It is easy to get confused concerning which feelings are love and which are not. Perhaps, none more so than the love between a man and women. The problem may come from what we refer to as physical attraction. The attraction may be sexual (e.g., they are good-looking or good in bed), or psychological (e.g., the forbidden fruit, one’s celebrity, wealth or position, or the classic “bad boy” [or girl] attraction). These are all based on physical elements.
Likely, we have all seen high failure rates for relationships that arose from these factors. This suggests that there is a lot of confusion out there concerning the physical versus transcendent aspects of love. The physical motivators for “love” are consistent with the materialistic values that seem to be so widespread today.
It is uncertain to what degree the transcendent quality of love is experienced by lovers today given the high divorce rate. Could true love be an expression of the spirit that transcends the body and all physical modalities? Could true love for another be a spirit(ual) attraction and experience?
There are different contexts in which we love another—that between a parent and child, between friends, romantic love between lovers, and so forth. Societal norms dictate limits on how we can physically express love in these various types of relationships. However, I believe that love is love regardless of the context. That is, I do not believe that transcendent love varies by context, only how it is physically expressed.
I believe that love is a form of spiritual energy that is independent of biology and worldly context. Love as spiritual energy may be heralded by that sense of a mutual connection between people. It is a spiritual connection not a physical one. This is what we look for in a mate and find in our family and best friends. When will we learn to go beyond the physical and start to listen to what our spirit tells us?
Exploring Spirituality Beyond Religion 
Thankyou Blair!
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You are most welcome. Wonderful to hear from someone in your part of the world.
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This was a wonderful post!! I share very similar beliefs as you. I also see a world full of lust and CONDITIONAL “love.” (Of course, when I say “conditional love,” I’m NOT referring to “true love.” If there are any conditions, it may as well be filed under a label closer to “egoistic convenience.”)
Anyway, we only differ in belief on the last paragraph. (I’m NOT insinuating one belief is “right” and the other “wrong.” Absolutely not! If our beliefs are different, but each serve us, then that is beautiful!) You speak of love as being a spiritual energy, not of the physical or worldly. In my personal belief set (which is still evolving and “under construction” in it’s own right), energy is not as mutually exclusive as this. This almost sounds divisive, in that you’re either in one realm or the other. In my personal belief set, I feel as if Love Energy is literally the only form there is, as Spirit is the only “Truth” or “Reality” there is. Very Eastern, I know. For example, my belief set would state that all the energies or realms in the infinite Universe were created/manifested/evolving through Spirit, and Spirit is synonymous with Love. All energy is based in love. The earth, human beings (vessels for spiritual evolvement) are all physical manifestations of the Spiritual Truth. Spirit evolved “The Matrix,” so to speak (Earth, human lives, etc.) out of Love, to continually, cyclically, create Love. This is what keeps the Universe continually expanding.
Now, this being said (and I know I always go off on tangents, and I’m thankful you are patient with my learning process here), I believe Spirit created Earth to be a testing ground for Spiritual Souls. This means, that Spirit created a place where unloving things (hate, greed, etc.) exist. However, these unloving things were STILL ultimately created out of Love, because THROUGH the experience of those unloving things, we are better able to understand what Love truly is. For example, you cannot truly enjoy simple happiness without experiencing basic sadness. These unloving things (created with love energy, which I believe is the only true form of energy there is) test humans to evolve and become better versions of themselves. Ultimately, this is a lesson of Love.
It is my belief that things such as lust, where humans have a hard time discerning “true love” from another thing, are simply tests from Spirit for growth. For example, from ex-wife #1, you learned an important lesson that prepared you for wife #2 (which was a successful relationship). Or a married woman lusts for a man, but learns that she never Loved the man – she only wanted what she thought he could give her (such as excitement), and ultimately she learned she could create that for herself. Everything is a stepping stone and purposeful.
On another tangent, I believe that energy CAN be modified/changed/transmuted. (We can’t create or destroy it, but we can modify it. It’s cyclical.) I believe that Spirit originally created a certain level of adversity on Earth for human vessels (containing spiritual souls), and that humans (being physical and fallible – imperfect) have the choice to take the energy created by Spirit and manifest it in a way which contributes to society’s evolvement or contaminates society’s evolvement. There is always a choice. This means, that SOME of the adversity we experience, is made MORE difficult by our own contaminated cumulative consciousness. Certain things do not have to be as hard as we make them. I believe, over time, that fallible human instincts have contaminated the energy on the planet and stunted the cumulative spiritual consciousness. I believe it will take the effort of many combined advanced souls to incarnate and “show the light” again to begin undoing the centuries of contamination. (I believe this is what Jesus did long ago as well. He incarnated not for his own growth, but to serve as a change agent for a misguided society.)
Ok, I apologize for writing so much. I apologize for it being only half way related to what you’ve posted. I thank you for allowing me to process my own personal, fallible belief system on this blog. It helps me greatly to have an outlet in which to post. Thank you also for such a thought provocative post. Without it, I would not have the opportunity for such spiritual stimulation! Thank you!! 🙂
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Hello Alma. Always nice to hear from you. I do not think that we are substantially, if at all, in disagreement on the point you mention. You may recall from some of my other writings that I believe that our life is one of spirit. Therefore, I too believe that spirit is our true reality.
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