By Gregg Sanderson
There are several kinds of love. Some are better, but none are worse.
When BOB (the Being Of Bliss—the Force) made Space/Time for Its amusement, It added elements of Its many dimensions a bit at a time. We call it evolution. This month, we’ll see what happens to the dimension of Love as it evolves within the BOB/Human expression.
The stuff that distorts the purity of Love also distorts what our thoughts create, which is more distorted stuff to distort even more… Well, you get the idea. People mess up their lives by demanding agreement and validation from other people. We call that barrel of distortion the RACE Trap (RACE = Righteousness and Approval Complicate Everything).*
Our premise is that, because of the separation caused by the RACE Trap, our goal is to return to Love—back to the oneness of BOB’s total bliss. Let’s look at our progress so far:
Scientists have investigated insect society, and some claim the insect mind is an early example of communal instinct. Although one could postulate instinctual “oneness,” I don’t think we can make a case for an emotional state that would approach what we call Love. Even if we could, it then raises the question, “Who cares? They’re ants.”
I see four different stages of Love among BOB’s human expressions. There’s Tribal, Familial, Friendship, and Unconditional Love on the road to Bliss. We each get to experience a mix of all in different proportions.
Tribal Love—Satisfied Need
I think this might be our first conscious experience of Love in the RACE Trap.
Righteousness and approval are what I seek when I look for “my own kind.”… Someone who agrees with me about something—anything. I experience Tribal Love when I don’t have to prove myself right or judge you as wrong.
I’ll feel inklings of Tribal Love when I meet a person with the same: religion, political view, favorite sports team, common acquaintance, home town, job, skin color, etc. Especially the “etc.,” which can even include laundry detergent. Along with commonality, each of us approves of the other, and thus we get external validation.
Throw sex into the equation with enough agreement and approval and we go together like a horse and carriage. That is the primary way to gain a sense of oneness in the RACE Trap world of Tribal Love. Tribal love is often experienced as a well-satisfied need.
On the other hand, you probably won’t find two people who agree on everything, and when righteousness is rampant, can disapproval be far behind? It’s often powered by an abundance of emotions that couldn’t very well be described as Love, and next thing you know, split happens.
What we create with our minds when caught up in those yucky emotions is not exactly what we had hoped for. In fact, you’ll probably get an extra dose of yuk. But there is a way out.
Familial Love—Forgiveness
You’ll often find Familial Love within a family (Duh!), yet it still comes with conditions. There are broader limits of acceptability placed upon other members, but they’re still limits. Forgiveness is the first action to take in order to see a way out of the RACE Trap. The big difference between this and Tribal Love is that the other people don’t have to be right about everything, just some things. As for the others, we forgive them their errors.
We have to. They’re family. Of course, they’re still wrong, but we don’t have to prove it to them anymore.
We improve the quality of what we create in our lives as we expand the boundaries of our forgiveness.
Friendship—Self-Expression
Love moves from Familial to Friendship when you don’t need to get anything from the other person. In this environment we often form a Spiritual connection, which deepens the bonds. We can “be ourselves.”
If I don’t need anything from you, and you don’t need anything from me, we can just enjoy ourselves and each other in complete freedom. I rejoice in your life, whether or not it includes me. And vice versa.
Unconditional Love—Acceptance
The freeing ingredient of Unconditional Love is acceptance—total emotional acceptance. As we expand the boundaries of friendship to include every human expression of BOB, we’ve reached Unconditional Love.
Unconditional means to feel the joy of love for people and in situations without restriction—to make a connection with the love of BOB that’s already part of us.
Everything is the way it is, and we feel OK about it. It’s a condition most of us can only approach asymptotically but worth the effort. The purer the love that propels the creative force, the greater the life we create.
Bliss—A Worthy Goal
I define bliss as a condition of total unification with BOB, a recognition and experience of oneness with everything and everybody. There is no separation, and since in our consciousness it’s all One, there’s no “love object.” There’s only Love.
I haven’t been there yet, have you?
*For further elaboration of BOB and the RACE Trap, please see our earlier columns, or Spirit With A Smile—The World According to BOB, available from Transformation Publishing and other places.
Gregg Sanderson has a rare view of the metaphysical universe. He traveled the road from Christian Science through Judaism, Agnosticism, Atheism, Living Love, Psychic Development, Spiritualism, Teaching of the Inner Christ, all the way to the International Centers for Spiritual Living where he is a licensed practitioner. He is the author of What Ever Happened To Happily Ever After? and Split Happens – Easing the Pain of Divorce. Gregg’s latest book is Spirit With A Smile — The World According to BOB (www.Transformation-Publishing.com) gregg@spiritwithasmile.com.