“If you love a flower, don’t pick it up, because it will die, and cease to be what you love. So if you love a flower, let it be. Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation.” – Osho

Love is a tricky word. The Greeks helped us out a bit by differentiating various kinds of love: Agape (love for everyone), Eros (sexual passion), Philia (deep friendship), Ludus (playful love, as between children), Pragma (long-standing love), and Philautia (self-love). Sorting it out is not so easy. If I say “I love you,” the context becomes important; sometimes miscommunication occurs when the intention does not match the expectation. Then there’s the problem of whether or not we can embody love.
During my early religious education, I was comforted by the instruction and reminder that God is Love. So if God is Love, what aspect of love does God represent?

Spiritual leaders seem to struggle with this question, and religious dogma may attempt to regulate the different aspects of love, as if they are separate. Agape may be love for everyone, but people placed into the category of “sinners” may be excluded, unless they agree to some conditions. When we really love everyone, we do what the late Dr. Wayne Dyer suggests, ” Look for the innocence in everyone, and then make that the only thing you see.”Focusing on a person’s innocence makes it difficult to indict the person for some “wrong-doing.”

Then there’s Eros or erotic love. To some, any attention to this form of love is a recipe for disaster. The Puritans were particularly concerned about this kind of love, but they’re not alone. Today, sexual passion is repressed, secluded from view, categorized according to who’s involved, and embedded in acts of power and force. Sexual passion has been distorted, used as a weapon, and has become an area of shame and transgressions. In short, sex has taken on a meaning that has nothing to do with Eros.

The distortion of erotic love has in some cases made Philia or deep friendship suspect or difficult to develop. One person can genuinely love another without a desire for sex. Television shows have encouraged this experience of Philia, but some cultures or religious communities insist on rules of engagement. I am however reminded that I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the city of “brotherly love.” The concept is still possible.

Ludus, playful love is restricted to children or young lovers, according to the Greeks. This restriction can keep us adults from finding the playful part of adulthood, and become closed and habitual; we sacrifice our creativity if we forget our playfulness.

Pragma, is the long-standing love, the deep understanding that develops between people in a long-term mature relationship. With these couples, what they have “between them”–memories, struggles, losses, triumphs — have established a special bond that is both loving and “pragmatic.”

Philautia is the often sought-after self-love. We struggle with appropriate ways to love ourselves, but we often feel more comfortable trying to love another person from a depleted sense of self-love. Such an undertaking rarely is sustainable. We have to love ourselves in order to love other people, because we cannot give away something we don’t have.

All of the six aspects of love create a full experience of love in life. God is in all these forms of love. When we are aware that All-That-Is, what we call God in some communities, cannot fall outside of any of these aspects of love, we are able to give up the labels and the false separations.

We are an expression of the Universal Intelligence that is love. The energy of love is All-That-Is. We are love in all its forms and the opportunity for Love to express itself in the world. If we deny any aspect of this love we are not fully aware of ourselves. Commit to being fully who you are. You are the love of everyone; the sexual passion of creation, the brotherly and sisterly love that produces compassion and comfort; the child’s play that puts you in touch with joy; the unconditional love of deep relationship; and the heart-opening awareness of the loving true self. You are that, all of it. Appreciate the love that you are.

Peace, love and blessings,
Ndidi