A call to all you bright minds out there - can you solve this dilemma? :)

I don't know that it's a dilemna anyone else can, "solve," but something most think about throughout their lifetime perhaps. Probably depends on one's belief system, which usually forms througout earlier yrs & into adulthood, through one's ancestry, upbringing & experiences.

The bible (which is my belief system, Christianity), says, "love at all times." One is to love the sinner, but not the sin. It says, we are, "not of the world, but in the world." Heaven is therefore one's TRUE HOME for a Christian is the goal.

I can't imagine loving everything, I may try to love everyone, that's not too difficult, liking sometimes is a bit more tricky however the more work one does on themselves the easier that becomes.

Maybe work harder at what you love doing, sharing that with others you enjoy, & believing that others also do the same.

I think there is a reason for all things happening as they do, perhaps a predistined sort of thing (even the bible says, The Book of Life, is written) but there IS free will & one always (well not always but oftentimes there are choices) has a choice. The benefit here is that God Is Love, so there is NEVER a lack of love, for one that believes this. We are never alone, HE (GOD) Is Always There & ready to fill the brain, fill in the gap when there is a lack of love.
I can think of people I love that can bother me about certain things. People that are hyper critical I am nearly allergic to, yet also understand that is what they do, it takes all kinds. I am sensitive, they are critical, I can't imagine a world that is not dimensional.

Some of these things come with age, but working on what one loves & being around others sharing in experiences that are meaningful is how this expounds.
I love to exercise, eat healthy, science, history, math, learning more & understanding GOD.. I realize there are those that do not like what I like, but that doesn't mean I can't learn from their existance, does not equate to I have to like what they like, or as in love & sin.. love the sinner not the sin..
Pull it apart like a DNA strand.. you can go upward to acheive, or spiral downward.
LOVE IS, it's like LIGHT .. GOD.
the opposite is darkness & also bible says God Does Not Like Lukewarm.
So I tend to want to stay in THE LIGHT.
smile be happy.
Into adulthood there came a time when I put down the self help books & picked up the bible. Doesnt' mean I don't read self help book on occassion & other books, but that is the center for me.. But I reached a point to where I need some more answers & cried out to GOD. It's been uphill every since .. rather bumpy at times but.
& life's a journey not a destination..

1 Corinthians 13 New King James Version (NKJV) The Greatest Gift 13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, it profits me nothing. 4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. 13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Best definition of Love I have come across.

It's all about understanding, relating, and finding the middle.

Gandhi tried searching for enlightenment in the extreme of wealthiness, couldn't find it,

He tried being poor and seeing if it was found there, Not a chance ( too distracted )

Then he thought,and said, what if I had all, and nothing at the same time, I got in the middle of the two extremes.

And that's where he says, enlightenment can be found Always in the middle of the two extremes.


That's what people who have this ability to love unconditionally, and by saying people, I hope you see I mean everyone, since everyone is able to do this, no one person is more special then the next.

How about we start working together for a change, instead of asking each other to change.

Originally posted by Manula
reply to post by timerty

 

I don't think you the so called master of spirituality get it.
To accept the existence is quite different than loving it.
Some things are not wanted, they are not loved but they are accepted.
Its not the same.

No, I feel that the meaning of love is acceptance, both are the same.

Regarding what you said about free will and desire, those were also what I meant and agree with.

But about what you said about decisions coming mostly from the unconscious mind(soul), I believe most important events for the soul to experience were planned by spirit guides. And the planning is only done before the body is born and when the soul is not experiencing its body during unconsciousness. So the souls may not be able to decide all or most things for itself.

Choose what you love. But wait, you are supposed to love everything... Ah, well I give up then. I guess do what you think will bring the greatest amount of love into the world and into yourself.

Proof of the presence of an existence that does not itself maintain any structure composed of matter nor energy is proven by the effect it's presence has upon matter or energy as witnessed by two or more consciousness'.

Prove energy. No one can. Science can only acclaim to its presence as it affects matter. Then again only if effects upon matter are witnessed by two or more consciousness'. Put a liter of pure energy in a test tube for me and tell me what it looks like and how much it weighs. Make it potential energy not kinetic.

So put some love in that same test tube and tell me what it looks like or how much it weighs.

Physics proofing methodologies are for matter not for love or the rest of 99.99...% of what the Universe is composed of.

Dwell in constant Presence, that is love. It is this Presence that will offer before you, second to second, what you shall determine to be your fate. The Presence has no choice, It is all and can only absorb the delta (change, kinetics) of newness through proxies, us. We provide the exhilaration of newness, whatever it is about as our greatest worship offering upon the alter just as we provide through proxy the awareness of nothingness. The Presence cannot be omnipresent inside of absolute non-existence (nothingness) so we are the means by which omnipresence is complete via proxy since we CAN withhold the awareness of nothing as if it was a "thing" or "place".

Our surrender in giving our consciousness of newness and the nothing are rewarded by our being given the Presence that is the All, as it is revieled as much as we can tolerate, appearing to us as eternal newness. So we can continue to deliver the exhilaration of newness of consciousness. A self feeding "fire" where each individual is in the evermore "flames" for eternity.

I think the problem with the question is that you are presenting "love" as a static object. Love is not an on/off, black and white situation. Like the myth about Eskimos having 100 words for snow, there are at least 100 versions of love.

There is the love you have for a parent, or any other biological relative. There is the love you have for your spouse/significant other. There is love you have for you pet. There is the love you have for a good, long time friend. There is the love you have for your favorite book or movie. I could go on and on, but i think you get the point.

Love is nothing more than an emotion, an emotion that can be applied to anything, good or bad. You can hate someone for doing something horrible, like murder, but still love them enough as a fellow human being to not want to see them treated un-justly. If someone did something horrible would you want to see them tortured or killed in a cruel manner? Most people would say no, because they have love for their fellow human, regardless of how awful their actions are.

"Free will" is a funny term IMO. Every living thing has free will. Can you think of anything that doesn't have free will? Humans have free will, otherwise i wouldn't have been able to write this reply. Dogs have free will, otherwise they wouldn't be able to act like good dogs one moment, then decide they don't wanna listen to you the next. Even hive insects have free will, which they use to decide where they will forage on any give day, or what path they will take. One could even argue that trees have free will, deciding the best place to have a branch grow, or where to send a root.

I believe consciousness is made up of 3 parts, instinct, emotion, and rational thought. Having one, or more, of these 3 things makes up the multiple levels of consciousness. While a human has all 3, a dog would only have instinct and emotion. A lizard only has instinct, but is still able to practice free will.

The only thing i could think of that would be an example of not having free will would be a robot. Robots can only do what they are instructed to do. Even if they are programmed to make decisions, those decisions are based off of very specific programming. The key difference is that robots are not alive, they do not have consciousness. Because of this, one could make the argument that free will is consciousness and vise versa.

Back to your question

Originally posted by Manula
But if we are suppose to do this how do we make choices? Why free-will then?
If its all good, then we don't need to choose anything, we can be choiseless zombies, wondering around.

I think you are comparing apples and oranges. Love is an emotion, but as a human with a rational mind you have the ability to decide to act using said emotion, or your rational mind. You can love chocolate, and love being healthy, so decide to eat the fruit over the chocolate without taking away from your love for chocolate.

Sorry for the long winded post, but that's my 2 cents.

DC

Originally posted by DaTroof

Originally posted by SkullAndBeats235
reply to post by DaTroof

 

So you dont love your mother? you only respect her?

Precisely. Love does not exist and cannot be proven.

I think it's pretty obvious who dosent have kids.


Once one has children, one learns what love is.

reply to post by Manula


"All things in moderation." -Jesus of Nazareth

one love, okay lets imagine it, there done, boring to me- but what is the difference between saying one love or new world order, you still have a side-
Love everything for simply what it is? right wrong left right up down so on so forth- I don't know if it is humanly possible- your basiclly saying, "watch TV" stay mindless and ignore your passions, or do not have a passion other than being passionate-
I like to fight and F**k, I cannot change it, if we didn't do these things then we would be a genderless utopia, and then we would complain about that.
I know in my heart, not physical, but my "amore mind" that this has all been done and will be done again, live and let live is the closest your going to get......Imagine.

Originally posted by xDeadcowx
I think the problem with the question is that you are presenting "love" as a static object. Love is not an on/off, black and white situation. Like the myth about Eskimos having 100 words for snow, there are at least 100 versions of love.

There is the love you have for a parent, or any other biological relative. There is the love you have for your spouse/significant other. There is love you have for you pet. There is the love you have for a good, long time friend. There is the love you have for your favorite book or movie. I could go on and on, but i think you get the point.

Love is nothing more than an emotion, an emotion that can be applied to anything, good or bad. You can hate someone for doing something horrible, like murder, but still love them enough as a fellow human being to not want to see them treated un-justly. If someone did something horrible would you want to see them tortured or killed in a cruel manner? Most people would say no, because they have love for their fellow human, regardless of how awful their actions are.

"Free will" is a funny term IMO. Every living thing has free will. Can you think of anything that doesn't have free will? Humans have free will, otherwise i wouldn't have been able to write this reply. Dogs have free will, otherwise they wouldn't be able to act like good dogs one moment, then decide they don't wanna listen to you the next. Even hive insects have free will, which they use to decide where they will forage on any give day, or what path they will take. One could even argue that trees have free will, deciding the best place to have a branch grow, or where to send a root.

I believe consciousness is made up of 3 parts, instinct, emotion, and rational thought. Having one, or more, of these 3 things makes up the multiple levels of consciousness. While a human has all 3, a dog would only have instinct and emotion. A lizard only has instinct, but is still able to practice free will.

The only thing i could think of that would be an example of not having free will would be a robot. Robots can only do what they are instructed to do. Even if they are programmed to make decisions, those decisions are based off of very specific programming. The key difference is that robots are not alive, they do not have consciousness. Because of this, one could make the argument that free will is consciousness and vise versa.

Back to your question

Originally posted by Manula
But if we are suppose to do this how do we make choices? Why free-will then?
If its all good, then we don't need to choose anything, we can be choiseless zombies, wondering around.

I think you are comparing apples and oranges. Love is an emotion, but as a human with a rational mind you have the ability to decide to act using said emotion, or your rational mind. You can love chocolate, and love being healthy, so decide to eat the fruit over the chocolate without taking away from your love for chocolate.

Sorry for the long winded post, but that's my 2 cents.

DC

your icon is sick, split the lips of the prick to the left, if you have any yarbows, talk to the middle and wear his frown upside down and plant a bomb in utero, you know the hole, don't classify the right because the timing wasn't right, it was left to the middle to interpret and just as easily shed the dark night and reflect our own light. ( I like your icon)

Unconditional Love does not mean that one loves everything, regardless. It is about you and your mother, you and your children but you don't have to love my mother, or my child. There are choices in life... what to love, what to like, what to dislike, what to abhor... do you not see?

Unconditional love is known as affection without any limitations. This term is sometimes associated with other terms such as true altruism, complete love, or "mother's love." Each area of expertise has a certain way of describing unconditional love, but most will agree that it is that type of love which has no bounds and is unchanging. It is a concept comparable to true love, a term which is more frequently used to describe love between lovers. By contrast, unconditional love is frequently used to describe love between family members, comrades in arms and between others in highly committed relationships. An example of this is a parent's love for their child; no matter a test score, a life changing decision, an argument, or a strong belief, the amount of love that remains between this bond is seen as unchanging and unconditional.

en.wikipedia.org...

If someone turns her/his back on me, I might hurt for a while but will eventually get over it!

If my daughter were to do that, I would be devastated and never get over it!

Truth be told, she did do that to me in 1983, and I cannot forget the hurt, but have learned to live with it!

She, however, has never given me a fair answer/reason for this behaviour,

CS70

There are some fundamental problems though in this. And the All is One, leading to the choices don't matter as its all good. Thats a slipperly slope. There are those who believe in Oneness as in ONE SOUL, who can still discern that Love is not equal to Hate. They don't slide down the slope. And this is not what was said in the OP either, its just sliding down the slope of saying choices don't mean anything or matter, when that is the purpose of earth school, making those choices. And one day, pencils will go down.

But Oneness needs to be defined because many people use that word, but what do they mean when they use it?

Do they meant that we are One Soul precisely?

Or do they mean we are Infinite Ones, oru Infinity is not the Whole Infinity, but the Whole Infinity is made up of All things that are Infinite in themselves and hence it is 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111.................
And between Infinite Consciousness is the Spirit of Love and Peace and Goodness, so one could call this the Divine Spirit, or Holy Spirit, however, to say its One and all is One, would be trying to define One when you're putting infinite puzzle pieces into the puzzle for an infinite length of time, and that infinity is truly endless.

Now after undending time doing so, you would really be surprised to discover that you still have an infinite amount of puzzle pieces left.

We are all Infinite Parts of Infinity.

So Oneness, and Family yes, but Same thing, not at all.

And we're here in this holographic testing ground for a reason, inserted into a body, with all things structured in opposition. What is natural around us, is a sign to us, but its neutral in that day and night are both needed and not good or bad in themselves.

But when it comes to choices, there seems to be a difference in frequency and this is a part of the purpose of the school.

Here are some of the best posts I've seen on this subject:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Manula


I think your question is based on boundaries, meaning, why are there boundaries which may negate the true meaning of freewill. Maybe?

We have three choices:
Choice 1: Choose to live a jealous life, gluttonous, greedy and any other way that is harmful to oneself and to others.

Choice 2: Choose to live a life of kindness filled with compassion (compassion can be proven), and love for self and others as each and every one of us understands love on an individual level.
Funny thing is, we all can talk about love and we all know what we are talking about… It’s only fluff, hot air when people ask for proof of love.

Choice 3: Choose neither, BUT you still have made a choice. (haha, RUSH Freewill).

But the fact of the matter is we are all where we are in life from all the choices we have made in our past, the buck stops with each and every one of us, we have made nothing but choices in our lives and that is why I am here right now, at this very moment. OUR own individual choices even though we have a set of rules (boundaries) we have to live by. Okay, not talking about a child who is at the mercy of their parents household rules (but there you go again, boundaries). But even with rules you can still choose to try or succeed in breaking them.

I remember reading something on some blog years ago and it may fit here:
A Native American Indian grandfather is sitting with his grandson. The Grandfather says, grandson did you know that there are two wolves inside of you, one of the wolves lives off of the deadly sins, and the other wolves lives off of love, compassion, hope, faith and so much more good. And the grandson asks, what do they do? The grandfather replies, the two wolves are constantly fighting each other. The grandson then asks, who wins? The grandfather replied, the one you feed the most.

So choice/freewill is more around us than you think…

Maybe I am off base…

Later..

reply to post by DaTroof
The question you have posed is larger than any one human being can possibly or jusifiably answer. The closest I can achieve is when I am at piece within myself i can and do become apart of everything around me , without displacing myself .

I think unconditional love as we see it is really more the role of our higher, soul selves. At the human level we can only, as you mentioned, practice it...get tastes of it. I mean, all this experience of duality and separation and all this free-will choice is the experience of our higher selves. It doesn't necessarily apply to the tool--aka our human body.
So while we, from that higher perspective, can officially 'do no wrong' as its all free-will and all a manifestation of love, in our human bodies there are still those rules we built to live within.

reply to post by MischeviousElf


Wow! Excellent post. I've always wondered how best to describe the difference between cosmic/conscious/unconditional love and human/egoic/materialistic love. Thank you

I have the same problem with the word ego. My husband and I always get in misunderstandings because we both have very different definitions of ego.

reply to post by Manula


I don't think it is a dilemma at all. All choices have consequences good or bad, and often unintended. The trick is to accept and love those consequences instead of regretting the choice.

If the goal is to gain as much experience as possible, and evolve from having that experience, then either choice is good, even if one produces joy and one produces pain, they both result in experience that molds you spiritually.

You can see that those that do harm are in reality, on a soul level, doing harm to themselves, so you can unconditional love them too because, although they may seem like aggressors, they are victims too, but of themselves. So in reality there are no aggressors. Everyone living the dark side is a victim. I agree. So you can rationally love those who vibrate in low levels because they are like bad students, they don't learn, and who is to blame? They didn't made themselves... Why are they like that? Why cant they get out of it? Who knows...

reply to post by Manula


I loved this. It was one of those moments that give you a literal pause...the tea was halfway to my lips

Also, maybe you can love fear for the lessons it teaches? Or maybe with the simple knowledge that you, yourself chose it with intent?