So far in this section concerning bell hooks and the loveless patriarchy, we have considered love in family. What about love in relationship? Through the recognition that patriarchy restricts love, in adversity starting with mother-love we can consciously maintain love in the family especially in the extended family, and extend that love to the community. But how do we extend that love in relationship?
Centring love on mother-love and extending that love out from the nuclear family to the extended and then into the community does not belie the fact that we live in a loveless society. Bell focusses on relationships that don’t begin with love as an objective, zandtao accepts this. To him most couples relationship is based on conformity. Having destroyed the love that starts the family with mother-love, patriarchy then conforms love to a series of roles that fit in with what is required in society – what is required to maintain the profits of the 1%.
When bill examines the relationships he saw before upheaval, they were conformed. At uni his 1st head of hall, a sportsman, had an ongoing relationship with the women’s hockey captain. You could argue this was like interests cementing the relationship, but was it love? In the male environment of the hall, there was discussion of sex – not love-making but the getting of sex, how often, “the lad”. Maybe love was discussed within the relationship, relationship as love was almost taboo amongst the lads. Despite the possible good match this head of hall had, he was not THE lad; THE lad was the guy who managed to get many attractive women back to his room in the hall. It was as if “ladness” was measured as a parade through the common room. This of course is a view from the outside because at that time relationship was not something bill was in.
Leaving uni, bill had a suit job. Despite the fact that the firm he worked for had many interesting people in it, it was a firm of marriages. Whilst not everyone was married, those that weren’t were conformed into looking for such. Affairs seemed more acceptable than a single person. Thankfully there were exceptions, bill's connection to the Arts Centre whose people helped him through upheaval started at this firm. At his 2nd firm away from Up West in sleepy Kent, everything in the firm was more geared to marriage, marriage that ended an outgoing life, maintained the workforce, and the stability of which seemed to be its most essential characteristic. It was the height of conformity, and again love was not mentioned.
Within the community of his upbringing, when we speak of a loveless society we are talking of design and intent. If love was ever spoken of it was not of lovelessness but whether there was love to hold the marriage together - a binding to hold the nuclear family together; that was the apparent design and intent. It was not questioned whether there was love as a priority, a purpose in family.
Bell spoke of two lovers who resembled her father. Bell claimed that she was trying to experience father-love through her lovers. When zandtao look at his parents’ relationship, he can see similarities to their parents’ relationships; it was imitation – conformity. The harm that came from that conformity left him scarred enough, so that after upheaval there was an awareness of not wishing to imitate. For zandtao that has eventually led to the end of lovelessness as he now feels the spiritual love of following the path. For bill the return to love started with a search for romantic love but ended with zandtao's spiritual love as he dedicated 100% to the path. Within his nuclear family bill is grateful that his path took him full circle back to mother-love – the mother from whom he got spirituality as opposed to his father; whether your path comes from mother, father or both, it is transferred at birth and it is part of learning and understanding to know its source – father, mother or both.
To the shame of patriarchy lovelessness is part of patriarchy, and relationships are formed conforming to the conditioning of patriarchy. Observing this is sufficient for zandtao to call for the end of patriarchy so we can find love.
As bell zandtao calls for the return to love in relationship. Make love a priority. Some would argue that mother-love arises out of romantic love so promoting the end of lovelessness is the start of change. Whether there was romantic love or not between parents, there is mother-love; mother-love is not predicated on romantic love. If there was romantic love and the father can accept the new priority of mother-love there is a possibility of maintaining love despite the patriarchy. Therefore calling for the end of lovelessness through romantic love is no shallow call, it could contribute greatly to the maintaining of love in the family.
Bell talks of the search for love in relationship, for zandtao that search could be met with Sharon’s 4 Brahma-Vihara meditations used in relationship. Basically the search for love has to be mutual and communicated, how that is done is an individual matter.
Bell concludes the chapter on mutuality with “The path to love is not arduous or hidden, but we must choose to take the first step. If we do not know the way, there is always a loving spirit with an enlightened, open mind able to show us how to take the path that leads to the heart of love, the path that lets us return to love.” For bell zandtao suspects this was written with another person in mind to show the way – “we do not know the way” [bell's Love Ref 14.31]. As spiritual this love is inside, it is always there and has been experienced at birth in mother-love. Because of this experience our wisdom knows how to return to love, Zandtaomed calls this wisdom the inner guide. Use your inner guide to know love again in relationship.
Next bell looks at romantic love. “Its destructiveness resides in the notion that we come to love with no will and no capacity to choose. This illusion, perpetuated by so much romantic lore, stands in the way of our learning how to love. To sustain our fantasy we substitute romance for love.” [bell's Love Ref 15.11]. We do not recognise prajna as love-wisdom. We allow the egos passion to guide love, particularly failing to SEE the partner for who they are. This not only destroys love at the time but leads us into thinking there is no love. Perhaps this is a step to go through because it can lead us to spiritual love.
In the end we choose not to love, but whilst this is fundamentally true it is far from simple to understand this choice. However it is a better way of understanding what love is, and how to approach it.
We are born in mother-love so whether as an individual or as collective unity we know love. As explained in this Zandtaomed Advice, Tathata of 2 Conditionings, it is our conditioning that takes us away from love – conditioning as need for survival leading solely to patriarchal conditioning. If we are fortunate, that mother-love can extend to wider family and community; but throughout the 2 conditionings work against this. But when it comes time for romantic love, deep inside there is a knowledge of love and deep inside is the spiritual imperative of returning to love. The passions and all the conforming of patriarchy can tip the scales but we can still fall in love.
But this falling process is better understood as a reconnection, a reconnection with the same love that started as mother-love. What is better is the understanding that love is present throughout but in various ways this love has been blocked. It is initially blocked by the 2 conditionings, but if romantic love has happened previously it might well be blocked by the egos arising from heartache. Whatever your personal history it is better seen that love is blocked rather than love needs to be created – falling in love or otherwise. Why is it better seen as blocked? If love is seen as having been blocked, then the existence of love has already been accepted. Notionally it would then seem easier to remove blocks than to create love. When seekers start on the path, meditation or other processes naturally raise the question of egos, and such awareness begins working on their removal. Beginning to follow the path recognises the process of removal or letting go rather than path as creation, similarly we can remove the blocks to love rather than the more grandiose intellectual creation of love.
Bell suggests that young people now don’t recognise there is love, an inversely proportional consequence to the increasing control of the patriarchy. Reclaiming the existence of love appears to be a priority. If there is no love what else is there? Materialism? Hedonism based on money – on accumulation. When you look at these alternatives, what do we choose? Love that arises as romance, love that comes from harmony with nature – or hedonistic materialism that comes with patriarchy and has no satisfaction – only more desire. Personally zandtao can say that the experience of spiritual love brings the joy nature intended, not the temporary highs and the incumbent lows of hedonism that dominate. Believe this for zandtao but don’t believe it for yourself – go and find out.
“To be capable of critically evaluating a partner we would need to be able to stand back and look critically at ourselves, at our needs, desires, and longings. It was difficult for me to really take out a piece of paper and evaluate myself to see if I was able to give the love I wanted to receive. And even more difficult to make a list of the qualities I wanted to find in a mate” [bell's Love Ref 15.14] Bell’s intellectual training took her to making a list. But this is not SEEing. With bill's partners he never looked to make a list nor did he look to SEE; when zandtao looks back to SEE he recognises bill was foolish in his choices. At the time bill would claim that he fell in love because that falling is what conditioning encouraged. What conditioning never encouraged is SEEing, SEEing the partner and partnership for what they were. Mind you bill couldn’t SEE himself for who he was. When he consider the three women he loved, they would not have appeared on any list he constructed. But the love was real if not wise. Wisdom would know and SEE the true partner if such exists, but that is faith in the path.
“What becomes apparent is that we may be more interested in finding a partner than in knowing love” [bell's Love Ref 15.14]. Understanding this starts with conformity, we conform to the expectation of family and children – a natural conformity. But then we also conform to patriarchy in the sense that we are not looking to be authentic but rather to fit in. Through upheaval bill did not have the concerns about fitting in – and never did fit deep inside. Even when looking for romantic love he was comfortable in himself; for bill the benefits of relationship needed to add to what he had gained on the path and this severely limited his choices. But when there is not authenticity, when a person avoids their own paths whilt being in relationship – through fear of loneliness, love is blocked. The needs of patriarchy as in consumerism and materialism are met by relationship, by the way couples can measure themselves by home and contents rather than love. Holding to love in relationship is almost an act of revolution.
“We fail at romantic love when we have not learned the art of loving. It’s as simple as that. Often we confuse perfect passion with perfect love.” This is very interesting. What is it that is in the art of loving that is not in romantic love? Or equally if we are in romantic love can there also be love – real or spiritual? Do we need romantic love for the art of loving?
I interpret what bell is looking for here is that there is an interpersonal love that is beyond romantic love, and this interpersonal love is the art of loving. But it is love itself, being love that is beyond the interpersonal. To fit in with this quote the art of loving is being love, and being love is independent of the interpersonal. To avoid confusion I use the term “spiritual love”, Sharon uses Real Love. I am unsure whether this is where bell is going, and don’t wish to put words in her mouth – text in her book?
Discerning love and romantic love as different is an important realisation. If a seeker can SEE that romantic love, a romantic other, a particular personal object of love, is not required for love, then this is an opening onto the path that can be embraced. If there is an art of loving that goes out to all, and not an aspect of romantic love, then that is an opening to the path. For Sharon this was metta leading to what I called Sharon’s 4 Brahma-Vihara meditations.
Is love a component of romantic love? I think this question is too intellectual, answerable perhaps only by definition. When we maintain our love and extend it from family to community that love will be a part of romantic love, but once that love has been extended to community then the question has little meaning. When romantic love is “created” then the spiritual love inside is probably unblocked becoming a part of the romantic love, part of life’s process as consciousness recognising itself.
“Not only do I believe wholeheartedly that true love exists, I embrace the idea that its occurrence is a mystery—that it happens without any effort of human will. And if that’s the case, then it will effort of human will. And if that’s the case, then it will happen whether we look for it or not. But we do not lose love by looking for it.” I was first drawn to this quote because it reminded me of the first of Eckhart’s two mysteries, the mystery of consciousness. Love is part of consciousness, and it arises with consciousness. The first occurrence of consciousness is mother-love but there is no awareness of that consciousness in the child, the path is to become aware of consciousness – this fits in with Eckhart’s 2nd mystery that “we are here to evolve consciousness”; for me the beginning of the 2nd mystery occurred when I crossed the threshold into Prajna – love-wisdom – the wise awareness of love, of consciousness.
Love is part of the two mysteries of consciousness. Love is consciousness, and we evolve love. Can we look for consciousness? Desire consciousness? It is worth continuing the comparisons with the path to understand the awakening of love. Seekers can spend a lifetime looking for the path, and then it just happens – listen to Batgap seekers. Teachers ask seekers to promote a state of being eg Zandtaomed’s two-stage approach of faith and vihara:-
3-memes
We become aware of love when we are love, it is a state of being. Preparing the best vihara goes a long way to love, and faith in love takes us there; preparing the best vihara is letting go of ego. Love does not happen if we look for love in ways that contain ego eg romantic love. The ego is only temporary and romantic love fades, love arises with awareness – with consciousness. “Indeed, those among us who have been hurt, disappointed, disillusioned must open our hearts if we want love to enter.” Open the awareness of the heart.
Bell then goes on to look at true love, and looked at a few definitions. Here is my stab:- “True love is SEEing each other, being able to BE each other together – be authentic together, and each follow their paths”. This is in line with where bell was going, I think. This never happened for me. I was so wrapped up with romantic love that I never SAW who I loved, and SEEing us together would have ended it there and then. Is such a true love possible? I cannot answer that because only experience can be known, and it is now not significant because following the path has brought spiritual love that is not dependent on a person.
Bell spoke of heart connection as romantic love, and that there is a soul connection. Soul is not a word I now use because of its association with reincarnation, but when bell speaks of soul connection I think of the times after upheaval where I sought the path in another. This of course gives rise to the soul mate , the cosmic other; romantically I thought I had found her but I didn’t SEE her for who she was. And with her I would never have been able to BE – follow my path.
I think my mother-love is interesting in this, I got my path from my mother. And I found love with her again before she died. I have no reason to believe that if your spirit comes from your father you cannot find that in him before he died – but in my case I don’t know, I just know I didn’t get my path from my father.
“But not everyone is ready. True love appears only when our hearts are ready. ” Above there is the 3-memes about vihara and faith. It is worth reiterating that “our hearts are ready” is not about a “readiness for romantic love”. Throughout bell has talked of people esp men being afraid to love, and I agree this fear of love arises from patriarchy and patriarchal conditioning. But this readiness of heart is not some magical switch where we can open the heart and fall in love – that is Hollywood. This readiness of heart is a cultivated vihara – it is a readiness where we have let go of ego, egos that I describe arising from conditioning in the form of attachment to khandhas, kilesas and upadanas. When we talk of opening the heart this is concerned with removing egoic blocks rather than finding a way of opening something for the first time. Bell has spoken of fear stopping us from loving, I contend this fear is egoic. When we are afraid to love this is the ego afraid for itself, because once we communicate through love there is no place for ego; this fear is one of the blocks to love. Our hearts are ready when there are no blocks, and this is more concerned with releasing attachment – not being preoccupied with khandhas – preoccupied with our own bodies, indulging our emotions, stuck in our memories and perceptions, and being too intellectual. We could also release the kilesa – being greedy hateful and deluded. The 4 upadanas are less to do with relationship except kamupadana – clinging to desire. Attachments block the heart from loving, being open is more about the work done to develop the vihara than it is about openness per se.
“Wounded hearts turn away from love because they do not want to do the work of healing necessary to sustain and nurture love.” Here bell was discussing a time of true love that was blocked by wounded heart. When it comes to romantic love life is strewn with wounded hearts, people in pain because a previous partner wasn’t loving or very often because a previous partner has exploited. This is the wounded heart I think bell meant, but for me the heart needed to sustain and nurture love needs to be healed from conditioning esp patriarchal conditioning. If the heart is not healed the heart cannot love. It is generally accepted within the wellness community that a heart needs to heal before we can function in life, and that wellness healing is not specifically oriented towards true love. However the healing is the same, a wounded heart needs to heal to sustain love in the same way it needs to heal to be the well of wellness. And this healing is simply the building of the vihara – the healing of the wounded heart.
“Many men, especially, often turn away from true love and choose relationships in which they can be emotionally withholding when they feel like it but still receive love from someone else. Ultimately, they choose power over love. To know and keep true love we have to be willing to surrender the will to power.” Whilst in general I accept bell’s criticisms of the lack of willingness of men to be loving, until my heart was severely wounded that was not my experience. Wounded hearts and fear of wounded hearts in women was what stifled me. And of course the dreaded commitment. But it was not commitment to love that was my problem, it was a lifetime commitment to family – and they are not the same thing. But the natural instinct of motherhood and the conditioning of women worked against loving me. For women these combine, leading to a situation where temporary love was not acceptable. For many women such a statement would be wrapped up in the usual conditioned male who exploits and wants to maintain control, and I do understand that because the patriarchy conditions men to exploit and take inappropriate control. But love as part of the path is still love, and the desire to control a seeker into staying in relationship because a woman’s intuition is to be a mother was a very real problem for me. What was worse was that desire assumed the right to change me, it assumed that the woman was correct and that my offer of temporary love was not a mature decision; when you add to that the fact that I was also not as conscious then that my offer was temporary love and you have a paradox that quite rightly meant there was limited relationship. Moving on as my path changed was legitimate but unfair – except that it was what I said although not what was heard.
I blame patriarchal conditioning for this miscommunication, the patriarchy that conditions for family and that also conditions women as having the right to change men because they are usually more mature. Many women with wounded hearts will continue to search for the life relationship because they are mothers first.
“When one knows a true love, the transformative force of that love lasts even when we no longer have the company of the person with whom we experienced profound mutual care and growth.” This was my experience. What I considered my true love led to exploitation – and then much pain; on reflection I cannot decide whether the true love was mutual but her priority was mother-love – her baggage so I look back and feel that my love was unrequited. But I also look back with gratitude because the romantic love led to spiritual love. Connie Zweig discusses this in her book which is part of my Zandshadtao z-quest. Connie argues that in many ways romantic love is a prerequisite, in my case that was certainly the case. But it was only after I released the pain in my wounded heart that I became free again to follow my path – even though freeing my heart led to love again and further wounding.
“Many of us are not ready to accept and embrace our true selves, particularly when living with integrity alienates us from our familiar worlds.” Because of upheaval the loving then freeing of my wounded heart helped me embrace my true “self” – follow my path, and because of upheaval I was already aware that the path was rejected socially. Yet at the same time because of upheaval I had found the Arts Centre so whilst conditioned worlds would always reject the path I knew there was a community of genuine seekers globally who would accept the integrated path. But it turned out that solitude was the way my path took me – Viveka-Zandtao LINK.
“Often, when we undergo a process of self-recovery, for a time we may find ourselves more alone.” I prefer not to think of it in this way. As we heal on the path we start to move beyond conditioning, and because familiar worlds tend to accept conditioning it appears that we find ourselves alone. Personally I think the path can come two times in our lives – before we have a family and after a family has grown. With family comes duty and duty is part of the path, the path will not go against itself, I cannot imagine undergoing the disruption of upheaval whilst at the same time having family duty. But I was immature and didn’t care that I lost a job – duty would bring discipline with it. In my case I was fortunate to have upheaval at 23 so that I had no family duty, and never took on such.
Bell ends her discussion of romantic love in ch10 with “Intensely connecting with another soul, we are made bold and courageous. Using that fearless will to bond and connect as a catalyst for choosing and committing ourselves to love, we are able to love truly and deeply, to give and receive a love that lasts, a love that is “stronger than death.”” The intensity of my loving bonds hammered away at the conditioning completing the job that began with upheaval. My upheaval had focussed on the conditioning of middle-class conformity, and basically swept it away. But the compassion took me into education and love to a search for romantic love. Whilst compassion in education remained leading to a complete alienation with the way the patriarchy had manipulated education – Matriellez, the intensity in failed loves led to a clarity of spiritual love – a love that lasts, a love that is “stronger than death”.
I take it further – into Eckhart’s 2nd mystery. Knowing love, and therefore knowing conditioning because we have released it, leads to an awareness of consciousness that includes this known love. Developing this awareness is our purpose in life.
[bz this is a repeat] Through the recognition that patriarchy restricts love, in adversity starting with mother-love we can consciously maintain love in the family especially in the extended family, and extend that love to the community. This requires a commitment to love, how does that commitment show?
“Anyone who is truly concerned for the spiritual growth of another knows, consciously or instinctively, that he or she can significantly foster that growth only through a relationship of constancy,” bell quotes from M Scott Peck [bell's Love Ref 14.21].
There is a stereotype concerning the failure of young men to commit, this is a commitment stereotype that needs addressing. It is usually presented as an issue of the failure of the young man to settle down and commit to romantic love. This view of commitment to romantic love is patriarchal, the issue is whether there is commitment to family and bringing up children – working together for family love in the adversity of the patriarchy; romantic love is in a sense bait. Patriarchy does not present this commitment as family love, because for the patriarchy family is a unit of exploitation not a place for love. For the young people concerned the issue is far different. The prospective parents romantically love each other but the mother instinctively knows that when she has children her mother-love will take over, the commitment issue for the man is whether he can accept that his romantic love will soon become secondary and whether he can accept that along with father-love.
Commitment is concerned with whether the couple will accept their love and duty as maintaining love in their family whilst living in the adversity of patriarchy, the purpose of marriage is a natural commitment to children - usually. For a mother there can be little choice, instinct pushes her towards romantic love and maintaining the mother-love in family. The man needs to accept the duty and compromises of father-love.
Here, zandtao needs some provisos to avoid causing offence. Not all people choose the path of family, bill personally did not although he did seek romantic love. But that romantic love never included the duty of maintaining love in family. As far as zandtao understands it, there is also no natural reason why a woman cannot choose the path as her way of life, a path that might include understanding romantic love but not requiring mother-love.
Zandtao is also not commenting on relationships that are not between a woman and a man. Throughout his writing zandtao has stressed the importance of understanding the effect of family relationship as a child – it is a central theme of the Seeker Story, but his knowledge of that theme is within a sis family. He does not understand relationships within families of different structure, however he would suspect that such parents would be more aware of the issues of patriarchy. But the main issue of family is maintaining love within that adversity, and whilst non-sis families will have different dynamics that priority is still what matters most. Anything zandtao writes about such families beyond this would be speculation.
“Self-love cannot flourish in isolation. It is no easy task to be self-loving. Simple axioms that make self-love sound easy only make matters worse. It leaves many people wondering why, if it is so easy, they continue to be trapped by feelings of low self-esteem or self-hatred” [bell's Love Ref 9.6]. On the path much of this is not an issue. As we develop on the path we become more conscious of the path, more conscious of the natural state of love, and develop faith in the path. Whilst becoming more conscious of love, we let go of the attachments that come from conditioning. In solitude we can become more conscious of love, but how can we love self when self was a construct of conditioning?
In maintaining love we recognise the need for young people to develop self-esteem to cope with the adversity of the daily life of the patriarchy. As such the family that maintains love understands the need for identity to cope with daily life, but within the family can there just be love leaving the identity at the door – idealistic? Such a family would encourage love and discourage any identity that works against love. Because love in the family is enabling, this does not affect the identity issues that are exploited by the patriarchy. Because there is love that has been maintained, questions of being lovable, self-love, or self-esteem don’t apply; love has always been there and has been maintained. These self/identity issues are created by patriarchy because they enable exploitation, understanding that these issues are part of the adversity helps maintain love.
bell starts with the premise that the self loves, and creating the self is the first step to love. This step in love creates separation whereas by maintaining love in the family and extending that love to community, separation is limited. By not allowing conditioning of patriarchy to exploit us and create this separation through self and love there is greater unity. “Nathaniel Branden’s lengthy work Six Pillars of Self-Esteem highlights important dimensions of self-esteem, “the practice of living consciously, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, living purposefully and the practice of personal integrity” [bell's Love Ref 9.9]. If in Branden's highlights we remove the word self, then we have the same practice through the conduct of siladhamma (Ch 11) on the path without allowing the self and identity to be exploited in patriarchy. In following the path there is love already, love asserts itself – no need for a self to create love. Following the path there is already a commitment to love but this is not from self but from the path itself. With a self there is separation from the path, and this can give rise to attachment such as the negatives with romantic love.
It is worth considering a possible source of bell’s premise. It lies in the nature vs nurture context that science debates but spirituality does not. Whilst observing nature science views it from an intellectual perspective, it is as if science stands back and says science “controls” nature. Through this false control there are the building blocks of science in which learning starts from nothing and humanity through science creates the learning. In line with this creating perspective, it could be seen that we build self to create love. The spiritual position is of nature. It sees the totality of nature of which humanity is a part. It is this natural totality of consciousness having one aspect that is love, and within this totality humanity blocks itself from the consciousness through its conditioned ego. Given this totality it is not a big leap to see a baby as with any creature of nature being born with an aspect of the consciousness or love, and that in life humanity developing its awareness of this love. Intellectually from the outside science mistaking this growing awareness as learning from nothing could be understood. But the spiritual position is far easier, returning to love that we were born with as opposed to learning from nothing; again coming along with this spiritual position there is a commitment to love.
“Self-acceptance is hard for many of us. There is a voice inside that is constantly judging, first ourselves and then others. That voice enjoys the indulgence of an endless negative critique” [bell's Love Ref 9.11]. Eckhart starts with an axiom “we are not our thoughts”, and in this case that means we are not what the voice says of us. On the path through meditation (MwB) we develop mindfulness, one description of which is non-judgemental awareness. We accept without judging – especially we do not accept the judging inner voice that continually bashes both ourselves and others. When it starts chattering just let it go – ignore it, it will go away if you don’t give it attention. In a home that is loving that voice will never be given credence – perhaps it never need start in the first place. If there is no judgement that separates, there is a natural commitment to love.
This is not complacency either. There are thoughts that arise from wisdom that we respond to with mindfulness, but there is a quality of these insights that is different from the incessant babble of the inner voice that arises from conditioning. Again through love-wisdom we discern insight from babble – prajna. From birth we are equipped with the love that can withstand the patriarchal conditioning of inner voice babble, it is important to start from that recognition – rather than starting from creating a self and then using that self to love. Rather than seeing Branden’s pillars as building self-esteem, simply see them as processes of returning to love. When bell discusses his strategies as building self-love, she is doing what she set out to do – return to love. Because she accepted the conditioning that self is built in order that we can create love, she did not see that the very actions that she was using to build self and then love were in part working against the purpose of her book - against the return to love. Practices that arise from Branden could equally have arisen from Sharon’s 4 Brahma-Vihara meditations, practices for Real Love – practices for returning to Real Love. “When I talked with friends and acquaintances about self-love I was surprised to see how many of us feel troubled by the notion, as though the very idea implies too much narcissism or selfishness. We all need to rid ourselves of misguided notions about self-love. We need to stop fearfully equating it with self-centeredness and selfishness” [bell's Love Ref 9.29]. By promoting practices for Real Love, love on the path, there is no potential for this criticism – no sense in the criticism of self-centredness and selfishness. By promoting the path what bell wants as self-love naturally develops as part of the path, the self is a patriarchal diversion and love will enable us. What is sought through self-love and self-esteem arises with the path – it is the aspects of conditioning that need to be avoided. And following the path does avoid such conditioning, and provides us with the strength to cope with the adversity of patriarchy. Following the path avoids egos that can arise with any self-promotion that comes along with strategies for self-esteem, but initially there is likely to be little difference in bell’s ways to self-love and Sharon’s 4 Brahma-Vihara meditations. Whilst bell’s framework of creating self in order to love ignores the state-of-love at birth, her building self-love can lead to a return-to-love in a similar way to Sharon’s Real Love.
But zandtao is wary of any practice that builds self because that is so wrapped up in conditioning and separation. And bell's part on Commitment finishes with an indication of agreement “The light of love is always in us, no matter how cold the flame. It is always present, waiting for the spark to ignite, waiting for the heart to awaken and call us back to the first memory of being the life force inside a dark the first memory of being the life force inside a dark place waiting to be born—waiting to see the light” [bell's Love Ref 9.29]. zandtao doubts that bell would have accepted that we are born in love although with increasing Buddhism she might have reached that. For him the light of love is always in us but the flame is gradually put out by conditioning. Families could try to maintain that light of love, and we should support them in doing that – whilst recognising that patriarchy through conditioning is the source of diminishing the light.
Zandtao views himself as being committed to love but as an adult has never been committed to family. Whenever bill engaged in romantic love his commitment was 100% at the time. As time went on that commitment waned with the romantic love, and in retrospect zandtao SEES that the romantic love could not last and bill's commitment discipline was strong but futile.
Eventually zandtao however made a real commitment to love when he became 100% dedicated to the path. From then his commitment returned to love as following the path released attachments. Commitment to family never arose for bill as the way the path was for him meant that he required that independence. Seekers must address the issue of commitment as and when the path kicks in for them. Recognising and coping with commitment is part of the wisdom of the path, a requirement of the seeker, and the seeker needs counsel if path and commitment to children and family come into conflict. The path would never give rise to such conflict but when we don't follow our paths such commitment issues might well arise. A seeker needs a meditation elder (Kalyana Mitta) for this and other situations that can arise on the path.
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