Some quotes/ definitions of love.
Aristotle: Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
Mahatma Gandhi: Where there is love there is life.
Robert Frost: Earth is the right place for love. I don't know where it is likely to go better.
Confucius: Can there be a love which does not make demands on its object?
Plato: Love is a serious mental disease.
Magical Mindful Living: Love is forgiveness, relentless repetitive and pure.
Merrium Webster:
: strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties
maternal love for a child
: attraction based on sexual desire: affection and tenderness felt by lovers
After all these years, they are still very much in love.
: affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests
love for his old schoolmate
: an assurance of affection
give her my love
: warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion
love of the sea
Above are some of the philosophical quotes, and definitions of love I have come across the internet. There are many more. As expected, they are very diverse in nature. As an example, when Mahatma Gandhi speaks love being the life, Plato suggests love is a Serious mental illness! Does that mean the Mahatma Gandhi and everyone else who believes love to be something celebrated and rejoiced are crazy? And that cohort even include Aristotle as he thought love to be something, a force between two souls. No wonder we are so confused with the definition of love when all of these great minds are in different boats when it comes to the definition of love.
We all do have our own definitions of love, and it will vary widely depending on our background and upbringing. Plato himself had his own views about love. As I have discussed in previous article what is platonic is imaginary. If there is a kind of love which is so pure, it is only imaginary. Hence when Plato said love is a mental disease, it seems he is not talking about platonic love but, ordinary love between a man and women.
Love is a bond between two things.
There are some fundamental features about love apparent in several of above quotes. One such is evident in Aristotle's and Confucius's definitions of love. Love is a bond between two "things". It can be in between two animate objects, or an animate object with an inanimate object. There can never be love between two inanimate objects. Hence Love is mental in nature, inherently associated with life, and consciousness. Yet can we label it as a mental illness? Here in Magical mindful living blog, I compared love to forgiveness, repetitive and relentlessly. The reason is you are forgiven each and every time you present yourself in front of "GOD" and he is capable of doing this because of his love for you. Someone to relentlessly forgive you they must have a great deal of love for you. The religion says to forgive even your enemy. At these extremes it seems the line between love and kindness and forgiveness is blurred. I can only imagine, why it is not platonic.
It is clear how Confucius's suspicion on love being a deceitful devil comes from. If love is a mental affair between a consciousness and another object, then it might be a form of greed that we are talking about. A Suttle form of greed that we do not want to label it as it is hence the name "LOVE". Then the question is proving that each and every case there is love there is greed. And proving this is difficult thing to do. But if it is true, then we can assume Plato was correct about it being a mental disease, where we all fool ourselves with, hence a disease.
We can be technical and say there is no greed in places like a mother's love for children, and God's love for humans. Latter we cannot prove or disprove, but in the former, might have a hidden greed. It is true a mother would not love her children expecting anything in return. In fact, she might even sacrifice her comfort and everything physical for her children if such opportunity arises. But, why? Doing so will make her "Feel she is doing the correct thing" and it seems this is hardwired to our brains. As even in animal kingdom more often we see these kinds of sacrifices. But this "feeling good" can be the greed. That can be something a consciousness of a mother gets in return. I am not saying it is something bad, to love children. Just an argument for against nothing in return. It is more apparent when a mother would not make that sacrifice for someone else's child or would be more reluctant in doing so as there is less value or return for this act. Again, this is not to de-value or hurt anyone, just for the pure purpose of understanding truth.
On the other hand, when we love inanimate objects, this is only when we have some use, or a return in general. Either physical or mental. It could be a sport, a view or even writing essays!
A good question to ask is what happens when we call "We love ourselves." Do we expect something in return? Can there be love which is selfless?
A selfless love?
Few months ago, I saw a news about a bus driver. As it happened on a wet rainy day, the bus was travelling downhill slippery windy narrow mountain road. Suddenly the brakes had malfunctioned. The bus had been fully packed with people and children and had kept on speeding and driver had to do something. He had shouted everyone to go back and brace for impact, and in a matter of seconds crashed the bus head on, on the side wall, onto the rocks. Everyone was saved, except the driver, he was crushed of the impact, had died on the spot.
Some one can say this was extreme bravery. I even can say that is extreme kindness, and even love, of the driver, towards his fellow humans. Maybe he did not think anything in return. Maybe not a wink of greed crossed his mind. Maybe he was scared too. Someone can argue no that he thought of the Glory and wanted to come out alive a hero or just doing his job. But I would not say this. There is not enough time to think, and it's crazy to think someone seek some self-propelling, selfish greed in such a situation, even if they had an hour to contemplate about life, yet minutes or seconds. More likely it is deeply driven from depths of heart with love. And the lives he saved are even unrelated! He would only tell what really crossed his mind, if survived.
Final remarks on definitions of love.
As you can see, there are so many different views about love. Even totally opposing each other, and we found out that we cannot ignore them totally. Someone can argue each one is true, and when we fully engage in what they have to say, without judgement, we even would agree with them. Although not so popular, some even would believe there is nothing called love, and that is even not a thing. For some it can be a mental disease. While for others it is a driving force of life. For some it's the greed. Why this happened, and why we are having so many views. If we are talking about the same thing, shouldn't it appear same to everyone?
Part of the problem is as it is a mental object, and there is inherent subjective nature for it. As every consciousness is built up of different experiences and memories. What we see is shaped by what we have learned and faced in the past or our Information sphere. And I see no difference in the subject of love. Likely most of us feel something similar, positive thing when we call "Love" yet we cannot disagree there are and will be outliers. And mind you they are not wrong at all. Its just different, and even true in their own relative world, just like your and my own relative world. And it seems I have no right to judge someone else by their own view of something entirely mental.
The real problem is this can be applied to everything mental. Have you thought about it?
"People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for" - Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
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