LOVE LOVE LOVE!
We hear this word over and over again throughout our lifetime; from our parents, siblings, close friends, family and even strangers. Is love a feeling or is it simply a word with a connection to our feelings? Maybe some of us aren't even taught love and some people become so obsessed with love that it damn near kills them or makes them go crazy. A prime example of love we ten tend to receive in grade or primary school is the tale of Romeo & Juliet. A tragic story is it not? Maybe for some of us it may be and some..maybe not. The heart warming Romeo and Juliet are so irrevocably in love with each other that even due to their feuding families of the Montague and Capulets they were willing to risk it all for the sake of love to death...I mean literally to death! He takes the poison and she takes it and they both die together as lovers in the afterlife. Or what about the story of Othello? a Moorish West African man who falls in love with a European woman Desdemona but becomes so submerged in jealousy (aka the Green Eyed Monster) from the false lies claimed by Iago, of her committing adultery with another man, that it ultimately drove him mad and he decided to kill her. I guess he wanted him to have her and nobody else. Tragic these stories are indeed, but these examples are what we have to show in the media to young people and children who grow into adults the power of love. The power of complete submission and venerability that love opens the door to - but what comes through that door may not always be projected in the best way, ergo a thin line between love and hate - or love and death. What is the point you may be asking? Well, we are constantly told what love is through the media, stories, movies, games, family, friends, tens and thousands of outside sources given to us to describe love. But how can we truly define Love?.. That is the true question.
Let's Start of with the basics shall we!
Let's define love (at least in a physical sense according to the word).
Love / ləv/
an intense feeling of deep affection.
A deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone or something
Old English lufu, of Germanic origin; from an Indo-European root shared by Sanskrit lubhyati ‘desires,’ Latin libet ‘it is pleasing,’ libido ‘desire,’
*Definition Formulated by Oxford Dictionary*
Well there it is! The definition of love given to us right before your eyes. But a few things are missing...
This only describes the meaning of love but this barely defines nor scratch the surface of love as it relates to our human experience. Maybe Rama Kandra was right, IT TRULY IS a word given to us without the connection the word implies. Truthfully, after reading this definition, some people may think about their own experiences with love and completely have their own individual definition of love based on their personal experience dealing with it. if this is in fact the truth then the word "love" itself is evidently not enough to describe the feelings brought out through experiencing love first hand. yes, through action it does describe love, albeit sex and infatuation, but not really the spiritual experience and actions committed based on the attachment to those feelings and thoughts of love. It is safe to say that it goes beyond the physical meaning of how we experience love.
LETS DIVE IN!!
According to author john Baines, who wrote a book called The Science Of Love (I highly recommend everybody get this book!) has said in the prologue of the book that, "the inability to love brings spiritual bankruptcy rather than the reward of genuine love. Love has two sides...one born a darkness called Corrupt Love (perverted & unnatural) and one born of light called Divine Love (pure & Natural)". How many of us have explored or experience corrupt love? The jealousy, abuse, manipulation, infatuation, lies, tyranny, etc. In all, this would be a psychological and spiritual destruction that submits and individual to the wrong force of nature. For those who may not understand, this means one who loses their higher faculties while their bestial or hard and vulgar side becomes strengthened (baines paraphrased). What was once affectionate can turn contaminated and dirty.
On the other hand, what about divine love? The patience, honesty, growth, pure connection and flow etc. Everyone has either experience one or the other and maybe even both simultaneously. Some people may mistake corrupt love as divine love and may encounter a use of platonic concepts by excluding or limiting the sexual aspect of love as just lustful without any true connection behind the action. As Baines would say, the goal is to attain, "an internal love which covers every facet of love no t normally taken into account...a love that not only to satisfies the body but also the soul, the mind and the spirit as well...The key to love is through transcendence of the baser side of nature" (prologue).
WOW! Now that was deep family.
That would make anybody we claim as "shallow" to rethink their concept of love. Even those who think they're experiencing love can be totally blinded by an illusion of affection and totally miss out on what they truly deserve. But still, the question remains...Why does this happen??
It may all depend on how they're raised, the environment they were exposed to or even something they may have seen on TV that everyone has accepted without questioning its morality of expression. To be quite honest, some of us out here are not taught how to love correctly. After all, were we not taught how to love since the day we were born??
A community of people could very well affected, according to African-American theoretical psychologist, social theorist, Pan-African thinker, scholar and author Dr. Amos Wilson, who has stated in his lecture that people, "have the wrong definition of what love is, whereas the community has come to accept a concept of love that works against their best interest". Many people among communities may very well need to be taught a new form of romantic love and how to love one another. Therefore, enhancing the ability to stay with the ones you love and vice versa. or else the false/corrupt concept of love could ultimately destroy who you are, what you've built, and what you could possibly attain in the future. Again, we must ask ourselves why do we love the way we do, who has influenced the way we show love, when did we show or experience corrupt and divine love and what are we going to do about the way we express love?
Interesting. A lot to think about here.