an actual intimacy between me and my companion. Actual intimacy is a direct experiencing of the other. I am having a superb time … and it is a well-earned superb time, too. Nothing has come without application – apart from serendipitous discoveries because of pure intent – and I am reaping the rewards which are plentiful and deliciously satisfying. Actual intimacy frees one up to a world of actual splendour, based firmly upon sensual and sexual delight. The candid and unabashed sensate enjoyment of one’s body and the world around one is such a luscious and immediate experience, that the tantalising but ever-elusive promise of the mystique of love fades into the oblivion it deserves.

Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless

© The Actual Freedom Trust