h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Can I be the keeper of love and bumble bees?

Hi Casey,
Unfortunately fluffy bees already have a Keeper, but I don't have a Keeper of Love.
Is that ok, or can you think of anything else?
Let me know

I thought of another one, but now I can't remember, but Keeper of Love is fine with me.

Makes me feel special...

You *are* special!


The title of Keeper of Love is hereby awarded to Casey-Sweetheart.

Congratulations!

You can always ask for the thing you couldn't remember when you remember it

Aww, you're special too.

*If* I remember what it was, I'll let ya know.

Hi Casey,
Will you Keep these words for me?
I've posted them at your journal entry too, it seemed appropriate.

I was emailed something this morning by someone very special to me, but whom I have never met.

Most religions and spiritualities teach the value, power, and
necessity of love. What is the role of love in Advaita? In order to answer this question, one must distinguish between what the world thinks is love, and what love really is as seen by the jnani (the sage). According to the jnani, love is another term which can be
used to describe enlightenment, wholeness, and acceptance. Since, in
enlightenment, there is only the whole, never any separate parts, there is a compassion which is an intrinsic part of seeing everybody and everything as the Self. Consciousness has great love for everything in its manifestation. It is the love of the Self
for the Self.

Ramesh has said, "The presence of separation is the absence of love,
and the presence of love is the absence of separation". In the meditation for January 13 in his 1997 book, A Net of Jewels, he says, "It is only when you arrive at the deepest conviction that the same life flows through everything, and that you ARE that life,
that you can begin to love naturally and spontaneously" and in the
meditation for June 26, he says, "Love, not as an expression of separateness based on emotion, but as compassion, is that which holds the world together in Unicity. In Unicity, we do not love others, we ARE them." In his 2000 book, From Seekers to Finders,
Satyam Nadeen says, "....my only definition of love is embracing
whatever is, just as it is, and only because it is---without conditions that it be other than what it is". In his 2000 book, As It Is, Tony Parsons says, "All and everything emanates from silence and unconditional love."
Those who still see themselves as individuals are usually unaware of the transcendental love which even they are part of. Religion sometimes points to it, but since it is not a concept or rule of behaviour, it cannot be packaged in a doctrine and taught.

How is transcendental love different from worldly love? Transcendental love is always unconditional since it
recognises no change, and it is impersonal since it recognises no
person. It transcends all objects so it cannot be directed towards any object. On the other hand, since the perception of separation is the distinguishing feature of ignorance, worldly love is always dualistic, and hence is based on the desire-fear polarity. It is highly personal and can take the form of pleasure, completeness, joy, desire, loneliness, jealousy, possession, guilt, responsibility, need, identification, subjugation, or surrender. It is emotion
or sentiment felt while perceiving separation and is thus in a
different realm from transcendental love.
However, since transcendental love is the background of everything in
manifestation, even worldly love partakes of it while remaining largely unaware of it.

Personal love relationships have also been called special relationships because they occur only between specific people in special circumstances. All forms of special relationships are conditional and changing, and are really barter relationships. As such, they depend on the mutual satisfaction of expectations and
demands. When these are met, there is temporary gratification,
gratitude, and enhanced self-esteem, but when they are ignored or refused, there is dismay, rejection, and guilt. Because barter relationships can survive only as long as each side has, and is willing to give, something the other wants, many personal love
relationships end in disillusion. Others, after a long period of
partly met and partly disappointed expectations, settle down to 'resigned acceptance.' Still others, after surviving their initial specialness, approach transcendental love in their unconditional nature.

In romantic love, especially as reflected in popular culture, the much sought "soul mate" is the perceived missing half of a perceived duality ("opposites attract"). Ironically, when the soul mate is finally found and possessed, the ego feels even more needy and incomplete. (Here, we shall speak as though the ego exists,
while knowing that it does not.) It fears the loss of both the other
and itself. Guilt is seen as a necessary part of this "love", both for its intensity ("love hurts") and as a tool to manipulate the other
("if you really loved me you would......."). So as not to lose the
other, the ego may become neurotically dependent ("I can't live without you") or remorseful ("please forgive me"), or make promises ("I'll never do it again"). And it may try to regain its lost self-esteem by inducing jealousy ("if you don't love me, I'll find somebody who will") or by belittling ("without me you would be
nothing").

An exalted form of worldly love is identification with an object or
person. This can occur in marital and familial relationships. It can also occur in bhakti, the practice of love and surrender to God or to a guru.
In identification with another, separation tends to vanish. When it
extends to the entire human race, it becomes the universal love that was taught as a spiritual practice by Jesus. Identification with another is perhaps as close as we can come to transcendental love while still retaining a belief in separation. Because intuition is the link between separation and wholeness, it is intuition that gives us a sense of transcendental love even within the illusion of separation.

Identification with another may be a result of non-locality of mind.
The feeling of closeness and identity that exists between many people may be more real than they suspect because two or more minds may actually overlap if their subtle bodies overlap. Those who are able to sense auras can easily sense when one person's aura expands to include another person's. A very common experience among spiritual seekers is the feeling of peace and serenity that prevails in an ashram or other gathering of seekers. This experience is especially striking when one is enveloped in the aura of a powerful yogi like Master Charles of the Synchronicity Foundation. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation, has elevated it into a guiding principle, which he calls the "Maharishi Effect". This states that, when a group of people are meditating together, they create a harmonious, tranquil influence that is felt not only by the meditators, but also by anybody else in their vicinity. He has even formulated it into a quantitative principle by stating that the number of people whose mental states are harmonised by a group of people meditating is equal to one hundred times the square of the number of people meditating.

Some spiritual teachers (e.g., Gangaji) speak of a single, profound
experience of awakening that occurred while they were in the presence of their master. They call this phenomenon "transmission". Other teachers say it happens more gradually over time. Ramesh has called it "magic", and some teachers (e.g., Francis Lucille) at times call it the "direct path", but this is only one form of the direct path.

In his 1993 book, The Self-Aware Universe, Amit Goswami has suggested
that, if the brain has a quantum part, nonlocal mind might be an effect of a Bell-Aspect type of correlation.
From this we might speculate that, if two people are initially in substantial mental agreement or alignment when they are in close proximity, their quantum brains might overlap, and a correlation might be established that could persist even if they become separated by large distances. Perhaps this correlation would then be experienced as love.

Love, whether worldly or transcendental, always includes true
acceptance. Acceptance of Totality as it is inevery moment is one of the characteristics of 'whole mind.' Even for 'split mind,' the more acceptance thereis, the less separation and the more love.

Ardent transcendental love can be present even while the perception of separation still exists. An example is the all-encompassing love for Truth by the Truth seeker.

This is Truth seeking Itself.

Hey! I had to change my ID here (lost the password to my last one) so can you change it to my new ID? It's U209625. Thanks!

Casey

Hello Casey!

Long time no see!

Welcome back, I missed my Keeper of

Will do as you ask, are you sure you don't want your old account back?

I can fix it for you.......

No, it's ok. I have my new one all set up already, so I can switch to this one. I have too many "memories" of stuff from the old one that may be best left there.

I'm glad to be back! Maybe I'll have more free time to lurk around again!