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The Mysteries of Love
Climbing Mount Eros
George A. Parks, Ph.D.
The Mysteries of Love
Climbing Mount Eros
This version of the Mysteries of Love was written as a companion to the seminar.
Copyright © 2013 by George A. Parks, all rights reserved.
To purchase the 16-track mp3 recorded audio of the Mysteries of Love: Climbing Mount Eros
Seminar, please visit our web site at www.themysteriesoflove.com.
George A. Parks, Ph.D.
Email: geoaparks@earthlink.net
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
1
CONTENTS
2
PREFACE
4
Part I: The Nature of Love
CHAPTER ONE
EXPLORING THE JOURNEY OF THE LOVER
A Briefing on the Climbing Mount Eros
5
Part II: The Lesser Mysteries of Love
CHAPTER TWO
ATTACHMENT
The Foundation of Life, the Beginning of Love
16
CHAPTER THREE
ROMANCE
The Agony and the Ecstasy of Falling in Love
26
Part III: The Work of Love
CHAPTER FOUR
DIALOGUE
Toward Self-Knowledge and Authentic Intimacy
33
CHAPTER FIVE
CARING
Open Our Hearts to Compassion
50
Part IV: The Greater Mysteries of Love
CHAPTER SIX
AMOR
Seeing the Soul in the Eyes of the Beloved
57
CHAPTER SEVEN
ECSTATIC LOVE
The Sacred Marriage at the Peak of the Mountain
65
Part V: The Practice of Love
CHAPTER EIGHT
EMBODYING LOVE
Becoming a Vehicle for the Energy of Love
74
BIBLIOGRAPHY
83
PREFACE
This book is a collection of quotes and some original ideas of my own which are used as lecture
outlines and handouts in my Mysteries of Love: Climbing Mount Eros Seminar on the Psychology of
Love.
For, the past 36 years, since beginning my Ph.D. training in clinical psychology at the University of
Washington, I have been developing a theoretical model that traces the possible evolution of love in
the stages of the human life cycle. In this Mysteries of Love book , I will use the Climbing Mount Eros
model of love as a conceptual framework within which to discuss various themes about love
relationships.
Please email me at geoaparks@earthlink.net or visit the web site www.themysteriesoflove.com if
you have any comments or questions or wish more information.
George A. Parks
I am so small, I can barely be seen
How can this great love be inside me?
Your eyes are small,
But they see enormous things.
Rumi
Version by Coleman Barks
CHAPTER ONE
Exploring the Journey of the Lover
A Briefing on Climbing Mount Eros
Love is an infinite Sea whose skies are a bubble of foam.
Know that it is the waves of Love that turn the wheels of Heaven;
Without Love, nothing in the world would have life.
How is an inorganic thing transformed into a plant"
How are plants sacrificed to become rich with spirit?
How is spirit sacrificed to become Breath?
One scent of which was potent enough to make Mary pregnant?
Every single atom is drunk with this Perfection and runs towards It.
And what does this running secretly say but "Glory be to God"
The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi, Andrew Harvey 1994.
This book is based on a seminar entitled Mysteries of love: Climbing Mount Eros and is the
initial offer ing in CompassionWorks LLC's new School for Love. The purpose of this book is to
briefly summarize the ideas presented in the My steries of Love seminar. This book explores the
psychology of love as it evolves throughout the human life cycle. Ultimately, I hope gaining a greater
understanding of the evolution of love will help you to create more authentic, satisfying, and lasting
relationships.
While love can be expressed in a variety of relationships, in this book I will focus primarily
on the development of love between the sexes. Most of what is presented here applies with some
modification to gay and lesbian relationships although these relationships will not be my focus.
The Purpose of the Climbing Mount Eros Model of the Evolution of Love
• To deepen your understanding of the nature of love by exploring a comprehensive
and practical model of the evolution of love in the human life cycle.
• To foster greater awareness of your Love Story and your Love Style .
• To identify and address those obstacles preventing you from becoming more loving.
• To inspire you to risk being a more loving person even though you may have
experienced or are experiencing pain & disappointment in your intimate relationships.
In this book , I will be sharing and elaborating on a Map of Love , but beware "the map is not
the territory." Words, graphs, images, myths, and stories can only poin t toward love, but love itself
will always elude us. These are metaphors of love intended to make the experience of love more
understandable and to improve our ability to communicate our shared experience. The mysteries of
love's essence will always elude us.
The purpose of knowledge about love is enhanced experience of love. A School for Love is
successful only if we become more loving persons, not if we simply know more about love.
The following quote expresses well the dangers of relying too much on teachers and concepts to
guide us in love while it celebrates experience as the best teacher of how to be more loving.
"Put away the book, the description, the tradition, the authority, and take the journey of self-
discovery. Love, and don't be caught in opinions and ideas about what love is or should be.
When you love, everything will come right. Love has its own action. Love, and you will know
the blessings of it. Keep away from the authority who tells you what love is and what love is
not. No authority knows and he who knows cannot tell. Love and there is understanding."
Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living: Third Series, The Theosophical Publishing House, 1967.
Quotes on the nature and importance of love
"Love is the secret of Life." From Egypt, engraved on the Spinx.
"Love, with wisdom, is the secret of life." From Israel in the caves of the
Anchorites near Mount Sinai.tr
"The torch of life is fed by the oil of love." at the doorway of the Great Rock,
near Dier in Petrae, Jordan.
"Eros, the God of love, emerged to create the earth. Before, all was silent, bare, and
motionless. Now all was life, joy, and motion."
An Early Greek Myth, in Emily Hilburn Sell, The Spirit of Loving: Reflections on love and
relationship by writers, psychotherapists, and spiritual teachers, Boston: Shambhala, 1995.
"Some day, after harnessing the winds, the tides, and gravity, we will harness for God the
energies of love. And then, for the second time in the history of the world, humankind will
have discovered fire." Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
"Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them,
for it alone take them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
"Ero s is the drive toward union with what we belong to - union with our own possibilities,
union with significant other persons in our world in relation to whom we discover our own
self-fulfillment, Eros is the yearning in man which leads him to dedicate himself to seeking
arete, the noble and good life."
Rollo May, Love and Will, New York: W. W. Norton, 1969.
"The unity of all existence - you all have it already within yourselves. None was born without
it. However you may deny it, it continually asserts itself. What is human love? It is more or
less an affirmation of that unity: "I am one with thee, my wife, my child, my friend."
Vivekananda, Living at the Source: Yoga Teachings, Boston: Shambhala, 1993.
Our Love Crisis
This synopsis is the textbook for a SCHOOL FOR LOVE. Through education our culture
attempts to insure that we are literate and have vocational skills, but we are not systematically taught
about human relations and love that is necessary if we are to be civilized. So Erich Fromm was right
when he said,
"There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and
expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love."
The State of Our Unions. In contemporary Western Culture we are experiencing a "Love
Crisis" with its dangers and opportunities due to a unique cultural experiment - attempting to blend
love, sex, and marriage.
Dangers. Child abuse and neglect, spousal abuse and murder, affairs, separation and divorce, suicide,
loneliness, conflict, boredom, mutual blame, addiction, gang violence, love loss, anxiety, depression,
and The "Gender War": The Battle of the Sexes over Love.
Opportunities. Security, pleasure, joy, companionship, passion, psychological and spiritual growth,
self-fulfillment, caring, healing, service, family, community, world peace, and earth honoring.
"The source of love is deep in us, and we can help others realize a lot of happiness. One
word, one action, or one thought can reduce another person's suffering and bring him joy. One word
can give comfort and confidence, destroy doubt, help someone avoid a mistake, reconcile a conflict,
or open the door to liberation. Once action can save a person's life or help him take advantage of a
rare opportunity. One thought can do the same, because thoughts always lead to words and actions.
If love is in our heart, every thought, word, and deed can bring about a miracle. Because
understanding is the very foundation of love, words and actions that emerge from our love are always
helpful."
Thich Nhat Hanh Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life, NY: Bantam Books,
1991.
What is and has been the State of Your Unions ?
Are you experiencing a Love Crisis ?
What is Love?
Everyone is an expert on love because we all have a lifetime of experience with its joys and sorrows.
AND
No one is an expert on love because of love's mysterious nature.
When you ask people, "What is Love?" they offer a wide variety of answers about the
meaning of love as they have experienced it and about the many different objects of their love.
Confusion about love with all these different meanings and objects may cause us frustration and
bewilderment making love a source of suffering rather joy and satisfaction.
Ultimately, Love is a mystery beyond human comprehension. We must rely on metaphor to
bring the unfathomable within our conceptual grasp. Robert C. Solomon in his article, The Love Lost
in Clichés, Psychology Today, October, 1981, says that "Whatever figure of speech lovers choose,
they tend to express their love accordingly."
He describes several metaphors of love such as: Love as Fair Exchange, Love as Work, Love
as a Dramatic Play, Love as a Bland Thing, Love as an Escape from Loneliness, Love as Finding
Your Other Half, Love as a Contract, Love as an Instinct, and Love as a Wound from Cupid's Arrow.
Love is difficult to define
"There is hardly any word which is more ambiguous and confusing that the word, "love." It
is used to denote almost every feeling short of hate and disgust. It comprises everything from the love
for ice cream to the love for a symphony, from mild sympathy to the most intense feeling of closeness.
People feel they love if they have "fallen for" somebody. They call their dependence love, and their
possessiveness too. They believe, in fact, that nothing is easier than to love, that the difficulty lies in
finding the right object, and that their failure to find happiness is due to their bad luck in not finding
the right partner. But contrary to all this confused and wishful thinking, love is a very specific
feeling; and while every human being has a capacity for love, its realization is one the most difficult
achievements." Erich Fromm, Man for himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics, 1947.
To define love is very difficult even for philosophers. Robert Hazo of the American
Institute for Philosophical Research reports that the idea of love . . .
" proved to be the most difficult . . . so far subjected to dialectical analysis. . . . One measure of its
difficulty is the wide variety of meanings of the term as it is used in the literature on the subject . . .
another is the thinness of the thread of common meanings that runs through all the uses of the term."
Robert G. Hazo, The Idea of Love , 1967.
Love is difficult to study
Humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow's was very surprised at the lack of research by
psychologists on love. In 1969, Maslow summed up the situation as he viewed it as follows,
"It is amazing how little the empirical sciences have to offer on the subject of love.
Particularly strange is the silence of psychologists, for one might think this to be their particular
obligation ... (However), I must confess that I understand this better now that I have undertaken the
task myself."
Abraham Maslow Toward a Psychology of Being, 1969.
William Proxmire's "Golden Fleece Award" was given annually by the Wisconsin Senator to
the research grant he felt was the biggest waste of federal funds. One year, he awarded it for the
scientific study of love. Proxmire called research by Ellen Berschied and Elaine Walster, "The
federal version of the Love Machine" He went on to say in his press release,
"My choice for the biggest waste of the taxpayer's money . . . has to be the National Science
Foundation squandering $84.000 to try to find out why people fall in love . . . I object to this because
no one can argue . . . that falling in love is a science, not only because I'm sure that.. they wouldn't
get an answer that anyone would be believe. I'm against it because I don't want an answer.
I believe that 200 million other Americans want to leave some things a mystery and right at
the top of the things we don't want to know is . . . why a man falls in love with a woman and vice
versa.. so national science foundation - get out of the love racket. Leave that to Elizabeth Barrett
Browning and Irving Berlin. Here, if anywhere, Alexander Pope was right when he observed,
"If ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."
Love is Difficult to Experience
"We must not forget when we love, that we are beginners, bunglers of life, apprentices in
love, and that we must learn to love, . . . To take love seriously and . . . to learn it like a task, . . . So
whoever loves must try to act as if he had a great work: he must be much alone and go into himself
and collect himself and hold fast to himself . . ."
"To love is good, too; love being difficult. For one human being to love another; that is
perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the last test and proof,
the work for which all other work is merely preparation."
Rainer Maria Rilke Letters to a Young Poet translated by Stephen Mitchell.
There may be a subtle, but pervasive social repression of love as clinical psychologist Joe
Adams says in his essay, "The Hidden Taboo on Love." In this essay Adams says a hidden taboo on
cooperation and loving may exist in American culture which is subtle and tends to destroy the very
conditions necessary for love by a prohibition on emotional expressiveness, on sexuality, on
cooperation, on racial, class, and gender equality, and on attacking and discussing the taboo.
Conceptual confusion also makes love difficult to experience because we make false
attributions about the meaning of relationships to be consistent with our misconceptions about love.
These false attributions distort our perceptions of those we love and of ourselves.
Finally, childhood wounds limit our ability to love due the pain of past abuse and neglect
which distort our present relationships. We will explore the influence of childhood love on adult
relationships in detail in the next chapter when we discuss the form of love called attachment.
Our "Love Stories"
Disappointed love is our collective wound. Our experiences of love or our love relationship
history are unique and the narrative of these experiences forms our personal love story . Yet we are
human beings and a general pattern or map of love can capture the communality of our experiences.
The deeper we go into the personal, the more universal it seems to be.
Our "Love Styles"
As we have more experience in love in our families and beyond, we develop a tendency to
prefer certain ways of loving and being loved over other ways of loving and being loved. A Canadian
sociologist named John Alan Lee has created a model of love based on interviews with hundreds of
people in which he suggests that there are six main styles of love. His model of the styles of loving
was inspiring to me during the early development of the Mount Eros model of the evolution of love.
(See page 63 in chapter eight of this book for a brief overview of Lee's six love styles.)
One Man's Quest to Understand and Experience Love
"The only way of full knowledge lies in the act of love: this act transcends thought, it
transcends words. It is the daring plunge into the experience of union. However, knowledge in
thought, this is psychological knowledge, is a necessary condition for full knowledge of the act of
love. I have to know the other person and myself objectively, in order to be able to see his (or her)
reality, or rather, to overcome the illusions, the irrationally distorted picture I have of him (or her).
Only if I know a human being objectively, can I know him (or her) in his (or her) ultimate essence, in
the act of love."
Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving, Harper, 1956.
Method of Inquiry
In 1976, when I began my study of love, very little research on love was being conducted in
psychology or in other social sciences. Criticisms like those of Senator Proxmire and a general bias in
psychology and social science toward conducting research on traditional topics using the
experimental method made research on love extremely difficult to carry out.
However, a great wave of academic and popular psychological research and writing was just
beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I am pleased to say that in the past twenty years
numerous studies on love have been conducted in social and clinical psychology, sociology, and in a
new field called, evolutionary psychology. In addition, the works of psychotherapists, spiritual
teachers, and ecstatic poets about love have become more and more available.
I started my conceptual analysis of love by creating a provisional definition of love as an
attitude with characteristic thoughts, feelings, and actions. I conducted my initial research by
surveying how the attitude of love was described by writers in different theoretical orientations in
psychology and in the disciplines of sociology, philosophy, anthropology, and ethology. I also
consulted various texts in the many spiritual traditions of the world. The table below depicts the
systematic Matrix of Inquiry I used to organize my research.
A Matrix of Inquiry for the Conceptual Analysis of Love
ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE or
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE in
PSYCHOLOGY
VALUE
Assigned to
Different
Forms of Love
Behavioral / Social Psychology
Humanistic / Existential Psychology
Disagreement and Value Judgments on the Nature of Love
I compiled a great many definitions and description of love in my research guided by the
matrix of inquiry. There were fundamental differences in how love was defined between the various
disciplines and within the many theoretical orientations in psychology. In addition, most researchers,
theorists, or writers had strong value judgments about the nature of love. Most writers described a
form of love they thought was good or healthy and a form of love they thought was bad or
pathological. Some writers even thought love was all bad. For example, an article entitled, This thing
called love is pathological, contended there is no evidence that love benefits anyone. Some writers,
naively, thought love was all good in their New Age idealism with its denial of pain and sorrow.
I wondered, could they all be right, at least relatively right? Was as a more comprehensive
approach and definition of love possible? I was searching for a general definition of love capable of
broadening the thread of common meaning in the variety of ways the term is used. I was also looking
for a way to assimilate and organize what I was learning about love in order to begin applying my
knowledge about relationships in a practical way to my own life and the lives of others.
Surveying the literature on love revealed a wide variety of definitions and descriptions of the
term and strong value judgments on the different forms of love. My research also helped me
recognize the existence of a hierarchy of forms of love organized by the evolution of consciousness in
the stages of the human life cycle. At each stage of our lives, a new, more evolved form of love is
possible. The Mount Eros model traces the potential evolution of love energy in a human life.
The Evolution of Love
Based on my research and experience, I have come to define love as follows:
"Love is an energy that creates unity from diversity by forming relationships that
vary in quality depending on the level of consciousness of the participants."
I began to realize that the definitions of love I was studying were each focusing on a different
stage in the evolution of love energy. Each theoretical perspective in psychology and each of the other
disciplines was defining, describing, and analyzing love at a different level of consciousness and
often insisting that only that level of consciousness and that form of love were real or were healthy. I
resonate more with the idea that love is a universal energy, a force of nature that exists at all levels of
consciousness where beings are capable of union as is described in the following passage:
"Love is not a late arrival, but its roots began to grow with the first cells that budded on
this earth. So do they reach the lowest foundations of life.
Do they not reach even back of life to the inorganic world? The same principle of
cooperation is found is everything there. In every rock and crystal of the mountains and
drop of sea, molecules have united in systems; and each molecule in turn is called a
marriage of atoms. . . .(and in the vastness of space) The very gravitation which
unites the solar system is another of these mutual attractions which we have been tracing.
So does this attraction and union, in one phase or another, pervade the universe - a
cosmic principle.
I fancy there may yet come some poet-philosopher who will commence his ethical study,
not with Scripture, not even with human souls or lowest cells or solar systems, but, back of
them all, with the first movement of matter toward union. He will read in the lines of the
gathering nebula a heavenly scripture already revealing the law of love . . . He will simply
trace this cosmic principle of union through it advancing phases in creation."
Henry M. Simmons, The Cosmic Roots of Love, World Peace Foundation Pamphlet Series, April, 1912.
The energy of love can be compared with the energy of light. When light shines through a
prism, we can see the colors of the visible spectrum. When love energy shines through the prism of
human consciousness, we can see the spectrum of love. If we think of the prism as a mountain, we
can explore the spectrum of love in a process I have come to call Climbing Mount Eros.
Climbing Mount EROS: A Legend for the Pyramid Map of Love
A General Definition of Love: Lo ve is an energy that creates unity from diversity by forming relationships that vary in quality depending on
the level of consciousness of the participants.
"Love is manifest at all levels of being where creatures are capable of union, from mineral and vegetable beings to highly spiritual persons.
Spiritual love unites minds or spirits. Corporeal love unites things or bodies. Human persons partake of both . . . Human love is inseparably
'Agape' and 'E ros', self-gift and other-desire. Since it is a matter of form, rather that content, of structure rather subject, love may seen at all
levels of being and existence. It is, in this sense, a universal phenomena . . ." George Tavard, A Way of Love, 1987.
The Spectrum of Love: Many different forms of love relationship are possible. The evolution of love energy in the manifest universe may be
organized to create a spectrum of love much like the spectrum of light or of visible colors. At each stage of the human life cycle or of an
ongoing love relationship, a new, more inclusive and subtle form of love is possible . The evolution of love in the human life cycle forms a
hierarchy based on increasing consciousness with the higher forms of love being relatively more complex, subtle, and expansive and with the
lower forms of love being relatively more simple, gross, and contracted.
The lower forms of love contain within them the seed of potential for all the higher forms, and the higher forms of love transcend or
go beyond the lower forms, yet they include or embrace the lower forms in a way that transforms their expression. The entire sequence of the
evolution of love is one of increasing wholeness and depth until only the radiance of love itself remains. The essence of love energy is not
completely captured by any of the stages of the evolution of love. Ultimately the love energy that is sequentially expressed by the hierarchy is
beyond all manifestation; it transcends and includes all the levels and stages, it permeates all beings, it is always present as the fundamental
force of unity in the cosmos.
Polarity and the Dialectics of Love: Love, as unifying energy, can be manifest only as compared to separation or fragmentation. Union versus
separation is the fundamental polarity of the manifestation of love energy. At each stage of the evolution of love, a new form of this
fundamental polarity arises creating a paradox for the lover to resolve. The creative tension between polarities such as fear versus security,
pleasure versus pain, autonomy versus intimacy provides an impetus for the growth of consciousness from one stage of love to the next.
The evolution of love at each stage involves three processes (Wilber, A Brief History of Everything, 1996). Initially we are identified with the
type of love at a given stage with its characteristic images of self and other, and then we gradually experience a differentiation creating the
polarity or paradox of that stage. Sometimes painful ordeals and personal experimentation with the conflict that the polarity occasions
characterize this second phase. Finally, the stage of love is assimilated with at least a partial integration of the polarity or paradox, creating the
impetus for evolution to the next stage or level where it all begins again.
Expanding Your Capacity to Love: On e's ability to send and received love energy can be consciously expanded by your efforts to wrestle
with and integrate the polarities or paradoxes of love at each stage of the hierarchy. We can grow in consciousness through the ordeals and
initiations that love relationships always provide. The stages in the evolution of love are cumulative in their effects on our capacity to love.
Once a stage is energized, its influence persists for the rest of our lives. We can also regress or go back to a prior stage to fill some gap in our
development and we can temporarily experience glimpses of the highest stages of love even if we have not reached a level of development
where that stage of love is fully integrated.
The Metaphor of the Journey and the Map: It is our nature as human beings to create inner representations, movies, or maps of our
experiences in life and with love. Early love experiences are forged into love maps that serve as templates or schema to interpret later love
relationships. These love maps concern people not places, relations not distance, they are dynamic and multi-dimensional rather than static and
linear, and yet, like road maps, we use these relational maps in our lifelong journey of loving.
Unfortunately, these emotionally and socially significant maps are often implicit, and even unconscious. Confusion and suffering are caused
when unrecognized distortions in our love maps cloud our experience or when we mistake our maps for the territory and act as if our
interpretations of love are the ultimate reality. Our love life can be seen as a journey toward greater wholeness, depth, and joy. Our task is to
become aware of the love maps we are using to chart our course and to correct and expand those maps as we evolve in love. An expanded love
map will provide us with the guidance we need to experience greater love both toward ourselves and toward others in our lives with whom we
have significant relationships.
The Evolution of Love as depicted in the Pyramid Map: The Mount Eros model of love can be represented as a three level pyramid with
two stages within each level. The stages of love are related to the evolution of consciousness that is usually correlated with the human life
cycle. Beyond the summit of Mount Eros is the seventh stage of the evolution of love that is the radiance of love beyond name and form; the
energy of love itself, the source and ground for all manifest and experienced forms of love.
CLIMBING MOUNT EROS : SEVEN STAGES OF LOVE
Prepersonal Level of Loving: The Development and Conditioning of Love
Stage One: Attachment Childhood Prototype : Mother and child
Attachment is an emotional bond with a person, animal, object, idea, etc. that is experienced as necessary for our survival, security, and for the
satisfaction of our physical, emotional, and psychological needs. Attachments consists of strong emotions, attachment behaviors, and an inner
representation of the attachment relationship.
Polarity: Fear versus Security . When attachment figures are available and responsive, we feel secure and loved. Separation and loss occasion
anxiety, anger, depression, and an increased susceptibility to disease.
Stage Two: Romance Adolescence Prototype: Young Couple
Romance is intense attachment blended with sexual and emotional passion for union with and fulfillment through the beloved who is viewed as
one's true love or other half. Romance in our culture is a merger of the biological mating imperative and a degenerate version of the ideology
of Courtly Love as expressed in the 12th century by the troubadours. Initial idealization, bliss, and fulfillment, usually followed by obstacles,
disappointment, boredom, addiction, or hostility characterize Romance.
Polarity: Pleasure versus Pain. Romantic love thrives on obstacles that increase passion and pleasure, but romance may also be painful with
jealousy, unrequited love, loss of passion, or love addiction.
Personal Level of Loving: The Growth and De-Conditioning of Love
Stage Three: Dialogue Adulthood Prototype: Ad ult Couple
Dialogue is "the expression of intimacy between two human beings under the condition of the preservation of each other's integrity . . . Love
unites us with others, yet permits us to be ourselves . . . In (dialogical) love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two
..." (Fromm, The Art of Loving, 1956). Dialogue requires both the inner work of creating greater self-knowledge and the outer work of learning
the art and science of intimate communication to express ourselves and to understand our partner.
Polarity: Autonomy versus Intimacy. Dialogue requires an alternation of self-focus and individuation with other -focus and intimacy. This
polarity revolves around power used either constructively or destructively.
Stage Four: Caring Mature Adulthood Prototype: Healing Relationships
Caring is the expression of compassion in relationship to ourselves and to others. In caring, the pain and suffering of love is embraced with an
open heart. "Being-with characterizes the process of caring ... in caring for another person we can be said to be with him or her in his or her
world in contrast to knowing from outside." (Mayerhoff, On Caring, 1971). "As we learn to be 'be there' for ourselves - we likewise become
more emotionally available to 'be there' for others." (Amodeo, Being Intimate, 1986.)
Polarity: self versus other . The challenge of caring is whether our love for others and ourselves is conditional , avoiding the pain of love,
or unconditional, embracing love's suffering, sorrow, and uncertainty.
Transpersonal Level of Loving: The Realization of Unconditional Love
Stage Five: Amo r Self- actualized Adulthood Prototype: Lover and Beloved
Amor is seeing the Soul in the eyes of the Beloved is the form of love celebrated by the Troubadours. Amor or "Being-love is unselfish,
understanding love for the being or intrinsic nature of the other, making it possible to perceive and to enjoy the other as end in himself or
herself, the truest, most penetrating perception of the other is made possible by Being-love; it creates the partner, it permits him or her to
unfold, to open up, to be naked, all of which permit him or her to grow." (Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being, 1969).
Polarity: self versus Being . To experience Amor or Being-lo ve requires a radical shift in our consciousness from identifying with our ego to
identifying with essence or Being within ourselves and in the Beloved.
Stage Six: Ecstatic Love Self- transcendent Adulthood Prototype: Sacred Marriage
Ecstatic love is union with the Divine conceived of as God or a Goddess, a Higher Power, or the basic ground of existence. Ecstatic Love "may
take the form of holy chastity whose nuptials will only be celebrated in divinis . The sacred marriage, consummated in the heart, adumbrates the
deepest of all mysteries. For this means both our death and beatific resurrection. The word to 'marry' also means to die, just as in Greek (the
word for marriage) is to be perfected, to be married, or to die." ( Coomaraswamy, Hinduism & Buddhism).
Polarity: Being versus Nonbeing. Ecstatic love brings us the final paradox, life and death. Ecstatic love melts the self into the Divine Presence
in a marriage of masculine & feminine, human & Divine, sacred & profane.
Stage Seven: The Radiance of Love Formless Love Energy transcending subject and object. IT is the source of all manifest and
experienced forms of love. The Radiance of Love is beyond words, beyond description, and beyond qualification. It is a "brilliance including
and sustaining us." Pa ul Reps
THE RADIANCE OF LOVE
TRANSPERSONAL LEVEL Stage 7
Unity -Transformation
ECSTATIC Orientation
LOVE
I - THOU Stage 6 Being - Love
AMOR
Stage 5
PERSONAL LEVEL
CARING Growth-Discovery
Stage 4 Orientation
I - YOU
Becoming - Love
DIALOGUE
Stage 3
ROMANCE
PREPERSONAL
LEVEL Control-Security
Orientation
Stage 2
I - IT Need -
ATTACHMENT Love
Stage 1
The Pyramid Map of Love
Seven Stages in the Evolution of Love
CHAPTER TWO
Attachment
The Foundation of Life, The Beginning of Love
"The biological basis of love consists in the organism's drive to satisfy
its basic needs in a manner which causes it to feel secure. Love is
security - but security alone is not love . . . needs must be satisfied in a
particular manner which is emotionally as well as physically satisfying.
Every organism's basic need is security . . . and the only way in which
this need can be satisfied is by love."
Ashley Montagu, The Direction of Human Development, 1970.
Attachment Described
The Definition and Components of Attachment
Attachment is an emotional bond to a person, animal, object, or concept that one feels is
necessary for our survival, security, and emotional well being as well as for the satisfaction of our
physical, emotional, and psychological needs. As attachment theorist, John Bowlby, says,
"Evidence is accumulating that human beings of all ages are happiest and able to deploy their talents to
the best advantage when they are confident that ... there are one or more trusted persons who will come
to their aid should difficulties arise. The person trusted, also known as an attachment figure, can be
considered as providing his (or her) companion with a secure base from which to operate. The
requirement of a secure base, is by no means confined to children, though, because of its urgency during
the early years, it is during those years that it is most evident ... there are good reasons for believing,
however, that the requirement applies also to adolescents and to mature adults as well. ... for reasons
stemming from the values of Western Culture, the requirement of adults for a secure base tends often to
be overlooked, or even denigrated."
John Bowlby, The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds, 1979.
Attachment is also a relationship- seeking pattern of behaviors whose goals is to attain or
maintain the proximity of an attachment figure and good relations with that person. Like the emotional
bond of attachment, attachment behaviors are most evident in childhood, and yet they persist in both form
and function throughout life as the observation of intimacy between lovers attests. Attachment behaviors
include, but are not limited to: looking, listening, babbling, crying, clinging, talking, eye contact, smiling,
hugging, kissing, caressing, following, and so forth.
Finally, attachment in human beings also consists of inner representations, "working models" or
love maps which include three components: images of our self, images of significant others as attachment
figures, and the quality of the relationship between significant others and ourselves.
In his book, Separation , John Bowlby says,
"Each individual builds working models (maps) of the world and of himself (or herself) in it, with
the aid of which he or she perceives events, forecasts the future, and constructs plans. In the working
model of the world anyone builds, a key feature is his (or her) notion of who his (or her) attachment
figures are, where they may be found, and how they may be expected to respond. Similarly, in the working
model of the self that anyone builds, a key feature is his or her notion of how acceptable or unaccept able
he (or she) is in the eyes of attachment figures. On these complementary models are based a person's
forecasts of how accessible and responsive his attachment figures are likely to be ..."
Some Characteristics of Attachment
The Prototype of attachment is the Mother - child relationship. Attachment occurs initially during
infancy and childhood . For human beings, as well as other mammals and primates, the bond with mother
or a mother surrogate is the foundation of life and the beginning of love. Without adequate attachment,
infant humans and mammals die or develop only in the most distorted ways.
Attachment occurs in the Jungle of Survival and Death . The polarity of attachment is fear versus
security. When attachment figures are available and responsive to our needs; we feel safe, secure, and
loved. When attachment figures are unavailable and/or unresponsive; we feel fearful, insecure, angry, or
anxious. If separation from attachment figures is prolonged or we experience the loss of the attachment
figure through breakups, divorce, or death; we feel intense separation-anxiety, depression, anger, guilt, or
grief.
Attachments are first and foremost, emotionally significant relationships. In the making and
breaking of affectional bonds, human beings and other animals experience a variety of very intense
emotions. In an article reviewing attachment theory, John Bowlby describes the emotional significance of
attachments as follows:
"Affectional bonds and subjective states of strong emotion tend to go together as every novelist
and playwright knows. Thus many of the most intensive of all emotional states arise during the formation,
the maintenance, and the disruption and renewal of affectional bonds which for that reason are
sometimes called emotional bonds. In terms of subjective experience, the formation of a bond is described
as falling in love, maintaining a bond as loving someone, and losing a partner as grieving over someone.
Similarly, the threat of loss arouses anxiety and actual loss causes sorrow, while both situations are likely
to arouse anger. Finally, the unchallenged maintenance of a bond is experienced as a source of security
and the renewal of a bond as a source of joy."
The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds, British Journal of Psychiatry , 1977.
Attachment in Adulthood
Attachments are specific and always relatively limited in number . Starting with our attachment to
our mothers, our orbit of attachments expands to include our fathers and the rest of our family, our close
friends, lovers, pets, favorite places, toys, objects of all kinds, ideas, etc. Attachment relationships with
people outside of the family are chosen by the individual while familial attachments are a given and
usually persist regardless of their quality.
Attachments once formed tend to persist . In fact, at least in their inner representation, attachments
can last for a lifetime regardless of the amount of contact. Even after we leave the family, separate from
childhood or school friends, or break up a love relationship, the inner representation of those relationships
continues to exist and to influence our life. Strong emotions associated with former attachment figures
also tend to persist because they become conditioned emotional responses .
As was stated earlier, attachment continues to be important throughout our lives. The need for
love is a normal and healthy human attribute. Therefore, healthy attachment must be distinguished from
dependency. Emotional bonds to others in adulthood are similar in many ways to our childhood
attachments, and yet not necessarily childish. Healthy adults are more self-reliant and independent than
children partly as a consequence of the quality of their attachments to parents and others in childhood. A
history of "good-enough" attac hment in childhood far from fostering dependency in adult life tends to
increase one's self-reliance and one's ability to contribute to others in productive ways throughout life.
Adults are able to tolerate separation and loss of attachment better than children, but may still be
significantly influenced by the continuity and quality of important affectional bonds. Adult attachments
may also include a sexual component that adds enormous complexity and intensity to our love
relationships and their potential for the pleasure, joy, frustration, anger, jealousy, and sorrow.
The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant
The fundamental components of our love maps or representational models of attachment consist
of images of the self, images of the other, and images of the relationship between the two. However, at
birth the human infant has no self and cannot distinguish itself from the other people. The achievement of
identity or self-consciousness occurs if there is "good- enough" attachment in a gradual process of
separation-individuation during the first three years and beyond into adolescence.
Margaret S. Mahler and her colleagues have proposed a model of three stages in the process of
separation-individuation that ultimately leads to our adult ability to distinguish self from other, to
integrate positive and negative emotions about ourselves and others, and to have truly interpersonal
relationships. This diagram of the separation-individuation process is to be read from bottom to top:
Relationship (+ -)
Whole self other Whole
self image + - + - other image
(3 - 18 years)
D. Consolidation + + + self and other
of Identity - - - differentiating.
(2 - 3 years) Negative emotions
more integrated.
C. Rapprochement + + + self and other more distinct
(14 to 24 months) - - - Negative emotions
beginning to integrate.
B. Practicing self and other
(10 to 14 months) - + + + - continue to differentiate.
Negative emotions
externalized.
A. Differentiation self and other
(6 to 9 months) - + + + - beginning to differentiate
. Negative emotions
externalized.
III. Separation-Individuation Process
self and other merged.
II. Symbiotic Phase: (3 to 6 months) - + - Negative emotions
externalized.
I. Autistic Phase: (1 to 3 months) SELF OTHER Fusion - no self, no other.
IMAGES IMAGES No differentiation of
of emotions.
Undifferentiated Matrix
This diagram above is to be read from the bottom to the top to follow the arc of development.
The minus signs ( - ) denote negative emotions and plus signs denote ( + ) positive emotions .
Attachment is the context that makes the separation -individuation process possible.
Understanding the gradual process of development that results in our ability to be self-conscious helps us
to see that attachment is the midwife of our ability to form a distinct identity . However, our self-image
always was and always will be defined in relation to an 'other' until we reach the transpersonal level of
love where self and other marry in a union that transcends self-consciousness. This self- transcendent state
of consciousness must be distinguished from the prepersonal fusion that precedes self-consciousness. The
achievement of self-consciousness sets the stage for our ability to have the personal, adult relationships
that occur in the stages of Dialogue and Caring .
How Childhood Attachments Influence Our Adult Capacity to Love
The Wounded Lover as a Prisoner of Childhood
Disappointed love is our collective wound. Since we all had fallible human being for parents, we
were in some ways wounded by those we counted on for care and guidance. Some people were severely
neglected, others may have been severely abused, and still others may have received 'good -enough'
parenting with some occasions of separation, abuse, or neglect. Those with the most inadequate parenting
during childhood are likely to remain prisoners in the present of a painful past they cannot seem to
escape.
As Alice Miller has pointed out in her series of books on children and child rearing, many
children who feel unloved create a false self based on their perceptions of what their parents wanted them
to be, what pioneering psychotherapist, Carl Rogers called conditions of worth. As children we need
attachment so badly, we are willing to distort our experience and to manage the impressions we make on
our parents and others in order to receive love. Over time, we may forget who we are and the false self
becomes our identity. The false self usually represses both the positive and negative traits they we
perceived were unacceptable to our parents or guardians.
Our true nature is never entirely loss or forgotten. The false self carries anxiety and fear about not
being loved and grief for the loss of a happy and secure childhood. These childhood wounds create the
desire for a true love who will accept us for who we are and help us to heal our painful past. This type of
love is usually called romance where we fall in love with an idealized other who we imagine will accept
and love us for who we really are without conditions or limits.
The Love Map and Conditioned Emotional Responses as Links
Between Childhood Attachments and Our Adult Capacity to Love
The quality of adult attachments is strongly influenced by our family of origin through our
relationship with our parents, siblings, and other childhood attachment figures. Our inner representations
of attachment formed in childhood and the conditioned emotional responses associated with those images
provide the links between childhood and adult relationships. Because attachments are always associated
with strong feelings, our working models of ourselves and significant others evoke strong emotional
responses when situations in adult life trigger memories of past joy and satisfaction or, often repressed,
memories of past pain and disappointment with childhood attachment figures. In his book, Separation ,
Bowlby makes this link explicit by saying that ... "whatever models of attachment figures and of the self
an individual builds during his childhood and adolescence tend to persist relatively unchanged into and
throughout adult life."
Freud called this tendency to unconsciously act out old issues from childhood in our adult
relationships, the repetition compulsion. Freud believed that what we refuse to remember and work
through emotionally, we are destine to repeat. Many of us have had the experience of feeling the same
dissatisfactions, pain, and frustration again and again in a series of disappointing relationships.
Unfortunately, we tend to blame our partners rather than face the demons from within or we blame
ourselves and persist in a distorted self-image of worthlessness and feeling unloved and unlovable.
Our love maps or working models of attachment continue to develop from infancy through
childhood and adolescence and into adult life. As adults, we tend to believe that we are acting in love
relationships in a mature and reasonable manner, and yet we may be largely unaware of the influence of
earlier, less conscious assumptions about our lovers, ourselves, and the relationship between us.
John Bowlby describes the dynamics of how multiple working models of attachment might
influence adult love relationships in the following passage from his book, Separation , p.205.
"Whereas common sense might suggest that a person would operate with only single models of
each of his (or her) attachment figures and of himself (or herself) ... it is not uncommon for an individual
to operate, simultaneously, with two (or more) working models of his (or her) attachment figures and two
(or more) working models of himself (or herself )... the deeper the relationship and the stronger the
emotions aroused, the more likely are earlier and less conscious models to become dominant. (In
distressed relationships) ... it is common to find that the model that has the greatest influence ... (on a
person's) feelings and behavior is one developed during early years and constructed on fairly primitive
lines..."
For most of us, our childhood attachments included some wounding and pain . The existence of
multiple models of attachment helps us to understand how we can have both intense fears about love and
the hope that someday, someone will love us for who we really are and heal the pain of our past
disappoints with love. Mary Ainsworth, a colleague of John Bowlby, has conducted groundbreaking
research on styles of parenting and forms of childhood attachment. The table below presents some
possible relationships between childhood attachments and adult obstacles to love.
Possible Relationships Between the Quality of Childhood Attachments
and Our Adult Capacity to Love
SECURE or INSECURE
Ambivalent
MODERATE
Some of Great Intensity
POOR
Neglecting or Rejecting
INSECURE
Ambivalent or Avoidant
MANY
Some of Great Intensity
POOR
Controlling or Intrusive
INSECURE
Avoidant or Rebellious
MANY
Some of Great Intensity
VERY POOR
Physical, Sexual,
Emotional Abuse or
Loss of Parent(s)
INSECURE
Disorganized or Chaotic
MANY
Most of Great Intensity
In the 1970s, Ainsworth and others estimated that in American middle class families:
• 60-65% of children are Securely Attached • 20-25% of children are Avoidant
• 10-15% of children are Ambivalent • 5-10% of children are Disorganized
Applying Your Knowledge of Attachment
Telling Your Life Story, Understanding Your Love Story
THE GENOGRAM . CREATING A MAP OF YOUR FAMILY OF ORIGIN AND YOUR CHOSEN FAMILY.
PAST FAMILY OF ORIGIN
MATERNAL G. P. PATERNAL G. P. (G.P. = Grandparents)
AUNTS MOM DAD AUNTS
UNCLES older UNCLES
SIBLINGS
YOU
younger
SIBLINGS
CHOSEN FAMILY
FRIENDS LOVERS
FRIENDS, LOVERS,
HUSBAND OR WIVES
FROM CHILDHOOD
TO THE PRESENT
FUTURE
The Life Line of Significant Events both painful / traumatic and joyful / fulfilling.
Write the event including what, who, where, how, consequences above each mark.
Write your age and the year below each mark.
BIRTH PRESENT
The Lens Model is a graphic way of depicting the successive creation of working models of
attachment and their influence on our adult love relationships as multiple, sometimes contradictory, inner
representations of our intimate relationships. Each working model consists of a self-image, an image of
the other, and an image of the relationship between the self and the other.
Contemporary Multiple Working
Working Models at various stages of development Models of Attachment
BIRTH LIFE LINE OF SIGNIFICANT EVENTS PRESENT
By Way of Pain: Conscious Descent Into Our Wounds
The Incident. Chose a situation in the recent past during which you experienced pain and
disappointment in relation to someone you love. Describe to yourself what happened, where it happened,
with whom, and why you think you were treated that way.
Physical Sensations and Emotions. What sensations did you notice in your body during and after
the incident? What emotions did you feel during and after the incident?
Inner Dialogue and the Movies of the Mind. What were you telling yourself about the incident
both during and after it happened? What was your image of yourself, the other person involved, and the
relationship between you? What movie was playing in your mind? What was its predominant conflict and
outcome? What were you afraid would or won't happen?
Tapes from the Past. When and with whom have you felt this way before? Try to link this current
experience of disappointment and pain to past experiences of inadequate love. It may help to try not
thinking about it or making a conscious effort to remember, but instead using your intuition and
imagination to bring the past alive in your psyche.
Love Maps. What interpretation did you make about yourself, the other person, and the
relationship between you? How could this situation and your image or yourself and the other person be
reinterpreted or reframed in the light of past distortions about yourself and others?
Making Peace with Our Parents
Remember that the wounds you received from your parents were likely an inter-generational
transmission of wounds they received as children from their parents. Walk a mile in their shoes.
We must begin to evolve beyond the love map in which we are a wounded child and our partners
and our parents today are seen as current versions of our past bad mother or bad father.
Begin to recognize the bad parent as a wounded parent and ourselves a mature people who were
wounded as children, who have wounded inner children, but who are now adults.
CHAPTER THREE
Romance
The Agony and the Ecstasy of Falling in Love
" ... As we stand at this moment in history, we are in a state of crisis with regard
to romantic love, not grasping its meaning, still in the process of understanding
its philosophical presuppositions and its psychological requirements.
... One of the values of passionate love is that it allows us to exercise our
capacity to love; it provides a channel for our energy; it is a source of
inspiration, a blessing on existence, a confirmation of the value of life."
Nathaniel Branden The Psychology of Romantic Love , 1981.
"Love is the power within us that affirms and values another human being as he
or she is. Human love affirms that person who is actually there, rather than the
ideal we would like him or her to be or the projection that flows from our mind.
... Love causes us to value that person as a total individual self, and this means
we accept the negative side as well as the positive. ... When one truly loves the
human being rather that the projection ... one is concerned with the his or her
needs and well being, not fixated on one's own wants and whims ... Real love
begins only when one person comes to know another for who he or she really is
as a human being and begins to like and care for that human being."
Robert Johnson WE: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love, 1983.
Romance Described
The Definition and Components of Romance
Romance is intense attachment blended with sexual and emotional passion for union with and
fulfillment through the beloved who is viewed as one's true love or other half.
The prototype for romance is the couple in love or the young lovers . Romantic stories in the
European Tradition such as Tristran and Iseult, Romeo and Juliet, and Lancelot and Guinevere have
captured our imaginations for centuries. Novels, movies, and popular songs continue to express the agony
and the ecstasy of falling and being in love.
The polarity or paradox o f romantic love is the pleasure of union versus the pain of separation .
In romance, we constellate the enchanted forest where we would live eternally "in love " away from the
mundane world. Unfortunately, the ecstasy of romance always includes agony as well. We cannot live
under the spell of the love potion with its illusions and projections forever; we awaken, and this
awakening is often into disappointment, dissolution, and loss.
Romance versus lust. Lust is sexual desire that can be for any attractive person, has many objects ,
and is as fleeting as the wind. In lust, we see the other as a sex object to be used for our genital pleasure
while in romance we see the other as a love object with intrinsic value who we want to bond with while
sharing the benefits of being in love. Regarding objects of lust, we do not really want to know them, to
reveal ourselves to them, or to form a relationship with them.
Falling in love versus infatuation . In a 1969 article in the American Journal of Psychotherapy,
George L. Christie, a psychotherapist from Australia, offers the following table (revised slightly)
contrasting falling in love with infatuation . He sees these two experiences as forming a continuum with an
actual love relationships existing somewhere between the two extremes or oscillating to and fro
depending on the individuals and the quality of the relationship over time.
Differences between Falling in Love and Infatuation
Preoccupation with love object
More intense preoccupation (Obsession?)
Tenderness toward the love object
Idealization of the love object
Ambivalence toward the love object
Inhibited or obsessive sexual desire
Individual's well being enhanced
Profound and persistent regression
Loss of Ego control - Acting out
Ego Syntonic
(feelings seen as a natural part of one's self)
Ego Dystonic
(feelings seen as alien to one's self)
Feelings easily remembered with pleasure
Amnesia or painful memories
Who do you love?
Our modern rituals of mating and courtship are related to same sexual mating strategies that
human men and women have used for thousands of years. Cross-cultural researc h in Anthropology and
Evolutionary Psychology has shown that mating preferences are similar worldwide and that romantic love
while shaped in its particulars by history and culture is a universal phenomenon .
In choosing mates, men across cultures tend to prefer youth and physical attractiveness more than
women do, while women tend to prefer tall men with ambition, status, and resources. Both men and
women are equally likely to have dual mating strategies involving finding a stable long- term mate
(romance?) while taking advantage of any low-risk opportunities for short-term mating (lust?).
Research in evolutionary psychology suggest that women tend to increase their standards of
attractiveness in short-term mating and lower them for long-term mating whil e men tend to lower their
standards of attractiveness in short-term mating and raise them for long-term mating.
In long-term mating most people choose others who resemble themselves in various physical
characteristics, who are of same race and social class, and with whom they share similar values.
The Process of Falling in Love
The Seeker. Someone who is consciously or unconsciously looking for the beloved. Isn't this
everyone, at least at one time or another? Most people fall in love at some time in their life. Survey
research tells us that 90% of Americans marry and those who divorce are very likely to remarry.
The Meeting. The possibility of falling in love begins when we catch sight of a potential beloved.
It is said that the eyes search for the image of the one for whom the heart is longing. When the eyes of
two such longing hearts meet, well then. . . something magical can happen. Is it fate, luck, or insanity?
Some people even fall in love at first sight and may court and marry in the course of only a few days,
weeks, or months. Is it infatuation or falling in love that they are experiencing? Will a relationship be
established? What will the quality of the relationship be? Will the relationship last?
The Birth of Love. Having seen the beloved, the mind and the heart begin the song and the dance
of falling in love. Once the process of falling in love begins, it is unmistakable and very much like the
romantic stories and songs we have all heard since childhood. Most people have been longing to find their
other half or true love since they first imagined it was possible. While each person and each relationship
is unique, everyone falls in love in much the same way .
Falling in Love. The process of falling in love includes a sense of spontaneity in that falling in
love cannot be planned or consciously chosen. There is between the lovers a magnetic attraction that is so
compelling it usually cannot be resisted. The lovers sense a profound affinity between them, a perfect fit
which is so ideal it is beyond question. Even if one has fallen in love previously, there is a feeling of
novelty; it has never been like this before. One's mysterious longing is satisfied by recognition of the
other as the one we have been seeking. There is hope for the permanent fulfillment of our desires, and
idealization of the beloved as our perfect partner, who is right for us, our other half, and our one and only
true love.
Being in Love. The lovers find some pretense or reason to be together, constantly if possible, and
when not together the lovers are preoccupied with fantasies of the next encounter or memories of the
ecstasy of the last one. Separations are painful and difficult to endure. The couple declares their love for
each other, they become transparent and disclose their deepest desires, fears, and fantasies and they
sexually consummate their union with ecstatic consequences. The lovers feel high all the time with that
euphoria that only being in love can bring, they experience a sense of perfect harmony , of incredible
similarity but also complimentarity. The lovers experience psychic communication when together and
when apart, synchronous events and experiences seem to occur all the time, and each feels the desire to
give all to the other unselfishly without regard for equity or personal sacrifice.
Obstacles to Love. The state of blissfully being in love unfortunately (or fortunately?) does not
last forever. Obstacles both within each person, between the lovers, and from outside begin to threaten
their bond of love. These obstacles can be almost anything from a fading of passion, to a rival lover, to
separations that cannot be avoided, to family disapproval, etc. Sometimes romantic love grows with
obstacles overcome, sometimes it dies.
Separation and Loss of Romantic L ove. Obstacles to remaining in love will and always do appear.
Usually this will lead to a temporary separation or permanent break up. One or both of the lovers will be
in agony and long for reunion and a return to the forest of enchantment. Sometimes the separation is
created by the unilateral actions of one partner who has a change in feelings from idealization to boredom
or criticism (from Prince and Princess to Mr. or Ms. Yuk ). A person may suddenly abandonment his or
her lover or betrays his or her lover through infidelity. Usually, the one left is devastated and in intense
pain. Whether precipitated inside or outside the relationship or by one or both partners, obstacles will
always end the "in love" phase of a relationship; the crucial question becomes what will happen next?
The Dynamics of Romantic Love
How We Fall in Love
The Set-Up. Theodore Reik, the great psychoanalyst, has observed that almost everybody falls in
love. In his clinical work with patients and in his observations of himself, he came to the conclusion that
falling in love is really not the sudden and automatic phenomenon we suppose it to be, but that the
groundwork for this experience is prepared in the individuals usually unconscious sense of discontent or
even self-hatred . While we are rarely fully satisfied with ourselves as we are, we also have the vision of
who we would be if we were perfected. Falling in love with someone who we view is perfect and
ultimately lovable, is our round about way of proving to our harsh inner critic that we are perfect because
we are loved by someone who themselves is perfect. We have achieved our ego ideal.
The Trigger. Unless you are a hermit, you will encounter people as you go about your daily life.
The aforementioned set up of personal disconte nt leads us to scan the environment for someone to love , to
fall in love with, and to, hopefully, fall in love with us. When we see someone attractive who fulfills our
fantasy of the beloved, our desires are unleashed and if they reciprocate and sometimes, even if they
don't, we fall in love. Research by sociologists and evolutionary psychologists has demonstrated that
people are not random in their selections of who to fall in love with rather we narrow the field of eligibles
in terms of both physical and social cues.
The Body Electric or Cardiac- Respiratory Love. Psychiatrist Michael R. Liebowitz in his book,
The Chemistry of Love, has proposed that the excitement and euphoria we experience when falling and
being in love is due to an amphetamine like substance within our bodies, which is secreted internally
under the influence of romantic passion. This substance is PEA or Phenylethylamine that is chemically
very similar to the substances of the brain's reward centers, norepinephrine and dopamine. The ecstasy of
romance may be due in part to PEA and the agony of separation and loss may be due to its depletion or
absence in much the same way as symptoms of depression may to due to withdrawal from amphetamines.
Lovesickness with its longing, desperation, reunion fantasies, and despair may be related to this chemistry
of love.
Crystallization or the Making Mr. or Ms. Right. The French writer, Stendhal, in his book, L'Amor
(The Loves), proposes an interesting theory of how we fall in love. He proposes that falling in love or the
birth of love occurs in several steps:
(1) Admiration: recognizing attractive traits in a potential lover.
(2) Desire: fantasies of how delightful it would be to be intimate with the other.
(3) Hope: seeing the perfection of the other, one's desire increases to a passion.
(4) Love is born: this occurs because of the intense pleasure of seeing, touching,
caressing, and kissing a lovable object who 'potentially' loves us in return.
(5) The first crystallization: with evidence that the beloved loves us in return, pleasure
increases by endowing the beloved with the perfection of a Heavenly creature.
"Leave a lover with his thoughts for twenty-four hours, and this is what will happen:
At the salt mines in Salzburg, they throw a leafless wintry bough into one the
abandoned workings. Two or three months later they haul it out covered with a
shining deposit of crystals. The smallest twig ... is studded with a galaxy of
scintillating diamonds. The original branch is no longer recognizable.
What I have called crystallization is a mental process which draws from everything
that happens new proofs of the perfection of the loved one."
( The Loves, Book One)
(6) Doubt creeps in: if the lover's advances are met with resistance or indifference, if
there is a rival, or if there is any sign of a lack reciprocity of love; the lover may think
he or she is losing the love so long sought after and will seek new proofs of affection.
(7) The second crystallization: if doubt is overcome by the lover reassuring himself
or herself that my beloved loves me, crystallization reveals new charms and
"torn between doubt and delight, the poor lover convinces himself (herself) that the
(beloved) could give such pleasure as he or she could find nowhere else on earth
. ... (so) a fearsome precipice on one hand and a view of perfect happiness on
the other ... set the second crystallization so far above the first." (The Loves, Book One)
"The lover's mind vacillates between three ideas:
1. She (he) is perfect.
2. She (he) loves me.
3. How can I get the strongest proofs possible of her (his) love?"
Falling in love as self-hypnosis. Both Sigmund Freud and Spanish philosopher, Ortega Y'Gasset
believe that falling in love is a phenomena of attention abnormally fastened to the love object giving that
person an extraordinary presence and reality in our psyche. Y'Gasset says that with our constant
preoccupation with the beloved, other aspects of our world become pale, and may even be progressively
eliminated from our minds.
Thus, through overwhelming attention and concentration, the love object has an incomparable
force of reality beyond anything else that exists in our life. The constant inner presence of the beloved
creates in us a Love World where our lover and we are all that matters maybe even all that exists. As the
lover becomes the world, a paralysis of will ensues and our habitual world is reduced in scope to this love
world. The love world eventually becomes not a paradise, but a prison for us and for our lover.
If the love is lost or the beloved leaves, the lover is diminished or devastated; his or her world
collapses and he or she may be depressed even suicidal. As Freud said concerning the loss of romantic
attachments, "The shadow of the love object falls over the ego."
Why We Fall in Love
Falling in Love as the Solution to Low Self- Esteem . As mentioned earlier, Theodore Reik believes
that we are set-up by personal discontent to fall in love. Being loved by a perfect beloved ends self-
criticism and fulfills the demands of the harshest superego. Reik says, "Tell me who you love and I'll tell
you who you are. Better still, tell me who you love, and I'll tell you who you want to be." We fall in love
to attain that which we are unwilling or unable to achieve by our own efforts in domains outside of
passionate attachments.
Reik also says, "falling out of love is like waking from a dream because permanent fulfillment in
and through another person is impossible." So the failure of romantic love, its fading is due to our
frustration when the other person does not solve all our existential dilemmas because even if they want to
and try, they cannot. For Reik, this dissolution of love is an inevitable consequence of the fantasy that a
perfect beloved and true love alone can make everything all right.
Falling in Love as the Cure for Separation. Erich Fromm says that the existential problem
causing modern people the most pain is our separateness or sense of loneliness, alienation, or isolation.
We have lost most of the traditional containers for love in the family, in the community, or in the church.
We are separated from not just from our fellow human beings, but from nature and from ourselves.
Falling in love is the illusion that by coupling with the beloved we will heal our wounds and our romantic
love will unite us with all from which we are separated and make us whole .
Falling in Love as the Quest for Wholeness. Carl Jung says in falling in love a man projects hi s
inner feminine onto this beloved and this projection of his anima causes a man to fall in love. Jung says a
woman projects her inner masculine onto her beloved and this projection of her animus causes a woman
to fall in love. Jung viewed these mythic figures as the equivalent of Gods and Goddess that dwell in our
collective unconscious as images on the way to the Self.
Jung says, "These archetypes are universal and belong to the collective psyche over which the
ego has no control. The anima and animus are images representing archetypal figures that mediate
between the conscious and the unconscious. ... Together, anima and animus form a divine pair, one of
whom is rather like Hermes (or Apollo, Eros, etc. ), while the other wears the features of Aphrodite,
Helen, Persephone, or Hecate. Both of them are unconscious powers, gods and goddesses, in fact."
According to Jung our psyche is constantly evolving toward individuation, wholeness, and
integrity. The anima and animus are universal psychic forces that are personified as inner characters who
are typically projected on one's beloved. Our task is to eventually to recognize anima or animus
projection and learn to withdraw the projection. Jung says, "The withdrawal of projections make the
anima (animus) what she (he) originally was; an archetypal image which, in it right place, functions to
the advantage of the individual."
So in working with Romantic Love, we have two related tasks; the inner work of withdrawing
projections and learning to understand our own inner reality and the outer work of relating to our partners
not as the projected ideals of our anima and animus, but as human beings who we must learn to accept
and understand with all their actual positive and negative traits.
Applying Your Knowledge of Romance
"It is difficult for us to see the vast difference between relating to a human person and using that
person as a vehicle for one's projections.
We make a marriage in form, but refuse to make it in fact. We refuse real commitment to a human
being because we will only commit ourselves to our inner vision or our inner ideal. Since we have not
learned this is an inner task - we reserve the right to follow our projections wherever they lead.
To love an ordinary person means to be related to the actual human being, to value that person,
identify with him or her, to affirm his or her value as he or she is, in totality - with the shadow side and
imperfections - all that makes that person an ordinary mortal.
To be "in-love" is different: it is not directed at a person, it is directed at the soul, at our inner
ideal, our dream, our fantasy, our hope, our expectation, our passion for an inner being whom we
superimpose over the external person."
Robert Johnson WE: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love, 1983.
We must begin two courtships and create two marriages . An inner courtship and marriage to
own soul image , the anima in men and the animus in women. This work is begun by taking the idea of
withdrawing projections seriously and by making some kind of imaginal contact with our inner world.
The outer courtship and marriage is with another human being. Here we must learn about our wounded
past, our self-hatred, our shadow and our ego ideal. We must learn ways to communicate with our
companion and lover with respect and acceptance. We must allow them their own unfolding, their whims
and ways, and we must learn to love them for who they are, not for who we want or expect them to be.
If two people engage in such a quest together, there is no limit to what they can experience and be
for the greater good of themselves and the world at large. This is a couple who are evolving toward the
Personal Level of Love or Dialogue , the theme of the following chapter.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dialogue
Toward Self-Know ledge and Authentic Intimacy
"There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such
tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love."
Erich Fromm The Art of Loving, 1956.
... One of the most pathological experiments that a civilized society has ever
imagined, the basing of marriage, which is lasting, upon romance which is a
passing fancy ... The logical outcome of marriage founded only on romance is
divorce, for marriage kills romance ... let romantic love overcome no matter how
many obstacles, it always fails at one. This is the obstacle constituted by time.
Now, either marriage is an institution set up to lasting - or it is meaningless."
Denis De Rougemont Love in the Western World, 1949.
"You can't worship love and individuality in the same breath. Love is a
mutual relationship, like the flame between wax and air. If either wax or air
insists on getting its own way, or getting its own back too much, the flame goes
out and the unison disappears. At the same time, if one yields itself up to the
other entirely, there is a guttering mess. You have to balance love and
individuality, and actually sacrifice a portion of each."
D. H. Lawrence Phoenix II: Uncollected, Unpublished, and Other Prose Works, 1968.
The Movement from Prepersonal Love to Personal Love
Looking back at Prepersonal Love (1+1=1)
Romance. Most people fall in love for the first time during late childhood or early adolescence.
Many, if not most, adult love relationships begin with romance, and over time an attachment is created.
Romance is a form of love that occurs largely outside of our awareness or conscious control. The
attachments formed as a consequence of romance also occur automatically as a result of spending time
together, sharing intimate thoughts and feelings, and enjoying mutual sexual pleasure. In romance, we are
in the Forest of Pleasure and Pain where we cannot remain forever because its ripe fruits eventually
become rotten. Few of us see through the illusions of romance until we have had frustration,
disappointment, and pain while trying to remain in love .
Attachment. Our first experiences of attachment occur in the Jungle of Survival and Death where
love is the foundation of life. We do not consciously choose these love experiences and for most people,
attachment occurs regardless of the quality of our parenting and other childhood relationships. The legacy
of our childhood attachments lives on throughout our love lives for better or for worse. Our adult capacity
to fall in love or begin relationships in some less romantic way is related to the quality of our childhood
attachments and our internal love maps .
The Prepersonal forms of love at the base of Mount Eros are a universal experience for human
beings and our later capacity for lasting adult love is determined to a large degree by these formative
relationships. By the time we arrive at early adulthood, we have the capacity to begin the arduous ascent
of that portion of Mount Eros called the Peaks of Power. Our task in the mutual creation of a more
conscious relationship beyond romance that is called Dialogical Love.
For most people, it is the first time in our lives that we make our own decision about with whom
to be intimate. Having chosen a lover, we must now move beyond romantic illusions and learn to love the
actual human being who is our partner. In adulthood, it is also possible to begin to change the quality our
childhood relationships with our family members to those better suited to our more mature and
independent status. These are difficult tasks for which most of us have little preparation and training. And
yet, this Work of Love is necessary, if we are to overcome past pain and illusion, and become more loving
persons with the capacity to feel loved and to be loving.
The Art of Loving: Evolving from Prepersonal (1+1=1) to Personal Love (1+1=3)
In his classic book, The Art of Loving, on the movement from Prepersonal to Personal Love,
Erich Fromm has provide an overview of the daunting task of climbing the peaks of power.
Fromm's analysis is as follows:
"Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved rather that of
loving, of one's capacity to love " (therefore)
"Hardly anyone thinks there is anything that needs to be learned about love. " (however, if)
"... love is an art, then it requires knowledge and effort. Unfortunately, the attitude that
nothing is easier than love has continued in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the
contrary."
(so in our culture and in our personal experience)
"There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes
and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly, as love." (much of this is due to)
"Confusion between the initial experience of falling in love and the permanent state of
being in love, or as we might better say, of standing in love."
"One way to overcome the failure of love is to examine the reasons for this failure, and to
proceed to study the meaning of love."
"Love is an art and the process of learning an art is mastery of the theory and mastery
of the practice. However, almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve
success, money, power, and almost none to the art of loving."
"To love is a personal experience which everyone can only have by and for himself or
herself."
"What the discussion of the practice of love can do is to present premises of the art of
loving and the practice of these premises; the steps toward the goal can be practiced only
by oneself, and the discussion ends before the decisive step is taken."
Dialogue Described
Definition and Characteristics of Dialogue
Dialogue is "The expression of intimacy between two human beings under the condition of the
preservation of each other's integrity, each other's individuality ... (this form of) ...love unites us with
others, yet permits us to be ourselves ... in (Dialogical) love the paradox occurs that two beings become
one and yet remain two." Erich Fromm The Art of Loving, 1956.
In dialogue our task is to move beyond the love arithmetic of prepersonal attachment and
romance in which 1+1=1 toward the love arithmetic of dialogue where 1+1=3. In the 1+1=3 of personal
love, the three components are you, me, and we . In the dialogical love we recognize that our primary
relationships while important even vital to our happiness and well being cannot be the sole focus of our
life and the sole foundation of our identity. We must respect our partner and ourselves while taking
mutual responsibility for the quality of our relationship. As a committed couple, both partners tend the we
space within which their intimate relations take place.
The prototype for Dialogical Love (Dialogue) is the married couple or the committed couple. In
dialogue, the lovers move from the fantasy of romantically living happily ever after, to the work of
becoming two people who can maintain their identities while learning to function as a couple. Being a
committed or married couple requires learning to enact certain social roles both individually and
collectively in a way that is cooperative and complimentary. Role enactment has a quality of work that is
diametrically opposed to the effortless bliss of romance.
The polarity or paradox of dialogue is well stated by Fromm and in the love arithmetic that one
plus one equals three (1+1=3). This polarity is autonomy versus intimacy . Dialogue requires alternating
cycles of self-focus and autonomy with other-focus and intimacy. This polarity revolves around power
used either constructively or destructively . When power is used cooperatively and constructively, a couple
can create both individual and interpersonal growth and healing, when power is used defensively or
destructively, a couple may together create a prison or living hell.
The Relationship between Love and Power
Carl Jung recognized the potential incompatibility of love and power when he said,
"Where love reigns, there is no will to power and where the will to power is paramount,
love is lacking. The one is but the shadow of the other."
Carl Jung, Psychological Reflections: A New Anthology of Jung's Writings, ed. by Jaffe, 1970.
However, Paul Linden, also recognized need to integrate power and love when he said,
"Power without love is brutal and destructive. Love without power is weak and
ineffective. A new state of being is created by balancing and unifying power and love ."
Paul Linden, Embodying Power and Love: A Workshop in Mind/Body Awareness, 1996.
When a couple uses power defensively to limit growth it is usually done through some reciprocal
combination of the following three strategies: domination (control), accommodation (compliance), or
withdrawal (indifference). These three style of using power defensively limit intimacy so the person can
reduce their intimacy- re lated anxiety. Individuals who chronically use one of these strategies to avoid
intimacy to the exclusion of the others, can be described as expressing this tendency due to an individual
personality pattern or enduring trait. I. Ralph Hyatt has proposed the term Hawks , for people who in
times of conflict usually attack (dominate or control), the term Doves , for people who in times of conflict
usually give in (accommodation or compliance) and finally, the term Ostrich, for people who in times of
conflict usually avoid (withdrawal or indifference).
I. Ralph Hyatt, Before Your Love Again: Understanding Personality Patterns and Making Them Work for You , 1977.
Climbing the Peaks of Power is painful and frightening , many of us would rather find a new partner when
we reach this stage, and return to the forest of pleasure with the illusion that this time with our true love
we can avoid the pain. If we go forward, we earn the fruits of dialogue which are being loved for who we
really are and having the ability to mutually create a lasting and satisfying relationship.
The Inner Work of Dialogue
Self-knowledge
Self-analysis or self-exploration is a fundamental task for conscious growth both individually and
in relationship to others. Much of what we think, feel, and do is unconscious and automatic. While self-
exploration is often painful, knowing the truth, as it says in the New Testament, will set you free. Free to
be more accepting of yourself, flaws and all, and free to have more authentic relationships with others
because you are no longer hiding your true nature.
There are many techniques of self-awareness that have been developed in the various
psychological and spiritual systems of the world. Some examples are journaling, focusing awareness on
sensations, self-monitoring of thoughts, meditation, yoga, bodywork, guided imagery, and active
imagination. Do some investigating and find a system that works for you. Sometimes we need help from
others to better know ourselves. In this sense, it is said that it takes two to know one . The assistance of an
empathetic and accepting person, who we trust, can increase our self-awareness and sometimes even heal
past pain. This person can be our partner, a friend, or a psychotherapist.
Other-detachment
Part of the task of dialogue is also to detach ourselves in a loving way from our partner. We must
begin the process of withdrawing our projections and take personal responsibility for that which we
imagine is in our partners and not in ourselves. Romantic relationships can be characterized as I-It where
we are not relating to another whole person, but rather to an It or object of our projections. This
transforms complicated and sometimes unpredictable people into stereotyped objects which seem easier
to control. This process of relating to our projections rather than to the person who is there is also called
pseudo-duality because in our perceptual distortions we actually think the other person is our projection ,
but we are not really relating interpersonally, we are seeing our projected fantasy which we mistakenly
think is reality.
Other-detachment means withdrawing our negative projections of Ms. Yuk or Mr. Yuk from our
partners. Jung called these negative projections the shadow . While these painful and negative traits are
our own characteristics, we would like to believe they exist in others, not in ourselves. So, instead of
replacing the ideal lover projection of the romantic phase of a relationship with a Ms. Yuk or Mr. Yuk
projection, we can, through honest sharing and objective observation, learn if this person is someone with
whom we choose to create a committed relationship, just as they can begin to consider this same decision
about us. In reality, each of us has flaws and negative qualities, but they are distorted and magnified by
the projection of our shadows. Can we instead learn to love ourselves and to love others even thought
none of us is perfect? Can we also learn to accept the love of others even though we often feel we do not
deserve it or it comes with conditions?
Other- detachment also means withdrawing the ideal projections of animus and anima
that we place on our partners. Taking seriously the existence of the inner woman (anima) for men and the
inner man (animus) for women is part of the task of other-detachment. When the projection of the ideal
partner, our Mr. Right or Ms. Right, no longer fits our partner, we must begin to seek an inner
relationship we these numinous figures and learn to know, and hopefully appreciate, the ordinary woman
or ordinary man who is our partner. Jung appreciated the difficulty of withdrawing both projections of the
shadow and those of the anima-animus when he said,
"If the encounter with the shadow is the "apprentice-piece" in the individual's development, then
that with the anima (or animus) is the "masterpiece." Carl Jung, Collect Works, V. 9 .
This process of withdrawing projections is usually frightening, frustrating, painful, and difficult;
few of us are prepared or willing to do it. However, it is unlikely that a lasting and satisfying committed
relationship is possible without learning how to dialogue. To Dialogue means actively trying to
understand our partner as he or she actually is and learning how to communicate that understand to our
partner. Dialogue also means revealing our true feelings, perceptions, desires, and needs both to ourselves
and to our partners.
Self-integration
Self-integration and other- detachment are complimentary tasks, that when taken together, can
create both self-knowledge and the potential for authentic intimacy. Our childhood experience is typically
one of feeling conditionally loved; so we try to determine who our parents want us to be, and create a
false self to gain their acceptance and approval. Our other characteristics, both the negative one and the
positive ones, are repressed as we form our self-image or identity. Withdrawing our projections of these
positive and negative qualities is only half of what is necessary; we must also integrate these disowned
parts of ourselves with our adult identity to come to know and to appreciate our true nature or true self.
Collectively, Jung called the split off negative parts of us, the Shadow. Facing and integrating the
shadow is a fundamental task of adult life. Often our partners can see these qualities, which we imagine
we don't have, in our behavior. Much of the criticism and conflict in relationships is due to our partner's
frustration with our unconsciously acting out our shadow self and our frustration with their acting out
their shadow self.
While integrating the shadow is ultimately each individual's responsibility, our partners can
assist us if they learn to give constructive feedback, support, and encouragement rather than criticism,
rejection, and demands to change, or else... Most couples are destine to do some form of shadow dance .
Accepting these qualities in our partners and ourselves while we work together on own personal growth
creates a vital relationship with the capacity to evolve as each individual evolves.
As Jung said, our shadow work as difficult as it is, must be followed by the task of beginning to
court and integrate the anima (inner woman in men) and animus (inner man in women). This involves an
internal focus to recapture those positive even idealized qualities that like the shadow are also within us.
Projecting our ideal self is how we can begin to see these qualities and we usually fall in love with them.
We must begin to use our imagination to seek the ideal within . As Jung said of the anima in men which
also applies to the animus in women,
"... treat her as a person, if you like, or as a Goddess, but above all treat her as something that
does exist... you must talk to this person in order to see what she is about and to learn what her
thoughts and character are... The withdrawal of projections makes the anima what she originally
was; an archetypal image which, in its right place, functions to the advantage of the individual."
Carl Jung, Collect Works , V. 9.
The Outer Work of Dialogue
In dialogue we are talking about a committed relationship or a marriage . The inner work of
dialogue, other-detachment and self-integration is vital for growth in love. While this inner work is
fundamentally each person's responsibility as an internal task , we can benefit greatly from our partner's
assistance and encouragement and the help of others beside our partner. The outer work of dialogue while
also fundamentally each person's responsibility is an interpersonal task that must be accomplished in
relationship. It begins with commitment, mutual respect, loving intentions, and the willingness to
experience transitory pain and fear in the service of a lasting and satisfying relationship.
The outer work of dialogue involves the acquisition and practicing of intimate relations skills or
couples communication skills. Effective couples communication involves learning how express our
thoughts and feelings to our partner with less distortion. It also means learning how to listen to the
thoughts and feelings of our partner with validation as opposed to judgment and criticism. In dialogue, we
begin to develop the ability to communicate with less pain and misunderstanding. This is an enormous
challenge for us because when our emotions are strong they tend to cause anxiety and fear which usually
motivates projection and distortion rather the authentic communication we seek.
Research on marital satisfaction that could apply to any committed relationship has shown that
loving couples are high in mutual disclosure , have an egalitarian power structure , are high in mutual
accurate understanding, can resolve conflicts, and are committed to growth.
The Work of Love: Applying Your Knowledge of Dialogue
Understanding Your Fears of Intimacy
To risk an authentic relationship with another human being, we must not only learn intimate
communication skills; we must also begin to understand how wounds from our past relationships create
obstacles to love in the present. A paradox of Dialogue is that while we seek greater love and intimacy;
we may attack our partner provoking conflict, we may become overly compliant, or we may withdraw in
various ways when intimacy increases because we fear what was true of our painful past with our family
of origin and other past relationships will be true with our contemporary partner. So, we decide we will
not, or can not, take the risk of greater intimacy and personal growth because we are afraid it will bring us
all too familiar pain and disappointment. This "decision" is usually unconscious or at least distorted in its
intention to hide our fears and support our denial.
Our past experiences of inadequate attachment are obstacles to creating fulfilling love
relationships with our current partner. As we have learned, when an adult relationship becomes more
intimate, past fears are stimulated that may motivate various defenses and protective maneuvers designed
to decrease anxiety and help us feel more secure. Unfortunately, we don't feel more secure. We simply
continue to feel unloved and by acting to protect ourselves rather than risk greater intimacy, we may
threaten or even break the very bond of love we are seeking to maintain. Understanding and facing our
fears of intimacy can reduce our anxiety and make our loving relationships a context for healing past pain
rather than endlessly repeating it.
After we have successfully avoided greater intimacy, we usually feel lonely or guilty and move to
create more closeness only to be limited again by our anxiety and fear. This oscillating process of moving
closer and moving away is the manifestation of ambivalence about love that we both seek and fear. The
following are some typical fears of intimacy proposed by Larry B. Feldman in his article entitled, Marital
Conflict and Marital Intimacy, Family Process, Marc h 1979.
Fear of Merger. The belief that greater intimacy will bring a loss of identity, autonomy, and self-
control because our partner, who we want to love and care for us, actually wants to dominate, control, and
exploit us. "If I love you, I will loose myself to your control."
Fear of Rejection. The belief that greater intimacy will bring the discovery of one's hidden and
secret flaws followed by criticism, ridicule, or rejection by one's partner due to these 'basic faults'. "If I
love you, you will reject me because ultimately, I am repulsive and unlovable."
Fear of Abandonment. The belief that greater intimacy will bring rejection, loss, and loneliness
because one's partner will leave either for another lover or simply because they have stopped loving us.
"If I love you, you will leave me, and I'm lost without you and your love."
Fear of Attack. The belief that greater intimacy will bring attack, pain, and destruction, either
emotionally or physically, because our partner will become frustrated with us and be angry and act
violently. "If I love you, you won't be satisfied, and you'll get angry with me & hurt me."
Fear of One's Own Destructive Impulses. The belief that greater intimacy will bring frustration
and anger to us and we won't be able to control our urge to hurt, to be violent, or even to destroy our
partner. "If I love, I'll hurt or destroy you, because I always hurt the one I love."
These and other fears might be adaptive if they are realistic , but if they stem mainly from inside
us due to projections of past pain , they amount to Amorophobia and will surely limit our capacity to
create self-knowledge and authentic intimacy. The way out of this dilemma is a combination of greater
self-awareness of the prototypes for these fears and the acquisition of the couples' communication skills
necessary to talk about our fears with our partner and to allow them to talk about their fears with us. A
committed relationship can provide the context of mutual respect, acceptance, and the trust necessary to
be vulnerable with each other and perhaps heal past pain.
The Paths through Conflict
Marriage and family therapists, Jordan and Margaret Paul, in their book, Do I Have to Give Up
Me to Be Loved by You, CompCare, 1983, have created a system that provides an excellent way to
understand how our fears of intimacy can sabotage our relationships or become a source of greater love
through the process of exploration.
Couples' Conflict. This model of couples' communication begins with the premise that conflicts
are inevitable and in and of themselves, conflicts are not the problem. It is our response to both potential
and actual conflicts that determines the quality of our relationships.
The Path of Protection. This response to conflict involves being defensive and closed to growth
as we protect ourselves against our pain and fear.
The Path of Protection involves the following steps
Avoid Personal Responsibility for our feelings, thoughts, perceptions, behaviors,
and the consequences that occur to our partner, to us, and to others involved.
Use Strategies to Avoid Intimacy such as being a compliant Dove , a controlling
Hawk , or an indifferent Ostrich .
Protective Circles. Intimacy avoidance strategies may be characterized as protective
circles because when paired they create a complimentary cycle of mutual avoidance
of intimacy. Below is a list of all possible pairs of protective circles:
• Control / Control Two Hawks trying to control each other.
• Control / Indifference A Hawk trying to control an Ostrich.
• Control / Compliance A Hawk trying to control a Dove .
• Compliance / Indifference A Dove trying to comply with an Ostrich.
• Compliance / Compliance Two Doves trying to comply with each other.
• Indifference / Indifference Two Ostriches being indifferent to each other.
The Negative Consequences of the Path of Protection
• Power Struggles • Continued Pain
• Emotional Distance • Lack of fun and joy
• Chronic Fighting • Boredom
• Deadness, Numbness • Lack of sexual intimacy
• Feeling Unloved • Vulnerability to Affairs
and Unloving
• Spousal and Child Abuse • Separation and Divorce
The Path of Evolution. This response to conflict involves being non-defensive and open to
growth as we attempt to learn about our pain and fear.
The Path of Evolution involves the following steps
Assume Personal Responsibility for our feelings, thoughts, perceptions, behaviors, and
the consequences that occur to our partner, to us, and to others involved.
Use Strategies to Increase Intimacy by being open to learning more about ourselves,
other partner, and the relationship between in a process of mutual exploration.
The Process of Exploration
• Being open to being affected by our partner
• Being willing to experience transitory pain and fear from knowing the truth about ourselves,
our partner, and our relationship.
• Believing that there are important reasons for our own and our partners feelings, thought,
perceptions, and behaviors.
• Being willing to explore these important reasons cooperatively.
• Identifying areas to explore to understand each other such as our childhood attachments,
our fears of intimacy, our protective circles, the consequences of our protective circles,
our values, our expectations, our responsibilities, etc.
The Positive Consequences of the Path of Evolution
• Intimate Love • An Evolving Relationship
• Passionate Sex • Resolution to Conflicts
• Fun and Joy • Personal Freedom
• Shared Pain • Personal Growth
• Feeling in-love • Relationship Growth
Dialogue as Learning Effective Intimate Relations Skills
Make a Kato agreement to sharpen your marital art skills like the Pink Panther does in those Peter Sellers
movies when he asks his man servant, Kato, to attack him relentlessly, without warning, to sharpen his
martial arts skills. When Kato does this, the Pink Panther always says, "Thank you, Kato."
You and your partner, together, can consciously choose to move beyond power struggles,
withdrawal, and accommodation by risking the temporary pain and frustration of communicating about
your relationship problems rather than having conflict, boredom, distance, pain, and separation.
Marital researcher, John Gottman in his book, A Couples Guide to Communication, 1975
presents some very helpful information and skills to enhance the quality of intimate communication .
We must be aware that intimate communication is a complicated process involving not only what
we intend to say, but what the impact actually is on our partners. Unfortunately , we each have filters that
can distort both the sending and the receiving of messages causing misunderstanding.
The diagram below depicts the complex process of couples' communication:
Gottman and his colleague s describe the characteristics of effective and ineffective communication:
In ineffective communication distorted by our filters: INTENT does not equal IMPACT.
Ineffective Communication involves
• Not listening • Mind Reading
• Cross-Compl aining • Drifting Off the Beam
• Saying, "Yes, but" • Insulting Your Partner
• Not Validating • Escalating the Quarrel
• Heavy silences • Doing a Standoff
• Withdrawing in Anger • Attacking or Being Abusive
• Being Accommodating • Acting Indifferent, Defiant,
and Compliant or Controlling
In effective communication: INTENT equals IMPACT .
Effective Communication involves
• Stopping the Action when poor communication is occurring
• Asking for Feedback on Impact
• Trust and Withholding Judgment
• Active Listening
• Attempt to Clarity Intent
• Paraphrasing
• Validating
• Checking Impact with Intent
Adapted from Gottman et al., A Couples Guide to Communication, 1975.
A R ITUAL FOR M UTUAL U NDERSTANDING
The following intimate communication technique is intended to provide a method for couples to
share honestly about issues that may cause strong emotional responses and that lead many
couples to experience repetitive, nonproductive conflicts, to attempt to control each other's
behavior, or engage in various strategies of avoidance.
(The Ritual for Mutual Understanding is adapted in part from the work of John Gottman, A Couples Guide to Communication,
Christopher Hills, Creative Conflict, and Ken Keyes, Jr., The Methods Work If You Do .)
PURPOSE: To provide a systematic technique to effectively communicate about issues that
evoke strong emotions and to the learn intimate communication skills necessary to create mutual
understanding and set the stage for conflict resolution and negotiation.
Steps in the Ritual for Mutual Understanding
1. Call a Stop Action or a Time Out
Using This Technique to Change an Ongoing Dialogue
If you are using this recipe to interrupt a sequence of ineffective communication that is creating
unnecessary pain and further misunderstanding, the first step is to call a Stop Action or Time Out.
This can be done by either person who notices a sequence of communication is leading to
misunderstanding and creating harm.
Using This Technique to Begin a Dialogue
If you are using this recipe to begin a dialogue, you will not need to call a Stop Action or Time
Out because you are not trying to interrupt and change an ongoing conversation. However, you
may still want to create greater composure and receptivity to your partner before beginning a
dialogue, if this is the case, begin the recipe with Step 2. You might do a briefer, less intense
version of Step 2 and continue on to Step 3.
It is useful to have a prior agreement that calling a Stop Action or Time Out is a constructive and
loving response to the perception of either person that ineffective communication is occurring.
Having this prior agreement doesn't guarantee that calling a Stop Action or Time Out will always
be met with cooperation, but it does set the stage for viewing this as an act of love rather than a
continuation of whatever harmful communication is occurring.
It might be helpful for the person initiating a Stop Action or Time Out to remind his or her
partner in a loving way of the positive intent of this action and of the prior agreement to use this
technique when needed to stop otherwise harmful actions.
The purpose of the Stop Action or Time Out is to create some space and time for each person
regain their composure and to re-engage at some future time to build a more loving and
constructive way to communicate about important, but difficult issues.
2. Creating Composure within Yourself and Greater Receptivity to Your Partner
Agreeing on the Logistics of the Time Out
Calling a Time Out or Stop Action signals the end of a sequence of interaction and calls for a
couple to negotiate a brief period time to spend apart in the service of reducing the harm of poor
communication to both individuals and to their relationship. The goal is to create a context for
better communication at some future time.
The first thing to decide is whether to go to separate rooms or to try to be alone and separate in
the same room. If there is a lot of anger or other emotions are particularly strong, it might be a
good idea to go to separate rooms, if this is possible. Some couples may prefer to go to different
areas of the same room or this issue can be decided in advance when you make an agreement
about calling a Time Out or Stop Action.
Whether you stay in the same or go to separate rooms, the next task is to turn your attention
inward toward your own body and mind. Ineffective communication often causes physiological
arousal and mental confusion. The goal of turning inward is to increase your awareness of your
bodily sensations and your thoughts, to relax and regain composure, and to become more
receptive to communicating with your partner.
Relaxing the Body and the Mind
Begin to notice how you are breathing and where your body feels the most tension. Gradually
deepen your breathing by taking slow and deep inhalations through your nostrils followed by
slowing exhaling from your mouth. Continue to breathe in this way until you begin to feel more
relaxed. You may want to alternatively tense and relax any muscles that are particularly tight or
strained. Continue this process of rhythmic breathing and muscle relaxation until you feel more
calm and composed.
Opening Your Heart to Your Partner
Now, notice the contents of your thoughts. What are you saying to yourself about your partner,
about the issues you were discussing, and about yourself. Just notice as clearly as you can the
contents of your inner dialogue. You may find this will agitate you again, if it does, go back to
your breathing and muscle relaxation practice. After you are again relaxed, begin to gently open
your heart and mind to a new attitude toward your partner by beginning to let go of thoughts
about your needs, your feelings, your expectations, your judgments, and your interpretations.
The intention in opening your heart to your partner is not to abandon or invalidate yourself, but
to be more receptive your partner; just as your partner is engaged in same practice of opening
his or her heart to be more receptive to you.
As you let go of your focus on yourself, begin to imagine a time when you felt the most loving
and compassionate toward your partner. Create a place in your mind and heart where you see
your partner as lovable and worthy of your attention. Allow more and more space for your
partner in your consciousness until you feel receptive to hearing his or her thoughts, feelings, and
experiences without your previous resistance, defensiveness, or judgment.
Reestablishing Contact with Your Partner
When you feel you are composed, centered, and receptive, check in with your partner to see if
her or she is ready for a new beginning. If not, ask him or her to come and get you or let you
know when they are ready. During this time, continue your breathing and receptivity practice as
before. When you partner is ready, you can create a new beginning. (Note: It is better to take
additional time for this centering and receptivity practice than to begin too soon and repeat what you just
interrupted.)
3. Creating a New Beginning for Dialogue
Creating a Physical and Psychological Space for Dialogue
After both of you are centered and receptive, it is time to create a container for a interpersonal
dialogue which has some formal rules designed to make mutual understanding more likely, to
increase your intimate communication skills, and to create an opportunity to experience greater
intimacy and love between you. Since this is a new beginning, do not rehash your previous
conversation or comment on it.
Select two comfortable chairs that will allow each of you to sit in a upright position. Place the
chairs facing each other and sit down. Adjust the distance between the chairs so you are fairly
close together with your knees almost touching. Sit back for a few seconds and look at each other
remembering your receptivity practice. Try to see your partner as worthy of attention, respect,
and affection. Breathe and relax as you gaze lightly at each other.
Creating a Dyadic Rhythm
After you have gazed at each other briefly, join hands by placing your left hand palm up in the
right hand of your partner and holding your partners left hand by placing your right palm down
in their waiting left hand. You should be holding each other's hands with your left palms up and
your right palms down. As you breathe together imagine a flow of energy between the two of
you moving from your heart down your right arm into the left palm of your partner through his
or her heart and down his or her right arm to your left palm. This circuit energy will become
stronger as you synchronize your breathing.
Now gently close your eyes and sit silently together, hand in hand, creating a shared space by
trying to synchronize your breathing. Do this in a gentle way by noticing the rising and falling of
your partner's abdomen as indicated by both their inhaling and exhaling and by the rising and
falling of their hands in yours. As you breathe together, notice the ebb and flow of each others
breath, you will gradually begin breathing in a more and more rhythmic way.
Signaling Your Readiness for Dialogue
Continue this rhythmic breathing practice for a few minutes and when you feel relaxed and ready
to talk, gently squeeze your partner's hand to signal your readiness, if you partner is ready, he or
she will squeeze your hand back. If your partner is not ready, he or she will not return the signal,
If this happens, continue the rhythmic breathing practice until your partner initiates the readiness
signal by squeezing your hand, if you are still ready, return the signal and begin. If you are not
ready, do not return the signal until you are. When the squeeze signal is given and immediately
returned, you are both ready for a dialogue to begin.
When both of you are ready for dialogue, slowly open your eyes, let go of each other's hands,
and sit back in your chairs at a comfortable distance for talking. While this practice of creating
dyadic rhythm may seem awkward at first, it is a powerful way to make mutual understanding
and greater intimacy more likely. It is also a good practice for couples' meditation in and of itself
without being a prelude to dialogue.
4. Agreeing on a Topic and Assigning Roles of Listener and Speaker
If you are using this technique after a sequence of ineffective communication, it is important not
to simply continue that conversation. Instead, each of you can take a moment to reflect on an
issue that you feel is creating an obstacle to a more intimate and satisfying relationship between
you. After reflecting on an issue, try to focus that issue into a topic for dialogue. Share your
topics with each other and decide which one to do, to do them both, or to combine them in some
way into a single, more inclusive topic.
If you are using this technique to begin a dialogue, go through the same process as above without
the context of an immediately preceding conversation. In either case, agree to dialogue long
enough to process and clear one or two topics. Usually it is best to reserve at least 20 to 30
minutes for this process.
After you have agreed on one or two topics to dialogue about, decide who will be the speaker
and who will be the listener for the first round of dialogue. Each person will have an equal
chance to speak and to listen, so who goes first is not really that important. It can be decided by
preference or by some chance method like flipping a coin.
The Ritual for Mutual Understanding involves several rounds of each person alternatively
speaking and listening until you both feel you have reached some sense of resolution on the topic
or are ready to stop for now. Be sure that each of you gets an equal chance to speak and listen
before you stop. Whoever spoke first will listen last and whoever listened first will speak last.
Either one of you can suggest when it is your turn to speak that the current round to the last one
for session of dialogue.
5. Guidelines for the Role of the Speaker
Formulating a Message that Can Be Heard
Once you have decided who will speak first, the speaker begins to turn inward and reflect on
what he or she wants to say. The listener should sit silently and practice receptivity and attention
to the speaker. As the speaker, it is important that what you share be brief, clear, and specific.
Before you begin to formulate your message, look over the format on the next page. This format
will help you to structure your message in such a way that you can express yourself and be
understood by our partner. Initially, try to create a message that is brief, simple, and focused.
After you and your partner have mastered this intimate communication technique, you will be
able to convey more complicated and subtle messages, but it is important to begin slowly and
simply.
Format for the Speaker
After you have given yourself some time to formulate your message, first say it silently once to
yourself and then speak it out loud in the following form:
"I Feel _________ When _________ Because _________ and I Want _________."
Even though as the Speaker you are using this highly structured format, try to express yourself
using these guidelines with as much feeling and authenticity as you can. Keep your message as
brief and concise as possible while still sharing from your heart.
In this format, I Feel is followed by an expression of emotion such as fear, frustration, anger,
shame, joy, relief, etc. When is followed by a brief description of the circumstances or situation
during or after which this emotion is experienced. Because is followed by a brief explanation of
why the speaker feels this way. I want is followed by a request for some change in the situation,
in the your behavior, or in your partner's behavior.
The Importance of Staying within the Format
Using this format, especially at first, may feel artificial and awkward. However, there is power
and safety in these limits. The format is designed to help the speaker formulate a clear, but
meaningful message and to help the listener assimilate and understand the message intended by
the speaker. Do not stray from the format and do not modify it in any way.
When formulating a message, the speaker's task is to share a piece of information keeping in
mind there will be several rounds of give and take with many opportunities to share additional
thoughts and feelings. The speaker also has to keep in mind that the listener can only assimilate
and understand so much information at one time.
Within this structure and these limits, it is important for the speaker to take this opportunity to
share as deeply and honestly as possible with the knowledge that your partner is receptive and
attentive to you. As the speaker, remember that following your sharing, the listener will try to
best of his or her ability to check their understanding of what you have said and to validate what
you have said. You will also do this when it is your turn to listen.
6. Guidelines for the Role of the Listener
The Mental and Emotional Set of the Listener
As the listener, remember your have just opened your heart to be receptive to your partner and
you have created a shared space through rhythmic breathing. Your task is to be an active listener
and to facilitate your partner's ability to share his or her feelings about your relationship. Try to
focus your awareness on both the words and the feelings conveyed by your partner. You may
disagree with what is being said, you may not like it, or you may have strong emotional reactions
to what you are hearing. Try to set them aside and just listen, you will have your opportunity to
share in just a moment. Try to listen carefully and remember what was said.
Some Principles of Active Listening
Being receptive to your partner's sharing is one of the greatest gifts you can offer him or her.
Think of the act of listening as practice of expressing love. Active listening is enhanced by
sitting still, avoiding excess nonverbal responses without being too stiff and lifeless, being silent,
not interrupting, leaning forward slightly, and maintaining eye contact without staring. These
actions are supported by an inner attitude of acceptance and respect. Remember that just paying
attention to your partner and really hearing what they are saying is itself an act of love.
Guidelines for the Listener's Response to the Speaker
After the speaker has finished sharing, the listener pauses for a moment to take in what was said
and to check for memory of the message and understanding of it.
If the listener does not remember or understand the message, he or she says, "Would you please
repeat what you just said?" The listen then makes another attempt to hear the message,
remember it, and understand it.
If the listener remembers and understands the messages, he or she says,
(1) "What I'm hearing you say is that you feel ____________ when ____________ because
___________ and you want ____________."
What you are doing as the listener is paraphrasing in your own words what the speaker has said
with the Speaker's Format as guide. The listener's task is to paraphrase as accurately as
possible the message received without any deletions, additions, or distortions. After the listener
has finished paraphrasing to best of his or her ability, he or she checks with the speaker to see if
they feel understood by saying,
(2) "Do you feel understood?"
If the speaker say yes, the listener goes on the next step of validation, If the speaker says no, the
listener says, "Would you please repeat what you just said?" The speaker repeats the message
and the listeners attempts another paraphrase. The listener paraphrases until the speaker says they
feel understood. Then the listener validates the message by saying,
(3) "I can understand that you feel the way you do."
This act of validating may be even more difficult that listening and paraphrasing, but it becomes
easier when the listener understands that validating does not mean agreeing or even approving of
what was said. Rather, what validating means is that the listener understands that the speakers
does indeed feel the way they do and that when the listener considers the message from the
speaker's point of view, it is understandable that a person could feel that way. Finally after
validating the message, the listener says,
(4) "Thank you for sharing that with me."
Now it is time to switch roles, the listener takes a turn as the speaker and the speaker follows the
guidelines for listening. The new speaker does not have to respond directly to what he or she has
just heard, although he or she might choose to do so. The new speaker follows the guidelines for
the speaker and may express any message on the topic he or she chooses.
One round of the Ritual for Mutual Understanding is complete after each person has played both
roles. Several complete rounds will usually be necessary to process any topic to the point where
mutual understanding is increased. Very often there will be an escalation of emotion with each
successive round, remember to practice deep breathing and receptivity between each round.
This technique is not intended to resolve conflicts or to negotiate agreements, rather it is
intended to set the stage for these processes by increasing mutual understanding. respect, and
trust. Continue to dialogue until you both feel greater mutual understanding has been achieved or
you run out of time or are too fatigued to continue.
While this technique is designed to create a context for effective communication, it is not fool
proof. If distress and poor communication interfere with the technique, call a time out and go to
Step 1 or discontinue the dialogue and begin again at another time.
It might be wise for some couples to use this technique often or even exclusively to discuss
important issues until the principles of effective intimate communication have become more
firmly established in the relationship.
CHAPTER FIVE
Caring
Opening Our Hearts to Compassion
" ... In the sense in which (we) can ever be said to be at home in the world, (we are) at
home not through dominating or explaining or (even) appreciating, but through caring
and being cared for ... through caring and being cared for (we) experience (ourselves) as
part of nature ... and (we) find (our) place by finding appropriate others that need (our)
care and that (we) need to care for ... caring becomes (our) way of thanking (others) for
what (we) have received ... and it is only because the others I care for are primary for me
that I am able to live the meaning of my life."
Milton Mayeroff On Caring, 1971.
"Love is at its deepest when it derives from a direct experience of another in his or her
vulnerable humanness. The love that ensues from touching another's felt experience is a
'knowing' love insofar as it involves a 'clear seeing' of the other. ... To truly know and
love another in this special way is not a routine occurrence because it requires the kind
of wisdom that knows how to be deeply empathic. ...and totally 'be there' for the other -
getting close enough to be, in effect, inside his or her experience. This ability to closely
resonate with another's experience develops as we learn to caringly tend to own feelings
and felt meanings. As we learn to be 'be there' for ourselves - open and friendly to our
own depths - we likewise become more emotionally available to 'be there' for others."
John and Kris Amodeo Being Intimate, 1986.
The Fruits of Dialogue
How Dialogue Sets the Stage for Descent into the Vales of Compassion
Dialogue helps to create self-knowledge as we become aware of our shadow self and begin to
own those qualities that we have projected on others.
Dialogue helps us to develop a relationships or courtship with our inner man or inner woman
rather than falling in love with the projection of these figure on others.
Dialogue in the form of self-integration allows us to take responsibility for our past wounds and
pain, and to be actively involved in our own healing process rather than expecting someone else to heal us
and fulfill our lives.
Dialogue in the form of other-detachment allows us to loving separate from our partner without
rejecting them through withdrawing both our idealistic and negative projections and getting to know the
actual person who is there.
Dialogue makes authentic intimacy possible as we begin to learn the art and science of intimate
communication. Good communication leads to mutual respect, conflict resolution, problem solving
through negotiation, and a sense of growing trust between two equal partners.
All of these fruits of dialogue set the stage for the movement from climbing the peaks of power to
descending into the valley of compassion.
Caring Described
The Definition and Characteristics of Caring
Caring is the expression of compassion and empathy in relationship with ourselves or with
someone we love. As Milton Mayeroff has said, "Being-with characterizes the process of caring ... in
caring for another person we can be said to be with him or her in his or her world, in contrast to knowing
from outside." Further, Mayeroff says that "To care for another person is to help him or her grow and
actualize himself or herself." Mayeroff, On Caring, 1971.
In caring, we consciously descend into pain and suffering without resistance or judgment.
Sometimes just accepting our pain and suffering or the pain and suffering of another is enough to create
some healing and relief. It is important to understanding that caring for others and ourselves may be
healing even if the pain and suffering are incurable and cannot be alleviated.
The prototype for Caring Love is healing relationships or close friendships that may have a
spiritual quality such as "Brotherly Love." Because caring is preceded by Dialogue, it is possible in
caring for two people to empathize with each other and yet to maintain their own personal integrity and
boundaries. In fact, true caring requires a great deal of discipline and courage that in this form of love is
freely given without regard for self-inter est or reciprocity.
The polarity or paradox of Caring is conditional versus unconditional love for one's partner and
one's self. We can only extend this unconditional love to others to the extent we are cultivating
unconditional self-love. Therefore, in t he act of Caring, we are not only giving unconditional love to our
partner, but also creating the inner environment necessary for greater love for ourselves. The two
processes are synergistic with each stimulating growth in the other.
Our generosity and sacrifice in the service of those we love allows them to feel fully accepted and
to grow while our personal self is expanding toward the transpersonal Self. Compassion for self and
others versus love with conditions is the dilemma we face as we move from dialogue to caring. There are
many obstacles on this path of descent into a new way of dealing with pain, vulnerability, and sorrow as
well as authentic pleasure, strength, and joy.
The Developmental Tasks of Caring
Self- detachment. In dialogue we integrate the disowned and projected parts of ourselves through
both inner work and communication with our partner. Having achieved a degree of self-integration allows
us to move step by step outside our frame of reference and to expand our boundaries by identifying with
our partner, by trying to understand how he or she feels, and by letting go of our point of view in order to
imagine what life is like for the one we love. The self-detachment of Caring is a complimentary process
that follows the self-integration of Dialogue.
Other-integration. Being ourselves and having a sense of boundaries and identity allows us to
risk moving closer to those we love by becoming more aware of how they want to be loved rather than to
be intimate with them based on our need to love them in our own way. This involves sensitivity and
attention to our partner's needs and openness to sacrificing our comfort zone as we learn new ways to be
intimate with our partner on their terms. The other-integration of Caring is a complimentary process that
follows the other-detachment of Dialogue.
Learning a language of love that our partners most understand and want to hear helps them to
heal past pain and disappointment giving them the experience of feeling loved. Most of us have longed
for this kind of acceptance of ourselves from a partner who is devoted to taking the time and energy to
learn what we need, when we need it, and how to give it to us in a way we can recognize and accept.
Because Caring is preceded by Dialogue, we are able to exten d this freely given gift of love
without being concerned for equity or reciprocity. As our caring increases, the boundary between others
and ourselves begins to melt and as Rumi says, "The world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even
the phrase 'each other' doesn't make any sense." Version by Coleman Barks.
The Basic Pattern of Caring
Adapted from Mayeroff, On Caring, 1971.
In caring for another, I am helping the other person grow and actualize their potential. I try to
perceive and identify with both their suffering and their potential. I accept that pain and difficulty both for
the other and for myself may be a necessary and even vital part of the grow process. I consciously accept
these difficulties and assist the other to do so as well.
In caring for another, I experience the other as an extension of myself . Yet, I remember that the
other is a separate and unique individual. I try to the best of my ability to "allow the direction of the
other's growth to guide what I do, to help determine how I am to respond and what is relevant to such a
response." Mayeroff, On Caring, l971.
Caring is a process, not an outcome. The outcome may be unpredictable or in doubt, but my
caring is focused on the present moment. I give all that I can in the service of a hoped for goal which can
only be determined and appropriately valued by the effect my caring has on the growth of the other. The
product of caring is a natural outgrowth of the process of caring in the moment.
Caring requires the development of knowledge and trust. I must know the other in order to be
empathetic and to identify with her or him. I must be trusted in order for the other to allow me to care and
I must trust my own strength, intentions, and ability in order to extend myself in a caring way.
In caring for the other, I feel needed for their growth and I respond to that perceived need with
loving devotion. I experience my individual growth and well being as related to the growth and well being
of the other. However, I remember that the focus of my acts of caring is on the other's needs and growth,
as they perceive them.
The Constituent Ingredients of Caring
Adapted from Mayeroff, On Caring, 1971.
Knowing the other's powers, needs, pain, limits, and their history. From this knowing, I can
identify with them and tailor my caring to their needs. I must also know myself, my own powers and
limits to care for another effectively and without unnecessary damage to myself.
Responsiveness to the ever changing situation in which I am present in a caring way for the other.
Not something pre-planned or stereotyped, but with the specificity which is only possible through
attention and sensitivity to the other's needs.
Patience with the process that has its own time table which may or may not be convenient or easy
for me or the one I am caring for. I must maintain active participation in the process of caring and be
willing to see it through both in a particular episode and in the future.
Honesty is required if I am to be genuinely caring. I must ask for and accept feedback on my
attempts to care and I must be willing to be honest with the other about their impact on me and about my
willingness to continue the process. Any dishonestly or deceit is likely to become known and damage
trust and rapport.
Trust in the other's natural growth process will sustain us both in times of doubt. Trust in our
good intentions and ability to learn to be more caring will help us to overcome our limitations and
mistakes. Risking being caring and cared for both requires trust and builds trust, if we are authentic with
each other.
Humility will guard us against grandiosity and arrogance concerning the power of our caring. Our
knowledge and abilities will always be incomplete, there is always more to learn about ourselves and the
other, and whatever growth and healing occurs is due not only to our caring, but maybe even mostly, to
the natural healing process in us all for which our caring can be a catalyst.
Hope can sustain us when there is little else to hold on to. Stopping the pain and curing the ills is
not always possible, but our caring is still vital and important. The present crisis may not end, but it is
always alive with potential growth for us and for those we care for.
Courage is a necessary quality for us to enter into the pain of another. For if we are truly
empathetic, truly feeling with, then we too are in pain, our own and by identifying with other, theirs as
well. Pain is frightening and our fear is justified, but courage allows us to take the risk, to be vulnerable,
and to accept the responsibility that caring for another requires.
Respect for the other we are caring for must be maintained. We must be careful not to see
vulnerability and pain as weakness. We must be careful not to impose our own direction for the other's
growth. We must be careful not to confuse our pain and fears with those of the one we are caring for.
Presence is the essence of caring. Just being there, being with, feeling empathy is sometimes both
all we can do for those we love and sometimes it is the greatest gift and all that is necessary, needed, and
wanted. Just being there.
What Caring is not
Caring is not feeling sorry for someone and separating ourselves from their experience by
observing that they feel something that we do n ot or will not allow ourselves to identify with or feel with
them. Caring is the expression of compassion or empathy that is an expanding experience both for those
we care for and for ourselves. It is being with and knowing the other as much as possible from the inside
by identifying with their situation as if it were our own.
Caring is not domination or possession. It does not imply controlling the one we care about or
dictating what they should feel or do. One cannot care too much as long as one has personal integrity,
boundaries, and respect the individuality of the one cared for.
Caring is not manipulating others or taking advantage of their vulnerability to meet our own
needs to be strong, to be helpful, or to be needed or loved. It is a gift freely given to the other without
strings attached. In the act of caring we may receive an indirect benefit which enhances our growth and
well being, however, that is not the primary motive or the purpose of our caring.
Caring is not forced out of obligation or guilt as in those situations where one feels they 'should'
feel or do something or it would be 'right' to extend oneself to another. This is only a hallow gesture and
will not help others. Caring is always freely given without obligation and without the need to look good,
to be socially correct, or to receive praise or reciprocity.
Caring imposes no direction or prescription for the direction of growth of the one cared for, but
lets the other determine her or his own way. This means that to care for another, we must let go of our
agenda for what we feel is right for them and even support and care for them when we disagree with their
goals and direction.
Overcoming Obstacles to Caring for Ourselves and Others
Obstacles to Being a More Caring Person
Fear. Our fear as care givers of suffering, involvement, and responsibility limits our ability to car
for others. The other's fear as the receiver of our caring of the vulnerability involved in someone seeing
their pain and suffering limits their ability to receive our caring.
Resistance. Our ignorance as care givers of how to empathize accurately and how to accept
feeling the pain necessary to care for them without harming ourselves. The other's belief as the receiver
of our care that no one can understand their pain, accept them with their pain, or help them to cope with
their pain, reduce their pain, or heal their pain.
Selfishness. Our selfishness as care givers, our narcissism, our focus on our own needs, desires,
and pain, making it impossible for us to care for anyone but ourselves. The other's belief as the receiver
of our caring that to ask for help is selfish or self -indulgent, that their vulnerability is a shameful
weakness they should hide, that they are a burden to us we would rather be without, or that care for them
will harm us or the relationship between us.
Blame. Our tendency as care givers to blame and to derogate those in pain as victims who
somehow deserve their suffering in order to defend ourselves from the reality that anyone, including us,
could be 'the victim' painful circumstances and to foster the illusion that the world is safe and just. The
other's belief as the receiver of our caring that they are to blame for their suffering, that only 'bad people'
feel suffering and that they are one of these 'bad people' and are therefore undeserving of our caring and
compassion.
Boundaries. Our confusion as care givers about boundaries concerning when and how much
responsibility we have or should take for healing the suffering of another human being no matter what our
relationship with them. The confusion of the other as receiver of our caring about his or her boundaries
when they feel we are too close and our caring is felt as an intrusion or we are too far away and our caring
is seen as impotent or just a hallow gesture.
Grandiosity and Dependency. Our grandiosity as care givers about being needed, being less
vulnerable than the one who is suffering, being the 'only' one who can care, or even being a 'messiah'
who has the power to heal. The dependency, passivity, and impotence of the other as receiver of our
caring because in their vulnerability and pain they forget their power to heal, their self-respect, and reality
that no one can no matter how much they care for you and love can or should, as a fellow human being,
be seen as your savior.
Being Caring with Others
Learn as much as you can about the nature of caring as being-with another in their pain and
suffering. Understand the basic ingredients of caring and begin a step-by- step process of practicing the
process of caring as extending yourself to another who is suffering and in need.
Before you offer your care or begin to care for someone, be sure you are willing to be with them
in their pain, to be available to them, and to responsive to them when you are there.
When in doubt about the other's desire for your care, ask permission to express caring and always
try to clarify your role as a care giver and the expectations involved on both sides.
If it is unclear, ask how you can best be caring. The primary mode of caring is to be emotionally
receptive to the other's suffering, the secondary mode is to assist in problem solving.
Learn and practice the art and science of active listening, which is the key skill in the primary or
emotionally receptive mode of caring. Active listening involves fluid, but sustained attention,
paraphrasing of meaning, mirroring of emotions, and checking for understanding.
Remember that caring for another human being is a sometimes unpredictable process. Try to be
present with the other in the moment without too much concern for the outcome of your caring, but be
receptive and responsive to explicit or implicit feedback on the process of caring.
Allowing Others to be Caring with You
Decide if you need or want to receive the caring attention of someone. If not, decline offers of
care with appreciation. It is your decision to receive caring or to refuse it.
If you want and need caring, who would be of most help to you? Is that person available and
willing to be with you in your pain and suffering? If they are available, are they offering their care? If yes,
accept it with gratitude. If they are not offering their care, you may need to ask for it.
Try to decide what kind of caring you want. Do you simply want someone to listen and keep you
company or do you want advice and help with solving problems or both?
In your encounters with a caregiver, try to be open, establish trust, and allow yourself to be
vulnerable by disclosing your pain and be receptive to being cared for.
Accept the reality of your suffering and the importance your feelings and needs.
Ask for what you want and express what you don't want or need as clearly as you can.
Allow both emotional and physical intimacy with caregivers that you trust.
If it is possible, let your suffering get better after you have learned any lessons it contains, try not
to prolong your suffering unnecessarily or to become addicted to the pain.
Being Caring toward Yourself
Recognize that suffering and pain are a natural part of the human condition that no one no matter
how fortunate or successful will escape, but don't embrace pain and suffer to such a degree that you go to
the other extreme of becoming a victim or a masochist.
Accept yourself as a fallible human being with common human limitations and specific assets and
liabilities.
Do not judge or punish yourself for your suffering and pain even if they are due to errors or
mistakes that you made. Learn to discriminate between useful and damaging thoughts, words, and deeds,
but do not blame yourself for your shortcomings. Befriend your critic.
Apply the principles you have learned about caring for others to yourself. Allow a caring part of
you to lovingly attend to the more wounded parts. Be compassionate to yourself.
Be good to yourself: gentle, kind, patient, and compassionate. Pretend you are relating in a loving
way to your best friend. Learn to distinguish self-indulgence from self-care.
Begin to listen to the pain for the lessons it may have. A meaningful suffering can be endured
much better than pain that is meaningless.
Move beyond yourself; expand your orbit of care to more people, to animals, to the earth, to any
cause you care about. Caring for others will give greater meaning to your life and move you to the brink
of the transpersonal level of love where the caring heart evolves beyond the personal self and other
toward the Soul in others and ourselves.
Through Caring , the personal self expands toward the awakening of the transpersonal Self , our
True Nature. Taken together, detachment from our personal self and integration with another human
being fosters this expansion of the self into the Self that is ultimately a Transpersonal or Spiritual
phenomena. This Transpersonal or Higher Self is n othing less than a new form of identity and conscious
awareness that evolves as we move from Personal Loving (Dialogue and Caring) to Transpersonal
Loving (Amor and Ecstatic Love). In Amor, an altered and expanded state of consciousness allows us to
enter the Garden of Sorrow and Delight or the Kingdom of Shambhala that exists beyond time and space
in the realm of the Mystic . In embracing the growth- discovery orientation of Dialogue and Caring we
begin to evolve toward the unity-transformation orientation of Transpersonal Loving in our continuing
Ascent of Mount Eros.
CHAPTER SIX
Amor
Seeing the Soul in the Eyes of the Beloved
"Conscious love begins to develop in a relationship where two people share a being-to-
being communion. This is because it is love of being rather than love of personality. In
moments of communion, I am in touch with the depth of my own being and my partner's
being at the same time. ... I share her longings and cannot separate myself from her pain.
We have interpenetrated too deeply for me ever to be able to stand entirely separate from
her again. ... Although we may share fleeting moments of oneness when our beings touch,
complete union remains forever just out of reach. ... In its final outreach, conscious love
leads two lovers beyond themselves toward a greater connectedness with the whole of
life." John Welwood Journey of the Heart, 1990.
"If human beings are bottles containing the wine of God, the significance of the
"Unknown Lady" in the songs of William of Poitier and Aquitaine becomes clear. She is
more than "anima', in the sense of a false image that leads us astray and prevents us
from getting to know our beloved. The Unknown Lady contains and manifests the Self for
William. ... Jung points out the way for a psychological understanding of this possibility,
saying that when the anima is no longer projected but appreciated as an inner figure
within a man, her function is to mediate between ego and Self.
... When anima and animus act as a lens, they bring the Self and its designs into focus.
This applies in two directions. On the one hand, we become centered ourselves; and on
the other, the lens of anima (or animus) brings the unique individuality of our beloved
into focus. ... Such a realization lies behind the ideal of courtly love ... (and) ... indicates
that the mystics were very close to the experience of William of Poitier and Aquitaine,
when he said that obedience to his Unknown Lady coincided with perfect fidelity to
himself."
John R. Haule Divine Madness: Archetypes of Romantic Love, 1990.
The Foundation of Amor in Prepersonal and Personal Love
The Lesser Mysteries of Love: The Prepersonal Level of Loving (1+1=1)
In the Prepersonal Level of Love, we experience Attachment and Romance , forms of love that
occur during the gradual development and maturity of our identity and self-consciousness . These
prepersonal forms of love are vital to our well- being , our development, and our later capacity to love and
be loved in adulthood.
During this era we have a control-securi ty orientation toward love which means that quite
appropriately we are concerned with our physical and emotional security and our ability to influence
those we love. This only becomes a problem if it persists beyond childhood and adolescence into
adulthood and beyond where a control-security orientation is a hindrance to growth. At the prepersonal
level our relationships have an I-It quality because the other is seen as an object necessary for the
fulfillment of our basic emotional and psychological needs. During this era we are quite naturally self-
centered and tend not to be able to see others in their complexity as individuals, but rather our perceptions
are distorted both by our immaturity and by our need-love that can't help but see the other as mainly
someone who either does or doesn't fulfill our needs.
Attachment in the Jungle of Life and Death
Good-enough Attachment is the foundation of life and the bridge that makes the separation-
individuation process possible. During the separation-individuation process , we develop our identity as
distinct from the other and we begin to create inner representations of the relationships we have with
significant attachment figures. Through these working models of attachment or love maps, the quality of
childhood attachments has a profound influence on our later ability to form intimate relationships in
adolescence and throughout adulthood.
Attachments at any time in our lives are emotionally significant bonds which foster either a sense
of security, satisfaction, and joy or when threaten, when separations occur, or when attachments are lost,
foster an emotional crisis consisting of anxiety, anger, guilt, depression, or grief.
Romance in the Forest of Pleasure and Pain
Romance is another critical developmental experience because it awakens our passion for mating
and for a lover who can restore our sense of self-esteem that may have been damaged during our
attachment to childhood caregivers. Attachment wounds lead us to form a false self in order to fulfill the
conditions of worth we perceived were necessary to be loved by our attachment figures. The false self
disowns both the best and worse within us and creates a sense of dis-ease and a usually unconscious sense
of self-criticism or even in extreme cases, self-loathing.
Falling in love with an idealized other who is viewed as our other half or the perfect partner who
is right for us seems to solve the problem of self-love and of finding a mate . Strong hormones and internal
amphetamines create a chemically driven ecstasy that seems to be caused by the other. Unfortunately,
both our idealization of the Other and their ability to make us feel high deteriorate with the passage of
time and we are left with a promise for true love as yet unfulfilled . How we deal with this disappointment
and disillusionment sets the stage for the Personal Level of Love.
The Work of Love: The Personal Level of Loving (1+1=3)
Personal love is an I-You encounter between two adults who view relationships with a growth-
discovery orientation. Personal love includes the stages of Dialogue and Caring.
Dialogue in the Ascent of the Peaks of Power
Dialogue is the first stage of the Personal Level of Love . It requires an ascent of the peaks of
power into a more consciousness and mature way to relate to others. In dialogue as a work of love, we
begin the process of self-integration of our disowned qualities and initiate an inner relationship with both
our shadow and with the inner man or woman. We must also undertake the complimentary task of other-
detachment, which involves the withdrawal of projections.
Dialogue also involves learning the art and science of intimate communication. It is helpful if
couples communication is set in the container of a mutual commitment to the relationship and an
agreement to work together on better understanding and acceptance of each other. In dialogue we learn
how to use power constructively to increase self-knowledge and to create authentic intimacy rather than to
use power destructively to continue our self-deception and avoidance of intimacy.
Caring in the Vales of Compassion
While the fruits of dialogue create the possibility for caring, the ability to care for another and be
cared for opens the heart and makes a new transpersonal state of consciousness possible. Caring is the
expression of compassion for others and ourselves where we begin to identify lovingly with the pain and
vulnerability within ourselves and within others.
As our heats open, we learn to care for others, to allow others to care for us, and to care for
ourselves. Caring involves self-detachment , moving beyond our own needs and feelings and other-
integration, learning to be-with the other and through empathy to know them as if from the inside. In
caring, we learn to love and appreciate others and ourselves in our vulnerability and pain. Our love
becomes less conditional and our identity more expansive. In caring, we are learning to love other human
beings and ourselves in an unconditional way and with an open heart.
The Greater Mysteries of Love: The Transpersonal Level of Loving
Transpersonal love is an experience of both expansion of the ego toward the Self and
transformation of our view of the beloved from a person or personality, to a human being in his or her
essence. This process requires an altered state of consciousness that shifts our awareness and expands our
view of others and ourselves. In Amor and Ecstatic love we move beyond our ego toward a higher Self
seeing the Soul in the eyes of our beloved and in the Essence of ourselves.
The Transformation of Personal Love (1+1=3) to Transpersonal Love (1+1=0)
Personal Love can occur because an individual has evolved to a level of psychological maturity
or reflective self-consciousness . Self and other are clearly differentiated making greater self-knowledge
and authentic relationship possible. Caring allows our self-consciousness awareness to expand toward
self-actualization and self-transcendence. The compassionate love of caring opens our hearts and creates a
sense of identity that is inclusive of the beloved. Transpersonal love continues this expansion of the self
through an altered state of consciousness that awakens our innate capacity for self-transcendence and
mystical experience. William James, the father of American Psychology, expressed our capacity for
altered states of consciousness:
" . . . Our normal waking consciousness . . . is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it
parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We
may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus and at a touch
they are there is all their completeness. . .
No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of
consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question . . . At any rate they forbid a
premature closing of our accounts with reality."
William James (The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1910)
"How to regard" these altered states of consciousness is indeed the question. Is there really a
transpersonal level of consciousness, a mystical or spiritual realm of human experience? Or are these
altered states a regression to a prepersonal level of self- other fusion and therefore inferior to self-
consciousness and a pathology? The following discussion of the Transpersonal Level of Love makes the
assumption that these altered states of consciousness are transcendent of the self, are a form of enhanced
or higher awareness, and a sign of the evolution of the human being toward a state of ultimate health,
ultimate being, and ecstatic love.
From the point of view of transpersonal psychology, our ordinary waking consciousness is more
like hypnosis than an enhanced state of awareness. Prepersonal forms of love while normal and healthy
during our development, must be transcended and yet included in our evolving awareness for us to grow
in consciousness toward Amor and Ecstatic Love.
At the transpersonal level, love becomes a Spiritual Practice whose aim is awakening of our true
nature though the yoga of love where the purpose of a relationship is salvation, liberation, enlightenment,
or reunion with God as the Beloved, depending on the tradition. As Ken Wilber, the Einstein of the
transpersonal psychology, has said about these higher states of consciousness,
"On this level, man is identified with universe, the All or rather he is All. According to the
psychologia perennis, this level is not an abnormal state of consciousness, nor even an altered state of
consciousness, but rather the only real state of consciousness, all others being essentially illusions ...
man's inner most consciousness - known variously as the Atman, the Christ, Tathagatagarbha (Buddha
Nature) - is identical to the ultimate reality of the universe."
Ken Wilber "Psychologia Perennis: The Spectrum of Consciousness"
in Beyond Ego: Transpersonal Dimensions in Psychology,
Edited by Roger N. Walsh and Frances Vaugan, 1980.
Amor Described
The Definition and Characteristics of Amor
Abraham Maslow was a pioneering psychologist who was interested in the farther reaches of
human nature. While his contemporaries where studying distressed individuals in the clinic or animals in
the laboratory, Maslow was studying healthy people and how these self- actualizing individuals expressed
themselves in loving relationships. He proposed that after one's basic needs were met, a group of higher
needs represented by self-actualization and self-transcendence began more and more to direct the
experience of a person.
Maslow called Amor, Being-Love . He also discussed periods of intense well-being as peak
experiences and suggested that the farther reaches of human nature were a part of every individual's
potential although probably expressed fully only by a few exceptionally healthy people. The study of the
psychology of being, the study of love in healthy people, and founding of transpersonal psychology were
Maslow's final contribution to the field of psychology and to society at large.
Amor or Being-Lov e is defined as "unselfish, understanding love for the being or intrinsic nature
of the other, making it possible to perceive and enjoy the other as an end in herself or himself ... being-
love is welcome into consciousness and is completely enjoyed, it can never be sated, it may enjoyed
without end ... It is an end rather than a means . . ." The Psychology of Being, 1969.
Maslow goes on to describe being -love by saying, " ... the truest, most penetrating perception of
the other is made possible by B-love ... (it) creates the partner. It gives her or him a self- image, a feeling
of love-worthiness ... all of which permit her or him to grow. It is a real question whether the full
development of the human being is possible without it." The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, 1970.
When discussing Amor as Being-Love, the word, "being" is use in two different ways:
Using the small case, being = one's basic or essential nature and is equivalent to the Jungian
term, Self, as distinct from the ego or the personal self. An individual's being is also equivalent to the
mystical notion of the Soul or the essential unconditioned center of a person, your true nature.
Using the upper case, Being = Universal Being, God, or Absolute Existence. Being is the
unmanifest ground of all that exists and in Jungian terms, it is also called the Self as expressed in the
collective unconscious of humanity and is equivalent to the mystical notion of Spirit.
Individual "being" as Self can be seen as the immanent presence of God within us (Soul) while
cosmic "Being" as Self can be seen as the transcendent presence of God beyond us (Spirit).
A connection to the Self as "being" in ourselves and in others through Amor is the gateway to a
connection to Self as "Being" in the cosmic sense. Both uses of the term "being" are transpersonal.
Amor or Being-Love makes both connections to being and to Being possible in the relationship between
the human lover and the Beloved. In Ecstatic Love, being = Being after the Sacred Marriage.
The prototype for Amor is the relationship between the human lover and the Divine Beloved in
human form or what Martin Buber has called, the I-Thou relationship. In Amor the I-Thou relationship
between two human beings becomes a spiritual practice of seeing the Soul both within ourselves and
within our Beloved. The Beloved is loved individually and as a vehicle to God.
Amor or Being-Love "is so great and so pure (unambivalent) for the object itself, that its good is what we
want, not what it can do for us ... Real love then is non-interfering and non- demanding and can delight in
the thing itself; therefore, it can gaze at the object without guile, design, or calculation of any selfish kind
... the object remains more whole, more unified, which amounts to saying, more itself." Maslow. Notes
on Being-Psychology, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 2, no. 2, p. 62).
The polarity or paradox of Amor or Being-Love is our attachment to our ego or personal self
versus the expansion of our identity (and therefore our relationshi ps ) from self to being , or from ego to
Self, or from the personal to the transpersonal . In relationship this polarity is manifest as viewing the
Beloved as body and a personality versus seeing beyond the veils of the physical form to being of the
Beloved and finally, in Ecstatic Love to Being , the Divine Beloved without the human vehicle.
Amor or Being-Love as Expressed in Self-Actualizing Couples
Maslow discovered Amor or Being-Love in his studies of self- actualizing people.
He says the following about the expression of love in healthy people:
"This analysis of states of Being (temporary, non-striving, purposeless, self-validating, end-experiences
and states) emerged first from a study of the love-relations and sexual experiences of self-actualizing
people, and then of other people as well, and finally, from dipping into the theological and philosophical
literatures. It became necessary to differentiate two types of love. The one is love that comes from
ordinary love-need, ... the need for narcissistic supplies, for gratification of a deficiency of love. It can
therefore be called deficiency-love (D-love). It is typically and normally found in children or adolescents
(or whatever age) in our culture.
But this creates a paradox. self-actualizing people, by definition gratified of their basic needs,
including the love need, should cease loving and wanting love, if the only determinant of love were basic
need-love. But the finding is that they are more loving people that the average, rather that less loving,
especially from the point of view of being able to give love as well as to receive it.
The attempt to understand this led to the formulation of another type of love, closely akin to what
the theologians have called Agapean love, or Godly love... It is a love for the essence or the Being of the
other person, ... quite apart from what he (or she) can give the lover, a love for the person in himself (or
herself) rather than for what we can get from him (or her), detached, altruistic, admiring, unneeded,
unselfish. It is love for another person because he (or she) is what he (or she) is rather because he (or
she) is a need-gratifier."
Cognition of Being in the Peak Experiences, Journal of Genetic Psychology, 1959.
A Description of Amor or Being-Love in Self -Actualizing Couples
• Greater taste and perceptiveness in the choice of with whom to become attached.
• Enhanced ability to give and receive love in all interpersonal relations.
• Dropping of defenses with greater spontaneity and less rigid role-playing.
• A willingness to share and accept vulnerability and pain as well as joy.
• The partners are both friends and lovers.
• Sex and love are perfectly fused. Sexual encounters are enjoyed without anxiety
• A complete absence of possessiveness and jealousy.
• Flexibility of sex roles, social roles, and family roles.
• Greater care, mutual responsibility, and a pooling of needs than average.
• Greater fun and gaiety. Greater enjoyment of shared activities - playful.
• Acceptance of the partner's individuality and mutual respect.
• Detachment and individuality which allows for more genuine intimacy without
the fear of engulfment or abandonment which limits love.
• Love as an end experience: awe, wonder, bliss, admiration, peak experiences;
a selfless love for the partner without conditions of any kind.
Adapted from Maslow, Motivation and Personality , 1970.
The Celebration of Amor in the Sacred Traditions of Many Cultures
Amor is the penultimate expression of the erotic impulse first experienced in the pre-relational (or
prepersonal) stage of love that we have been calling Romance. Our modern cult of romantic love is based
on confusion between the projection of anima and animus onto the Beloved and the withdrawal of that
projection making it possible to use anima and animus as a lens to see the essence of being and Being,
both in ourselves and in our Beloved.
Amor was the name given to the devotional love of the Unknown Lady by the 12th and 13th
century troubadours and poets of Provence, Germany, Northern Italy, Moslem Spain, and Persia who
composed poems and sang songs in honor of Seeing the Soul in the Eyes of the Beloved . The Beloved was
seen as a human vehicle for ecstatic contemplation of Divi ne Beauty . The ultimate goal of love in Amor
is, not possession or sexual union, but what the Arabic Sufis called, fana and what the Christian mystics
called, spiritual marriage. "They (both) claim that the mystic (lover) can pass away into God by passing
through another human being." Haule, Divine Madness, 1990.
The Platonic Eros of the Greek Love Mysteries (5th Century, BCE)
Aristophanes in his story of the origin of love, the Myth of the Androgyne, defines Eros as the
pursuit of wholeness to heal our wounded soul. Later in the Symposium , Socrates says his teacher about
love was the Priestess Diotima who said that love desired beauty above all and that the love of beauty
began with a beautiful form like an attractive person and ascended in successive stages to Eternal Beauty
of the Divine. In Plato's Phaedrus , Socrates describes the ascent of the winged soul inspired by seeing
someone having a godlike face or form "which is the expression of divine beauty; and ... awe steals over
him ... and whole soul is in a state of ebullition and effervescence ... when the soul is beginning to grow
wings, the beauty of the beloved meets the eyes ...and the soul is refreshed and warmed and ... ceases
from pain and joy."
The Fin Amor (True Love) of the Provencal Troubadours (12th Century, CE)
As Robert Bly says, "One of the greatest periods in Western literature occurred ...when the
Provencal language became a medium for ecstatic poetry. The poets, both men and women, spoke of love
relationships and divine relationships in the same poem. ...The emphasis was on ecstatic love. The word
use for love was amor. ...it becomes clear that one possible interpretation ...was that a man loved and
admired a woman, but he also looked through her to the Divine Feminine on the other side." The
Soul is Here for Its Own Joy, 1995.
"True love - fins amor - which is the end of love is also the path of love. It is the joyful practice of
the experience of desire without an objective, or desire purified of all egotism and possessiveness."
Bamford, in Parabola , Winter 1995.
The Fedeli D'Amore (Faithful Love) of the Sufis (13th Century, CE)
Sufi poets in the Islamic tradition such as Rumi and Ibn Arabi celebrated Amor. "Ruzbehan Baqli
of Shiraz (d. 1209) in his beautiful Persian book entitled The Jasmin of the Fedeli d'amore . " ...
distinguishes between the pious ascetics, or Sufis, who never encountered the experience of human love,
and the Fedeli d'amore, for whom the experience of a cult of love dedicated to a beautiful being is the
necessary initiation to divine love, form which it is inseparable.. . . among the ascetic schools of Sufis,
one had to sacrifice fleshly love in order to attain the love of God. But in the tradition of the Fedeli
d'amore, no one who had not experienced love at the sight of the beauty of a human creature could
become capable of the love of God. His heart would be unprepared, unseasoned, unschooled, barbaric
and not yet "gentle." Heyneman, in Parabola, Winter, 1995.
The Fedeli D'Amore (Faithful Love) of the Dante Alighieri (13th Century, CE)
"It was impossible to receive divine love until the sight of a beautiful human person had
awakened in the lover a form of intelligence Dante and his friends called, "the intellect of love,"
intellecto d'amore, or "gentle (i.e. noble) heart. ...Dante (a disciple of the Provencal poets) and his
associates baptized themselves the "Faithful in Love' (Fedeli D'Amore). ...The fedele d'amore has
understood that the Image is not outside him, but within his being; better still, it is his very being.
As Dante said, love and the gentle heart are the same thing." Heyneman, in Parabola, Winter 1995.
Peak Experiences in the Mythic Kingdom of Shambhala
Amor as a Self-Transcendent Mystical State or 'Peak Experience'
In climbing Mount Eros, after we have traveled in the vales of compassion, our hearts are open to
the possibility of beginning an inner journey to the mythic kingdom of Shangri-La or Shambhala. Sacred
texts from Tibet and elsewhere tell of a paradise hidden away in the Himalayan mountains that can only
be entered by those with a pure heart and by those who experience the expanded state of consciousness
necessary to recognize the kingdom. Finding Shambhala within is a metaphor the transpersonal
awakening through Amor that we have been exploring. Amor or Being-love is the equivalent this hidden
kingdom high on the slopes of Mount Eros. Through Amor, we are transformed by self -transcendent
mystical experiences Maslow called, Peak Experiences. Maslow describes people's reports of peak
experiences as:
"having had something like mystic experience, moments of great awe, moments of the intense
happiness or even rapture, ecstasy, or bliss. ... These moments were of pure, positive happiness
when all doubts, all fears, all inhibitions, all tensions, all weaknesses, were left behind. Now self-
consciousness was lost. All separateness and distance from the world disappeared as they the felt
one with the world, fused with it, really belonging in it and to it...that they had really seen the
ultimate truth, the essence of things, the secret of life, as if veils had been pulled aside. ... These
mystic experiences feel like the ultimate satisfaction of vague, unsatisfied yearnings ... like the
miracle achieved, like the perfection finally attained."
Lessons from Peak-Experiences, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, vol. 2, p. 10.
Maslow discovered that almost everybody has peak experiences at some time in their lives and
that in essence they are similar whatever the trigger and whatever the context in which they occur. For
many people the trigger for a peak experience is sexual union with the beloved and the context is a
committed love relationship. Maslow says the following about this possibility:
"If men and women could perceive intercourse, orgasm, and other less 'erotic' expressions of
love as a unifying experience, a holy experience, a symbol, as a miracle, or as a religious
experience ... such perceptions and awareness should be able to help any male and any female to
experience the transcendent and unitive, both in oneself and in the other. In this way, the eternal
becomes visible in and through the particular ... the sacred can fuse with the profane, and one
can transcend the universe of time and space while being of it." Religion, Values, and Peak-
Experiences, 1964.
Amor as a Vehicle toward Ecstatic Love
Amor is the stage of love in which the promise of romance is fulfilled because the lover has
evolved to a state of consciousness in which the ego (self) is integrated enough to expand internally
toward the Self (being) and outwardly toward the Self (being) of the beloved.
Ultimately in Ecstatic Love , our consciousness evolves toward "the passing away of the
individual self in Universal Being" Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism, 1921. Here we are talking
about union of the self with Being or self with God in the Sacred Marriage , the wedding of the lover and
the Beloved at the summit of Mount Eros .
Amor or Being-Love opens the possibility for two people not only to expand the love within
them, and between them, but it also allows that love to expand beyond the couple to embrace all
humankind, all animals, all life, and all the world. Amor opens our awareness to the transcendent mystery
that informs all of life and sets the stage for the final ascent toward the summit of Mount Eros and
Ecstatic Love.
As Theologian, Teilhard de Chardin has said,
"Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such as way as to complete and fulfill
them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ecstatic Love
The Sacred Marriage
"God has made everything beautiful in its time, and has put eternity in our heart.
...I have put my truth in your innermost mind, and I have written it in your heart. No longer does
a man need to teach his brother about God. For all of you know Me, from the most ignorant to
the most learned, from the poorest to the most powerful."
The Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian Bible
"Genesis says, "In the beginning God..." But then John the Baptist says, "God is love!" The
word is love. Thus, paraphrasing John, "In the beginning was love, and love was with God and
Love was God" ... So God created man is his own image ...Thus man is created in and of love.
No matter how far (we) may stray from the root of reality into the circumference of living, it is
always true that (we) are grounded in the allness of love. The chief work of (our) life is to 'call
to remembrance' (our) true nature, which is created in the image and likeness of God who is
Love..."
Eric Butterworth, The Unity of All Life
"Sexual union is the finest prayer a married couple can offer to God. As an expression of God's
love, it creates unity and joy which are the surest sign of God's presence. As an expression of the
couple's love for each other, it is the clearest affirmation that love is their vocation, a call to
build God's kingdom. ...Sexual love transforms, as does prayer, not through ...the promise of
immediate results, but through gradually deepened intimacy... The key to a joy- filled sexual
embrace is like the key to all joy-filled prayer. It is surrender. ...In sexual union, we discover that
wholeness of being is a gift which, although sought by us, demands a complete letting-go into the
care and embrace of the other. It is in this act of surrender which is the married couple's
celebration of the paschal mystery, the dying and rising of Christ."
Kevin Regan, The Prayer of Conjugal Love in The Erotic Impulse, ed. by David Steinberg, 1992
"...the hieros gamos or sacred marriage was none other than the communion of divine energies
under the names of gods and goddesses . . . we can speak of two kinds of sacred marriage in the
mysteries: the marriage of energies between gods, and wedding of a human being and a god. But
in both cases, the sacred marriage is important because it links the divine and human realms -
for even the marriage of the gods takes on significance for us only in relation to the human
realm. ...Thus in the ancient mysteries, it is not surprising that there was widespread practice of
"marriage to a deity," according to which one not only dedicated oneself to a god, but in fact
underwent a kind of "wedding" to the God. ...the individual is transmuted, "reborn" by virtue of
having been initiated into and experiencing directly the Divine itself."
Arthur Versluis, The Mysteries of Love, 1996
EROS and AGAPE: The Alpha and the Omega of Love Energy
Conditional versus Unconditional Love
Unconditional Love (AGAPE)
Loss of center. Love is seen as outside of us. We
are beggars seeking love.
We imagine others as Kings and Queens .
Love is the center of our being. Love is both
within and without. We are Kings and Queens with
love overflowing.
Based on expectations and demands. A contract
for the exchange of need fulfillment.
(Maslow's Deficiency-Love)
(Lewis' Need Love) (Buber's I-It)
Not based on demands or expectations. Love for
the sake of loving. Pure joy in loving in and of
itself. (Maslow's Being-L ove)
(Lewis' Gift Love) (Buber's I-Thou)
Passion for security. Pleasure and power are seen
as coming from the other. We can become
addicted to the goal of love. Only certain 'special'
people are loved who can fulfill our needs. They
and we are imprisoned by love, not freed by love.
Compassion for others and ourselves. Our center
of pleasure and power is within us. Freedom from
addiction, no goal is sought in loving. All receive a
freely given gift of love including ourselves. Love
in this sense brings freedom and joy everlasting.
We love only when our conditions are met. The
other's absence or lack of cooperation can lead to
fear, jealousy, anger, depression, or even hatred.
Our love is all-inclusive and unlimited. It is not
based on conditions or needs or any distinction in
the other. It accepts all things, all events, and all
feelings, without a loss of love.
Attachment begins, ends, and is born again in fear.
It is rigid, specifies particular modes of expression;
it divides, is exclusive, individual, and self-
centered. It meets conflict and suffering both
within and without.
Perfect love casts out fear. It is complete and free
without demands or conditions. It is ultimate
flexibility and acceptance. There is no conflict
within or without. It brings and gives peace, joy,
harmony, and forgiveness.
Adapted in part from Yogi Desai, Love: Flight from Addiction to Freedom, 1977.
The Experience of Unconditional Love
To be unconditionally loving seems beyond the reach of human beings. Surely, only God can love in
this way, but if we are in essence children of God, made in the image of God, then love is our true inner
nature and we can learn to love unconditionally with time and patience.
To be unconditionally loving and unconditionally loved would indeed be a blessing. We all want to
be known and loved for who we really are, not for what someone wants us to be. To be loved and accepted
despite our limitations and imperfections is a healing experience.
"Unconditional love corresponds to one of the deepest longings ... of every human being; on the other
hand, to be loved because of one's merit, because one deserves it, always leaves doubt; maybe I did not
please the person who I want to love me - there is always a fear that love could disappear ...
"deserved" (conditional) love leaves a bitter feeling that one is not loved for oneself, that one is loved
only because on pleases, that one is ... not love at all, but used."
Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving, 1956.
John Boyd describes the joy of being unconditionally loved when he says,
"The most distinctive quality of all genuine expressions of love is the absence of separation and the
attendant sense of deep security. Guided by unconditional love, we never have to prove our value, our worth;
we have absolutely no need of any external verification."
Love that Works by Frosty Holladay from In Context, Summer 1985.
John Powell in his book, Unconditional Love, goes on to say,
"The essential message of unconditional love is one of liberation; you can be whoever you are ... you
do not have to be fearful love will be taken away ... there is nothing else that can ... bring a person into full
possession of life more than a love which is unconditional."
The Reconciliation of Eros and Agape
The contrast between conditional and unconditional love or between Eros and Agape is instructive,
but is also represent the danger of judging or discounting our need for love. The less mature expressions of
love such as attachment and romance are an essential part of our development and of the human condition of
every person.
Father D'Arcy tries to reconcile these two forms of love in his book, Eros and Agape, by saying,
"The two forms of love, Egocentric (Eros) and Theocentric (Agape) have to live tog ether, ...we must
not think of the two loves as separate and independent within (ourselves), even though, in order to bring out
there distinctive characteristics, we have to treat them as if they were alone. Either of these form of love
alone is insufficient by itself ... on one side, there will be a (person) with a passion which seeks deliverance,
on the other, God (or an unconditional loving person) who respects his (or her) integrity while lifting him (or
her) up to a new relation of love."
Ken Wilber, in his book Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality (1995), says it this way,
"Eros is the love of the lower reaching up to the higher (Ascent); Agape is the love of the higher
reaching down to the lower (Descent). In individual development, one ascends via Eros (or expanding to a
higher and wider identity), and then integrates via Agape (or reaching down to embrace with care all lower
holons), so that balanced development transcends but includes - it is negation and preservation, ascent and
descent, Eros and Agape.
Likewise, the love of the Kosmos reaching down to us from a higher level than our present stage of
development is also Agape (compassion), helping us to respond with Eros until the source of that Agape is
our own developmental level, our own self. The Agape of a higher dimension is the omega pull for our own
Eros, inviting us to ascend, via wisdom, and thus to expand the circle of our own compassion for more and
more beings."
Finally, as George Tavard has written in his book, A Way of Love (1987),
"Lov e is manifest at all levels where creatures are capable of union; from mineral and vegetal
beings to highly spiritual persons. Spiritual love (Agape) unites mind or spirits; corporeal love (Eros) unites
things or bodies. Human persons partake of both and so does (our) love. Human love is inseparably 'Agape'
and 'Eros', self-gift and other- desire."
The whole world is a market place for Love,
The Eternal Wisdom made all things in Love:
On Love they all depend, to Love all turn.
In Love no longer 'Thou' and 'I' exist,
For the self has passed away in the Beloved.
He who would know the secret of both worlds
Will find the secret of them both, is Love.
By the Sufi poet, Attar.
Ecstatic Love Described
When considering Ecstatic Love, we begin with the Transpersonal Awakening that has occurred
through the experience of Amor (or Being- love) and the Peak Experiences or glimpses of the Divine that are
possible when one sees the Soul in the eyes of the Beloved . There are many levels of transpersonal experience
and Transpersonal or Spiritual Love . Seeking Ecstatic Love is making relationships a Spiritual Practice or an
Erotic Mysticism in which one's partner and all one's relationships are seen as a vehicle for contact with God
or the ultimate Reality . Ecstatic Love is at heart of all spiritual traditions.
"The Truth is One, Many are the Ways."
Ecstatic love may be defined from the point of view of many spiritual traditions
Ecstatic Love in the Stages of Awakening according to the Hindu Vedas
"I am THAT" Ecstatic Love as an affirmation that one's essence, identity,
or being is equivalent to THAT or Being, the Divine
Presence.
"Thou art THAT" Ecstatic Love as an affirmation that the one's beloved
is in essence equivalent to THAT or Being, the Divine
Presence.
"All This is THAT" Ecstatic Love as an affirmation that the manifest world
is equivalent to THAT or Being, the Divine Presence,
which occurs in a "Peak Experience" or mystical rapture.
"THAT is all there is" Ecstatic love as an affirmation of the living universe.
THAT or Being, the Divine Presence, is the ultimate reality,
the only reality, the ground, or source of all that exists.
"Love is energy. It is the supreme energy, the highest power that exists. Love is so
supreme, so high, that man refers to it as God. Love is God, but it is also man's true inner
nature... Love expresses itself as compassion, truth, patience, perseverance, tranquility ,
contentment, and joy... it is the only lasting source of deep inner happiness... Love is
timeless, limitless, it is a universal phenomena, and the person who love purely is a
universal personality. He or she has merged with existence, with All-inclusive Love."
Yogi Desai, Love: Flight from Addiction to Freedom, 1977.
Ecstatic Love in the Christian Mystical Tradition
"Beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God, and he who loves is born of
God and knows God. He who does not love, does not know God, for God is love. In this the
love of God was made manifest among us. That God sent his only Son into the world, so that
he might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and
sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to
love one another. No man has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and
his love is perfected in us.
So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in
love, abides in God and God abides in him. In this is love perfected in us, ...There is no fear
in love. But perfect love casts out fear. ...he who fears is not perfected in love. We love God
because he loved us.
If any one says, "I love God" and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who
does not love his brother who he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this
commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also.
...Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
The Gospel according to John in the Christian New Testament
Ecstatic Love in Mystical Islam or Sufism
Love is an infinite Sea whose skies are a bubble of foam.
Know that it is the waves of Love that turn the wheels of Heaven;
Without Love, nothing in the world would have life.
How is an inorganic thing transformed into a plant"
How are plants sacrificed to become rich with spirit?
How is spirit sacrificed to become Breath?
One scent of which was potent enough to make Mary pregnant?
Every single atom is drunk with this Perfection and runs towards It.
And what does this running secretly say but "Glory be to God"
Jelaluddin Rumi trans. by Andrew Harvey, The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi, 1994.
The Prototype for Ecstatic Love
The prototype for Ecstatic Love is the Sacred Marriage or the Divine Wedding in which the
individual soul merges with the Divine Spirit. In the Ecstatic Love 1 + 1 = 0, there is no relationship, just
perfect union beyond space and time. A couple who views their relationship from the point of view of the
Sacred Marriage, sees the Ecstatic Mystery between them and within each other as an expression of the
Divine. Man as God and Woman as Goddess in a Sacred Marriage of flesh and the spirit. This prototypical
relationships is expressed in the following quote:
" ... Relationship has very little significance when we are merely seeking mutual
gratification but becomes extraordinarily significant when it is a means of self-revelation
and self-knowledge.
After all, there is no relationship in love, is there? It is only when you love
something and expect a return of your love that there is a relationship. When you love, that
is when you give yourself over to something entirely, wholly, then there is no relationship.
If you do love, if there is such a love, then it is a marvelous thing. In such love there
is no friction, there is not the one and the other, there is complete unity. It is a state of
integration and complete being... "
Krishnamurti, First and Last Freedom.
The Polarity or Paradox of Ecstatic Love
The polarity or paradox of Ecstatic Love is Being versus Non- Being or Mortality versus Eternity. It
is the final puzzle of human existence which asks, "Who am I?", "Who is my partner?", "Where did we
come from?", "Where are we going?", "What is death?", and "Is there a God and Life everlasting?". Our
beliefs about these questions determine the degree of our anxiety or peace of mind and our experience of the
ultimate meaning or futility of our life and our loves.
The follow quote by a teacher in the Hindu tradition gives expression to this paradox as he describes
Ecstatic love in terms of the sacred marriage and its relationship to Being and Nonbeing, to death and rebirth:
" ... love may take the form of holy chastity whose nuptials will only be celebrated in divinis :
The 'sacred marriage', consummated in the heart, adumbrates the deepest of all mysteries.
For this means both our death and beatific resurrection. The word to "marry" (Eko Bhu,
become one) also means to "die", just as in Greek, (the word for marriage) is to be perfected,
to be married, or to die. When 'Each is both', no relation persists: and were it not for this
beatitude (ananda) there would be neither life nor gladness anywhere." Coomaraswamy,
Hinduism and Buddhism.
In Whitall N. Perry, A Treasury of Traditional Wisdom, 197l.
Forgiveness and Loving-kindness
The Practice of Forgiveness in the Christian Tradition
As Jesus said,
"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and
pray for those who mistreat you, so that you may be children of your Father in Heaven: for
he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends the rain to the just and to the
unjust."
"Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be
condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you: they will
pour into your lap good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing. For the
measure by which you give you will receive."
Loving-kindness in the Buddhist Tradition
Forgiveness is also fundamental to the Buddhist tradition as expressed in the concept of loving-
kindness meditations like the Hymn of Love abridged below:
"... may all live joyful and in safety, and may their hearts be filled with happiness.
Whatever beings exist, should they be weak, or strong, or otherwise. All, whether, long,
short, thick, or thin, or great or small or of medium size ... may all be filled with happiness in
the heart.
No one should ever hurt another, despise another for whatever reason and never should in
wrath and hatred one wish another distress.
Just as a mother her own child, her only son, protects with all her might, just so one may
toward all that lives develop one's mind in boundless kindness.
Thus toward all the world, one should unfold one's mind with all-embracing love."
Path of Deliverance by Nyanatiloka Mahathera.
Sharon Salzberg, a Buddhist meditation teacher, has written an excellent new book entitled,
Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, 1995, in which she says,
"The Buddha described the spiritual part that leads to freedom as 'the liberation of the heart
which is love', and taught a systematic, integrated path that moves the heart out of isolating
contraction into true connection. That path is still with us as a living tradition of meditation
practices that cultivate love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. These four
qualities are among the most beautiful and powerful states of consciousness we can
experience."
She goes on to say these qualities are called the Brahma-viharas or Heavenly Abode . They are also
called boundless states are described in the Digha- Nikaya Sutta 33 as follows:
"There are four boundless states, my brothers: herein one with all-embracing kindness, with
compassion, with altruistic joy, with equanimity pervades... above, below, around every
quarter. And identifying with All, he pervades the entire universe with all-embracing
kindness, with compassion, with altruistic joy, with equanimity, with a heart grown great,
wide, deep, boundless, free from wrath and anger..."
Forgiveness is a very difficult and arduous path to follow because we tend to cling to wrongdoing
both by ourselves and by others believing they and we do not deserve forgiveness. Our internal and external
judgments only cause pain to others and ourselves. In order to prepare ourselves as a vessel for God's love or
a vehicle for our Buddha nature, we must learn to forgive, to let go, and to open our hearts like Jesus and the
Buddha taught by the example of their lives.
The Sacred Marriage: Hieros Gamos as Erotic Mysticism
The Hierogamic Rite: The Marriage of the Great Goddess and Her Consort
The ritual known as hieros gamos originated during the early agricultural societies who believed the
fertility of the earth was dependent on the celestial congress of the Great Goddess and her Divine Lover. In
his fine book, Sacred Sexuality: Living the Vision of the Erotic Spirit, 1992,
Georg Feuerstein discusses this and other aspects of erotic mysticism as follows:
"The holy intercourse between the God and Goddess was reenacted on the human level by
the temple priestess and the divinely appointed king or high priest. ...To appreciate this
practice, one must understand that the ancients thought of their deities as actually dwelling
in the temple. ...Originally, the sexual union between God and Goddess was conceived as a
temporary, if cosmic, event celebrated annually. Only later were these deities thought to be
married in perpetuity."
The hieros gamos ritual occurred as early as the third millennium, BCE and was at the center of the
mystery traditions of ancient Sumeria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Highly erotic poetry was written about the
divine marriage in each of these eras and each culture had its divine couples such as the Sumerian Goddess
Inanna and the God Dumuzi, the Babylonian Goddess Ishtar and the God Tammuz, the Egyptian Goddess
Isis and the God Osiris, and the more familiar Gods and Goddess of the Greek and Roman Pantheon.
These themes also appeared in the traditions of the East such the Hindu God Shiva and the Goddess
Shakti. As was discussed earlier, in these Hierogamic rites there was death as well as life; death of the old
and rebirth of the new. In psychological terms we might think of this as the death of living and loving
centered on the ego and the birth of a new life and a new love centered on the Self as the essence of our
being or on God as the source of our Being.
As Arthur Versluis in his book, The Mysteries of Love (1996) has noted,
"...the symbolism of the holy marriage with the god or goddess during certain
ritual traditions of the ancient mysteries ...was continued in Christianity.
...regarding Christ as the bridegroom and the individual soul as the holy bride.
Ritually, this symbolism reaches its height in the Eastern Orthodox Easter
services, which are a ritual evocation of precisely the marriage of spirit (Christ)
and soul."
The Love Mystics: The Sacred Marriage in Gnostic Christianity and Sufism
Arthur Versluis in his book, The Mysteries of Love (1996) says,
"At the center of the Christian mystery is certainly the image of the wedding, whose
symbolism begins Jesus' series of miracles, but also is incorporated into certain parables
and other places in the New Testament ...One finds the symbolism of the holy marriage
recurring time and again. ...It is here that spiritual Eros comes into play, for the wedding is
also a symbol for the joining of the lover and the Beloved. When we are called to the
wedding of the king's son, we are called to be guests, and to embody in ourselves the union
taking place. Many are called to the wedding, yet few embody it in themselves."
The spiritual seekers who have most celebrated and embodied the Divine Wedding are the love
mystics of the Christian tradition. In Christianity, the Hieros Gamos it is called Bridal Mysticism since the
Soul is the bride of Christ. The Erotic Mysticism of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Hildegard of Bingen, St.
Mechthild of Magdeburg, St. John of the Cross, and Teresa of Avila among others is filled with passionate
longing for God and a celebration of union with God.
There are also many Sufi Love Mystics. The Sacred Marriage is just as vital to this Islamic esoteric
tradition as it is to Gnostic Christianity. Poets such as Rumi, Attar, Hafez and Ibn` Arabi among others have
used the Beloved to mean both the human lover as man or woman and the Divine Lover as God or Goddess.
Since the 13th century, this ecstatic poetry has captured the imaginations of millions and is enjoying a
renaissance now at the end of the 2nd millennia, CE. For example:
The Grapes of my body can only become wine
After the winemaker tramples me.
I surrender my spirit like grapes to his trampling
So my inmost heart can blaze and dance with joy.
Although the grapes go on weeping blood and sobbing,
"I cannot bear any more anguish, any more cruelty"
The trampler stuffs cotton in his ears.
"I am not working in ignorance.
You can deny me if you want, you have every excuse,
But it is I who am the Master of this Work.
And when through my Passion you reach Perfection,
You will never be done praising my name."
The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi
By Andrew Harvey, Berkeley: Frog Limited, 1994.
Making Marriage Sacred
Let us remember that our human marriages are called Holy Matrimony . May marriage be a vehicle
for Eros and Agape to express the highest joy in the loving embrace of husband and wife.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Embodying Mount Eros:
Becoming a Vehicle for the Energy of Love
10 Guidelines for Traveling the Path of Love
1. Cultivate your desire to explore the world of love and your own Love Story.
Learning about love can be seen as a hero's journey with the seeker being willing to travel an arduous path
toward an unknown destination. This journey is usually motivated by the pain of remaining where we are with our
wounds of love unexamined and our current experiences unfulfilling. There is risk and danger ahead, we will meet
our resistance and ambivalence about the climb, we will often fall back or regress, we will feel afraid and vulnerable,
and with conscious effort, grace, and "a little help from our friends", we will grow in our ability to give and receive
love.
2. Find and study as many good maps of the territory of love as you can.
Psychocartography is the art and science of mapping states of consciousness. Most theories in psychology and
in the spiritual traditions of the world can be represented as maps. In using psychological maps be aware that the map
is not the territory and that any map no matter how accurate and sophisticated will reveal certain aspects of love and
conceal others. A map is a tool to be used and pasted on or discarded when its lessons are learned.
3. Develop and refine your map reading skills.
Everyone is a psychocartographer, a maker of inner maps. Our experiences with love are modeled in our psyches as
an internal representational world with images of our self, significant others, and the relationships between self and
other. We must look inward to identify the love maps we use to guide our relationships, to correct distortions, and to
expand the scope of our love maps.
4. Seek the knowledge and wisdom of experienced guides on the Path of Love.
Michael Meade has said, "It is better to wander lost and alone in the wilderness than to follow a map made by a
tourist." We are blessed to have access to the knowledge and wisdom of many great teachers of the art of loving.
Each stage of the journey has its expert guides who have traveled the path and offer what they have learned in books
and tapes. They will help you access your inner teacher .
5. Make preparations and acquire provisions for the journey toward greater loving.
Make a commitment to take the time and effort required to focus your attention on growth in love. Gather resources
in the form of books and tapes. Start a journal or notebook to record new information, quotes, poems, questions,
observations, exercises, and your own growing awareness.
6. Seek out companions, fellow explorers, who are pilgrims on the path of love.
Some of our companions will be those with whom we are most intimate, it is our relationships with them that we
want to transform. It is also useful to have the support of others with whom we can process our feelings about those
closest to us; these confidants can be friends, family members, or psychotherapists. Social support and social
comparison are powerful tools on the path of love.
7. Recognize the path of love as an initiation requiring practice and experimentation.
We grow in love by attempting to give and receive love in new ways. Relationships provide both rewards and
ordeals. New knowledge, skills, and greater love arise from obstacles overcome.
8. Be patience & persistent - Learning to love is a long & arduous journey, the task of a lifetime.
Don't be discouraged if change doesn't happen right away. New learning takes time and there are forces both within
us and outside of us that resist change and growth. Do whatever it takes.
9. Study the lives, ideas, and works of admired ideal models as exemplars of love.
Who do you most admire as an exemplar of love? Write down the names of those men and women who are ideal
models of loving behavior. Learn from them, imitate them, and study their works.
10. Affirm in psychological or spiritual growth, the mountain we climb is ourselves.
As Thomas Moore says, "A soulful relationship offers two difficult challenges: one, to come to know oneself - the
ancient oracle of Apollo; and two, to get to the deep, often subtle richness in the soul of the other. Giving attention to
one side usually helps the other . . . And as you get to know yourself, you can be more accepting and understanding of
the other's depth of soul." SoulMates, 1994.
You are the pilgrim, the seeker, the lover and the mountain that is climbed. A powerful truth about love is the law of
reciprocity, as we treat ourselves, we also treat others or as we love ourselves, we also love others.
The Spectrum Love: Mount Eros as a Prism
Pure Love Energy is white containing all the colors or the spectrum of visible love. Love energy is
transformed by the level of human consciousness into the manifest levels of love in the Pyramid Model
Pure Love Energy as white light is refracted by a prism into the visible spectrum of colors or stages of
love.
Our task in a School for Love is to become Full Spectrum, Technicolor Lovers able to express love
energy at all levels and to thereby fulfill the love needs of any sentient being as the great sages of love
such as the Buddha and Jesus the Christ were able to do.
Our Subtle Bodies are Mount Eros: The Chakras System of Hindu Psychology
In Hindu Psychology, the vital force we have been calling Eros or Love is called Kundalini . The
word Kundalini is derived from kundal , which in the Sanskrit language means coil. Kundalini energy is
likened to a serpent coiled at the base of the spine . Kundalini energy spirals upward through the subtle
body and is in essence considered an aspect of cosmic consciousness.
The ascent of Kundalini energy from the base of the spine through the crown of the head is what
we have been calling the evolution of love in the human life cycle. Kundalini energy when activated rises
through the subtle body by way of invisible, non-physical channels that are correlated with the organ
systems of the physical or gross body .
Kundalini energy passes through seven energy centers or Chakras as it ascends through the subtle
body. The chakras are psychic centers also correlated with the g ross body. The word, chakra , in Sanskrit
means wheel . These psychic centers or circles of energy are way stations for the ascent of Kundalini
energy and each center corresponds to a specific desire or motivation. According to Harish Johari, author
of Chakr as: Energy Centers of Transformation, 1987, "the Yoga that focuses specifically on the chakras
and the dormant Kundalini energy is variously called Kundalini Yoga, Laya Yoga, Kriya Yoga, and
Shaktipatamaha Yoga" The word, Yoga , comes from the Sanskrit, Yuj , which means "to unite" or "to
join". These Yogic disciplines awaken the Kundalini energy to consciously activate the rising of this vital
force to its ultimate expression at the seventh or crown chakra creating a transcendental union with the
Divine.
Each chakra can be considered a stage in the evolution of consciousness and each chakra may be
also thought of as a stage in the evolution of Eros. The seven stages in the evolution of love in the
pyramid map are equivalent to their corresponding stages in the ascent of Kundalini energy through each
chakra. In this way, we can see that in Climbing Mount Eros, the Mountain we are climbing is
ourselves. The evolution of love, the evolution of consciousness, and the ascent of the kundalini through
the seven chakras are different ways of saying the same thing.
Diagram of the Seven Chakras
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Exploring the Journey of the Lover: A Briefing on Climbing Mount Eros
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Montagu, Ashley. ed. The Meaning of Love. New York: Julian Press, 1953.
Murstein, Bernard I. Love, Sex, and Marriage through the Ages. New York: Springer, 1974.
Schneider, Isidor, ed. The World of Love: An Anthology. New York: George Braziller, 1948.
Sell, Emily Hilburn. ed. The Spirit of Loving: Reflections on love and relationship by writers,
psychotherapists, and spiritual teachers. Boston: Shambhala, 1995.
Singer, Irving. ed. The Nature of Love, 3 vols. Chicago: University of Chic ago Press, 1987.
Solomon, R. C. and Higgins, K. M. eds. The Philosophy of Erotic Love.
Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1991.
Sternberg, R. J. And Barnes, M. L. eds. The Psychology of Love.
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988.
Verene, D. P. ed. Sexual Love and Western Morality: A philosophical Anthology. NY: Harper, 1972.
Walsh, Anthony. The Science of Love: Understanding Love and Its Effects on Mind and Body.
Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1991.
Wolkstein, Diane. The First Love Stories: From Isis and Osiris to Tristan and Iseult.
New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
CHAPTER TWO
ATTACHMENT: The Foundation of Life, the Beginning of Love
Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. Patterns of Attachment. NY: Morley, 1978.
Armstrong, Thomas. The Radiant Child. Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Publishing House, 1985.
Badinter, Elisabeth Mother Love: Myth and Reality, Motherhood in Modern History.
New York: Macmillan, 1981.
Bowlby, John. The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds. London, Routledge, 1989.
Bowlby, John. A Secure Base. New York: Basic Books, 1988.
Bowlby, John. Attachment and Loss. Vol. 3, Loss: Sadness and Depression. NY: Basic Books, 1980.
Bowlby, John. Attachment and Loss. Vol. 2, Separation: Anxiety and Anger. NY: Basic Books, 1973.
Bowlby, John. Attachment and Loss. Vol. 1, Attachment. New York: Basic Books, 1969.
Bradshaw, John. Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child. NY: Bantam, 1990.
Brazelton, B. T. and Cramer, B. G. The Earliest Relationship. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1990.
Davis, Bruce. The Magical Child Within You. Berkeley: Celestial Arts, 1985.
Halpern, H. M. Cutting Loose: An Adult's Guide to Coming to Terms with Your Parents.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990.
Kaplan, Louise J. Oneness and Separateness: From Infant to Individual. NY: Touchstone, 1978.
Louv, Richard. FatherLove: What we need, What we seek, What we must create.
New York: Pocket Books, 1993.
Mahler, M. et al. The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant. New York: Basic Books, 1975.
Miller, Alice. Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society's Betrayal of the Child.
New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1984.
Miller, Alice. For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing an the Roots of Violence.
New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1984.
Miller, Alice. The Drama of the Gifted Child: How Narcissistic Parents Form and Deform the
Emotional Lives of Their Talented Children. New York: Basic Books, 1981.
Missildine, W. Hugh. Your Inner Child of the Past. New York: Pocket Books, 1963.
Montague, Ashley. The Direction of Human Development (New and Revised Edition).
New York: Hawthorn Books, 1970.
Parkes, C. M. and Hinde-Stevenson, J. eds. The Place of Attachment in Human Behavior.
New York: Basic Books, 1982.
Stern, Daniel N. The Interpersonal World of the Infant. New York: Basic Books, 1985.
Taug-Bynum, E. Bruce. The Family Unconscious: An Invisible Bond. Wheaton, IL.: Quest, 1984.
Wilmer, Harry A. ed. MOTHER / FATHER, Wilmette, IL.: Chiron, 1990.
CHAPTER THREE
ROMANCE: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Falling in Love
Alberoni, Francesco. (trans. by Lawrence Venuti) Falling in Love. New York: Random House, 1983.
Batten, Mary. Sexual Strategies. Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1992.
Branden, Nathaniel. The Psychology of Romantic Love. Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1980.
Buss, David M. The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating. New York: BasicBooks, 1994.
Capellanus, Andreas. (trans. by John J. Parry) The Art of Courtly Love. New York: Norton, 1969.
Covington, S. & Beckett, L. Leaving the Enchanted Forest: The Path from Relationship Addiction to
Intimacy. New York: Harper and Row, 1985
de Rougemont, Denis. Love in the Western World. New York: Doubleday. 1957.
Fisher, Helen. Anatomy of Love: The Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery, and Divorce.
New York: Norton, 1992.
Fishman, B. M. with Ashner, L. Resonance: The New Chemistry of Love. NY: HarperColllins, 1994.
Grant, Vernon W. Falling in Love: The Psychology of Romantic Emotion. NY: Springer, 1976.
Johnson, Robert. WE: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love. HarperSanFrancisco, 1983.
Katz, S. J. and Liu, A. E. False Love and Other Romantic Illusions. NY: Tichner & Fields, 1988.
Lewis, C. S. The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition. NY: Oxford U. Press, 1958.
Liebowitz, Michael, The Chemistry of Love. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1983.
Lilar, Suzanne. Aspects of Love in Western Society. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965.
Loudin, Jo. The Hoax of Romance. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: 1981
Luhmann, Niklas. Love as Passion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986.
Norman, C. Come Live with Me: Five Centuries of Romantic Poetry. New York: David McKay, 1966.
Peabody, Susan. Addiction to Love: Overcoming Obsession and Dependency in Relationships.
Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 1989.
Peele, S. and Brodsky, A. Love and Addiction. New York: Signet, 1976.
Person, Ethel S. Dreams of Love and Fateful Encounters: The Power of Romantic Passion.
New York: Norton, 1988.
Sills, Judith A Fine Romance: The Psychology of Successful Courtship - Making It Work for You.
Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1987.
Tennov, Dorothy. Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love. NY: Stein & Day, 1979.
Wilson, Glenn and Nias, David. The Mystery of Love: How the Science of Sexual Attraction Can Work
for You. New York: Quadrangle, 1976.
Y Gasset, Jose Ortega. On Love: Aspects of a Single Theme. New York: Meridian Books, 1957.
CHAPTER FOUR
DIALOGUE: Toward Self-Knowledge and Authentic Intimacy
Clulow, C. & Mattinson, J. Marriage Inside Out: Understanding Problems of Intimacy.
Harmondsworth, UK.: Penguin, 1989.
Dowrick, S. Intimacy and Solitude: Balancing Closeness and Independence. NY: Norton, 1994.
Fisher, R. & Ury, W. Getting to YES: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. NY: Penguin, 1981.
Fromm, Erich. The Art of Loving. New York: Harper and Row, 1956.
Gordon, L. H. Passage to Intimacy: Key Concepts and Skills from the PAIRS Program.
New York: Simon and Schuster , 1993.
Gottman, J. M. Why Marriages Succeed or Fail and How You Can Make Yours Last.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.
Gottman, J. M. What Predicts Divorce? Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1994.
Gottman, J. M. et al. A Couples Guide to Communication. Champaign, IL. Research Press, 1978.
Greeley, A. M. Faithful Attraction: Discovering Intimacy, Love , and Fidelity in American Marriage.
New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1991.
Hendrix, Harville. Getting the Love You Want. New York: HaperCol lins, 1990.
Miller, S. et al. Straight Talk: A New Way to Get Closer to Others By Saying What You Really Mean.
Littleton, CO.: Interpersonal Communication Programs, 1981
Miller, S. et al. Couple Communication I: Talking Together. Littleton, CO.: Interpersonal, 1979.
Napier, A. Y. The Fragile Bond: In Search of an Equal, Intimate, and Enduring Marriage.
New York: Harper and Row, 1988.
Paul, J. & Paul, M. Do I Have to Give Up Me to be Loved by You. Minneapolis: CompCare, 1983.
Reibstein, J. & Richards, M. Sexual Arrangements: Marriage and the Temptation of Infidelity.
New York: Scribner's, 1993.
Sager, Clifford J. Marriage Contracts and Couples Therapy: Hidden Forces in Intimate Relationships.
New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1976.
Scarf, Maggie. Intimate Partners: Patterns in Love and Marriage. New York: Random House, 1987.
Solomon, Marion F. Narcissism and Intimacy: Love and Marriage in an Age of Confusion.
New York: Norton, 1992.
Stapleton, J. & Bright, R. Equal Marriage . New York: 1976.
Stone, H. and Winkelman, S. Embracing Each Other: Relationship as Teacher, Healer, and Guide.
San Rafael, CA: New World Library, 1989.
Schwartz, Pepper. Love Between Equals: How Peer Marriage Really Works. NY: Macmillan, 1995.
Wallerstein, J. S. and Blakeslee, S. The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts.
New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1995.
Wile, D. After the Honeymoon: How Conflict Can Improve Your Relationship. NY: Wiley, 1988.
CHAPTER FIVE
CARING: Open Our Hearts to Compassion
Addington, J. and Addington, C. Drawing the Larger Circle: How to Love and Be Loved.
Marina del Rey, CA.: Devorss & Co., 1985.
Amodeo, J. & Amodeo, K. Being Intimate: A Guide to Successful Relationships. NY: Arkana, 1986.
Bach, G. & Torbet, L. A Time for Caring: How to Enrich Your Life through an Interest and Pleasure
in Others. New York: Delacorte Press, 1982.
Broadbent, W. W. How to be Loved. New York: Warner Books, 1977.
Campbell, Susan Beyond the Power Struggle. San Luis Obispo, CA.: Impact Publishers, 1983.
Collins, G. R. The Joy of Caring. New York: Word Books, 1980.
Gaylin, Willard. Caring. New York: Knopf, 1976.
Horner, Althea. Being and Loving: How to Achiever Intimacy with Another Person and Retain One's
Own Identity. New York: Schocken, 1978.
Kelsey, M. T. Caring: How Can We Love One Another. New York: Paulist Press, 1981.
Kiev, Ari. Active Loving: Discovering and Developing the Power to Love. New York: Bantam, 1983.
Koestenbaum, P. Existential Sexuality: Choosing to Love. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice- Hall, 1974.
Lepp, Ignace. The Ways of Friendship: A Psychological Exploration of Man's Most Valuable
Relationship. New York: Macmillan, 1966
Mace, D. R. Close Companions: The Marriage Enrichment Handbook. New York: Continuum, 1982.
Mayer, M. Trials of the Heart: Healing the Wounds of Intimacy . Berkeley: Celestial Arts, 1993.
Mayeroff, Milton. On Caring . New York: Harper and Row, 1971.
Moschetta, E. & Moschetta, P. Caring Couples: Inside the Vital -Total Relationship.
Farmingdale, NY: Coleman Publishing, 1984.
May, Rollo. Love and Will. New York: Norton, 1969.
Newman, M. & Berkowitz, B. How to be Your Own Best Friend. New York: Ballantine, 1971.
Rogers, Carl & Stevens, Barry. Person to Person: The Problem of Being Human.
Lafayette, CA.: Real People Press, 1967.
Robertiello, Richard. Your Own True Love: The New Positive View of Narcissism.
New York: Ballantine, 1978.
Roth, G. Feeding the Hungry Heart. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1982.
Rubin, Theodore I. Compassion and Self-Hate. New York: Ballantine, 1975.
Scheler, Max. The Nature of Sympathy. (trans. by Peter Heath) Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1970.
Sorokin, Pitirim A. The Ways and Power of Love. New York: The Beacon Press, 1954.
Tournier, Paul. To Understand Each Other. Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1962.
CHAPTER SIX
AMOR: Seeing the Soul in the Eyes of the Beloved
Appelbaum, David ed. EROS. Parabola: The Magazine of Myth and Tradition, November, 1995.
Borys, H. J. The Sacred Fire: Love as a Spiritual Path. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994.
Carson, Anne. Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1986.
Carotenuto, Aldo. Eros and Pathos: Shades of Love and Suffering. Toronto: Inner City, 1989.
Corbin, H. Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn' Arabi. (trans. by R. Manheim.)
Princeton, N. J.: Princeton U. Press, 1969.
Feuerstein, Georg. Sacred Sexuality: Living the Vision of the Erotic Spirit.
Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1992.
Ficino, Marsilio. Commentary of Plato's Symposium on Love. (trans. S. Jane) Dallas: Spring, 1985.
Hamill, Sam. The Erotic Spirit: An Anthology of Poems of Sensuality, Love, and Longing.
Boston: Shambhala, 1996.
Haule, John R. Pilgrimage of the Heart: Archetypes of Romantic Love. Boston: Shambhala, 1992.
Hendricks, G. and Hendricks, K. Conscious Loving. New York: Bantam, 1990.
Hillman, James. Anima: Anatomy of a Personified Notion. Dallas: Spring Publications, 1985.
Ibn` Hazm. The Ring of the Dove: A Treatise on the Art and Practice of Arab Love.
(trans. A. J. Arberry) London: Luzac, 1953.
Leach, W. True Love and Perfect Union. New York: Basic Books, 1980.
Levine, S. and Levine, O. Embracing the Beloved: Relationship as a Path to Awakening.
New York: Doubleday, 1995.
Lull, Ramon. The Book of the Lover and the Beloved. (trans. E. A. Peers) New York: Paulist, 1978.
Mann, A. T. & Lyle, J. Sacred Sexuality: Heaven and Earth. Rockport, MA.: Element Books, 1995.
Moore, Thomas. SoulMates: Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relationship.
New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
Siegel, L. Sacred and Profane Dimensions of Love in Indian Traditions. New York: Oxford, 1978.
Sanford, John. A. The Invisible Partners: How the Male and Female in Each of Us affects our
Romantic Relationships. New York: Paulist Press, 1980.
Steinberg, David Ed. The Erotic Impulse: Honoring the Sensual Self. Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1992.
Versluis, Arthur. The Mysteries of Love. Saint Paul, MN.: A Grail Book, 1996.
Welwood, John. Love and Awakening: Discovering the Sacred Path of Intimate Relationships.
New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
Welwood, John. Journey of the Heart: The Path of Conscious Love. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.
Welwood, John ed. Challenge of the Heart: Love, Sex, and Intimacy in Changing Times.
Bosto n: Shambhala, 1985.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ECSTATIC LOVE: The Sacred Marriage at the Summit of the Mountain
Blofeld, J. Bodhissattva of Compassion: Mystical Tradition of Kuan Yin. Boston: Shambhala, 1988.
Carey, Terence ed. Therese of Lisieux: A Discovery of Love, selected spiritual writings.
New Rochelle, New York, 1992.
Chaudhuri, Haridas. The Philosophy of Love. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987.
Desai, Yogi Amrit. Love: A Flight from Addiction to Freedom. Summit Station, Pa.: Kripalu, 1976.
Evola, Julius. The Metaphysics of Sex. New York: Inner Traditions International, 1983.
Falk, Marcia. The Song of Songs: Love Lyrics from the Bible. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.
Feuerstein, Georg. ed. Enlightened Sexuality: Essays on Body-Positive Spirituality .
Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1989.
Flanigan, Beverly. Forgiving the Unforgivable: Overcoming the Bitter Legacy of Intimate Wounds.
New York: Collier Books, 1992.
Gattuso, Joan. A Course in Love. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
Jae, Shari. The New Relationships: Learning Unconditional Love. Farmingdale, NY: Coleman, 1985.
Kelsey, M. & Kelsey, B. Sacrament of Sexuality: The Spirituality and Psychology of Sex.
Warwick, New York: Amity House, 1986.
Kenyon, E. W. The New Kind of Love. Lyn nwood, WA.: Kenyon's Gospel Publishing Society, 1969.
Melman, Louis William. Mystical Sex: Love, Ecstasy, and the Mystical Experience.
Tucson, AZ.: Harbinger House, 1990.
Minors, S. ed. A Spiritual Approach to Male / Female Relations. Wheaton, IL.: Quest Books, 1984.
Pandit. M. P. The Yoga of Love. Wilmot, WI.: Lotus Light Publications, 1982.
Peck, F. Scott. The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love... NY: Simon & Schuster, 1978.
Powell, John. Unconditional Love . Niles, IL.: Argus Communications, 1978.
Romney, Rodney R. Love Without Conditions. Piermont, NY: Riverrun Press, 1986.
Salzberg, Sharon. Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. Boston: Shambhala, 1995.
Solovyoy, Vladimir. The Meaning of Love. (trans. T. R. Beyer, Jr.)
West Stockbridge, MA: Lindsfame Press, 1985.
Steiner, R. The Gospel of St. John. New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1973.
Strauffer, E. R. Unconditional Love and Forgiveness. New York: Triangle Publishers, 1987.
Thoele, S. P. Heart Centered Marriage: Fulfilling Our Natural Desire for Sacred Partnership.
Berkeley, CA: Conari Press, 1996.
Vaughan-Lee, L. Traveling the Path of Love: Sayings of Sufi Masters.
Inverness, CA.: The Golden Sufi Center, 1995.
CHAPTER EIGHT
EMBODYING MOUNT EROS: Becoming a Vehicle for the Energy of Love
Anand, Margo. The Art of Sexual Ecstasy: The Path of Sacred Sexuality for Western Lovers.
Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher, 1989.
Barks, Coleman. The Essential Rumi. (with John Moyne). San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1994.
Bly, Robert. The Soul is Here for Its Own Joy: Sacred Poems of Many Cultures.
Hopewell, N. J.: The Ecco Press, 1995.
Bly, Robert. Loving a Woman in Two Worlds. Garden City, NY: The Dial Press, 1985.
Bly, Robert. The Kabir Book: Forty-Four of the Ecstatic Poems of Kabir. Boston: Beacon, 1977.
Buber, Martin. I and Thou. New York: Charles Scriber's Sons, 1958.
Campbell, Susan. The Couples Journey: Intimacy as a Path to Wholeness.
San Luis Obispo, Calif.: Impact Publishers, 1980.
Douglas, N. & Slinger, P. Sexual Secrets: The Alchemy of Ecstasy.
Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1979.
Eliade, Mircea. Yoga, Immortality and Freedom. New York: Bollingen, 1958.
Heyward, C. Touching Our Strength: The Erotic as Power and the Love of God.
San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989.
Johari, Harish. Chakras: Energy Centers of Transformation. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1987.
Judith, Anodea. Understanding the Chakras: Where Mind and Body Meet. New Age Digest, 1989.
Kakar, S. & Ross, J. M. Tales of Love, Sex, & Danger. London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1986.
Keen, Sam. The Passionate Life: Stages of Loving. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
Keyes, Ken. A conscious person's guide to relationships. Coos Bay, Or.: Living Love Pub., 1979.
Kristeva, Julia. Tales of Love. (trans. by Leon S. Foudiez). New York: Columbia U. Press, 1987.
Lee, John. The Colours of Love: An Exploration of the Ways of Loving. Ontario: New Press, 1973.
Mumford, John. Ecstasy through Tantra. St. Paul, MN.: Llewellyn Publications, 1988.
Muir, C. & Muir, C. Tantra: The Art of Conscious Loving. Mercury House, 1989.
Ramsdale, David Alan & Dorfman, Ellen Jo Sexual Energy Ecstasy: A Guide to the Ultimate Intimate
Sexual Experience. Playa del Rey, CA.: Peak Skills Publishing, 1985.
Rawson, Philip. Tantra: The Indian Cult of Ecstasy. London: Thames & Hudson, 1979.
Rilke, Rainer Maria. Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties. (trans. by John J. L. Mood).
New York: Norton, 1975.
Sternberg, R. J. The Triangle of Love. New York: Basic Books, 1988.
Spink, Walter M. The Axis of Eros. New York: Penguin Books, 1975.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
- L Goldman
Can Harlequin, the venerable publisher notorious for cheesy, cheapo romance books, appeal to a more sophisticated crowd?.
- John Munder Ross
- Sudhir Kakar
First published in 1986, this ground-breaking work addresses two complex and very human emotions-love and erotic passion-as these appear in the great love stories of the world. Starting with the story of Romeo and Juliet and its roots in European Christianity, the authors uncover hidden depths of cultural and universal significance in famous romantic tales of the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent-'Layla and Majnun, 'Heer and Ranjha, 'Sohni and Mahinwal, 'Vis and Ramin, and 'Radha and Krishna. Moving westward again, the authors look at the Greek myth of Oedipus, the Celtic saga of Tristan and Isolde, the tragic drama of Hamlet, the legend of Phaedra and Hippolytus, and a contemporary handling of the love theme in the writings of Vladimir Nabokov. With each love story including within its gambit all of loves paradoxical associations and radii-from conquest and possession to surrender, sensuality and sensuousness, time held still in a poised nostalgia, and the loss of visual, distal perceptions in another mode of knowing-this book elaborates on the phenomenology and what it calls the ontogeny of love, sex, and danger. In this second edition, the authors revisit their earlier assertions about romantic and erotic love in the light of contemporary psychoanalysis and literary theory.
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265337325_Mysteries_of_Love
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