Levels of Love

Love is often a convenient word to describe a passing feeling of the moment, but in its true meaning, is as clear and overwhelming as the air we breath. Love is beyond a word that has many spellings in different languages. Love, like the air, is free. Love is innocent. Love heals. Love has no boundaries. Love is unexpected. Love is unconditional. Love is the spirit of energy.

‘Watered down love’ is in popular vogue. The word love is used as a device to ‘shut it’s recipient up’. What love is and isn’t endless and fraught with infinite opinions. The most meaningless use of love is used for ‘love of the manmade material’ from money to expendable experiences and items like cars, TV’s, movies, sports, furnishings, clothes, food, stimulants, and the like. Not following far ahead is love of attention, success, job, ideologies, religions, fantasies, etc.

The next level of love, which is below ‘real love’, and often very conditional as is those already mentioned, is God, marriage, friends, family, people, etc. Love with most is conditional for the most mundane reasons. Family and friends love over the years is commonly always changing and falling off the ‘criteria of love’. Quality of meaning of love over time separates the ‘real from the momentary love’.

No real, unconditional love is possible without the conscious love of one’s inner self, which nothing can alter. The ‘peaks of love’ are often touched in flashing moments by most but rarely sustained. Self love seeks other love of the same high quality as if ‘mirrored love’. Love on lower levels frequently gets stuck in the attachment to that love, foregoing finding it within. Love knows no hate or even doubt of its existence.

Love is not a shadow that disappears when clouds or darkness appears in one’s life.
Love is an invisible energy that never loses itself. At it’s highest peaks, love transforms all to its highest possibilities. Love of the multidimensional divine that is an invisible presence, and is always providing bliss and joy inspite of life’s challenges, is love at its ultimate. Love is endless in time that transcends all. Love is in the air to breath in, to light itself. The deep ‘breath of love’ is like an endless river that colors and illuminates the presence of the compassion of love for itself.

One way Love Affair

Love is not always two ways, or even convenient. There are many ways to open a heart that gets little attention. Does any heart, even the full one, not pine for more and more love? Is there a heart that is filled with love for life wanting no more? Love comes in all styles and degrees. The love of two people is at the peak of love’s possibilities. Love may involve the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of one’s experience with another.
Love usually begins with a mother and baby in an unconditional way, particularly for the mother even though it’s ‘dependent love’. As we reach into teen years and adulthood, two independents have the hopeful opportunity to experience ‘healthy two way love’ to the extent that both are willing, and perceivably able. Things may have been thrown in the way of the growth of the open heart. A guarded heart is one that misses the freedom and joy that a balanced open heart enjoys. There are ways to open the suffering heart.
Other than many forms of meditation, one way is to allow loving another silently with no expectation of a visible return of the love. There are no rules on who one can love, or how many. Of course, love for all is a mystical, magical, divine expression of a deep self love. Love is not needy, but does yearn for it’s connection and resonance from another. If one can love one person, the doors of the heart open to many, but with discernment and sensitivity for oneself and any others. Love at it’s peaks becomes ‘personal’, but should never close itself to a personal love for others be it ‘one way and silent’.
During the day pick out one or more that move your heart to open, and send energy (love) to them with no expectation of return. They may be gone from your life forever, or may be someone you occasionally connect with but current circumstances are not, for any number of reasons, favorable to have a two way ‘free expression’. Love one way, beyond the self, is healthier than none for self or anyone. Silent unattached personal love of another is ‘free and healthy’. Always find ways to open the heart even if it’s alone. Self love will open you up and other’s will feel your projection that is from the ‘non expecting-giving heart’. The Doors of Love are always open and free - walk in!

That Crazy Thing called Love

Every popular song is about it, half our books and films obsess over it, and everybody wants it.

But when we come to ask what love is, we are overwhelmed by a myriad different ideas and experiences.

On the one hand, love can lift us up; on the other, it can destroy us.

The problem is further compounded because we generally also feel tremendous love for our mothers, our children, our friends even chocolate. Or maybe especially chocolate.

How can one little word cover so many different nuances of feeling? More importantly, if love means different things to different people, how can we ever effectively communicate it?

Scientists have been trying to define love according to their frame of reference for a very long time.

The pioneering sexologist Havelock Ellis provided a famous but entirely incorrect mathematical formula: love equals a physical relationship plus friendship.

Freud dismissed romantic love as the sex urge, blocked.

(The guy's obsessed with sex)

Social biologists have scanned our brains and identified three chemicals— dopamine, phenyl ethylamine and oxytocin — which they claim attract us exclusively to our mates for long enough, in their opinion, to conceive and give the offspring a secure start.

All of this is mildly diverting, but of no use when someone looks into your eyes and tells you that they love you.

Dictionaries are not much help either. They list almost two dozen definitions — including affection, fondness, caring, liking, concern, attraction, desire and infatuation.

We all instinctively agree there is a huge difference between liking and complete infatuation. What we need is a new lexicon, something to help us negotiate and understand all the different types of love.

Psychologist Dorothy Tennov has already taken the first step towards this goal. She interviewed 500 people from different backgrounds and age groups, both gay and straight, about falling in love, and found a startling similarity in how each respondent described their feelings.

The basic components were:

-intrusive thinking (you can’t stop daydreaming about them);

-an aching in the heart;

-an acute sensitivity to any act or thought which can be interpreted favorably;

-fear of rejection and

-unsettling shyness in their presence;

-intensification through adversity (at least up to a point) and

-a disregard for all other concerns.

Tennov also discovered ‘a remarkable ability to emphasize what is truly admirable and avoid dwelling on the negative’.

Love is, in other words, blind, deaf and completely oblivious to foolishness.

(They needed to do research for that??)

To distinguish between these overwhelming emotions and the more stable, domestic feelings experienced by long-term couples who are only too aware of their partner’s failings,

Tennov coined a new term: limerence.

The obsessive, intrusive nature of limerence would be immediately recognizable to Martin:

‘I met her at a salsa class, the attraction was instant and we ended up exchanging telephone numbers, even though I knew she was married.

‘It was impossible to get down to work until we’d had our morning talk. I’d ache if she didn’t call.’

Twelve months later, when the affair had ended, Martin realized that they had little in common.

He put the attraction down to ‘lust’, yet the affair had been mostly non-intimate.

Tennov confirms: ‘Sexual attraction is not enough. Selection standards for limerence are, according to my informants, not identical to those according to which mere sexual partners are evaluated, and intimacy is seldom the main focus for limerence.

However, the potential for mating is felt to be there, or the state described is not limerence.’

When someone is under the spell of limerence, not even being rejected dampens down the madness. If limerence is returned, the feelings intensify and the couple end up ignoring their friends.

Sadly, these intense feelings never last.

Tennov puts the duration somewhere between six months and two years. This is a very similar figure to that proposed by social biologist Cindy Hayman of Cornell University, who tracked the brain chemicals of 5,000 subjects in 37 different cultures, and found this phase lasted between 18 months and three years.

It is important to have a new word for these intense feelings, for two reasons.

First, it recognizes the normality of borderline crazy behavior in the first stages of love, which could easily be stigmatized as stalking, or pathologized as too much in self-help books such as Women Who Love Too Much, by Robin Norwood.

Secondly, when limerence wears off, some people fear they are falling out of love.

In reality, love has just moved on to a new phase, and many people use limerence as a springboard for a long-term relationship. Arguably, we need this temporary madness, to convince us to set up home and intertwine our destinies with relative strangers.

While scientists have not researched precisely what it is that makes us choose one person over another, they have looked at what makes a good long-term partnership. At this stage we pick people who are like us, or who complement us in some hidden way.

Often, we search for other people with whom we can act out the issues we were unable to resolve as children. Our partners have to speak the same language, or there is simply no connection.

I call this kind of deep, intertwined love ‘loving attachment’.

Unlike limerence it is based on rational ‘eyes open’ choices about compatibility. Unlike limerence, loving attachment dies if it is not reciprocated, especially physically.

Unlike limerence, loving attachment can last forever.

To truly understand loving attachment, it is necessary to clarify the difference between the love for our partner and that for our children and our parents. Popular romance feeds us the idea of unconditional love, and during the limerence something approaching this is often achieved.

However, once a couple has moved on to loving attachment, unconditional love becomes a distant memory.

Most couples end up in my office because one half feels that their love is not returned, and because of that, over time, they have detached themselves from the relationship.
In contrast, the love for our children or parents is seldom conditional. I call this bond loving affection, because affection exists largely independently of how the recipient responds.
The confusion between loving attachment and loving affection can cause just as much misery as the confusion over limerence.
Love is a source of tremendous joy and comfort.
However, it will also be the source of untold pain, until we begin to differentiate between the three strands contained in just one four-letter word.
Maybe this new lexicon can help us understand each other better.

TRUE FRIENDS

Have you ever found a friend


Who makes your heart glow?

Someone who is wonderful,

Who you're honored to know,



Someone to laugh with,

And sometimes to cry,

Someone who loves you

When you don't know why



Someone who just seems

To understand you,

Someone who you love

No matter what they do,



Someone who you

Think of day and night,

Someone who shows up

When the time is just right.



Someone who shares all

Your ups and downs,

Someone you smile with,

Replacing your frowns,



Someone who appears

Whenever there is a need,

Surely you must know,

God planted that seed



These seeds God has

Planted here on earth

Cannot be measured

By earthly worth.



They were planted deeply

In your friend's heart,

By God's love placed

Here from the start.



Value those friendships,

Honor their decisions,

Never try to make their

Dreams your revisions.

Respect their feelings,

Never make demands,

Hold their love tightly

In your hands.



Never be angry if you

Don't talk to them each day,

For a heart can be loving

Even from far away.



Trust in friendship,

Send a piece of your heart,

This is how friendship

Was intended from the start.



Hold their memory

In your heart and mind,

Continue to love

Them all the time,



See them for what they really are -

True friends are Angels

Sent by God from afar!

Power of a Hug

It has been proved that showing affection strengthens growth and positive development in people. We all need physical contact to feel good, and one of the most important ways of physical contact between two people is hugging. Who does not need cuddles in this society that is becoming ever colder, more competitive, that compels us to be more individualistic, more personal-goal oriented...? When we hug, we receive an energy feedback. We bring life to our senses and reaffirm the trust in our senses. Sometimes we CANNOT find the right words to express how we feel, and then hugs are the best way to say it. We need four hugs a day to survive, eight to preserve ourselves, and twelve to grow. A hug makes you feel good. The skin is the biggest organ we have and it needs a lot of love. A hug can cover an extensive part of the skin and provides the massage you need. It is also a way to communicate. It can convey messages for which you have no words. We can always resort to the universal language of hugs. The Power of Hugs



Hugging achieves many things that you might never have imagined. For example:

• It feels good

• It dissolves solitude

• It defeats fear

• It opens the door to sensations

• It improves self-esteem (wow, he or she wants to hug me!)

• It encourages altruism (I can't believe it, but I want to hug that person)

• It delays aging (those who hug age more slowly)

• It helps reduce appetite (we eat less when we are nourished with hugs and when our arms are wrapped around others)

More benefits from hugs:

• It is environmentally friendly (it does not damage the environment)

• It preserves energy

• It is portable and requires no additional machinery

• It does not require a special place to do it (an adequate place to hug)

• In any place such as a conference room, a church or a football field

• It makes happy days even happier

• It gives us a sense of belonging

• It fills the void in our lives

• It is still effective even after the hugging has finished

• It strengthens and increases our ability to share

• It harmonizes the hearts of friends

Hugging creates some form of addiction to tenderness, to altruism, to happiness...









Just as laughter, it is highly contagious! Whatever your hug may be, let it always come from the heart, not from the mind.

Come up with new ways of hugging.

Give your hugs interesting or funny names.

Become a full-time "hug therapist."

Be always ready to offer a hug to someone.

Observe the other person and always be careful of his or her personal space.

Do not try to impose your vision or philosophy on others.

A hug does and says very much.

Hug your friend, your loved one, your kids, your parents, your pet...

To A Child. . . Love Is Spelled T.I.M.E.

By Lance Wubbels

In the faint light of the attic, an old man, tall and stooped, bent his great frame and made his way to a stack of boxes that sat near one of the little half-windows.


Brushing aside a wisp of cobwebs, he tilted the top box toward the light and began to carefully lift out one old photograph album after another. Eyes once bright but now dim searched longingly for the source that had
drawn him here.

It began with the fond recollection of the love of his life, long gone, and somewhere in these albums was a photo of her he hoped to rediscover.

Silent as a mouse, he patiently opened the long-buried treasures and soon was lost in a sea of memories. Although his world had not stopped spinning when his wife left it, the past was more alive in his heart than his present aloneness.

Setting aside one of the dusty albums, he pulled from the box what appeared to be a journal from his grown son's childhood. He could not recall ever having seen it before, or that his son had ever kept a journal. Why did Elizabeth always save the children's old junk? he wondered, shaking his white head.

Opening the yellowed pages, he glanced over a short entry, and his lips curved in an unconscious smile. Even his eyes brightened as he read the words that spoke clear and sweet to his soul.

It was the voice of the little boy who had grown up far too fast in this very house, and whose voice had grown fainter and fainter over the years. In the utter silence of the attic, the words of a guileless six-year-old worked their magic and carried the old man back to a time almost totally forgotten.

Entry after entry stirred a sentimental hunger in his heart like the longing a gardener feels in the winter for the fragrance of spring flowers. But it was accompanied by the painful memory that his son's simple recollections of those days were far different from his own. But how different?

Reminded that he had kept a daily journal of his business activities over the years, he closed his son's journal and turned to leave, having forgotten the cherished photo that originally triggered his search.

Hunched over to keep from bumping his head on the rafters, the old man stepped to the wooden stairway and made his descent, then headed down a carpeted stairway that led to the den.

Opening a glass cabinet door, he reached in and pulled out an old business journal. Turning, he sat down at his desk and placed the two journals beside each other.

His was leather bound and engraved neatly with his name in gold, while his son's was tattered and the name "Jimmy" had been nearly scuffed from its surface. He ran a long skinny finger over the letters, as though he could restore what had been worn away with time and use.

As he opened his journal, the old man's eyes fell upon an inscription that stood out because it was so brief in comparison to other days. In his own neat handwriting were these words: Wasted the whole day fishing with Jimmy. Didn't catch a thing.

With a deep sigh and a shaking hand, he took Jimmy's journal and found the boy's entry for the same day, June 4. Large scrawling letters pressed deeply in the paper read: Went fishing with my dad. Best day of my life!

This article was excerpted from the book To A Child Love Is Spelled T-I-M-E by Lance Wubbels and Mac Anderson it is reprinted here with permission. You may share this story as long as you do not edit the content, leave this link and resource box intact. Click here to purchase the Book from my friends at Simple Truths

No matter one's age...time shared together is love. Always allow time for what's most important in your life...your friends, your family and yourself. You never know how the moments you share together will impact each other and the world!

Kissing Meditation

Deep kissing is meditation. All religions and spiritual nudniks who in the long past have not given any form of raising consciousness that has anything to do with love (‘NOT ACCORDING TO THEIR OPINIONS’), have destroyed the rise of humankind from it’s grave of suffering. Be it the ‘make believe celibacy’ of the Catholic church or any other religious organization practice under the auspices of God’s direction, are all full of unadulterated smelly crap!


Until recently, and now only in the liberal sects of Christianity, have they let up on putting the verdict of ‘fire and eternal hell’ in minds for anything trespassing their subjective borders of what’s right or wrong. Young people are very impressionable and susceptible to erroneous rhetoric from those in positions of appearing to speak for God. Islam threatens death to those who don’t follow the ‘rules of love’ even though they’ve made them up. Even the so called ‘gurus from India’ almost exclusively, have nothing to say from experience on matters of love between two people. All of them just don’t know, and are brainwashed themselves!

Unknowingly in my first teen years, I discovered one of the great unrecognized forms of meditation - kissing. For reason that came natural, I as many others in the Western world, somehow knew when to ‘draw a line’ with sexual exploration for good purpose, instead electing to focus on acceptable safer forms of love’s expressions. Never did I have a clue about this thing called meditation or clearing the mind into awareness. Quite naturally my instincts led to use common sense in romantic ways that needed to be kept from the sight of adults, but was sensitive to nature’s surprises of ‘continuing the species’.

For those years I would spend more hours than I could count in embrace of a girl with kissing that moved all thoughts into another realm of ecstasy. The back dark row in the movie theater was a good 2 1/2 hour opportunity as some movie played much to our obliviousness. Anywhere an opportunity of being alone was filled with kissing and hugging. Only an intense other type of meditation could possibly create the bliss of divine nirvana that happened. Kisses sweeter than the finest wine lasting longer than it normally takes to drink a glass of it were favored! Many beautiful experiences were discovered not without noticing that ‘white lies’ took on a new reason to use for members of either family! Kissing and hugging opens the heart and consciousness above the waistline of meditation! Deep kissing clearly opens a merging with the stars and divine godliness!

Have you Ever…

by Dennis Merritt Jones, From The Art of Being ve you ever spent time allowing your mind to wander and wonder?

Have you ever thought about how incredible it is that you can read and decipher these words and draw meaning from them? Have you ever contemplated in amazement how your body works, maintaining itself to a large degree without any help from you?

Have you taken time to contemplate what causes your heart to beat and what turned the breakfast you had this morning into skin, fingernails, and hair?

Have you ever taken just a few moments to simply stare at a beautiful flower and notice the incredible patterns and colors that not even the greatest artist could re-create?

Have you ever looked up at the stars and planets at night and been in awe of the expansiveness of it all, perhaps even wondering if there might be some other being on some distant planet looking back at ours at the same time, wondering the same thing?

Have you ever thought about what holds the planets and stars in place? Have you ever gazed into a newborn baby's eyes and seen the infinite presence of pure spirit looking back at you and been in awe of the fact that this being just came from the absolute essence, God?

How can you or I do any of these things and not feel like an intricate and significant part of something far greater and grander than the "little me"?

I have done all these things, and I can tell you that, in part, it is what keeps me sane, grounded, and spiritually connected to God, life, and purpose when the world seems to be getting more and more crazy each deaths also includes those times when I tend to get too enmeshed in my own personal trauma dramas. Life is always manifesting purpose; all we need to do is think about the miracle of it all.

So, the next time you feel as if you are getting caught up in the frenzy of the world or your personal life begins to look like a bad soap opera, take some time and consider some of the above questions.
Give yourself the gift of a sacred moment in the now. With great and clear intention, contemplate and connect with the miracle of life, where God is always present.

Celebrate your unity with God...and truly be in awe. The word "awe" is the root from which the word "awesome" comes...and that is what you really are. Not because I say so but because God is awesome, and what God is, so too, are you.

It's just a matter of taking time to think about the wonder of it all.