Valentine's Day -Love, Lust and Enlightenment

It is that time of year when the commecial demand for consumerism captivates and overtakes the spiritual connection that occurs when the vibratory fequency of two beings harmonize.

I have long attempted to differentiate the term "love" from its fraternal and its physical manifestations. We use the same word to describe the sexual experience and the filial experience. During a sermon on 'desire' a new way of articulating the connection and the contradiction occurred to me. The distinction in reflected in the Greek language with the terms "agape" or friendship and "eros" or eroticism.

Love is caring. Desire is wanting. One of the simplest ways to contrast the two experiences is to look at what we mean when we say we "love" a parent, a sibling or a child versus what we mean when we speak of "love" regarding a mate or sexual partner. Caring and wanting are not mutually exclusive but each has a distinct manifestation in its own domain. Caring connects with wanting in terms of memory in the Agape domain. Desire connects with caring in terms of romance in the Eros domain.

Love is light. Desire is heat. Love creates the desire to be responsive to the needs of the other. This means we look for what we can do or how we can interact and relate to them. This seeking is analagous with light. Desire is heat. Desire is often described with the metaphor of fire. This refelects the tendency for desire to consume us emotionally and stimulate us physically resulting in physical heat and emotional heat. Love and desire joined and connected offer both heat and light.

Love is attachment. Desire is attraction. Love results in our connection with another even when apart. This connection is an important component of fidelity. Desire is attraction. Desire results in our moving towards our target and seeking the object of our attraction. It can be fleeting, impermanent and transitory but powerful nonetheless. This duality is often a source of confusion due to the imprecision of our use of terminology related to the concept "love." When men are attracted to women based on desire it does not mean they will feel attached to them but often this is not the case due to their lack of interest or understanding of the person. It mght take me a few more minutes to clearly articulate this analogy.

Love is contentment. Desire is yearning. These two descriptions are in line with the same distinction of the agape and eros domains. Caring, light, attachment all contribute to the contentment of agape love. Wanting, heat, attraction contributes to the yearning of desire. What we must do is to understand that either domain has both its strengths and its weaknesses. We must choos wisely for our own emotionand and spiritual health and that of the one we love.



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.-