This really gave me something to think about. I like how you explained that real love isn’t just how we feel or how we reason but how our inner life works together. It made me look at how I respond to people, especially the hard ones, and reminded me to stay aware of whether I’m reacting out of frustration or actually seeing them with compassion. It’s a good push to keep my heart in the right place. ♥️
Whoa…. Whoa….. i just got bigger on the inside than I am on the out, and that’s from just my first read-through; it’s going to take several to fully wrap my mind around this - I’m grateful to have found you!
I respect Islam, but just like Christianity, there are many confused Muslims and Christians. Loving the least among us is the teaching of The Compassionate One. We just have to learn that we can do this only if our heart and mind work as one.
Veri comprehensive and interwoven set of lively complexities.
The idea of seeing with our soul is an experience I believe I understand and have utilized a great deal.
I normally reject leaning towards or embracing hate for someone.
I feel hate is an unproductive emotion and worse corrupts the soul feeling it.
It’s interesting to me the way you discuss the heart and the “mind”; i.e.:
“Mind” being synonymous
with the Greek definition of “Love”
I admit I have considered my brain/mind separate from love but entwined with my soul.
As for Agape: yes I have felt one of the lessons I’ve chosen to learn is unconditional love.
But if one has not developed skills to prevent serious abuse then loving unconditionally can prove to be harmful or deadly to the one trying to love unconditionally.
Obviously I need more skills around this challenge.
Personally I believe I experience loving in many different forms and at many different levels:
Even for the small groups of friends and my relatives and those I admire performing breathtaking services to our people and our country.
Also Love can be painful if not reciprocated.
…
Thank you for sharing this interesting and gentle, kind, dissertation.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. You will never regret having chosen to learn unconditional love, agapé, but as you wisely added, it is a dangerous path if one has not developed skills to prevent serious abuse when loving unconditionally.
As I hope you realize, I interpret the teachings of Christ from a secular viewpoint but invite believers of every religion to learn from them. He said that he sent his disciples out in the world as sheep among wolves, and the reason being what you said about loving others unconditionally without proper skills. But if such skills could be taught beforehand, Jesus surely would have taught them along with telling them to be wise as serpents harmless as doves.
However, he did teach them the value and power of unconditional love and how to increase it in themselves. This tells us that, with such love, we are armed to learn, step by step, the way to use it in order to reach maturity. It is agapé stronger than life and death.
When we experience the true depths of mature agapé, we see that it is greater than life itself and never stopped by death. Usually this refers to the death of blindness, our worldly view of life. But of course, it always requires the wisdom to know when to love others unconditionally -- without saying a word, without doing a thing from a safe distance. The words and actions of agapé are the goal, but if we do not have such maturity, it is always better to wade in the shallow waters. Learn to listen to the mind of the spirit by using the mind of your heart.
At the end of this article, I added to the recommended reading list, "Short Lessons on Unconditional Love: How Agapé Deals with Dangerous People." I hope this helps you on your journey. Be well and safe.
The loving mental function (dianoia in Greek) of our heart is so important to understand. For example, knowledge of Word (used religiously or not) states that Name (God or Life depending on our beliefs) "gave us a mind (dianoia) to know him who is true." Not only does the dianoia of our heart love but it enables us to truly know who we are loving.
If we try to know someone we love with the logical mental function (nous in Greek) of our heart, we fail and only think we know them. But if we use the dianoia of our heart, we can truly know them in our heart and, with the nous, can experience our love with understanding.
The nous is not for knowing a person; it is for understanding our love for them. The dianoia is how our mind loves from our heart, and that part knows the one we are loving. Thus, the phrase, "this is my love." Only the dianoia can make that statement in truth.
We do not have to know any of this for it to work, like the engine of our car. But we need to know how to fix our own heart when it is broken, by using knowledge to examine what is happening.
Thank you for taking the time to comment. I would argue that it is science, your method of reasoning, that is incapable of curing our problem. Science is driving the car of our identity, convincing most of us that we are biological beings. When we cannot handle life, the main solution is drugs. Most followers of religion claim we are spiritual beings, nonbiological beings, but they turn to the same drugs because they do not follow Word's teaching, as he said they would not.
Christ said if we do not believe in him to at least believe in his works, for understanding the truth behind them is what frees us from misunderstanding our biological senses. Without truth, we never learn how to see through the illusion these senses create. We map out our physical brain thinking we are proving these are the source areas of the activities. They are like the fingers of a glove, which we cannot get beyond their own surfaces to understand our real fingers, which are spirit, the real life.
Deceiving ourselves into thinking we are animals in nature, we are afraid to look too deep into ourselves thinking the worst. But the deeper we look with understanding, the more we experience our true nature, which is that of compassionate beings, although blinded and caught up in the animal nature of these bodies. Simply put, we cannot get beyond their involuntary reactions to the environment.
Each of us must prove this to ourselves but need the knowledge to do so.
This really gave me something to think about. I like how you explained that real love isn’t just how we feel or how we reason but how our inner life works together. It made me look at how I respond to people, especially the hard ones, and reminded me to stay aware of whether I’m reacting out of frustration or actually seeing them with compassion. It’s a good push to keep my heart in the right place. ♥️
I do believe your heart is headed in the right direction. Seeing with our inner life is key.
https://georgeallenbooks.substack.com/p/short-lessons-on-unconditional-love?r=4pmgma
Great work! Thank you for sharing!
Thank you for reading!
Whoa…. Whoa….. i just got bigger on the inside than I am on the out, and that’s from just my first read-through; it’s going to take several to fully wrap my mind around this - I’m grateful to have found you!
I'm grateful to have found you!
As a Muslim , this so insightful.
I respect Islam, but just like Christianity, there are many confused Muslims and Christians. Loving the least among us is the teaching of The Compassionate One. We just have to learn that we can do this only if our heart and mind work as one.
Veri comprehensive and interwoven set of lively complexities.
The idea of seeing with our soul is an experience I believe I understand and have utilized a great deal.
I normally reject leaning towards or embracing hate for someone.
I feel hate is an unproductive emotion and worse corrupts the soul feeling it.
It’s interesting to me the way you discuss the heart and the “mind”; i.e.:
“Mind” being synonymous
with the Greek definition of “Love”
I admit I have considered my brain/mind separate from love but entwined with my soul.
As for Agape: yes I have felt one of the lessons I’ve chosen to learn is unconditional love.
But if one has not developed skills to prevent serious abuse then loving unconditionally can prove to be harmful or deadly to the one trying to love unconditionally.
Obviously I need more skills around this challenge.
Personally I believe I experience loving in many different forms and at many different levels:
Even for the small groups of friends and my relatives and those I admire performing breathtaking services to our people and our country.
Also Love can be painful if not reciprocated.
…
Thank you for sharing this interesting and gentle, kind, dissertation.
🎵💙🎶
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. You will never regret having chosen to learn unconditional love, agapé, but as you wisely added, it is a dangerous path if one has not developed skills to prevent serious abuse when loving unconditionally.
As I hope you realize, I interpret the teachings of Christ from a secular viewpoint but invite believers of every religion to learn from them. He said that he sent his disciples out in the world as sheep among wolves, and the reason being what you said about loving others unconditionally without proper skills. But if such skills could be taught beforehand, Jesus surely would have taught them along with telling them to be wise as serpents harmless as doves.
However, he did teach them the value and power of unconditional love and how to increase it in themselves. This tells us that, with such love, we are armed to learn, step by step, the way to use it in order to reach maturity. It is agapé stronger than life and death.
When we experience the true depths of mature agapé, we see that it is greater than life itself and never stopped by death. Usually this refers to the death of blindness, our worldly view of life. But of course, it always requires the wisdom to know when to love others unconditionally -- without saying a word, without doing a thing from a safe distance. The words and actions of agapé are the goal, but if we do not have such maturity, it is always better to wade in the shallow waters. Learn to listen to the mind of the spirit by using the mind of your heart.
At the end of this article, I added to the recommended reading list, "Short Lessons on Unconditional Love: How Agapé Deals with Dangerous People." I hope this helps you on your journey. Be well and safe.
Thank you
Very insightful! I’d never thought of things this way before.
The loving mental function (dianoia in Greek) of our heart is so important to understand. For example, knowledge of Word (used religiously or not) states that Name (God or Life depending on our beliefs) "gave us a mind (dianoia) to know him who is true." Not only does the dianoia of our heart love but it enables us to truly know who we are loving.
If we try to know someone we love with the logical mental function (nous in Greek) of our heart, we fail and only think we know them. But if we use the dianoia of our heart, we can truly know them in our heart and, with the nous, can experience our love with understanding.
The nous is not for knowing a person; it is for understanding our love for them. The dianoia is how our mind loves from our heart, and that part knows the one we are loving. Thus, the phrase, "this is my love." Only the dianoia can make that statement in truth.
We do not have to know any of this for it to work, like the engine of our car. But we need to know how to fix our own heart when it is broken, by using knowledge to examine what is happening.
Thank you for taking the time to comment. I would argue that it is science, your method of reasoning, that is incapable of curing our problem. Science is driving the car of our identity, convincing most of us that we are biological beings. When we cannot handle life, the main solution is drugs. Most followers of religion claim we are spiritual beings, nonbiological beings, but they turn to the same drugs because they do not follow Word's teaching, as he said they would not.
Christ said if we do not believe in him to at least believe in his works, for understanding the truth behind them is what frees us from misunderstanding our biological senses. Without truth, we never learn how to see through the illusion these senses create. We map out our physical brain thinking we are proving these are the source areas of the activities. They are like the fingers of a glove, which we cannot get beyond their own surfaces to understand our real fingers, which are spirit, the real life.
Deceiving ourselves into thinking we are animals in nature, we are afraid to look too deep into ourselves thinking the worst. But the deeper we look with understanding, the more we experience our true nature, which is that of compassionate beings, although blinded and caught up in the animal nature of these bodies. Simply put, we cannot get beyond their involuntary reactions to the environment.
Each of us must prove this to ourselves but need the knowledge to do so.
https://georgeallenbooks.substack.com/p/short-lessons-on-unconditional-love-d07?r=4pmgma