WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF LOVE

Ancient Greek philosophers delineated four main types of love: storge, eros, philia, and agape.

Storge is family love, especially between parents and children. This love can endure even when there is neglect or abuse. For instance, we know we love our relatives, even though we do not always trust them to give us the five A’s. A family bond can offer safety and security but at the price of having to camouflage part of who we are. Thus, our loving connection within our family sometimes transcends even the importance of self-emergence. Signs of love may not be apparent in our relatives’ behavior, but we still know they love us and we love them; our mutual loyalty remains. In our affection for our family, we certainly learn how to practice unconditional love.

Eros is passionate love, which we experience most potently in the in-love state. Eros includes, but is not limited to, sexual passion. It is often initiated or sustained by an attraction to physical qualities. The erotic love we feel for a special someone in our lives may be part of a committed intimate bond. It can also be a feel good attachment in the moment that will not be sustained. Eros can be both a longing for and a union with the beloved. This is because eros includes pleasure from both fulfillment of our longings and our longing for fulfillment. Eros also refers to the sensuous, passionate, lively, and creative dimension to human life in general. It can therefore be active between friends or in any relationship without being manifested sexually. Carl Jung, in Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar,
said, “People think that Eros is sex, but not at all; Eros is relatedness.” We can appreciate intimate love as more than erotic, and it can include friendship.


Philia is friendship that combines affection and admiration. This is also known as platonic love. Like all forms of love, it can include an erotic element, but it is not usually sexual. Authentic friendship-love is unconditional. It makes the interests of the other equal to our own, does not keep a record of
faults, does not retaliate, does not compete, is not predatory, includes both liking and loving, restores itself easily after conflicts, and is transparently vulnerable. These qualities are difficult challenges
for an ego that has to have everything even steven. Friendship thrives on companionship, which is not necessarily a form of closeness. For instance, playing computer games together includes companionship but happens without eye contact. Team sports are forms of connection that give companionship but do not include sharing on a personal level. In full companionship, friends share life events and their reflections on them. They are happy about one another’s success and are supportive in helping each other navigate sufferings and losses. The friendship style of relating often seems more sustainable than bonds based only on romance. The Greek philosopher Aristotle proposed three bases for friendship. A friendship can be based on utility, as in being friends with our next door neighbor whom we may need someday. A friendship can be based on pleasure, as happens when we have a buddy whose company we enjoy and with whom we have interests in common. And a friendship can be what Aristotle calls noble, when it is founded on encouragement and support of one another toward moral progress. In an ennobling friendship, friends help each grow spiritually. To accomplish this, they need to be able to accept constructive feedback from one another without defensive ego reactions. That is a quality of both true friendship and intimacy. In the biblical book of Sirach, we see a reflection of what we know from science today, that friendships boost our immune system: “A loyal friend is like a safe shelter; find one, and you have found a treasure. Nothing else is as valuable; there is no way of putting a price on it. A loyal friend is like a medicine that keeps you in good health.” Friendship is indeed one of the most satisfying forms of love, because it allows for uncomplicated pleasure as well as unconditional support. I notice as I age that my circle of friends increases, but the number I choose to spend time with decreases. I appreciate them all, but certain ones stand out as totally comfortable to be with for many reasons. For example, maintaining the bond is effortless. We have come to trust each other implicitly, especially in a pinch. We can share anything about ourselves without fear of shock or judgment. We can say anything to one another without fear of offending. Occasional long silences are not uncomfortable. And most of all, the same things strike us as funny. Xenia, or hospitality, is related to philia. In ancient times, this referred to a more formal style of friendliness offered by a host to someone he did not know. The host provided meals and accommodations at his home for the guest. The only response expected from the guest was thanks and respect. Reciprocity was not required, but it was expected if the tables were turned.

Agape (pronounced “ah-gah-pay”) is selfless love that gives with no expectation of reciprocity. It is not based on a need or attraction but entirely on our own dedication to generous giving and sincere concern. Since early Christian times, agape has been understood to be impartial rather than preferential; it is universal in extent. This ideal of universal agape was not the style in the ancient
Greek world, in which agape was considered sufficient if it extended to the population of one’s city-state. Agape can be present in all forms of love, since its energy is possible in any caring experience. Love resembling the agape model is promoted as an ideal in a variety of cultures and religions.

For instance, in the fourth century, a Chinese philosopherethicist, Mozi, offered an alternative to Confucius’s narrow accent on loyalty to family and clan. He proposed jian ai, impartial caring and concern for everyone, which we can understand as universal love. This is caring connection not based on levels of closeness or family relations. It is extended equally to friends and strangers. This can be the ideal of unconditional love that is not tied to reciprocity. Jian ai became associated with finding
enlightenment.

In the Islamic Sufi mystical tradition, we see love portrayed as ishq. Here, love is the essence of God reflecting himself in the universe. Thus, when we show love, we are acting according to divine
intent.

In Hinduism, kama is sexual love chosen legitimately for personal pleasure. Karuna is compassion and mercy; bhakti is devotion to the divine; and prem is ideal, selfless love, which is closest
to agape.

In Buddhism, love is based on nonattachment, nondualism, and nonseparation. Thus, true love does not include clinging to someone as a refuge, and the lover and the beloved are one. The Buddhist practice of loving-kindness, by extending love to all beings, is a form of agape.

Here are the four qualities of love and of the enlightened person in Buddhism:

Maitri: benevolence, good-heartedness, loving-kindness
Karuna: compassion
Mudita: sympathetic joy at the success of others Upeksha: equanimity, even-mindedness, imperturbability (that is, freedom from being destabilized by feelings or predicaments)

To love ourselves or others is to want all four of these in everyone’s lives. We want ourselves and others to experience lovingkindness, compassion, success, and equanimity.

The Buddha taught the practice of loving-kindness, metta, as an antidote to fear. We will explore loving-kindness practice at the end of this chapter. It involves aspiring to the four immeasurable
qualities of our higher-self-than-ego, our true nature, not only for ourselves and people we know, but for all people. Fear fades in that fourfold light.

The metta practice is like agape; it is about extending love in an unconditional and universal way. We know that everyone wants to be loved, but some people have given up hope of finding or showing it. We restore hope to others by our unilateral and wholesale outreach of love. We see and trust that everyone has an inherent goodness and that being loved by someone can help activate it. Agape makes us want to be that someone, no matter what the consequences or concern about whether our love will be greeted with appreciation or rejection. This is a radical alternative to our usual, carefully selective way of loving. Now there are no holds barred. This agape fostered by metta practice combines caring about, altruism toward, and service to others. It is loving because we are love, not because we have found a reason to love. Spiritual refers to the transcendent, that which is more than
what meets the eye and in all that meets the eye. Since agape transcends the usual limits of loving, it is the spiritual dimension of love. As we have seen, love itself is spiritual, because any kind
of love shows that we have gone beyond ourselves, transcended ourselves. In her Sonnet 43 (“How Do I Love Thee?”), Elizabeth Barrett Browning expresses this transcendent quality of love: “I
love thee . . . when feeling out of sight / For the ends of being and ideal grace.”

From the mystical perspective, all that is forms only one reality. To say that there is unity in multiplicity is another description of this connection. Such a belief in oneness can make love more
likely. The more we identify with our fellow humans, the more our compassion increases and the more altruistic our choices become. In addition, our sense of connection with nature deepens. Since
love is connection, all this is love in bloom. We also see the agape style in Jesus’s call to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” It is necessarily unilateral; we do not wait until others love us first. This ethical practice can be understood dualistically, from subject to object: “I love myself, and I love my neighbor in the same way.” It can also be perceived as an expression of mystical oneness: “Love is my focus, since I and my neighbor are one and the same.” This kind of love is an ideal to attain, a destiny we were born to fulfill, the evolutionary purpose we seem to be on this planet to achieve. We all have the capacity for agape, but it takes practice to activate it.

To love our neighbor as ourselves includes honoring the dignity of others and their freedoms—just what we want for ourselves. In our society, concerns like these have become political issues when
they are really challenges to love the human family generously:

universal health care, women’s right to choose, gay marriage, and the abolition of torture and wars for corporate gain. When agape, universal love, is our commitment, we uphold—with unstinting
compassion—the rights of all people to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These words are no longer political but descriptors of everyone’s commitment to love.

Nothing could satisfy me that was not on the scale of the universal. —PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN




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