Eros

River

Active member
In the interest of beginning an inquiry, a conversation..., I offer this quote for discussion.

Love Unifies Desire with Selfless Giving

Eros is a god, and the true mission of eros is to bring us to the experience and realization of what real love can be in all its dimensions. Eros shows us how love unifies not only spirit and body, but also desire with selfless giving. In wanting your partner, lover, husband or wife, you are giving them your heart. But this is not the kind of wanting that most people know. When we feel wanting and desire, we experience it at the level of the first mountain, which most people call eros. But in our exploration, we want to know the true nature of divine eros, which is the same as seeing it from the perspective of the second mountain.

- A. H. Almaas - The Power of Divine Eros, p. 61​

http://www.ahalmaas.com/glossary/eros

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Mountain metaphor:

http://www.ahalmaas.com/glossary/mountain-metaphor/2298

http://www.ahalmaas.com/glossary/mountain-metaphor/2299
 
My purpose in opening this conversation on the topic of eros with a quote from A. H. Almaas is not to take a position regards the validity of Almaas' words. Rather, I emply Almaas' words to begin to indicate just how vast, how large, an interesting inquiry into our topic may be.

In Almaa's' perspective, what most of us in the contemporary world regard as "erotic" ... falls miserably short of the real deal -- "true eros".

Even much of what would be regarded as "erotic art" -- fiction, poetry, photography, painting, film -- may fall flat in Almaas' view -- fundamentlally because of various distortions in our notion and capacities regarding love.

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Personally, I'm interested in a kind of -- perhaps -- post-neo-tantric inquiry ..., an inquiry which is neither anti-intellectual nor anti-sensual... a whole and round and embodied inquiry into ... well... love. I grew up in a culture which -- I think -- has traditionally radically segregated concern for the body and bodily pleasure (and the body's desires) from "spiritual" life. I think there is no wholesome way forward for our culuture other than a way which fully re-embraces both eros and the lived body -- the soma. ... including erotic longing.

So this is the point of entry I'm wishing to explore here.
 
What are the advantages of attaining this true love Almaas speaks of? and, how do we know when we've attained it?
 
What are the advantages of attaining this true love Almaas speaks of? and, how do we know when we've attained it?

Good questions!

I suspect the advantages are rather difficult for typical, average folks like us to imagine. For most people, as it seems, love is something we need and want--and lack to one degree or another. For those who benefit from the "advantages," love is something they most basically are. So those who benefit from the "advantages" are those who are in a basic state (or station) of non-lack with regard to love. As Almaas speaks of it, most of us experience love in relation to what he calls "deficiency 'needs'".

http://glossary.ahalmaas.com/phrases/deficient-emptiness

How do we know if we've "attained" it?

If one realizes one's essential being as love, rather than as a lack of love, one is no longer seeking love as if it is something we are not--as if love were something we could get (or fail to get) from "out there". In this frame-of-reference, love is not something we can "attain," as it is our own essential nature -- whether we know, experience, and realize it or not. It's just like the notion of "attaining" breath, or salty blood, or awareness.... One does not "attain" these because it is already one's own essential nature -- whether we are aware of it or not. The trick, according to those who subscribe to this view, is to "awaken" to, or become aware of, this fact.

I do not dwell continuously in this awareness, but have visited it. I strongly suspect it is possible to dwell (generally) in this awareness, but one must relinquish the pursuit of love as a sense-of-identity ... to dwell there (as love) as one's basic understanding and experience.

I think most of us can barely imagine living without a lack of love informing our view of ourselves and our world. This is a very radical shift in experience and perspective.

The "advantages" of such an "awakening" (as it is often called) are a life without a lack of love. ;) That is, if one realizes one is water, one need never be thirsty for water. :p
 
Conflicted Desire

So we end up having two forces, two tendencies, two manifestations, in our consciousness and in our experience: giving, open, generous love on one hand, and wanting, desire, passion on the other. And these frequently appear to be in opposition to one another. In fact, most people experience them as conflicting forces. For many individuals and in many spiritual teachings, spirituality means—and spiritual development requires—letting go of wanting, letting go of desire, letting go of the world and embracing the spiritual. Only this, they think, will make them more loving, more compassionate, selfless, and ultimately free. But most human beings have difficulty with that view because to them it means that they have to become some kind of saint: “I’m not sure that becoming free that way is for me. Who wants to be a saint? They don’t have much of a life; they’re always generous, always giving, and do nothing for themselves. Not only don’t you have much of a life, there’s not even a thought of having an erotic life!” We will be exploring how to be passionate and to feel a strong wanting without that desire being in conflict with the selfless kind of tenderness, with generous sweetness. We will come to see that there is such a thing as divine eros and that we can experience it. And we will discover how to be open to that possibility and access that dimension of reality.

The Power of Divine Eros, p. 16

http://www.ahalmaas.com/glossary/desire

Two Possible Consequences

That is a good and very interesting insight about the question of desire. We are finding out that desire has many conflicts and issues around it. It is not as simple as we might have thought. Before we can be free from our desires, we first need to experience desire, to embrace our desire, which we may find is not easy. But hopefully, Cupid will have enough arrows for all of us. It usually looks as though he only has a few on his back, but I think there is no limit to their number. We will see that there are difficulties in love being true love and in desire being complete desire—and then there is what happens between them! Part of the conflict between the two is something that makes it difficult to experience desire. Many of us are afraid of our desire because it might affect our love, positively or negatively, and we are afraid of both possibilities—desire can make us love more or it can make us less loving.

The Power of Divine Eros, p. 25
 
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So, should we perceive ourselves as radiating love outward, rather than consuming love inward? or is it a combination of the two? Is love something one gives, or something one receives? or is it just always in and around us?

One of my brothers sees God as encompassing all things, and that the higher of a plane of enlightenment we realize, the more at one we are with God. Or something along those lines, I'm still trying to learn how to understand it.
 
So, should we perceive ourselves as radiating love outward, rather than consuming love inward? or is it a combination of the two? Is love something one gives, or something one receives? or is it just always in and around us?

I generally prefer to avoid the word "should" in this sort of inquiry. It's usually not helpful, and it's often even harmful to inquiry and discovery. I'd encourage you not to form or attach yourself to notions or ideas about it, but instead to explore it in direct experience... and to keep on exploring it in direct experience ... until the question more-or-less falls away because irrelevant. (For some perspective on why I say this about "should" see: http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74606 )

I do think we can give and receive love, but there is a much larger I-Don't-Know-What going on here -- a Mystery. When we open fully to love, it seems to cease to orient itself to location and boundary. It becomes less and less a local something. It insenuates itself into everything, breathing together with all. But ten thousand libraries of words about it won't help a bit -- not really. Words are even less helpful here than chemical explanations of the water molecule are to understanding how to swim in a river in summer (or what that feels like).

Personally, I think the best way to ask such questions -- to inquire -- is via the breath. Mindful breathing has the power to open up deeper and deeper levels of sensitivity, and it is sensitivity which allows us to inquire (explore) deeply into What is love?



One of my brothers sees God as encompassing all things, and that the higher of a plane of enlightenment we realize, the more at one we are with God. Or something along those lines, I'm still trying to learn how to understand it.

Although I'm deeply interested in and involved with spiritual inquiry and practice, I don't find the word "God" at all helpful, as it carries way, way, way too much baggage -- and is used in ten thousand very vague ways.

I use the word Mystery, instead, generally. This word points us more toward opening to the experiential aspect of inquiry, into feeling and wonder, etc. "God" has become a head trip for theologians. And a headache.
 
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So, God is a Mystery? or there is only a Mystery, there is no God?
 
So, God is a Mystery? or there is only a Mystery, there is no God?

Well, personally, I certainly do not believe in any of the major monotheistic traditions, all of which have at least a semi-anthropomorphic and anthropocentric male (and personal) God. So if I were to say "there is no God," that's the God I say does not exist -- a God on high who makes and delivers commandments, punishments, directives, rules, regulations....

That said, I'm not your typical modern materialist naturalist, either. I suppose I'm a Nature mystic, instead. Or a pantheist who just doesn't like the -theist part of that word, since it brings us around back to the whole notion theology (ick).

There is SO much more going on in the Natural world (universe) than scientistic modern naturalism is interested in, or opens itself to.... Still, I really like and value science -- especially when it is not corrupted by monied interests (which is a LOT of it, sadly).
 
So, you don't believe in a God who is any kind of a Being, but you do believe in a Mystery that encompasses all that Is?
 
So, you don't believe in a God who is any kind of a Being, but you do believe in a Mystery that encompasses all that Is?

Something like that. But I place little emphasis on belief. I'm interested mostly in experience. Most religion seems to me to overly emphasize belief over experience. Ironically, what most folks refer to as "faith" is nothing more than untested belief.
 
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Kevin you're very good at NVC technique of clarifying what a person means with a well placed question, I am not learning a lot about theology or non theology, but I am learning about communication, no mystery there. :)
@river, I am not sure I understand what you mean on Eros, can you explain what Eros is to you, in very very simplistic terms because I am finding it difficult to follow a lot of what you wrote here. I understand it as a completely different language. Like reading code.
Edited to add, after watching the intro to the video, I sort of get where you're coming from. I think, if what the video describes is also what you think? But the closest thing I have to understanding in my bank of reference is the practice of spiritual orgasmic meditation. I am doing my best to understand, and relate.
 
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@river, I am not sure I understand what you mean on Eros, can you explain what Eros is to you, in very very simplistic terms because I am finding it difficult to follow a lot of what you wrote here. I understand it as a completely different language. Like reading code.
Edited to add, after watching the intro to the video, I sort of get where you're coming from. I think, if what the video describes is also what you think? But the closest thing I have to understanding in my bank of reference is the practice of spiritual orgasmic meditation. I am doing my best to understand, and relate.

Starlight, Let me begin by responding to the portion of your post I highlighted. ... By offering interesting perspectives from others in this thread on eros, my intent is not so much to express my own idea about eros as to encourage anyone reading or participating here to explore various points of view and perspective on the topic.

I do have my own point of view on eros, and how there is a popular notion of eros which I find quite inadequate and unhelpful. Notice that I'm now using the lower case e eros, to distinguish a notion - eros -- from the god, Eros. But, my purpose here is not so much to promulgate my views on eros / Eros as to collaboratively investigate into eros / Eros.

Frankly, if the consequence of the thread is that folks stop and think DIFFERENTLY than how they usually do about the topic, it will be successful by my lights.

The essence of my perspective on eros (which is less important than the thinking and the conversation ...) is that eros is much more mysterious than most of us tend to think, and greater intimacy with the experience and exploration of eros only results in more and deepening mystery. If it isn't mysterious, it probably isn't true or real eros ... and may be a counterfeit.
 
Wikipedia says, "Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. Eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth. Lovers and philosophers are all inspired to seek truth by eros."
 
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