Love

So much has been said about love. The most authentic Christian view of the various realms of love are below. One completely agrees with it.

In many ways the English term for love is so limited that it cannot express the nuances between God's love, parental love, filial love, conjugal love and the highest of all , the love of humanity. Eros is at one end of the continuum and is translated selfish love and agape at the other end which is selfless love like that of Jesus. But this distinction is only on one dimension namely 'selfishness'.

However, the following places love vertically and horizontally, the Godly and the parental vertical and the rest horizontal. It also places love in various realms. This is a complete treatise on the Christian view in a nutshel and I find no contradiction with the Christian view of love here.

It sharply differs from some of the ancient Indian views especially where the partaking in the erotic enjoyment is a dharma by itself and extra and pre- marital is not ruled out. Here the erotic is uplifted to an art form on a par with music and dance and shringara all of which are preludes and an integral part.

It is said that the Indian ways became prudish with the infusion of the Victorian morals by the British and the adoption of the heavily Biblical view in these matters.

Amidst such perhaps finding what is right and wrong may be relative. However, the Christian view is unambiguous on the issue. That love in all forms has its beginning in God and he intends it in a certain way and no other. Family has a central part in love as also the upbringing of the children in true love in all realms......

Family Education of the Heart

True love requires that we educate our hearts.

While existing on the foundation of ethics, love is not a duty dictated by ethical standards. It is the spontaneous flow of emotion from the heart. Why is the ethical foundation necessary? We know from experience that love is often changeable. Emotions run hot and cold, affectionate and hateful. This is the character of selfish love.Selfish love is changeable; it is not true. It disappoints. It fails. Selfish love is narrow and short-sighted, hence it does not prosper. True love is giving and goes beyond the self.

Selfish families do not serve the public. There is no basis for God's love to dwell in their midst. True love contains true standards within it. It naturally abides by ethical norms and encourages others to abide by them. Therefore, love grows on the foundation of ethics.

Ethical norms lay out the paths which free us to give and receive love.
The vertical ethic nurtures the quality of character that promotes true, lasting love. This is expressed completely in the family. Therefore children learn the standard of ethical love through experience in the family.

The family is the textbook and school of love.

Education happens through stories and instructions. Through our lineage we learn a tradition and way of life from our parents and grandparents. Lessons of the past are passed on. Grandparents love to tell stories of the past. Children love to listen to stories of the past. In this way, past and future are connected. Stories are among the most effective means of education. The most reliable predictor of criminal behavior is not race, economic status or education, but rather the absence of grandparents during childhood.

Education happens through relationships. Through actual relationships with grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters, and children we learn proper norms of behavior. Norms are taught by natural practice and living example. The family practices and enforces rules within an atmosphere of love, trust, understanding and acceptance. Rules are not impersonally applied, but personality and feelings are naturally taken into account.

The school of love brings development of the heart (the ability to give and receive love). This is the growth of love. This is the most important purpose of the family. No matter what our wealth, position or fame, the family we are born into and the family we create form a permanent set of relationships to care for us and challenge us to grow from within.
More importantly, our heart grows through the give and take of love with parents, brothers and sisters, husband and wife. We learn to relate with people of all ages and genders.

We learn all our lives: after youth we experience the same lessons from the "school of love" all over again in the position of parents and grandparents. Therefore, our family relationships are the most important learning experiences.

The four great realms of heart.

Heart must be exercised in order for our spirits to remain healthy.
God's heart is the irrepressible source from whence love flows.
Our hearts are vessels to receive love and give love. Heart refers to our innermost, autonomous motivation, desire and ambition.

The expressions of true love in the family reveal the richness, power and depth of divine/human love. There are specific types of love exchanged between family members, based upon their relationship of age, sex and marriage. Each is based upon heart, and each partakes of a "realm of heart" which is from God. The "realm of heart" is a domain of spirit within which a distinctive quality of love, with a special purpose, naturally, spontaneously flows. It flows between human beings and between God and us. A specific type of love naturally flows between brothers, different type of love naturally flows between husband and wife, third type of love flows from parents to infants, or to teenagers, etc.
There are four general "realms of heart," those of children, brothers and sisters, husband and wife, and parents. We grow through these realms like grades at school. We ascend from one realm to the next when our love reaches the standard required for entry into the higher realm. It is wrong to enter a higher realm of love prematurely, which is most common through premarital sex and "children having children." Each realm, however, includes the realms below it. For example, a child may enter the realm of brother-sister love, but he will still be relating to his parents through children's love. A man may enter the realm of conjugal love, but he still respects his wife as he would his sister.

Education of love for each family member progresses through the realms of heart.

Children's heart toward parents.
Brother-sister heart toward each other.
Husband-wife heart (conjugal love).
Parent's heart toward children (fullest expression of God's Heart).
These realms are equally valuable and beautiful. They reveal the basic dimensions of God's love. They pull God's love into our lives, each in its own special way.

In a family centered on true love, love flows through the realms of heart.
Love circulates among family members, gaining energy through daily interactions. In each realm, we love each other, experience each other's love, and help each other grow. Each experience contains both learning and teaching. In the next lesson we will explore the children's realm of heart.


The Children's Realm of Heart

Children's realm of heart.

Every child is born out of the love of God. As he or she grows, he unfolds stage by stage the invisible nature of God in visible manifestation. After all, in adulthood, he is destined to fully embody God's divine nature as a temple of God. As the child receives his parents' love his heart grows.
The child is innocent, curious and open. The child believes in others.
Receiving parents' love stimulates the child's love and causes the child's heart to grow, as sunlight coming from the sky causes plants to grow and multiply. Children naturally offer love and respect, faith and trust, obedience and gratitude to their parents. Thus, the mind of filial piety develops. As a result of receiving parental love, they naturally develop love among brothers and sisters. This is how love multiplies and fills everything.

The parents are the primary conduit for God's love to the child. The face of his parents are the first image of God; in their love he can understand the reality of God. As he is receptive to his parents love, he becomes receptive to God's love and truth. He is filled with wonder at his world and is grateful for its blessings. We have the heart to love God because He first loved us through our parents.

Grandparents' love is a valuable supplement to parents' love. Grandparents represent the larger world. They have more time. They have broader perspective than the parents, in general.

Within God there is yin and yang, masculinity and femininity.
Children receive God's masculine love from their father, and His feminine love from their mother. Boys and girls grow in different directions. The older they grow, the greater the difference. Boys respond more to their mother's love. As they grow up, they must separate from dependency upon their mother and begin to identify and inherit from their father. Girls respond more to their father's love. As they grow up, they must separate from their attachment to their father and begin to identify with and inherit from their mother. This means their love for the opposite sex grows, though latently, while their ability to become a husband and wife grows.

As children, boys and girls persecute each other. They are not meant to manifest sexual love, by natural law. American educator Allan Bloom lamented the terrible effect of early sexual experience upon his students, calling youths who experimented with sex "flat-souled . . . unadorned by imagination and devoid of ideals." (Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987], 134.

Explicit sexual education taught by non-family members is harmful. Children cannot deal with such thoughts and ideas.

Learning to live by conscience.

The conscience represents God, who is the source of the vertical ethic. Therefore the conscience will promote the principle of life for the higher purpose. The physical body cannot transcend its own needs and appetites. Therefore the body will insist upon life for the self's purpose.
Our conscience knows we should be able to get along with everyone. Its perspective transcends self-interest. In the conscience, the child has a natural compass to guide the growth of her heart.
However, children need to be taught norms to educate the conscience.
Filial piety is the basic standard of good and evil for children's conscience. In the story of Pinocchio, his conscience was always telling him to obey his father. When he realized the truth of this, he gained the power to sacrifice himself to save his father's life.
Children have a desire to know right from wrong.
Children have an innate sense of the difference between good and bad.
They test the limits. They do not complain when their parents push them to study, because they know it is for their benefit. The heart of true parents is to pray for their children all night, shedding tears.

However, parents who have not developed good character cannot give true love to their children. Their children are deprived of the love which can nurture the children's realm of heart. Their children's personalities become crippled, unable to relate evenly with all types of people.
When children's love is lost, later in life they distrust and disobey their elders and all forms of social authority. Worse, they lose their relationship with God, who is first perceived by a child in the love of their parents. Thus atheism comes about. Without a full relationship with God, the conscience is weakened and cannot develop fully. Without receiving proper education as children with which to bear fruit in the children's realm of heart, none of the other realms of heart can develop properly.
Parents who have distorted relations with their own spouse or parents cannot function within the parental realm of heart. They will abuse their authority as parents, even making sex objects of their children or young relatives (incest).

One of the most sorrowful results of the failure of parents to establish the realm of children's heart is homosexuality. Homosexuality arises from the failure of true love within the family, especially in the relationship between father and son, mother and daughter. As we grow, we move into the realm of brother and sister love. This will be the focus of the next lesson.



The Conjugal Realm of Heart

The conjugal realm of heart.

A man and a woman who have graduated from the children's realm of heart and brother-sister's realm of heart are ready to enter the conjugal realm of heart.

They are capable of receiving love.
They are capable of relating equally well to all twelve types of people.
They are capable of self-denial and self-sacrifice for the sake of others. Therefore they are qualified to give absolute love.
Their love is pure and their hope and vision for the future are strong.

Each has become God's temple.
Otherwise, God's love cannot be present in their union, and there is no foundation for their love to last. They have followed the vertical ethic, being a son and daughter of filial piety, patriotism, saintliness and holiness. They have developed their conscience. They have the heart to expand their love to the community, nation, world and cosmos.
Jesus said: love your enemy, be like God who sends rain upon the just and the unjust. Buddhism teaches that ignorance and attachment comes from egoism.

The young man and young women are destined to meet and consummate God's love. As teenagers, around age 17, girls become attractive and boys become handsome. The passion arises within them to seek for a partner of love. There is a sense of infinite possibility and boundless enthusiasm.
This great power is condensed and focused into one person: their eternal life partner of marriage. They come together at the center horizontally, and God's love comes down to them vertically. This is a cosmic spark of electricity!

The value of my spouse is equal to that of the entire cosmos.
In loving his wife the husband is loving his sister, daughter, mother, grandmother. She in loving her husband is loving her father, brother, son, grandfather. This means that conjugal love includes all the virtues of loyalty, parental heart, compassion, cooperation, and so forth. These virtues are necessary for the perfect marriage.

In loving his wife he is loving all women in the world. She in loving her husband is loving all men. In loving his wife he is loving all yin elements in the cosmos. She in loving him is loving all yang elements. Each partner represents one half of the entire universe.

In loving his wife he is loving the femininity of God. She in loving her husband is loving the masculinity of God. Conjugal love represents the unity of the cosmos. In loving my spouse we become the center of the cosmos. Our love occupies the entire universe, and the universe dances in harmony. Combined, we have the sensibility to inherit the universe and be its stewards in love.

Their union is the full image of God. Their union is God's dwelling place.
This is the fulfillment of the purpose of creation: the unity of God, man and woman. The entire cosmos resonates with and revolves around this central point of true love. From that point, they become husband and wife and then become parents as they give birth to children. At the same time, God participates as the vertical Parents. We should realize the absolute value of having a spouse.

On the foundation of complete selflessness, purity and fidelity, sexual love is good. It is the foundation for God to dwell with us and for us to become one with God and each other. It is the place where the miraculous creation of new life takes place. It is the place of greatest joy for man, woman and God. It demands a greater degree of love, self-sacrifice, devotion and goodness than the celibate state.

The young man and young woman's love should be selfless and pure (as is God's love). It must have God's Blessing. Otherwise, their love will not meet God's love. There will be a clash, a lack of resonance due to the presence of selfish desire and partial commitment. The vertical line of God's love and horizontal line of human love should meet at a 90 degree angle. Conjugal love is the foundation of loving God and humankind, and it is the foundation for God to dwell within the family. Therefore we should appreciate the greatness and depth of conjugal love.

The sexual organs are the place of their union, where they meet with God in a tremendous explosion of love. They are the most holy place of the body. The sexual organs should be treated as a holy temple and palace of true love. None can enter but the high priest, the spouse. If anyone else enters, the holiness is defiled. The male organ belongs to the wife. To let another woman use it is robbery. Likewise the female organ belongs to the husband. Thus, the sexual organs are hidden and kept with modesty. (Pornography is a tremendous evil, because it violates the realm of conjugal heart and multiplies this violation to the society level. This defiles the sanctity of the society.)

The sexual organs' mysterious function is the source of new life. There, God's electric love merges with the couple through the forty billion cells of their bodies.

Husband-wife love can never be broken; there is no concept of divorce.
Any competing love pales in comparison to true conjugal love. The starting point of conjugal love is God, moving vertically through the conscience to the heart to the holy place. Conjugal love endures even though the body grows old. True conjugal love deepens and grows forever in the spirit world. Death is not the end.

The equal value of husband and wife.

From the viewpoint of the cosmos, the husband represents heaven, the Creator God, because he contains the seed. The wife represents the earth because she receives and nurtures the seed in her body. Therefore, husband and wife represent the entire cosmos, heaven and earth.
In fulfilling these responsibilities, one person takes the leading role as the subject partner. The partner supports as the object partner. Usually, the man is the subject partner by virtue of his role in society, and his wife is the supporting object partner. There is a natural order that the man should have a more public role and be the breadwinner. Men are endowed with minds and bodies more fit to hard labor and to the time-space demands of public life (irregular schedule and location).
But sometimes, the woman has the leading role and her husband is the object partner (e.g. Margaret Thatcher, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir).

Working out disputes between the partners always honors their relationship over and above the separate interests of each. Women's true liberation does not weaken the family bond. Love is true liberation, and true love strengthens the family. Women can move their husbands to their way of thinking with love and service. Betty Friedan is but one modern feminist who repented of her earlier advocacy of women's "liberation" which impoverished family life.

The lack of conjugal love is the root of the problems of this world.
Some couples marry as virgins, but most do not. Some couples are better than others, but there are no couples who have achieved true conjugal love. This is a spiritual barrier for all mankind. Because of it, many religions teach that the way to find God is to live a celibate life. The root of this spiritual problem goes back to the fall of man. Love between husband and wife grows colder as society progresses externally, leading to abuse, frustration, infidelity and divorce.

Children suffer irreparable psychological and spiritual damage as a result of divorce. They lose the capacity to sustain their own male-female relationships, and are likely to divorce as their parents did. All manner of sexual perversions arise as people seek to fulfill their longing for conjugal love which is not fulfilled in marriage (adultery, prostitution, pornography, rape and incest).

The failure to fulfill the children's, brother-sister and conjugal realms of heart is the result of the lack of parental love. We have never had true parents, or known true parental love. Since every child is born with the nature to receive true parental love, to receive anything less is to abuse the child. Abused children grow up into flawed parents. Thus we are a world of flawed parents and abused children.

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