“During courtship neither person is yet sure of the other, but each tries to win the other. Both are alive, attractive, interesting, even beautiful – inasmuch as aliveness always makes a face beautiful. Neither yet has the other; hence each one’s energy is directed to being, i.e., to giving to and stimulating the other. With the act of marriage the situation frequently changes fundamentally. THe marriage contract gives each partner the exclusive possession of the other’s body, feelings, and care. Nobody has to be won over any more, because love has become something one has, a property.”
Posts Tagged ‘love’
The Symposium
May 4, 2009“Following the birth of Aphrodite, the other gods were having a feast, including Resource, the son of Invention. When they’d had dinner, Poverty came to beg, as people do at feasts, and so she was by the gate. Resource was drunk with nectar (this was before wine was discovered), went into the garden of Zeus, and fell into drunken sleep. Poverty formed the plan of relieving her lack of resources by having a child by resource; she slept with him and became pregnant with love.
“Because he is the son of Resource and Poverty, Love’s situation is like this. First of all, he’s always poor; far from being sensitive and beautiful, as is commonly supposed, he’s tough, with hardened skin, without shoes or home. He always sleeps rough, on the ground, with no bed, lying in doorways and by roads in the open air; sharing his mother’s nature, he always lives in a state of need. On the other hand, taking after his father, he schemes to get hold of beautiful and good things. He’s brave, impetuous and intense; a formidable hunter, always weaving tricks; he desires knowledge and is resourceful in getting it; a lifelong lover of wisdom; clever at using magic, drugs, and sophistry.
“By nature he is neither immortal nor mortal. Sometimes on a single day he shoots into life, when he’s successful, and then dies, and then (taking after his father) comes back to life again. The resources he obtains keep on draining away, so that Love is neither wholly without resources nor rich. He is also in between wisdom and ignorance. The position is this. None of the gods loves wisdom or has the desire to become wise – because they already are; nor does anyone else who is already wise love wisdom. Nor do the ignorant love wisdom or have the desire to become wise. The problem with the ignorant person is precisely that, despite not being good or intelligent, he regards himself as satisfactory. If someone doesn’t thing he’s in need of something, he can’t desire what he doesn’t think he needs.”
The Symposium
May 4, 2009“A bad man is the lover of the common type, who loves the body rather than the mind. He is not constant, because he loves something that is not constant: as soon as the bloom of the body fades, which is what attracted him, ‘he flies away and is gone’, bringing disgrace on all he said and promised. But the man who loves goodness of character is constant throughout his life, since he has become united with something constant.”
The Quiet American
March 9, 2009“If only it were possible to love without injury – fidelity isn’t enough… The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body to possess another person without pride or to be possessed without humiliation.”
Mere Christianity
February 19, 2009“When we meet someone beautiful and clever and sympathetic, of course we ought, in one sense, to admire and love these good qualities. But is it not very largely in our own choice whether this love shall, or shall not, turn into what we call ‘being in love’? No doubt, if our minds are full of novels and plays and sentimental songs, and our bodies full of alcohol, we shall turn any love we feel into that kind of love.”
The Brothers Karamazov
January 31, 2009“In my view it is not necessary to destroy anything, all that need be destroyed in mankind is the idea of God, that is what one must proceed from! It is with that, with that one must begin – O, blind ones, who understand nothing! Once mankind, each and individually, has repudiated God (and I believe that that period, in a fashion parallel to the geological periods, will arrive), then of its own accord, and without the need of anthropophagy, the whole of the former world-outlook and, above all, the whole of the former morality, will collapse, and all will begin anew. People will unite together in order to take from life all that it is able to give, but only for the sake of happiness and joy inthis world. Man will exalt himself with a spirit of devine, titanic pride, and the man-god will appear. Vanquishing nature hour by hour, already without limits, by his will and science, man will thereby experience, hour by hour, a pleasure so elevated that it will replace all his former hopes of celestial pleasure. Every man will discover that he is wholly mortal, without the possibility of resurrection, and will accept death proudly and calmly, like a god. Out of pride he will grasp that there is no point in him complaining that life is a moment, and he will come to love his brother without any need of recompense. The love will only be sufficient for the moment of life, but the very consciousness of life’s momentariness will intensify its fire just as much as it formerly ran to fat in hopes of an infinite love beyond the grave.”
The Brothers Karamazov
January 31, 2009“The main thing is that you stop telling lies to yourself. The one who lies to himself and believes his own lies comes to a point where he can distinguish no truth either within himself or around him, and thus enters into a state of disrespect towards himself and others. Respecting no one, he loves no one, and to amuse and divert himself in the absence of love he gives himself up to his passions and to vulgar delights and becomes a complete animal in his vices, and all of it from perpetual lying to other people and himself.”
Living Buddha, Living Christ
January 10, 2009“Understanding and love are values that transcend all dogma.”
Living Buddha, Living Christ
January 10, 2009“In the Gospel according to Matthew, the Kingdom of Heaven is also described as yeast: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’ A little yeast has the power to leaven a lot of flour. The flour is our consciousness. Inside that consciousness are negative seeds: seeds of fear, hatred and confusion. But if you have the seed of the Kingdom of God inside and know how to touch it, it will have the power to leaven, to transform everything.”
Living Buddha, Living Christ
January 10, 2009“Our faith must be alive. It cannot be just a set of rigid beliefs and notions. Our faith must evolve every day and bring us joy, peace, freedom and love. Faith implies practice, living our daily life in mindfulness.”
