What Is Love? Readers Answer!

November 26th, 2008

A few posts ago, I asked our readers to submit their answers to the question “what is love?” Without further ado, let’s hear what they have to say.

“Love feels good to do.”
–Hazel (age 4)

“I dont think it’s possible to talk of love.”
–Boris

Love is the giving of oneself without any expectation in return.
–Donald

Love as I’ve come to know it involves the following idea in a big way - Wanting what’s best for the other person, versus what’s best for you. Caring about their wellbeing….even if their wellbeing and happiness doesn’t involve you, or isn’t what you personally want or like. In a nutshell - self, vs. others. There are other aspects of it, but, that’s one biggie!
–Carissa

To me love equates with truth and logic. When I contemplate the perfect laws of the universe and their simplicity, I feel love. It’s not the kind that you get when you pet a soft kitty, or even when you embrace your child. Nor is it the sex kind. It like electricity that flows from positive to ground unobstructed because the balance acquired through knowledge and intuition of the cosmos. It’s balance. It’s knowing that whether you are dealing with the macro-cosmic or the micro-cosmic, the adherence to unity is the same. Love is my reality.
–Amy

I am a being of infinite love and possibility to love. Though I show it in different ways to different people, never doubt that in my own way I love each and every one of you. I have so much love to give and the more I receive means the more I can put back out. It is a glorious cycle! Thank you to those who let me love them and especially to those who allow me to share my love with many people, places and things. Never doubt that you are special and dear to me. Never compare my love for you to the love I have for someone else. Each is unique, cherished and treasured by me. Let me be, love, grow, flow and share, for that is how I want to be. When I am in love with myself my ability to love the rest of the world knows no bounds. Can you feel me glow? I am radiating my dears! I love, love!

I don’t want to hold this back… mmmmmmm… this feels so good!

And it is only growing!
–Kim

This is a hard one, because love is something that I’ve never been able to describe.

When you are blinded from the bigger picture and you are imprisoned inside the walls of control systems in society you are often taught a love that isn’t really love.

I’ve also wondered myself what love really is. From the personal experiences (which are very little so far) I believe love is wanting to reach out to someone or something and wanted to touch them. But not in a physical sense, but more in an emotional ‘inside’ sense. It is understanding and accepting someone no matter the situation. It’s accepting their differences to you.

You can have an attraction to someone and you would want to be with them but if for any reason they can’t or don’t want to be with you then you accept that and you understand it, knowing that they have their own path in life that they need to follow. If you wanted to control them or make them stay with you, and it isn’t what they really want, then that isn’t love, it’s obsession, or on a lesser note it’s just plain selfish which isn’t fair for the other person.

Love, I think, is to be selfless. It’s that warm, overwhelming feeling inside that you can only describe in so many words because it is bigger than that.
–Jana

This is my current understanding. It’s prone to change, as all things are.

There’s the love that is basically a human emotion. It takes different forms, of course, but it’s basically no different from any other emotion, and it comes and goes and ebbs and flows, depending on the situation.

Then there’s the “universal love” that is the power of God (Source/Spirit/Whatever). I believe humans are capable of channeling it, using it, experiencing it, but we don’t do it without some prompting from Source, in some way.

Some human love relationships (such as a parent and child, some marriages, some sibling relationships, etc.) seem to involve not only the human emotion of love, but also the spiritual power of love.

It also seems to me that some relationships where you would expect that kind of spiritual, unconditional love to be at least partly there still lack it, and fall into human-emotion-only. In some relationships, this isn’t an issue, but in something like a parent-child relationship, it can lead to very grave consequences.
–Bonni

People almost always start of by saying.. “Well, there are distinct types of love; romantic, platonic, parental.” I disagree. It is the way love is expressed that they are distinguishing, not the actual emotion. I feel compelled to say what I feel love is not , but that wouldn’t be focussing on what it is maybe in another post!

I’ve gone through many instances where I’ve been convinced love involves martyrdom, pain, sacrifice and all manner of one-sided situations, but now I realise it doesn’t.. ultimately, I believe love is a two-way thing, anything else isn’t love. It must flow back and forth, it must benefit both parties.. otherwise it is an energetic drain. It should feel good, even in a bittersweet way, such as when you wave your kids off to college, or see an ex find happiness with someone else. If you are martyring yourself then that is just another form of control, and I feel that love is about empowerment and guidance, at least, that’s how I express my love for my girls. Love is freely given, love also means being good to yourself, because if you cannot love the person you are, you cannot love, or be loved in any healthy sense of the word. My boyfriend does not want to date a doormat, and I certainly have no desire to teach my kids that love=hurting yourself. Love enhances the lives of everyone involved; it sustains through hard times and it makes no demands. It just is.
–Gehenna

Thanks for all the awesome and well thought out submissions! In my next post I’ll be pulling together all my own thoughts on this important subject — stay tuned!

–Palehorse

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