Rediscovering Love through Philosophy

What do I believe vs what do I know?

Fredrich Nietzsche said, “There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe.” How might this apply to our understanding of Love? In this regard, I personally rather like the Stoics. They want to know, to experience first-hand. They consider themselves as individuals as a “work in progress’, that human perfection is unrealistic, and that we should all try to improve ourselves through self-enquiry and self-examination. To be slightly better today than we were yesterday. To leave all our troubles in the hands of God seems a somewhat one-sided paradigm, though there are those that believe that love, as an experience, is truly in the realm of God. Perhaps they might be right in this respect.

Using the right tool:

Herein lies the issue with Love. We might want to believe love exists but seem to be unwilling to really search out its’ inner workings inside us… Surely if something is this important to us we should be willing to come at least part of the way to understanding what is happening within… Even if we were to acknowledge Love and God are somehow related, the full experience of love might still illude us, or be short lived. If we were to simplistically believe in Love as a ‘subject of study’, this assumes it to be somehow outside ourselves, yet that is not our experience. For me at least, internal enquiry seems a logical place to start as simple belief in the workings of Love seems too far off and vague.

Love beyond the mind:

What if love were something deeper and longer lasting, something that exists within each of us all the time but beyond our mind’s understanding? In other words, it was within us all along, but our minds were not fit tools to explore its truths. Perhaps it is beyond “me” and my insatiable desire to hold onto the love as a possession, perhaps that is the issue. We can’t release our fundamental desire to love and be loved, and this is the reason we can’t see it clearly. We are blinded to some extent at least, by our limited view of ourselves and our inner depths too.

What is this thing called, love?

Where then does love come from? If it doesn’t come from the mind, does it come from emotion, or somewhere deeper still within us? When we look deeper, I think we intrinsically know that Love is not an ideal we can simply hold in the mind for a short time. It is not to be held aloft and believed in blindly either because again, we intrinsically, I suggest, know it will always be out of our reach if seen in this way. Perhaps instead it requires some work and self-examination to discover where it comes from. If in fact Love is our essential nature, as the wise tell us, then what internally stands in it’s way.

The Nature of True Love

When we are quiet within, say perhaps when walking in a beautiful forest, when the mind quiesces into silent observation. In that moment, we are our most natural Selves. In these moments, we might also recognise the presence of love. One might say it is experience ‘experiencing’ itself. We are aware that we are aware. Although these experiences may be fleeting, there effect can be life changing.
When our mind is still, we seem somehow more connected, more open, and more loving, do we not?? Although it is very subtle, in that moment, we might say this experience is beyond me as an individual and is experienced as universal and boundless. Shakespeare expressed this very well when he wrote, “My love is as boundless as the sea. My love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, as both are infinite”. “Falling in Love” is rather like this, is it not? Limitless?
Here, love is not limited by our individual desires but rather flows freely from a deeper place within us. On closer observation, it flows THROUGH us, and not FROM us. It is being it, rather than experiencing it. It actually flows out in all directions and is not as directional as we might have thought. (More on this next time…) Love “AS BEING”, encompasses everything and everyone. As we expand, so our Love expands. We become truly as boundless as the sea.

So how can we develop this inner stillness and expansion?

Our intuition tells us that true love is not something we can “do” because it somehow seems illusive to our minds. Instead, love is what we are when we are at peace within ourselves. To experience this, we need to go beyond the mind, beyond our daily thoughts and anxieties. As we explore the nature of love, we discover that it emerges naturally when we connect with our inner stillness – a state that Meditation helps us access.
With practice, Love becomes a sea in which we ALL can swim…

The Path Forward: A Life Enriched by Love

At Melbourne School of Philosophy, our courses present students with various subjects for consideration, including group discussion in good company. This allows a natural move towards a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us. The basic format of all classes is always to neither accept nor reject what is heard from various quotes from a wide selection of wisdom traditions, but to put it into practice and observe the results for oneself. We then come together the following week to discuss what we have found. It is practical in every sense.