Thursday 15th February 2018
Morning Vibes With Dr. Jerry - the First
Hello and welcome to
#MorningVibesWithDrJerryTheFirst-Episode 155
Title: Which Type
Of Love Are You Practicing Now??
On the 14th of February
every year, the World celebrates the Valentine's Day and which is declared a
"Day of Love" and in which partners and couples are expected to
exchange gifts and do other such things as to make the day special.
We’ve all been blinded by
the blanket of emotions that comes from falling down the precipice of
union into love.
While we only have one
word for it, the ancient Greeks in their pursuit of wisdom and
self-understanding, found seven different varieties of love that we all
experience at some point.
When we understand the
different types of love out there, we can become conscious of how deep our
connection is with ourselves and the other people in our lives.
1. “EROS” OR EROTIC
LOVE
The first kind of love
is Eros, which
is named after the Greek god of love and fertility. Eros represents
the idea of sexual passion and desire.
The ancient Greeks
considered Eros to be dangerous and frightening as it involves a “loss of
control” through the primal impulse to procreate.
Eros is a passionate and
intense form of love that arouses romantic and sexual feelings.
Eros is an exulted and
beautifully idealistic love that in the hearts of the spiritually mature can
be used to “recall knowledge of
beauty” (as Socrates put it) through Tantra and spiritual sex.
But when misguided, eros
can be misused, abused and indulged in, leading to impulsive acts
and broken hearts.
Eros is a primal and
powerful fire that burns out quickly. It needs its flame to be fanned through
one of the deeper forms of love below as it is centered around the selfish
aspects of love, that is, personal infatuation and physical pleasure.
Love
Catalyst: The physical body
2.
“PHILIA” OR AFFECTIONATE LOVE
The second type of love
is philia, or
friendship. The ancient Greeks valued philia far above eros because it was
considered a love between equals.
Plato felt that physical
attraction was not a necessary part of love, hence the use of the word platonic to
mean, “without physical attraction.”
Philia is a type of love
that is felt among friends who’ve endured hard times together.
As Aristotle put it,
philia is a “dispassionate virtuous
love” that is free from the intensity of sexual
attraction.
It often involves the
feelings of loyalty among friends, camaraderie among team mates, and the sense
of sacrifice for your pack.
Examples
in Films: Girl with a Pearl
Earring, The Girl Next Door
Love
Catalyst: The mind
3.
“STORGE” OR FAMILIAR LOVE
Although storge closely
resembles philia in
that it is a love without physical attraction, storge is primarily to do with
kinship and familiarity.
Storge is a natural form
of affection that often flows between parents and their children, and children
for their parents.
Storge love can even be
found among childhood friends that is later shared as adults. But although
storge is a powerful form of love, it can also become an obstacle on our
spiritual paths, especially when our family or friends don’t align with or
support our journey.
Love
Catalyst: Causal (Memories)
4. “LUDUS” OR PLAYFUL
LOVE
Although ludus has a
bit of the erotic eros in
it, it is much more than that. The Greeks thought of ludus as a playful form of
love, for example, the affection between young lovers.
Ludus is that feeling we
have when we go through the early stages of falling in love with someone, e.g.
the fluttering heart, flirting, teasing, and feelings of euphoria.
Playfulness in love is an
essential ingredient that is often lost in long-term relationships. Yet
playfulness is one of the secrets to keeping the childlike innocence of your
love alive, interesting and exciting.
Love
Catalyst: Astral (Emotion)
5. “MANIA” OR
OBSESSIVE LOVE
Mania love is a type of
love that leads a partner into a type of madness and obsessiveness. It occurs
when there is an imbalance between eros and ludus.
To those who experience
mania, love itself is a means of rescuing themselves; a reinforcement of their
own value as the sufferer of poor self-esteem.
This person wants to love
and be loved to find a sense of self-value. Because of this, they can become
possessive and jealous lovers, feeling as though they desperately “need” their
partners.
If the other partner fails
to reciprocate with the same kind of mania love,
many issues prevail. This is why mania can often lead to issues such as
codependency.
Love
Catalyst: Survival instinct
6.
“PRAGMA” OR ENDURING LOVE
Pragma is a love that has
aged, matured and developed over time. It is beyond the physical, it has
transcended the casual, and it is a unique harmony that has formed over time.
You can find pragma in
married couples who’ve been together for a long time, or in friendships that
have endured for decades.
Unfortunately pragma is a
type of love that is not easily found.
We spend so much time and
energy trying to find love and so little time in learning how to maintain it.
Unlike the other types of love,
pragma is the result of effort on both sides. It’s the love between people
who’ve learned to make compromises, have demonstrated patience and tolerance to
make the relationship work.
Love
Catalyst: Etheric
(Unconscious)
7.
“PHILAUTIA” OR SELF LOVE
The Greeks understood that
in order to care for others, we must first learn to care for ourselves.
This form of self-love is
not the unhealthy vanity and self-obsession that is focused on personal fame,
gain and fortune as is the case with Narcissism.
Instead, philautia is
self-love in its healthiest form.
It shares the Buddhist
philosophy of “self-compassion” which is the deep understanding that only once
you have the strength to love yourself and feel comfortable in your own skin,
will you be able to provide love to others.
As Aristotle put it, “All friendly feelings for
others are an extension of a man’s feelings for himself.”
You cannot share what you
do not have. If you do not love yourself, you cannot love anyone else either.
The only way to truly be happy is to find that unconditional love for yourself.
Only once you learn to
love and understand yourself, will you be ready to search for the spiritual
freedom of the self.
Love
Catalyst: Soul
8. “AGAPE” OR SELFLESS
LOVE
The highest and most
radical type of love according to the Greeks is agape, or
selfless unconditional love.
This type of love is not
the sentimental outpouring that often passes as love in our society.
It has nothing to do with
the condition-based type of love that our sex-obsessed culture tries to pass as
love.
Agape is what some call
spiritual love. It is an unconditional love, bigger than ourselves, a boundless
compassion, an infinite empathy.
It is what the Buddhists
describe as “mettā” or
“universal loving kindness.”
It is the purest form of
love that is free from desires and expectations, and loves regardless of the
flaws and shortcomings of others.
Agape is the love that is
felt for that which we intuitively know as the divine truth: the love that
accepts, forgives and believes for our greater good.
Love
Catalyst: Spirit
Thanks to the ancient
Greeks, we can learn from all the different types of love in our lives.
Because of these
distinctions, we can learn that in order to truly enjoy eros we must
also search for greater depths through philia and
cultivate ludus, avoiding mania as our
relationships mature.
It’s through these efforts
that we’ll find pragma in
our soulmate or twin flame relationships.
Finally, through
the power of philautia and agape we can
come to understand how amazing our human hearts really are.
Our hearts are the only
things in the universe that grow larger the more they give to others.
Until I come your way
again, this is #MorningVibesWithDrJerryTheFirst
Keep it coming!!!
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