The word "love" is used to refer to more than one kind of feeling, and often those feelings are so vastly different from one another that denoting them by the same word and not making a mess isn't possible. In this post I am going to classify love in three types, from lowest to highest.
The first and the lowest form of love is Romantic Love. Second is Conditional Liking-love. And the third and the highest form of love is Unconditional Love. However, these terms are not self-explanatory. Especially, a lot of misunderstanding and irrationality are associated with the first and the third type. Let's clear the cloud.
Romantic love is the lowest form of love. In fact, it should be saved of being called "love", even. Romantic love is at best an illusion of love. In truth, romantic love is Nature's mechanism of enabling mating and reproduction in humans. It's a mating drive. That's the reason it comes packaged with sexual desire. Romantic love needs sex for its expression. Without sex, romantic love can't last long. Interestingly, even with sex, romantic passion has to wane after a while. The duration may differ from case to case, but the euphoric feeling and the passion has a sure expiry date. Impermanence is in the nature of romance, it being there for a definite purpose of Nature.
Apart from that, romantic love is out-and-out irrational. There's no involvement of reason in romantic love. One who is "in love" with someone hasn't even chosen to be in love with that person for the qualities one admires. It's just that when one's brain gets images of people of the opposite sex, through one's social contact with them, it picks a person and the brain-chemicals create the feelings. Quite often, the person of fixation doesn't possess the qualities one likes, and/or even possesses qualities one strongly dislikes; still one feels love for that person. That shows how irrational it can be. Since there's no involvement of human reason in romantic love, it is fraught with dangers. No wonder it's invariably accompanied with intense pain and suffering.
Romantic love can only be between opposite sexes (exception: gays), and it can't be unconditional.
The mechanism of romantic love is great with regards to Nature's goal of propagation of species, but for humans who are unaware of the real mechanism, romantic love is a joke being played with them! More about romantic love.
If romantic love is a bad type of love, this one would be a good type. When one likes someone "very much" one says one loves that person. Simple as that. It's a liking beyond limit, hence love. It's a good type in that there's reasonable basis for love. One really likes some qualities in the object, that's why one loves the object. So, as long as the object possesses those qualities the liking would remain. There is an involvement of reason in it.
Unlike romantic love, this love is not limited to a male-female setting. One may like anyone irrespective of gender. It's like a friendship. And not only persons, one may even like certain animals and things very much and say one loves them. It's literally meant as love.
This liking-love is also conditional because the liking is conditional to the object being in possession of the likable qualities. One carries around a flower when it smells good; when the fragrance is gone, one doesn't care about the flower anymore; in any case not as much. Still, this love is better and much more practical than romantic love in which one don't even have control over who to feel for.
This love can not provide euphoric experience like romance does, but in essence it's far superior. The euphoria of romantic love, in my view, is a dis-ease (not disease) of the mind, as it's technically the same thing one feels by taking drugs! (Really, the same chemicals in the brain produce euphoria in romantic love that work when one takes certain drugs.) So, this liking-love is an ideal basis for marriage and long-term man-woman relationships; in contrast to relationships based purely on romance which are prone to collapse, or at least become bland.
If liking something for likable qualities is conditional love then what could be unconditional love? You guessed it right. When you like without any consideration. But how is that possible?
Unconditional love can not be directed to any particular person or object. The moment it is, it ceases to be unconditional. If you say you like person X unconditionally, that is a contradiction in terms! If it is unconditional then how come you like person X and not, say, person Y? That must mean there is something with the person you like, and so the liking is conditional to that something.
Unconditional love can only be directed towards the whole world at the same time. As such, it just means absence of hatred and infinite compassion towards the world. The world is mean to you, but you don't complain, then that must mean you love the world and the life too much to complain about petty things. Being wise and virtuous are the prerequisites of having the ability to love the world unconditionally.
Note again, that unconditional love can't have anything to do with what one feels towards a particular person or object. Many people use it in context of romantic love, which is just so pathetic an idea that I don't have words to describe the lameness of it.
Unconditional love is the highest form of love. However, it's more like an ideal to be held. One must not fret too much if one isn't able to hold up to it always. It's humanly not possible to always be without hetred. But that we can't be perfect shouldn't be an excuse to not try to overcome our flaws. That way, it's a good ideal to aim for in life.
Additional note:
The three forms of love described above are not necessarily exclusive of one another. One can possess all three of them at the same time. For example, when man and woman are in a relationship based on reason based liking, that doesn't mean they won't feel romantic love. Romantic love will naturally happen; as such it can't be bypassed. Also, they may be at the same time compassionate and hatred-free towards the rest of the world. That way, all three types of love can be present at the same time. But knowing what is what helps in understanding the relative importance of feelings and keeps our functioning smooth.
To summarize:
Hormones-induced romantic love is the lowest form of love; irrational, and just meant for mating. Then there's this love as in "liking something very much"; it's a reason based love; good to go with. And the highest form of love is the unconditional love (also called selfless love), which just means total absence of hatred and infinite compassion; it doesn't ask anything, anything at all.
The first and the lowest form of love is Romantic Love. Second is Conditional Liking-love. And the third and the highest form of love is Unconditional Love. However, these terms are not self-explanatory. Especially, a lot of misunderstanding and irrationality are associated with the first and the third type. Let's clear the cloud.
1. Romantic Love
Romantic love is the lowest form of love. In fact, it should be saved of being called "love", even. Romantic love is at best an illusion of love. In truth, romantic love is Nature's mechanism of enabling mating and reproduction in humans. It's a mating drive. That's the reason it comes packaged with sexual desire. Romantic love needs sex for its expression. Without sex, romantic love can't last long. Interestingly, even with sex, romantic passion has to wane after a while. The duration may differ from case to case, but the euphoric feeling and the passion has a sure expiry date. Impermanence is in the nature of romance, it being there for a definite purpose of Nature.
Apart from that, romantic love is out-and-out irrational. There's no involvement of reason in romantic love. One who is "in love" with someone hasn't even chosen to be in love with that person for the qualities one admires. It's just that when one's brain gets images of people of the opposite sex, through one's social contact with them, it picks a person and the brain-chemicals create the feelings. Quite often, the person of fixation doesn't possess the qualities one likes, and/or even possesses qualities one strongly dislikes; still one feels love for that person. That shows how irrational it can be. Since there's no involvement of human reason in romantic love, it is fraught with dangers. No wonder it's invariably accompanied with intense pain and suffering.
Romantic love can only be between opposite sexes (exception: gays), and it can't be unconditional.
The mechanism of romantic love is great with regards to Nature's goal of propagation of species, but for humans who are unaware of the real mechanism, romantic love is a joke being played with them! More about romantic love.
2. Conditional Liking
If romantic love is a bad type of love, this one would be a good type. When one likes someone "very much" one says one loves that person. Simple as that. It's a liking beyond limit, hence love. It's a good type in that there's reasonable basis for love. One really likes some qualities in the object, that's why one loves the object. So, as long as the object possesses those qualities the liking would remain. There is an involvement of reason in it.
Unlike romantic love, this love is not limited to a male-female setting. One may like anyone irrespective of gender. It's like a friendship. And not only persons, one may even like certain animals and things very much and say one loves them. It's literally meant as love.
This liking-love is also conditional because the liking is conditional to the object being in possession of the likable qualities. One carries around a flower when it smells good; when the fragrance is gone, one doesn't care about the flower anymore; in any case not as much. Still, this love is better and much more practical than romantic love in which one don't even have control over who to feel for.
This love can not provide euphoric experience like romance does, but in essence it's far superior. The euphoria of romantic love, in my view, is a dis-ease (not disease) of the mind, as it's technically the same thing one feels by taking drugs! (Really, the same chemicals in the brain produce euphoria in romantic love that work when one takes certain drugs.) So, this liking-love is an ideal basis for marriage and long-term man-woman relationships; in contrast to relationships based purely on romance which are prone to collapse, or at least become bland.
3. Unconditional Love
If liking something for likable qualities is conditional love then what could be unconditional love? You guessed it right. When you like without any consideration. But how is that possible?
Unconditional love can not be directed to any particular person or object. The moment it is, it ceases to be unconditional. If you say you like person X unconditionally, that is a contradiction in terms! If it is unconditional then how come you like person X and not, say, person Y? That must mean there is something with the person you like, and so the liking is conditional to that something.
Unconditional love can only be directed towards the whole world at the same time. As such, it just means absence of hatred and infinite compassion towards the world. The world is mean to you, but you don't complain, then that must mean you love the world and the life too much to complain about petty things. Being wise and virtuous are the prerequisites of having the ability to love the world unconditionally.
Note again, that unconditional love can't have anything to do with what one feels towards a particular person or object. Many people use it in context of romantic love, which is just so pathetic an idea that I don't have words to describe the lameness of it.
Unconditional love is the highest form of love. However, it's more like an ideal to be held. One must not fret too much if one isn't able to hold up to it always. It's humanly not possible to always be without hetred. But that we can't be perfect shouldn't be an excuse to not try to overcome our flaws. That way, it's a good ideal to aim for in life.
Additional note:
The three forms of love described above are not necessarily exclusive of one another. One can possess all three of them at the same time. For example, when man and woman are in a relationship based on reason based liking, that doesn't mean they won't feel romantic love. Romantic love will naturally happen; as such it can't be bypassed. Also, they may be at the same time compassionate and hatred-free towards the rest of the world. That way, all three types of love can be present at the same time. But knowing what is what helps in understanding the relative importance of feelings and keeps our functioning smooth.
To summarize:
Hormones-induced romantic love is the lowest form of love; irrational, and just meant for mating. Then there's this love as in "liking something very much"; it's a reason based love; good to go with. And the highest form of love is the unconditional love (also called selfless love), which just means total absence of hatred and infinite compassion; it doesn't ask anything, anything at all.
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