Three Faces Of Love
Three Faces Of Love
There are three faces of love as we evolve from our animal nature to our divine nature.
It is actually a continuum that starts with the pure instincts for procreation which we derive from our animal nature and ends up in the blissful state of unconditional divine love.
Being a continuum there are many shades and colors as we move up the ladder until we reach the pinnacle and merge with the Divine, where the Lover and the Beloved are One. At this highest level of our evolution there is no male or female, there it only the One.
Before we reach that ultimate state of Oneness, we will always live in the world of duality or opposites. But the paradox is that becoming one can only take place inside our own body, and only when we go beyond the body consciousness.
Love Permeates All
If we believe that the Divine Love permeates all creation, then in each of these faces God is present and having a different experience.
Since God created the Cosmic Game, it’s important to suspend our judging mind when we look at animal and human love. How we behave and interact is our choice. It may not always be conscious choice, but choice it is.
So it’s critically important not to judge others and put our values on their behavior. Others must make their own choices, and we must allow them the freedom to do this, even if we don’t agree.
Understanding is the key. What’s more it’s only through understanding and compassion that we can become enlightened.
And that’s not all. We must accept where WE are right now and see if this is where we want to be.
It’s only through the results that we experience can we determine if we want to stay with our choice or make another one.
When we accept total responsibility for our decisions without blaming or criticizing, we are on the journey of conscious change or evolution.
So let’s look at the three faces of love.
Animal Love
This is the sexual relationship for procreation of our human species.
If we are operating at the animal level our only interest will be in the passionate animal act of sex.
But for humans the sexual act, is not just a physical instinctual act. We place value and meaning on sex that goes far beyond the purely physical.
This has a dramatic impact on all our intimate relationships and gives us many challenges.
We bring our emotional and mental baggage along. And our beliefs gets tied up in the act as well.
No wonder we experience so many ups and downs in human love.
As we evolve, sex for the sole purpose of procreation or pleasure no longer satisfies us. Despite what the media and movies promote many find the sex act purely for pleasure an empty shell lacking fulfillment. The question has become–isn’t there anything more?
Particularly for women, sexual freedom has been promoted as our emancipation. Unfortunately, having travelled down that path in the 60’s I found it more of a constraint than liberation. There was the supposed liberation or freedom but the morals and mores of the society didn’t change.
So I entered another kind of bondage. But that’s another story….
Is sexual pleasure giving you kind of fulfillment you’re looking for
Or is it just a quick fix till the next time.
Or even more problematic, do you find your value as a person in being needed by someone for their gratification, mistaking this for love.
According to Sri Aurobindo there will come a time in the evolution of the human species when people will procreate at a higher level of consciousness through intent and will. The sexual act will no longer be necessary.
You’re probably thinking, “what a shame as there is so much pleasure in sex”.
That’s because at this point of our evolution, few of us can imagine or have ever experienced the ecstatic and blissful states of higher levels of consciousness.
Human Love
So let’s explore human love–the world of duality or opposites.
The world of duality is a world of separateness, a necessary step before we move into the world of oneness or divine love.
Whether you are male or female, you embody the duality of the energetic female and energetic male.
The left side of our body is feminine the right side is masculine. Often our symptoms on either side of the body can be directly related to our perception of our sexuality.
Our bodies also balance each other electromagnetically with the left side being negative and the right positive.
From a spiritual point of view the divine masculine and the divine feminine have a unique role to play as well.
The divine role of the male is creation; the divine role of the female is manifestation.
Since the male of our species is very active and results oriented, we often feel that this is creation. But that is not really the case. Activity is only the result of the creative process.
It is only in the depths of silence that creation begins. What’s most important to understand, is that it’s from silence that our entire universe was created.
Once something is created then it must be used for some purpose. That is the powerful role of the female.
The male draws everything from a higher and deeper level. The female assimilates this truth and then distributes it to her children or to humanity at large.
One brings the divinity into the earth consciousness and the other distributes it. At this level all is in balance and harmony.
In the very mundane sense, the man works and earns money. The woman uses the money to take care of the family. Both are equally important.
This does not mean that women should only be relegated to the home.
Women have a role to play wherever they choose to play it and they should be given the opportunity to do so.
Equality of importance does not mean equal. Since men and women are not the same how can they be equal?
But they are equally important. Failing to understand this has caused much strife, suppression, unhappiness and lack of fairness in our society.
The first problem arises when men do not accept their divine role in the family unit, but use their position to control the family.
From my observation and experience, women are often hampered in their role of taking care of the family when they do not get the support they need particularly if they choose to work outside the home. Study after study confirms this.
Women then begin to feel insecure in the relationship. They begin to nag, get frustrated, jealous and have unrealistic expectations because they feel unsupported. Then the game of retaliation begins and infatuation ends.
As women we need to be less insecure and more confident, coming from our inner still point or intuition, which can guide us in the right course of action.
Having said all this, it does happen that some women in the family unit do not fully accept their role which causes many other problems.
When men choose not to accept their role, they can become manipulative and controlling. They look at their partner as a servant to fulfill their needs and make up for the deficiencies of their own existence. Or worse yet, they look outside the home for their gratification.
Many men need to become less impure, aggressive and animal like and embody the virtues of kindness, compassion, and humility in order to create more harmony in their intimate relationships.
It Takes Two To Tango
One of the biggest problem in a relationship is accommodation. This happens when one person suppresses their own needs and feels they do not have the opportunity to grow because the partner wants to keep them the way they are.
We all need to evolve and grow, but if we are prevented from doing so, it’s like being between a rock and a hard place.
When you start to make some positive changes and are progressing, but you are getting resistance from your partner, it’s called the change back mechanism. In essence what the person is saying, “I want you to stay just the way you are”. What this means is that “I will have to change as you change and I don’t want to”.
So what to do? How do we strengthen our connections instead of breaking them.
We need to honour our differences and our partners right to evolve as their soul wants them to. We have no right to force our viewpoint, beliefs and values on other person.
This means we must come from a place of complete acceptance. It is only with acceptance can we truly embrace another person. If we want to change them then we are not accepting them.
So when we give our partner the opportunity to be free to express themselves and encourage and support their development, we have released our attachment or possession of them.
It is this unconditional acceptance that puts us on the path to divine love.
Both men and women must realize that their life tree does not exist in the other. When we need another human being to be fulfilled, we are cut off from our Source.
Fulfillment at the human level can never be found in another person.
That doesn’t mean that we are independent and don’t need anyone else. It means that we must be inter-dependent without being needy. We must each play our divine role.
When we are cut off from our life tree our relationships cannot be fruitful. Our life tree is our source, our Inner Pilot, the God within who must always be our first love.
It is ultimately the quality of our relationship with God that determines the quality of every other relationship that we have.
Divine Love
In divine love we have the mirror between the Divine Mother Earth and Father Heaven.
In the highest sense we are the Divine Mother earth with all her humility, absorbing all the impacts, cruelty and harshness that we humans choose to inflict on her.
In the male aspect we are the Absolute, the Creator who is absolutely still. There is no movement. All is completely static.
When movement starts the divine feminine or dynamism comes into play. But it can only take place if there is a static base.
That’s why we talk so much about being grounded, and also why we are having such a difficult time today in our relationships. We are not grounded and focused so we cannot take dynamic action and play our respective roles. We become frenetic and bounce around like a kite in the wind.
What is our movement trying to accomplish? It is pushing us to evolve and move forward in life. This forward movement is nothing other than our quest for divine love.
This urge is within more and more people every day. Some of us are beginning to feel restless and dissatisfied with all the media hype telling us about all the things we can do to be sexually appealing. And for what purpose?
This is particularly true for women in mid-life who may have lost some of their sex drive. The instincts and hormones for procreation and nurturing are waning as women begin to focus more on the male aspects of their being rather than their mothering role. That’s what “the change” is all about.
Divine love is selfless. It looks at the other person without a twinge of selfishness or insecurity.
To come to this selfless place we must fully open our hearts and develop heart to heart communication.
It is in our hearts that the divine lives and so to bring our love relationship to this level we must learn to communicate from here.
So now’s the time for action.
Join Irma Boyle and Joyce Friesen as they dialogue about how you can discover what’s holding you back from having the loving relationship you deserve.
Written by Joyce Friesen
