Please excuse the slightly provocative title, but I'm still reading UG Krishnamurti, and notice that he dismisses love as a conceptual invention.

UG died recently, he's an Indian gentleman widely recognised as enlightened but very much an 'anti-guru' who reckoned that enlightenment is a naturally occurring phenomenon, that spiritual paths and practices don't help you get there.

He'd argue that all altruistic behaviour is ultimately self interest, just a bigger thinking, wiser and more extensive form. One that emerges with seeing things as they are.

He's very possibly right - this in one way seems close to what Buddhism teaches in that I've heard it quoted as regarding compassion quite natural as something that arises out of truly seeing other beings for what they are - and realising that ultimately they are us. It also seems to regard it as quite normal that mind at this dualistic level of reality includes wrathful as well as peaceful elements.

It depends a bit too on how you define love. The saccharin, rose tinted nicey nicey variety is arguably just the opposite polarity to hate and aggression and is to my mind precisely what he says - just a partial mental concept that if applied in isolation is not universally workable. Not unless you start to bring into play the idea of 'tough love' which presumes the need for harder actions at times if you truly are to do what's in another's (and your own) interest. Which maybe leaves us somewhere else.

Not I should hasten to add the sort of readiness we have in the West to use say military power and other forms of force for so called 'good' causes - it never works.

Buddhism talks of compassion and wisdom as being very closely related. Perhaps it's the selfish interest (or lack of a longer term wider scale view of what's in our mutual interests) that makes the above sort of thing go screwy, and that its wisdom that's missing.

My sense is that one of the consequences of realisation is that ability to know how to act with wisdom and compassion in all situations. But that we wouldn't necessarily recognise all of these actions as being loving in the nicey nicey sense. I've some ideas, but I struggle to describe what is or isn't loving from this view....

Thoughts or insights anybody???

Weeeell... if you break down the C`s (content, consequence and consistancy) of genuine LOVE, then I find that LOVE is the only "real" emotion there is vajra. I am not much of a person of gambling however I`d bet my buns on it that love is the answer to every question there is! So I`m sticking to it aswell. 

Nanner

Greetings,

Love is simply the word we give to a range of vibrational energy that is most nurturing to life. We then divide that range of energy up into segments we call concern, kindness, compassion, passion, etc based on slight variations. No one can pull out a range of energy and say it's not real.  It just is.

I think Krishnamurti didn't trust love because of his own life situation--snatched away from family (love) at a young age, separated from outside influences (potential loving relationships), put under the influence of rather strange strangers  who attempted to fill him with their own ideas which must have included their concepts of love attached to their willfulness in keeping him 'in line! Poor fellow---it's a wonder he turned out as well as he did !

I don't sense love around Krishnamurti at all but rather pathos. No one has my admiration as well as sympathy as much as he does.

Bets

I haven’t ever read UG and can’t speak on his point of view, but I’ll offer mine.

To me love is the ground of our very being and is the source of life itself. The whole universe is alive with love and it is the source of all our creativity. Love is within us, it is above us, it is below us and all around us.  Love is everywhere, in everything as well as in no thing.  We exist in a sea of love.  Love is the very foundation of life and creation.  Love is our core essence that up wells as a fountain from deep within us to create more and more life.  Without love we would not be.

The reason we don’t understand this is because we have limited love by giving it various definitions based on particular feelings.  We label love as God love, mother/father love, romantic love, family/friendship love, sensual love, etc. and in so doing we create limiting beliefs about love based on what we believe is appropriate and acceptable yet love is so much more.  Love is who/what we are. Love is simply there within each of us. Nothing affects it. It is present when we are born.  It is present when we let go of our physical body.  It is present in all of our life changes including those that result in stagnation.  Love is simply there waiting for us to be it and to become aware that we are it.

We don’t recognize that we are love because of our fears.  It is our fearful thoughts and beliefs that keep us from experiencing the love that we are.  I use to think that the opposite of love is fear, but I no longer believe that.  Love simply is and love has no opposite.  Fear is a resistance to love that separates us from being love.  Wherever we harbor fear, this is where we in the perspective of our conscious awareness have not allowed our love to be.  Wherever we harbor fear we build walls and set boundaries is where we do not recognize our self as love, where we do not recognize the other as love, or even recognize the other and self as one love.

Yet behind all the walls we build and the boundaries we set love is simply there waiting to be recognized. All of the areas that we do not allow love to be is where we create duality, suffering and pain.  It is really the pain that we are afraid of.  This is where we create the most resistance and separation from the love that we are. It is like we all have amnesia and we cannot remember or find any way of knowing, yet by simple surrender we can recognize self as love.  We can do this by surrendering to the fear and terror with the intention of recognizing it as love. As we courageously step into the wounded portions of our psyche instead of holding an expectation of finding pain, we can choose to step into our wound with the expectation of fusing our pain with the love that we are.

What greater gift is there than to recognize our self as love? What greater gift is there than to recognize the other as love? Love is not something we give or receive. It is something we recognize as having been there all along, waiting for us to see that we have separated from it with our conscious awareness.

Love, Kathy

I really like what Kathy wrote.

  Mmmm! Thought that would get you guys going. Thanks for the replies. UGK was indeed a different gent to JK - JK was the guy the Theosophists decided was to be the world teacher, but who rejected the role. UGK came from a wealthy Indian family who had been told that he came close to enlightenment in a previous life - they apparently put him through intensive spiritual training in his younger years in the hope of getting him there. He later became disillusioned with the fluff surrounding the traditions he encountered, and left his family and fortune for Europe where he went through some sort of process of transformation, wandered the streets of London for a couple of years and was eventually taken in by somebody in Switzerland. (?). He knew J, but didn't gel with his fairly traditional take on matters spiritual.

Comparing what he describes to what Buddhism might have to say my sense is that he probably did achieve one of the earlier stages of enlightenment, but that his intellectual explanation of what happened to him is unconventional. (which seems to be no indication of whether or not he was realised - it's taught that it takes time/lives to integrate the realised view. But he's got a lot interesting to say in that he talks from an almost wholly experiential perspective, and makes no attempt to rationalise it to fit traditional views.

When you read between the lines you can pick up what he's driving at. It makes a lot of sense, to me anyway.

I guess what you've all said on love is pretty much what I'd say if asked too. But I'd to quite a degree be repeating conventional distillations which to me are a little glib. What I'm wondering about is at a totally practical and experiential working level that comes in way below these basically conceptual descriptions.

What in each and every situation is required of us?

Do we know? Can we even figure it out intellectually, or is it something that's largely intuitive? Even those of us that profess to live through love?

For example. I know what we call love is for real in that I'm to varying degrees motivated to help others. That with time we come to identify with them.

But I don't know what this feeling or urge is, I can't in conceptual terms get inside it, and can't quite say what it actually is. It could easily be the sort of subconsciously decided more enlightened self interest that UG suggests. (i suspect it's simultaneously that, being driven by care for others, the influence of God/Grace/higher mind and more besides - that as ever it's a multidimensional entity rather than the polarity or at best duality we like to think in terms of)

It's not permanent, and is influenced by my mind states. I can if treated wrongly be driven into dislike of people I've previously felt love towards.

Whatever urge there is towards loving others is not universal anyway. There are people with whom I have to use a lot of mindfulness to stay fairly positive and avoid getting aggressive.

Finally, and presuming my wish is to act in a loving manner is not diverted by selfishness there's times when I flat don't know what's the right action to take.

So all in all it's quite a morass.

We'd all if asked like to solve world hunger, end all war and fix the environment. Or make a difference. Or even just be truly loving towards our family and friends. But flat don't know how. And probably couldn't even pull it off if we knew what was required of us. And would maybe add the words 'not just yet' if having figured out the answer found the price higher than we were willing to pay. Or that we weren't going to be recognised for it.

It's something I'm trying to figure out a bit better, as I'm in the process of changing my life direction and hope to be of more service to others. But I'm not sure what that means. Do i for example have to enter some sort of caring profession (become a social worker or something? - think not), or is simply a matter of trying to avoid indulging my ego? Is it Ok to make a decent income? (think so if it falls that way, but it shouldn't drive the decision) Does it entail putting my best foot forward by being open to options and letting life do the rest? (think yes) Can it be defined by rules? (think only approximately, that it's ultimately situation specific)

As ever I'm drawing on Buddhist teaching. This is probably the biggest issue there is, yet it's so easy to be fobbed off with vague generalisations which have little practical effect on our lives.

Mahayana Buddhism teaches that it's possible to with spiritual work and life experience awaken the heart and make this a more universal behaviour. To generate loving kindness or bodhichitta as it's termed in Sanskrit. The Bodhissattva teachings address this longing  - what it is, how to work with mind to give rise to it, the six paramitas or transcendent (beyond selfishness) wisdoms on which its built and how to maintain and grow it in the face of life. (we're easily driven back from it when the going gets tough)

Meditation is of course central, but so is ultimately is achievement of emptiness/transcendence of self - realisation. At which point it becomes what we are.

A good easy to read basic source on all of this is 'No Time to Lose' by Pema Chodron - her commentary on Shantidevas 8th C but incedibly relevant 'Way of the Bodhisattva. A Bodhisattva is a person who has dedicated their life to helping all other beings achieve realisation. Transcendent Wisdom by the Dalai Lama is a bit more comprehensive, especially on the higher aspects of it. There's lots of plain translations about too - the  Padmakara one comes recommended as having an excellent intro., but I've not seen it.

Ian, what you describe here is where I think religion and science could come together more.  Religious teachings have a tendency to teach self-denial and self-betrayal and the baggage we end up with is self-hatred. That might sound a bit harsh, but much of the time it’s true. We just deny the truth of it by creating defenses.

The use of the word attachment is probably one of my pet peeves.  Attachment means having “a connection by ties of affection and regard.” Isn’t having connection and communion what each of us yearns for?  We came here to live life and to create more life. How can we live life fully when we try to block a part of life from our thought?  We are emotional creatures and there’s nothing wrong with how we feel. How can we live life fully when we try to block part of our emotions to prevent us from suffering? Isn’t it really our judgments that cause our suffering?  If we are to detach from anything, perhaps we could detach from our judgments that do not serve us.  Most of them probably aren’t the truth anyway.

I prefer the word acceptance because if we are in a state of acceptance we don’t seem to limit ourselves by our judgments quite as much. To me being in a state of acceptance means to acknowledge the existence of all things and to willingly embrace what is. You mention world hunger. Having acceptance for world hunger is to embrace it for what it is. It is suffering. Can we allow ourselves to feel the pain and embrace that pain?  Embracing this suffering allows us to see and feel what it is. Detaching from pain only serves the status quo. Feeling the pain is a powerful motivator for change and helps us to create more life in better ways.

Quote:

Any job, any profession no matter what it is… a dishwasher, floor sweeper, brain surgeon… is being of service to others. The job itself is unimportant. What you feel as you do the work is what is important, so do the kind of work you have always longed to do. Let your heart guide you in finding work that you love to do.  If you're lovin' it, you'll not only do it well, you'll radiant your love it everyone around you.

Love, Kathy

I think Kathy hit the nail on the head that religions do tend to teach self denial, such as the old admonition to pick up your cross and carry it.

this seems to place one in a position of not being spontaneous in their life, or maybe never taking a risk as after all, maybe suffering and self denial is how we subdue ourselves and get command of our lives. this kind of outlook makes it hard to enjoy life, as desires become suspect, our own desires may lead us astray in that case, we are also careful not to express love and joy, lest we be misconstrued. every religion seems to want to control us somehow. maybe we can see religious pathways as road signs pointing somewhere, but that the religion itself is not the destination, just a road sign with an arrow pointing to further traveling.
acceptance of all the suffering in the world does not mean we are not active to alleviate what suffering me may see near us, starting with our family, then extending out. sometimes just one little gesture can change so many people for the better, to come away from the need to suffer, as if that makes us better people.
Therefore I don't think it is about religion, nor even about science, but those two items will merge at some point in time.
I think beyond religion, we would allow ourselves to feel deeply our connections with all humanity, and express love through any activity we are engaged in, and with any part of life that comes into the pathway.
then we may at times be quiet and realize it is the eye of the storm we are in, and we receive our instructions from higher self then.