Category: Psychology
This Business of Love — Claude Comments
“When we ourselves do not love everyone, why we should expect or want everyone to love us?” Claude Comments: There’s … More
Truths and Half-truths — Claude Comments
“It is only gracious to allow people to hold on to their truths even if in our estimation they are … More
The Freedom of Being Nobody
“Fine with being no one, fine with being nothing”
J. Krishnamurti on Corruption and the Kid’s Incredulous Stare…HaHaHa
Look at the way the kid stares at Krishnamurti when he says “Don’t get a job.” HaHaHa…the kid seems to … More
Love as the Effect, Not Cause, of Self-knowledge
I had written a few months back thus: “Intellectually, I am a sage. Emotionally, I am just a teenager.” When … More
The Epistemology of Love: From Lust to Truth
Two aphorisms, one teaching. “Love is one way to conquer lust” — a claim Spinoza would recognize instantly: an emotion cannot be destroyed by reason alone, only by a stronger contrary emotion. Willpower against lust is thought fighting affect, a losing battle; love against lust is affect against affect. Augustine goes further — lust is not love’s opposite but love disordered, energy awaiting redirection. The Sufis made it doctrine: ishq-e-majāzī, human love, is the bridge to ishq-e-haqīqī, the divine. And the second aphorism — “to begin to understand love is to begin to understand the truth” — finds its natural home in Advaita, where ānanda is not an attribute of the real but its very nature. Every love, as Yājñavalkya taught Maitreyī, is love of the Self, misaddressed. To trace love to its source rather than its objects is vicāra itself. Love conquers lust because love is veridical and lust is hallucinatory — one sees, the other hallucinates its own hunger.
What is Love?
“When it comes to love, I have totally lost the plot.”
Love & Truth
“To begin to understand love is to begin to understand the truth.”
Love & Lust
“Love is one way to conquer lust. Actually, love is a good and pleasant way to conquer many evils in … More