Quotations on Love
Gurdjieff, Views from the Real World
From looking at your neighbor and realizing his true significance, and that he will die, pity and compassion will arise in you for him and finally you will love him.
Practice love first on animals, they are more sensitive.
Conscious love evokes the same in response. Emotional love evokes the opposite. Physical love depends on type and polarity.
There are two kinds of love: one, the love of a slave; the other, which must be acquired by work. The first has no value at all; only the second has value, that is, love acquired through work. This is the love about which all religions speak. If you love when “it” loves, it does not depend on you and so has no merit. It is what we call the love of a slave. You love even when you should not love. Circumstances make you love mechanically. Real love—For this love you must work. Some know it from childhood, others only in old age. If somebody has real love, he acquired it during his life. But it is very difficult to learn.
P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous
Man does not love, hate, desire—all this happens.
But no one will ever believe you if you tell him…
Sometimes ‘it loves’ and sometimes ‘it does not love.’
[Man] does not remember himself. He is a machine, everything with him happens. He cannot stop the flow of his thoughts, he cannot control his imagination, his emotions, his attention. He lives in a subjective world of ‘I love,’ ‘I do not love,’ ‘I like,’ ‘I do not like,’ ‘I want,’ ‘I do not want,’ that is, of what he thinks he likes, of what he thinks he does not like, of what he thinks he wants, of what he thinks he does not want. He does not see the real world. The real world is hidden from him by the wall of imagination. He lives in sleep. He is asleep. In the real meaning of the word, mechanical man cannot love—with him it loves or it does not love.
Rodney Collin, The Theory of Conscious Harmony
Work is never work if it doesn’t progress. It has to progress by mutual understanding, real love, harmony. It progresses by leaving fears behind. Fear of losing old forms, fear of being left naked, fear of opinions, fear of the new, fear of the forces of life—all these must be left behind. To understand the big work, we must be free of all fear whatsoever.
Sexual desire is not the only form of love. It is tremendously important and may carry deep spiritual love on its tide. But when it diminishes, the other forms of love must not be thrown away with it. They go still deeper into fate in the long run. Sexual desire is not directly under our control. Though we can spoil it by thinking too much, worrying too much, by being ashamed or fearful. Curiously enough, the love of the soul and spirit is much more under our control.
Once upon a time, school meant a wise man teaching foolish men. Now one sees school behind school behind school. Big school seems now like the highest function of the earth. It is the mechanism of consciousness, not only for mankind, but for the planet. The rise and fall of civilizations are only the play of big school. And behind big school on earth, there is the greater school of the Solar System; and even—I am sure—connection with a still higher directing force on a certain star.
The friendship of those in esoteric work must be a human one, but I feel that if it is only a human one—however understanding—it is doomed to degenerate. Really, we can only love each other for any length of time in relation to what we are going to become and to what we serve. As we are and without common allegiance to the highest, however many different forms that may take, we can neither give nor merit lasting love. And I think it is quite right that we can’t. For if there could be lasting love between us as we are, this would be an almost impassible barrier on the way to change.
In this work it is right that all points of view should be considered, that right traces be left, that all be decent and in good taste, and that an atmosphere of love and friendliness be created. But behind all that is a force a thousand times more powerful, which when released can tear mountains apart, transform crucifixions, and split our everyday world from top to bottom. And in the light of this, the first will disappear like a candle in the sun.
Real love does not stop at a person or an object; if it is real, it goes on to God. Nothing real ever disappears. If it disappears it is not real.
The divine in us realizes itself in wanting to help others, and this is love.
For more on the topic of love, see our prior issue: https://fourthwaytoday.org/category/the-way-of-love/.
The sermons of Bernard of Clairvaux (1190 – 1253) treat of divine love in many aspects. You can read them here: https://www.pathsoflove.com/bernard/songofsongs/contents.html