What is Love?

It has occurred to me recently that the concept of love and the way it is typically depicted for us via cinema, magazines, literature is basically the complete opposite of what it really is.  This might account for the near 50% divorce rate in this country. So I thought I would write a post about what I think this elusive thing called love is to me.  First let me make some fundamental assumptions.
Our Universe is a system of polar opposites held in balance.  This concept is illustrated by the Yin Yang.  All things are in a state of harmony when the two opposites exist in balance. This is a fractal system in that this structure of opposites occurs at an unlimited amount of scales infinitely.

For every sun there is a moon, you cannot experience joy without pain, hot and cold, death and life are all examples of how this structure is integrated into our environment.  It even occurs inside of we humans. For example our personas are made of both a light and shadow self.  One cannot exist in the absence of the other.
In context of the thing we call love I like to think of it in terms of energy.  If love is energy it can never be destroyed. It exists as one thing but consists of both a positively charged energy and a negatively charged energy.   Just like a magnet, one side attracts and one repels.  Simple physics tells us that two opposite energies cannot occupy the same space so we are either charged positively or negatively.  The cultural or human take on this is we are either experiencing love (positive energy) or its opposite which is fear (negative energy)  The positive energy attracts, its opposite repels.  Within our bodies these energies have very different impacts.  We all know what fear feels like, sweaty hands, racing heart, nausea, etc.  But do we all know what love feels like?  Remember you can only be one or the other at a given time..  When we are in fear our bodies are in a state of what is frequently called fight or flight.  Our energy is directed to our muscles and we get a boost of adrenaline so that we can literally fight or flee from our enemies.  Our immune system shuts down and the stress hormone cortisol is created.  This is meant to be a temporary condition, but in today's high stress environments that may not be the case.  Love is the opposite of this, it is about growth and is the optimal living operating system. So how can be live in a healthy state of love?  When you express yourself through your head, it is called intelligence.  When you express yourself through your heart it is experienced as love. When you express yourself through your being it is experienced as energy.  When you relax into your being without expressing, it is bliss.  The journey of humans is to follow your bliss.

Another pair of opposites is the conscious and subconscious.  These are the operating systems of our brains if you will.  I read recently that we the majority of the time are making decisions from our subconscious which is an automatic reaction system based on programming we developed as children. Its like living on autopilot.  Enlightenment lives in the world of the conscious and we can learn to utilize this operating system rather than our default. We all have subconscious programming from our childhood development which our subconscious uses to respond to our environment.  Bruce Lipton refers to these programs as tapes.  When we are confronted with a particular environmental stimulus, a tape is played dictating a particular reaction.  For example, if you were bitten by a dog as a child your tape may be to have fear every time you see any dog whether there is an actual threat or not.  When you see a dog, the tape sends a signal to an organ in our brains called the hypothalamus which releases a chemical that allows us to feel the emotion fear.  This also works for the thing we call love.  As a child the first time we experience the chemical creating the emotion of love, we create a tape which records everything about that moment, the colors, sights, sounds, etc.  Then we create a sort of template which will activate that tape.  We want to get that feeling of love again, its like an addiction to the chemical. So we walk around with the template in front of us looking for anything that will fit, when something does, we get the chemical that makes us feel love.  So what might happen if the first time we experienced love was from an abusive alcoholic... then we walk around looking for another abusive alcoholic so we can experience that chemical again...to get a fix to satisfy a habit.  This is what many people would refer to as love, recreating a past experience to get our fix.  It is automatic stimulus based chemical reaction, Pavlovian if you will.  It seeks to recreate familiar environments from our development, good or bad.  A relationship will not work with another person if you cannot manifest real love.  The great thing is that you can choose to ignore or reprogram subconscious behaviors and basically manage our emotional responses.  Our conscious operating systems are then free to create the world we desire from our very souls.

Living enlightenment is expressing overflowing love towards all.  Real or mature love is a sense of connection to all things in the Universe on a spiritual level.  It is a force, a power, and gives up the ability to have kindness, empathy, openness, and allows us to connect with others on an emotional level.  Love is the flow of energy within the Universe itself, it transcends culture and language.

Love is perfect.
Love is causeless.
Love is selfless.
Love is an experience not a result.
Love is beyond logic.
Love is always greater than fear.
Love makes no demands upon others.
Love asks what it can contribute rather than what it can take.
Love meets other's expectations without having any of its own.  Expectations are the enemy of love.
Love does not judge or criticize.
Love does not try to fix, change, or control others.
Love is only "we" not me versus them.
Love seeks first to understand, over being understood.
Love is not something you give to one person and exclude from another.
Love is compassion and embraces all things.
Love does not react, it relates
Love is being open, honest, giving and vulnerable.
Love is what we all are at our elemental cores.
You cannot seek love, you have to BE it.
Love is unconditional.

Love should not be confused with need.  Statements like "You complete me" are based in need and co-dependency and are not love. Conditional love is ego based; "If I get love from you, then you get X from me."  If someone has to be or perform in a particular manner for them to receive love from you, this is conditional love.  Seeking external sources for happiness such as money is also a form of conditional love.
Our egos want to separate from other, they want to be special and unique and are focused on difference rather than similarity.  So how can you be simultaneously separate and connected to all things?
Love is not a commodity.  It is not something that we get from other people or things (external sources).   So understand, whenever our love is toward something in particular, we will be only materialistic, we will be creating suffering for ourselves and others.  We will only suffocate the object or person.  Instead if we turn our focus on the experience of love itself, we will be liberating the object and we too will be liberated from that object.  That is the beauty of love that happens just as love and not for the sake of any person or thing.  Love is internal and intimacy with one's deepest nature is the access to it and must occur before we can have love for others.  Love requires the courage to look inside yourself.  How can you express how you feel if you do no know how you feel?   A fully functioning human experiences a full range of emotions.  Embrace and get to know them all, it is the essence of being human. We are taught that we can only love ourselves if we have a good reason.  If we perform well, we love ourselves.  If we fail, we hate ourselves. It is essential for manifest unconditional love for ourselves. When you do not love yourself, you become cynical and negative towards life.  When you were alone in your mother's womb, you were completely loving and blissful and experienced loving yourself.  Blissful aloneness is our original nature.  Once you came into the world, society conditioned you to believe that you needed people to be loving and happy.  It never nurtured your original quality.  If you can find a way to return to your blissful aloneness then you can find peace and love within yourself.
There is a paradox at play here. You cannot receive love if you have not first given it. We do receive love from others, however the way we receive love from others is to first GIVE it.  Love flows out of us not into us, it lives inside us.  So if you are ever feeling like you do not have love in your life all you need to do is extend some love to others.  It could not be more simple.


True love does not come by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

Secrets to Love, A film by Tracie Donahue
Director Tracie Donahue sets out on a journey to find answers about what it takes to have a fabulous relationship and a lasting marriage. She interviews three couples of various backgrounds and bona fide experts on love. Also Actress Robin Givens and Author John Gray give you an exclusive look into their relationships and what worked or didn't work in their lives.
Love, A film by Gary Null

Talk radio host and author Dr. Gary Null observes love in all its complexity and simplicity, and taps into the knowledge of leading physicians, philosophers and spiritual leaders to explore love's power to heal, bring abundance, and fulfill.