Love is Not Enough

I came across this article today on Facebook. It's a look at love, beliefs about love, and a couple of harsh truths I agree are important to remember in relationships of all kinds.

Opinions?

Jiddu Krishnamurti wrote: Now how am I going to find out what this flame is which we call love - not how to express it to another but what it means in itself? I will first reject what the church, what society, what my parents and friends, what every person and every book has said about it because I want to find out for myself what it is. Here is an enormous problem that involves the whole of mankind, there have been a thousand ways of defining it and I myself am caught in some pattern or other according to what I like or enjoy at the moment - so shouldn't I, in order to understand it, first free myself from my own inclinations and prejudices? I am confused, torn by my own desires, so I say to myself, `First clear up your own confusion. perhaps you may be able to discover what love is through what it is not.'

The government says, `Go and kill for the love of your country'. Is that love? Religion says, `Give up sex for the love of God'. Is that love? Is love desire? Don't say no. For most of us it is - desire with pleasure, the pleasure that is derived through the senses, through sexual attachment and fulfilment. I am not against sex, but see what is involved in it. What sex gives you momentarily is the total abandonment of yourself, then you are back again with your turmoil, so you want a repetition over and over again of that state in which there is no worry, no problem, no self. You say you love your wife. In that love is involved sexual pleasure, the pleasure of having someone in the house to look after your children, to cook. You depend on her; she has given you her body, her emotions, her encouragement, a certain feeling of security and well-being. Then she turns away from you; she gets bored or goes off with someone else, and your whole emotional balance is destroyed, and this disturbance, which you don't like, is called jealousy. There is pain in it, anxiety, hate and violence. So what you are really saying is, `As long as you belong to me I love you but the moment you don't I begin to hate you. As long as I can rely on you to satisfy my demands, sexual and otherwise, I love you, but the moment you cease to supply what I want I don't like you.' So there is antagonism between you, there is separation, and when you feel separate from another there is no love. But if you can live with your wife without thought creating all these contradictory states, these endless quarrels in yourself, then perhaps - perhaps - you will know what love is. Then you are completely free and so is she, whereas if you depend on her for all your pleasure you are a slave to her. So when one loves there must be freedom, not only from the other person but from oneself.

http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=48&chid=56793

At the beginning the author said that one of the men had a clear understanding of love and the other didn't. To that I disagree, they had different understandings of love. We cannot quantify or explain love, which is one of the great things about it, so we can't tell someone they love wrong, just that it's not they way that we love. That said, one of them seemed to have a more compassionate view of love.

In my opinion love encompasses the three truths in it. If those truths aren't tested and passed then it isn't really love. That would mean that, by the authors definition blended with mine, love is all you need but the things that go into making a loving relationship work are part of love. I feel like that didn't make sense. I'll try to address these one truth at a time.

Truth one - Love does not equal compatibility: There was some sort of compatibility there or you wouldn't have fallen in love in the first place. Truth one, in my opinion, should really be a part of truth two as compatibility once you're already in a relationship comes down to working on it.

Truth two - love does not solve your relationship problems. True, but if you really love that person you are willing to work on your problems. If you're not willing to work for it then is it really love?

Truth three - Love is not always worth sacrificing yourself: Again, this is really the same as number two. If you love that person you are willing to sacrifice of yourself and that person should be willing to sacrifice of themselves. You want to because their happiness means more than yours does. Does that make sense logically, no, but as was stated love is not the logical part here.

Please don't take this to mean that if you're in a bad relationship but there is "love" there that it will be fixed. I'm implying that if you aren't willing to work on fixing it then maybe it wasn't love (or at least reciprocated love, one sided love is bad).

I stand ready to have things thrown at me.

steamboat28 wrote: I came across this article today on Facebook. It's a look at love, beliefs about love, and a couple of harsh truths I agree are important to remember in relationships of all kinds.

Opinions?

I'd say that, for the most part, I agree with what is on the site.

The only thing I'm not sure about is the word sacrifice in the article... my fiance and I have a good relationship (not without hard work) but I'm not sure I've ever sacrificed anything.. A friend is always complaining at having to sacrifice himself for girlfriends and my fiance tells him that it's not about sacrifice, it's about compromise. There's nothing I have that is worth so much to me that I feel that I have sacrificed it for our relationship

Edan wrote: The only thing I'm not sure about is the word sacrifice in the article... my fiance and I have a good relationship (not without hard work) but I'm not sure I've ever sacrificed anything.. A friend is always complaining at having to sacrifice himself for girlfriends and my fiance tells him that it's not about sacrifice, it's about compromise. There's nothing I have that is worth so much to me that I feel that I have sacrificed it for our relationship

As for my stance on the sacrifice bit. To me compromise is when two people sacrifice for the benefit of the other. I, this morning, sacrificed some of my time to drive my girlfriend to work when she had car trouble. She has done the same for me at other times. There are many other small sacrifices on both ends that equate to compromise. To me they mean the same thing as long as it comes from both sides.

I had one major thought when I read this:

When we believe that “all we need is love,” then like Lennon, we’re more likely to ignore fundamental values such as respect, humility and commitment towards the people we care about. After all, if love solves everything, then why bother with all the other stuff — all of the hard stuff?

Love is the hard stuff. Love is everything said in that paragraph (respect, humility, commitment..). Love isn't just romance and dating. In fact, real love can be very calm, quiet, and hardly noticed. Love is built with time and effort - I mean the deep, lasting kind.

Well, you could say "Love is not enough" Or you could say, especially given the examples given within the article that people do not know what love is. Its not infatuation, lust, etc,etc. Also, people tend to get married before they really even know each other much less can make the decision they love each other. Many get married thinking people will change, or are still riding the "New relationship high" and confusing what is new and exciting for love. People as a whole, are not very self aware, and do not know there own hearts and minds much less have the ability to do so with another, or take the time too, and let love actually fully bloom. Most dont even establish true friendship. I firmly believe all you need is love. I also firmly believe that most people have never experienced it in a relationship. Perhaps its just the hopeless romantic in me, but I have 19 years of marriage and family to fall back on and I have only grown to love my wife more with each year.

Reliah wrote: Love is the hard stuff. Love is everything said in that paragraph (respect, humility, commitment..). Love isn't just romance and dating. In fact, real love can be very calm, quiet, and hardly noticed. Love is built with time and effort - I mean the deep, lasting kind.

Our youth pastor said something once that always stuck with me. "Love starts as a feeling. After that, it becomes a choice. It's a decision you have to make every day once that feeling wears off."

"Love" starts as a hormonal outburst - as the desire (or primitive urge, depending on your point of view) to procreate. Once that desire has been fulfilled or exhausted, it's time to make up your mind: go separate ways and find "love" again elsewhere or come to the realization that what you and your partner have found is more than sexual pleasure. That it's a way of mastering a complex life more easily. That it's a way of furthering yourselves by fending together. That it's a way of creating a stronger unit from two weaker elements, even though this means that sometimes, the going gets tough. If you choose that all of this is true for your relationship, "love" (or libido) has become love (or amor).

If you end up having kids or not, if you don't have sex with each other anymore or do it like rabbits, doesn't really matter. What counts is that you've started cultivating respect and kindness towards another human being. And by doing so, you're cultivating the same for yourself. If you can cultivate respect and kindness towards one person, you can do the same towards others. And in that, love has improved you.

Whether things last forever or not is not as important as society would want you to believe. Once the process of kindness has taken hold in you, it will, deep down, last forever, no matter what.

I'd like to add an another article to the mixture if possible-

http://www.businessinsider.com/lasting-relationships-rely-on-2-traits-2014-11

Lasting Relationships come down to what exactly? This article doesn't really talk about love but one would think love would be somewhere within lasting relationships. Apparently- there's good evidence to say kindness and generosity are the main two traits that can predict whether a relationship will last.

Now one might argue that with 'love' you're kind and generous anyway. But often I think we take for granted our partners and hence we're less kind and generous that we could be...

One might also say that one is born kind and generous, or not. But I personally think it's something one can practise or work on and something one has choice in (if they are aware enough)...

Thanks for the article- Twas very interesting,