Part 2 - "The Stages of Love"

Love or Need for Security?
--by Robert Elias Najemy


Our Love is Mixed With Need--



Our love is still mixed with a considerable amount of need. Love wants to give. Need wants to take. Sometimes what we are seeking to take is very subtle and requires deep inner inquiry. Whenever we feel pain, fear or anger in our relationships, it is because we believe that our needs are in "danger" of not being satisfied. When this happens, our "love" turns to hurt, disappointment, fear, loneliness, inferiority, or bitterness, and sometimes, anger, hate, rage and desire for revenge. How can love become all these negative emotions? It cannot. The simple truth is that our emotion never was pure love to begin with. It was an "attraction" based to some degree also on need. This does not mean that we should reject ourselves because we have seldom really loved purely. As we are not yet enlightened spiritual beings, how could we? It would be like rejecting ourselves because we do not yet have a university diploma when we are still in the first grade or because we are a flower bud, which has not yet blossomed. It is only natural that we cannot yet love unconditionally. This is our stage of evolution.

Freeing our Love from Need--

The first step towards opening our hearts to real love is to accept and love ourselves exactly as we are with all our weaknesses and faults. Only then can we proceed effectively. The second step is to begin observing the feelings that are stimulated in our transpersonal. Through objective self-observation, we can determine in which situations we love unconditionally and in which we are feeling "loving" with specific conditions. Following are some examples that will help.

Needing Those Who Make Us Feel Secure--

We look to others for security. We might seek security from our parents, spouses, siblings, children, employers, friends, ministers, spiritual teachers or others. We do feel love toward these beings, but often that love is based on the fact that they offer us a sense of security. If they start behaving in ways that obstruct our feelings of security or if they decide to leave or ignore us, will we still love them? If our employer fires us, will we still love him or her? If our parents throw us out onto the street, will we still love them? Or is our love tightly woven with the need for security? If as parents we dream that our children will become economically well off and socially accepted professionals, will we love them the same if they become street artists, beggars or anarchists? Some parents will be able to; others will not.

The basic question is whether or not our feelings of love are steady and consistent regardless of the various changing behaviors of those we "love". In each case where we perceive our heart closing, we need to discover what we fear in that situation. What might we believe is in danger? Most frequently we lose our love when we fear that our security, self-worth, freedom or pleasure are in danger. Only when we have realized total inner security, perhaps based on an inner spiritual awakening or on our faith in the Divine, will we be able to love without security attachments. Only when we know that we can live without others can we really love them steadily.

Society has caused us to completely confuse this matter. We believe that if we love others, then we must be totally dependent on them and should fear that our world would fall apart if something happens to them. This is insecurity. This is a lack of awareness of our inner spiritual nature and our ability to deal with life. It has nothing to do with love.

Perhaps this is why the Apostle John wrote, "Where there is perfect love, there can be no fear."

--Be Well

Continue reading Part 3 - "The Stages of Love"

About the Author: Robert Elias Najemy is a spiritual empath, life coach and author of more than 30 books, 600 articles and 400 lectures on Human Harmony. His recently released book "The Psychology of Happiness" (ISBN 0-9710116-0-5) is available at Amazon. Robert makes his home in Athens, Greece. Please visit his website here.

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Part 3 - "The Stages of Love"

--by Robert Elias Najemy


Love, Pleasure or Affirmation?

Needing Others for Pleasure-- Let us examine how our needs for pleasure and affirmation can limit and distort our experience of love. We create relationships that give us pleasure and affirmation as well as security. We may be dependent upon the other for money, shelter, sex, travel, clothing, encouragement, compliments, humor, tasty food, a clean house, comforts, or even his or her beauty. Yet, if he or she stops providing these for us, or decides to provide them for someone else, do we continue loving that person or do we feel hurt, disillusioned, and overcome with feelings of injustice, anger and perhaps revenge? The condition here is that "I love as long as you provide me pleasure, happiness or excitement. If you stop, my feelings change." It is conditional love.

Needing Others for Affirmation-- We may also depend on someone for affirmation. This may take various forms.

1. We are affirmed when others obey us. "You listen to me and do what I say. I can control you. That makes me feel powerful and worthy. If, however, you stop doing whatever I say, I will stop feeling love and unity with you." This becomes a problem for parents when their children move into adolescence. This can also occur between spouses. In many countries a wife might be suppressed at first, and thus, the husband feels powerful and affirmed. If, however, she begins to think and act for herself, he begins to panic and can become angry and sometimes aggressive. The roles may also be reversed where the woman controls and feels affirmed.

2. We also feel affirmation when someone needs us or is dependent on us. This could occur between parent and child, teacher and student, friends, or between the "savior" and the "needy." In these cases, the "needed" feels affirmed by and perhaps superior to the "needy". This is one aspect of codependency. Some of us find meaning in life because someone needs us or depends on us. If however, the other doesn't want to be the child, the student or the needy one anymore, do we feel the same attraction and love? If not, our love is mixed with our need to be "needed". In such a case, we need to give, offer, and sacrifice in order to feel useful, worthy or boost our self-image. If this is the case, then all that we offer in these situations, all our sacrifices, are actually for ourselves and not for the others. That does not negate the fact that others may actually need us, or that we also simultaneously have feelings of altruistic love. We are often motivated by two or three motives simultaneously

3. A third aspect of this attraction for affirmation is the situation in which we "love" those "who affirm our rightness", either verbally by telling us we are right, or simply by belonging to the same social, political, religious or spiritual group and thus embrace a similar belief system. "I love you because you agree with me, you are like me, you affirm me". If they change beliefs and convert to another political party, religion, or spiritual group, will we feel the same closeness and "love?" Perhaps yes, perhaps no.

4. A fourth aspect of this affirmation principle is infatuation - called "Eros" (in Greek "erotas") or "falling in love". In this case there is a mutual (occasionally only one-sided) infatuation on the physical, sexual, emotional and sometimes mental level. This is a special attraction between two persons who excite, bring joy to and stimulate each other positively. This positive stimulation often has to do with the needs for security, pleasure and affirmation. This intensity of these feelings seldom lasts more than a few years. The couple then has the possibility of transforming their "Eros" into a steady form of unconditional love, or facing the sadness of conflict and / or separation. Sooner or later, we will come face to face with the other's various negative aspects, and if we cannot love them as they are, the relationship suffers.

Until we are able to love unconditionally, we will be unhappy, insecure and frequently in conflict with those around us. We will be able to do this only when we have matured sufficiently so as to experience inner security, inner satisfaction, inner freedom and a steady feeling of self-worth.

In other words, we can love purely only those who we do not need. When we need others, we cannot love them unconditionally. This might be difficult to comprehend at first, but deep thought and observation will prove it to be true. Being able to love without conditions is a basic prerequisite for both a happy life and spiritual evolution. --Be Well


Continue reading Part 4 - "The Stages of Love"

About the Author: Robert Elias Najemy is a spiritual empath, life coach and author of more than 30 books, 600 articles and 400 lectures on Human Harmony. His recently released book "The Psychology of Happiness" (ISBN 0-9710116-0-5) is available at Amazon. Robert makes his home in Athens, Greece. Please visit his website here.

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Part 4 - "The Stages of Love"

Selfless Love for a Specific Person --by Robert Elias

An essential stage in the evolution of love is being able to love others regardless of their behavior. Probably the closest most of us have come to experiencing such love is towards our children. There are some parents who have totally selfless love for their children. They maintain steady love for "their child" even if he or she does not live up to the parents' expectations, even if he or she rejects and abuses the parents, and even if he or she becomes a dangerous criminal.

This love is not universal nor is it totally unconditional because there is one condition, that the other is "my child" and not someone else's. We might also experience this type of selfless love for a specific person when he or she is "our student" or under "our care or responsibility." This type of love often has to do with the role of protector or feeling responsibility for someone. It enables us to accept all types of behavior from others and continue accepting and loving them with understanding and compassion.

In some cases, we may also feel such love for persons who belong to the same grouping, i.e. nationality, religion or social class. In these cases, we do not gain something tangible from these individuals. We do not require anything from them. Our love is not dependent upon their abiding by a certain type of behavior or even reciprocating our love. Our love is more selfless but still specific and not universal.
 

Universal Self-less Love--

The next stage is to expand our feelings of unconditional love and acceptance to a wider circle of people and eventually to all beings - including animals, plants and insects. This love, however, is still directed toward form. We are focused on the temporary form being occupied by these beings; thus we feel a sense of sadness when they experience suffering or unhappiness, or if and when we loose them. We perceive their form as reality. We feel love and acceptance for that person, but we still live within the illusion that the form is the reality. We forget that behind that form there is an immortal ever-blissful consciousness, which is just temporarily projecting that form toward the earth plane level.

Universal consciousness is never in pain, never suffers, is never unhappy and can never die. That consciousness is the ultimate reality of the being or beings whom we love. Those who experience this universal selfless love often choose careers or lifestyles that allow them to serve the whole in some way. They may join service groups such as the Peace Corps or other voluntary service organizations. They feel a need to express that love through actions which better the quality of life for those around them, especially for those who are suffering, lonely or unhappy. Their interest expands beyond the limits of themselves and their immediate family.

They begin to realize that all beings are brothers and sisters in one spiritual family of all humanity. As their awareness grows, they perceive even animals, plants and insects as belonging to "their family." They seek to express this love through acts of service and care.

 

--Be Well

 

 



Cont'd Part 5 - "The Stages of Love"

About the author: Robert Elias Najemy's recently released book "The Psychology of Happiness" (ISBN 0-9710116-05) is available at:   http://tinyurl.com/956t8yv