Imagine much of what we know about love is owing to a Canadian sociologist, John Allen Lee, who published his Greco-Roman theories of love in 1976. His classification of love into Eros, Pragma, Agape, Mania, Ludus and Storge is used as the authoritative definition of love. I am starting to wonder if this compartmentalized view of love has done more harm than good, as far as relationships are concerned. In particular I have been contemplating the concept of Eros. I would argue that there is only one type of love: all else is the misunderstanding of love. Here are my preliminary thoughts.
Love is the language our spirits speak. It exists in the world, whether or not we see it, feel it or believe in it. Love is the divine energy uniting all things great and small. Love is the sacred trust between sacred beings, and all things are sacred. The love expressed between the spirit of a tree and the spirit of a person, is the same love expressed between the spirit of a child and the spirit of a mother, or the spirit of two lovers. When you strip away all the baggage tacked on to the back of love; strip away all the pretense dressing it up, revealed is only one unity of being, one whole, one type of love. If we were able to reunify our concept of love, reunify our concept of what is sacred, perhaps we would truly be able to live as our brothers’ keeper, to love our neighbours as ourselves.
Love is always waiting to express itself, to be nurtured, to expand, but it is the conditions of our minds that determine whether love will flourish, or whether it will be stifled, retarded or inhibited.
To be continued