Quote:The interest is still here because it's an essential topic.
Yes, it is an essential subject to study for any genuine student of the soul and the human condition.
When I started out on my studies, I was not interested in love and forgiveness, only in leaving the body. After a while I learnt that the subject of love and forgiveness, and its relation (or lack of relation) to like and dislike is foundational and integral with all other knowledge and skills that I would acquire. At first it seemed mushy to me, but as I learnt more I came to realise that love and forgiveness is power.
Quote:We chatted about this on your blog a while ago. Back then you also had clear and sound definitions as you do now. Adding your definition about harmlessness, and contrast that with defencelessness, it's starting to make sense.
Yes, all the parts fit and work together.
Now I will say something that may seem unlikely to some, but never mind, I will say it anyway.
About twenty five years ago, after I made my commitment to research and service, I began attending regular tuition and out-of-body lessons on all manner of subjects concerning the soul and the human experience. I did not choose to attend those lessons as we make choices generally. Rather, for some years I had yearned and ached for truth, whatever the truth might be. The ache was constant and all consuming. I lived in state of yearning, aching prayer for truth, whatever truth might be. Then breakthroughs started to come. I learnt to pray and meditate and breathe properly, to make contact with my soul, and to leave the body. After a while I became a probationary student at a school of occult science that exists behind our familiar physical scenes. I was allocated a contact person, whose task it was to assist my learning. A major part of those lessons was to be given countless definitions over many years to take away for to contemplate. I was usually given the definitions one at a time, sometimes two for contrast sake. Each definition was like a jigsaw piece, and over time a great picture was built up. Part of my work was to contemplate each definition, integrate it, and bring it into practice in my life as best I could. Together with studying the definitions I would frequently be taken on out-of-body excursions to varied places to witness events and be introduced to other beings, some human and some not. Everywhere I was taken was to witness or experience a lesson, and every being I was introduced to gave me a lesson. Those verses on love and forgiveness at the bottom of the above post were given to me on one of those excursions, along with their history, as a type of thought-package for me to roll out on my return.
Studying definitions, contemplating them, ordering and integrating them, bringing them to life in myself as best I could, has been a major part of my learning and understanding. Without doing that work I would never have gained the skills, knowledge and understanding that I have today.
Definitions are indeed the building blocks of clear and precise thought and communication. They are essential when learning new subjects and for building and ordering knowledge.
It is because of that background and the way my knowledge and understanding is ordered that I always define my terms, and if I do not, then I am always ready to do so when asked.
Things have different facets or aspects, so they can have different definitions, depending upon the angle from which something is viewed. But all its definitions must be compatible with each other, as all sides of an object make up the whole. For example, see above the different definitions of forgiveness. They are different but compatible.
Definitions circumscribe the boundary; they encase the subject.
A distinction distinguishes between what something is, and what it is not. It addresses and marks the boundary using contrast, for contrast clarifies.
For contrast to provide clarity, something may be contrasted with what is adjacent to it, or similar or related to it, or with what is opposite to it. (As you pointed out, spectrums or gradients often exist between opposing definitions or extremes that are on the same plane or that are in some way in line with each other, and so the contrast carries within it a spectrum of understanding. But not always, for some opposing concepts are like oil and water, they occupy different levels and do not have a gradient or spectrum running between them, but may have steps or stages.)
Within a definition there is a further description, which is of the detail.
Everything that exists has form, quality and function, so it can be defined and described in all or any of those ways.
I cannot prove or demonstrate the things I write about, but I may be clear, concise, use contrast to clarify, and if what I put forward is not self-evident then I can endeavour to describe the steps to it from knowledge that is more commonly known so that others might take similar steps and obtain their own verifications. Analogies too, can be used to transpose abstract concepts down to more familiar levels, and to connect them onto more general knowledge. Also, make use of examples and stories, for people tend to remember those. These are the methods I use, along with encouragement, which means to enhearten.
Quote:Though I and other readers can have an agreement about the wish as you describe it, the activation of the wish is by it being heartfelt.
Yes, it being heartfelt - made active in the heart - is the key. There is no secret here. Just work to do. Recite the definition, over and over and over. Contemplate it, engrave it into the mind, think about it, when sitting,
when walking, when driving, when observing others and when thinking of others, when dealing with others, when indoors and outdoors, when looking out over the land and the sea. After a while the heart will begin to stir. Put a hand on the heart. When your heart begins to glimpse the concept, then encourage it, just hold onto it, bit by bit, gently feel it beginning to stir in the heart, in seated meditation, in walking, when thinking of others, first on those you like, then also of those you dislike.
It is like blowing on a glowing coal, bringing it to life, gradually opening and firing up the heart. The breath helps facilitate this work. Gently and naturally breathe with the effort, combine breath with the love-wish. Breath is the handle by which we manipulate energy. With your consciousness, reach within and up and draw your breath in from something higher than yourself, then reach out and breathe forth the love-wish out to others, so you are breathing through the heart and the love-wish is moving with the breath. Keep your eyes open, raise your chin a little to stretch the throat, put a hand on your heart, send forth the love-wish, and breathe with it. Over time and practice it will become smoother and powerful. The heart will open, and you will feel the outflow. Practice more, exercise the heart. With time and practice it will learn to open more readily and easily. Eventually, it only takes a momentary effort of alignment, will and breath, and you will feel the heart open and its power going out.
Also, be thankful, for every little blessing, for every lesson of life, no matter how small the blessing, no matter how bitter and painful the lesson, be thankful. Put a hand on the heart and say thankyou three times every day. I promise everyone that if you do this daily and diligently then your heart will open, your outlook will change, your being will transform, and great powers and abilities will come to your soul.
Quote:Contrasting the definition of love by reversal adds a terrible option at the opposite end, and a gradient in between.
Yes. Hatred is the desire to harm others, or to see harm done. It is the very opposite of love. And terrible is truly the word.
The relationship and gradient between love and hate may not as it might first appear though.
We might view their relationship something like the following.
If we imagine a cross like so: +
Then love is at the top of the vertical line, and hatred is at the bottom of the vertical line.
And dislike and like are each at the left and right ends of the horizontal line, respectively.
So we can see that love and hatred are irrespective of like and dislike. They are on different planes.
But we see that this is true only when we have come to understand what love is, as defined here.
For prior to that understanding, a person's understanding of and practice of love is at the far like-end of the horizontal line, and their hatred is at the far dislike-end of the horizontal line.
Such people only know the horizontal line which has hate/dislike at one end and like/love at the other.
Their love and hate are extensions of their like and dislike. Such people love those they like, and hate those they dislike, and they assume others do the same, for they do not know that true love is irrespective of like or dislike.
Quote:Forgiveness is love regardless, and find that to be troublesome if an act is very distasteful. I'm wondering how many times is reasonable for somebody doing very distasteful acts to be forgiven. The imaginary somebody may be on the prowl again and again, and hence allow suffering to continue?
Peter asked the same question of Christ. (Matthew 18:21) See also (Luke 17:3-4)
His answer equates to forgive as many times as is required.
When the forgiveness is activated in the heart, then one comes to realise that it is a state of being, and a state of healthy heart and outlook, and the number of times that someone does wrong is irrelevant. We should maintain that healthy attitude of heart.
That does not mean we put up with ongoing sin or criminal behaviour. It does not mean we are a pushover. It does not mean we do not take measures to combat criminal or harmful behaviour. It does not mean we have to like those we forgive. We can dislike them, even combat them as required, and still wish from our heart that they learn their lessons with minimal suffering.
For example, in different jobs I have dealt with some very unlikable people, people more unpleasant and nastier than many good people even know exist, and I have often had violent physical conflict with such people, conflict too ugly to describe amongst polite company. But regardless of my dislike for such people, I do not hate them, I do not wish harm upon them, rather I wish them well from my heart to their soul, that they learn and grow towards their better selves with minimal suffering. Remember, we can be lenient (use force with love) and merciful (cease force when it is no longer required).
Think of it as if you have a brother whom you love dearly with brotherly love. And perhaps in temper he attacks you, then you would defend yourself as required. You might even injure your brother in the process. But despite you having to strike him, perhaps even beat him off or lay him down, you still love him because he is your brother, and your brotherly love would do him no more harm than is necessary to negate the threat.
Your brother might even commit a serious crime against another, and you counsel him to own up and present himself to the authorities because that is the right and responsible thing to do, and it will do him the most good. You support him because he is your brother, you go with him to the police station, witness truthfully and fairly for him if required, but you remain true to your principles of honesty and responsibility, and encourage your brother to such principles as well. If he must serve time in prison, then you visit him and support him. Even if he goes bad in life and ends up walking an evil road, then you may have to disengage from him and set a distance between you, you may even have to face the fact that he has become an enemy of yours and that you live on different sides of the law or of the line of decency, but in your heart you still love him, you still wish for him to learn and grow with minimum suffering, for he is your brother.
It is a good guide for us to view and love all men as if they are our brothers, and love all women as if they are our sisters, and love all children as if they are our own children, and love all older men as if they are our father, and all older women as if they are our mother. We can practice looking at people that way, and treating them that way, and we will begin to feel the love that I am talking about moving in our heart. For love within a healthy family unit is a reflective example of the greater love that we can have for everyone. It does not mean we do not conflict with others, nor does it mean that we do not dislike them and what they do, it just means that in the course of our dealings with them, be those dealings friendly or hostile, that we treat them fairly.