Chapter 3 – Lesson 1

The Experience of Human Love

I.Introduction
I first heard the word “love” from my parents. But I have heard the same word uttered by my
parents to our dog, “I love you, Brownie.” This poses me a question, “Am I in the same category
as our dog?” But my answer is definitely not.”

Love is an abstract word. It could have different meanings based on a subjective emotional
feeling. Each person uses the word “love” in different ways for different purposes. For example,
we believe that loving our parents is different from loving our boyfriends or girlfriends. We
even use the word “love” for our courses, jobs, cars, shoes, and even underwear.

We cannot invent any word to replace the word “love” for each of these instances. The
meaning behind the word “love” matters most. We equate love to magic or a mystery that we
usually categorize and classify it in a way that is hard to fully understand.

We really need to understand the word “love” , otherwise it will only be a simple lip service.
More than being understood, love can easily be lived as a way of life.

The discussions in this lesson are centered more on understanding love in all kinds of
relationships and not just exclusive relationships between a man and woman. Love is the
principle which creates and sustains all human relationships with dignity and depth and as a
catalyst for change, development, and achievement.

It is hoped that this lesson will help us go deeper into the meaning of the word as our guiding
and inspiring principle in building and strengthening our different loving relationships in the
concrete social realities of life.

II.Learning Objectives:
At the end of this lesson, the students are expected to:

1. Explain the nature of love as a personal experience;

2. Distinguish the two kinds of love;
3. Discuss the different statements on “what love is not,” and “what love is;”
4. Compare Christian, Islamic and Buddhist views on love.
IV.The Experience of Love
I first used the word “love” when I was in my early adolescence. In writing my love letters to
different people for different purposes, my reference was always the library where I could find
extensive writings on love from books and articles. If I were to recall those love letters, they
were mere imitations, with no originality, with no sense of personal touch.

Love is a very personal feeling that every person can have a taste of. Our respective individual
experience with love is something that I believe, should be reflected upon in order to fully
understand what love is really all about. Reading, quoting, copying an article cannot replace the
personal experience of truly being in love. The objective concepts of other people and writers
cannot fully express the subjective feelings of the inner self. Each experience of love is unique
and it is indeed part of our own life. No one can claim our experience of love, except ourselves.

There are innumerable profound definitions of love but no one could fully touch its true
essence. The succeeding theories or insights about love are not assurances of the correct
answers to some of our questions about love, i.e. how can we improve the relationship with
ourselves; how can we improve our relationship with our loved ones? We have all the answers
only inside our selves.

This implies that the starting point of every loving encounter is the experience of self-love. We
must learn to love first ourselves before we reach out to love others. The famous statement of
St. Thomas Aquinas goes “We could not give if we don’t have (Nemo dat quod non habet).”

V.The Two Kinds of Love

“Eros” and “agape” are the two kinds of love which are both applicable in all categories of
loving relationships. “Eros” is more of a human physical or sexual love (bodily) while “agape” is
more of a divine cognitive or spiritual love (rational).

In the mid-1900s, Anders Nygren, a Lutheran bishop from Sweden, published a book called
Agape and Eros. He said that in English “love” is ambiguous and you have to distinguish
between these two. “Eros” which is our own erotic life and desire, turns us away from God.
“Agape” is the love of God in us, which is good. This is the only truly Christian kind of love.
Some of these distinctions are tabled as follows:
 Eros Agape

It is a desire of an object. It is a commitment for the other’s sake.

It is acquisitive and longing. It is sacrificial giving.

It is an egocentric love. It is an unselfish love.

It is not spontaneous but evoked It is spontaneous, overflowing and unmotivated.

and motivated

It recognizes value in its object. It creates value in its object.

The first encyclical letter of Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratizinger), Deus Caritas Est (God is
Love) gives us a new insight on the relationship of “eros” and “agape”. Instead of maintaining
the distinction, he is promoting the unity of the two words. He said “eros and agape –
ascending love and descending love – can never be completely separated. The more the two, in
their different aspects, find a proper unity in one reality of love, the more the true nature of
love in general is realized.

The supreme pontiff is trying to save “eros” and his explanation is grounded on the concept of
man as body and soul. If body and soul cannot be separated in man, then “eros” (physicality)
and agape (spirituality) cannot also be separated. He said, “it is neither the spirit alone nor the
body alone that loves: it is man, the person, a unified creature composed of body and soul,
attain his full stature. Only when both dimensions are truly united, does man attain his full
stature. Only thus is love – eros – able to mature and attain its authentic grandeur.

His acknowledgement of ancient Christianity’s little concern on the human body and his
challenge to the two conventional opposing definitions of spiritual love and sexual love made
him argue that “even God manifests a love for humanity that is sexual but also totally spiritual –
a love that is personal (eros) but exists with the aim of healing the whole human race (agape).”
VI.The Philosophical Insights on Love
The philosophy of love cannot be contained in one single experience. No one can self-proclaim
that he is an expert or a success in the area of love. Thus, we need to explore some past
insights. This section offers not a “package” but a “basket” of some philosophical theme
excerpts. A package is “closed-type” that you cannot anymore introduce a new theme, while a
basket is an “open-type” that you have many more possible options to be considered. The
different themes discussed point out the concepts of “what love is not” and “what love is”. One
way to understand the nature of love is to understand what love is not.

WHAT LOVE IS NOT

1. Love is not “falling in love.”
“Falling in love” focuses on meeting the right person. “Genuine love” focuses on being
the right person.

“To fall in love” means to love in a hasty manner or to love as a matter of chance. It is a state
wherein we may feel we are completely out of control. We may feel elated, unable to
concentrate, unable to sleep, and all we have to think about is the new object of our new found
affection. Instead of considering love as a process of learning, we have to assume that there is
nothing to be learned about love. Eric Fromm enumerates these three reasons:

1.1 The problem of being loved rather than that of loving, of one’s capacity to love.

“Being loved” means how to be loved or how to be lovable. It is a question of what I

should get rather than what I can give. A person who is much concerned with how to be
lovable pursues many things to make himself attractive or sellable to the other. There
are several factors that determine attractiveness: proximity, similarity, and physical
attractiveness.

A. Proximity – Nearness makes the heart grow fonder. Friendships and romances often
begin by chance when people are brought together, i.e. in class, in work, in
churches, in the neighbourhood. The more we are frequently exposed to a stimulus,
the more we tend to like it. This is called the repeated exposure effect. The more
often we are exposed the more familiar the stimulus becomes and the more
comfortable we become.
 B. Similarity – we are familiar with the statement “birds of the same feather flock
together”. A person who shares similar attitude, belief, personality or preferences
with another feels better and comfortable with that person.

C. Physical Attractiveness – This refers to a nice package of physical qualities which are
popular and sought after on the personality market. One, which is especially used by
men, is to be successful, to be as powerful and rich as the social margin of one’s
position permits. Another, used especially by women, is by cultivating one’s body,
dress, etc. Other ways of making oneself physically attractive, used both by men and
women, are to develop pleasant manners, interesting conversation, to be helpful,
modest, and inoffensive.

1.2 The problem of an object and not of a faculty.

The other person whom we love is an object with a price or a value. In a culture in
which marketing orientation prevails, and in which material success is the outstanding
value, there is little reason to be surprised that human love relations follow the same
pattern of exchange which governs the commodity and the labor market. The “ideal
husband” or the “ideal wife” is somebody who has best exchange values, assets and
potentialities.

1.3 The problem of initial experience of falling in love and the permanent state of being in
love.
This initial experience of falling in love is similar to the love of a stranger. It is a love
inspired by sudden intimacy, initiated usually by sexual attraction and consummation,
and by its very nature, not lasting. This is commonly associated with infatuation.

The Counterfeits of Love

The counterfeits of love explain how love is different from infatuation.

1. Love brings out the best in us. It inspires excellence. Infatuation inspires mediocrity.
2. Love is secure and inspires trust. Infatuation is insecure and generates suspicion and
intense jealousy.
3. Love is calm and unhurried. Infatuation is rushed and frenzied.
4. Love is socially inclusive – it widens our circle and invites others in. Infatuation is
socially exclusive – it closes the circle and keeps others out.
 5. Love knows romance and spirituality are intertwined and fully compatible.
Infatuation believes that romance and spirituality are separate and incompatible.

“Falling in love” for M. Scott Peck is an erotic feeling. It focuses on meeting the right
person. Love focuses on being the right person.

2. Love is not dependency.

M. Scott Peck discusses the concept that love is not dependency. In simple language, it
means “ I love him that I can’t live without him.” He calls this as “ parasitism,” and not
love. Love is a decision; an act of the will or of our free choice. In dependency, there is
no freedom, there is no choice, and without the free exercise of choice, there is no love.

3. Love is not a feeling.

Max Scheler distinguishes love from feeling. “Love is a spontaneous act and a movement
whereas feeling is passive, or receptive and active.

As a movement, love puts everything in motion. It does not put everything at rest. As
passive, feeling speaks of a limit of time or period. For today it may be active or strong,
by tomorrow it may be passive or weak. And if feeling fades away, our most common
response is to stop doing what we are doing and give up on friendships, marriages, etc.
“Love at first sight” is not yet love until it begins to move to the higher potentialities of
value in the beloved object.

“Love is an act” means a decision of the will. Scott Peck talks of “unemotional decision
of the will.” In other words, there are times that we will to love, but do so without
feeling. Conversely, we can also feel but without love. On the one hand, the routine
chores we do at home for our family everyday are gestures of our love for them but we
sometimes do them without any emotion attached to. On the other hand, we do have
emotions for our friends; have that intimacy with them, and yet we do it without love.

4. Love is not an addiction.

Dr. Stanton Peele wrote that “people can become addicted to other people in the same
way they become addicted to drugs.

“Addiction” and “mature love” are words, black and white words. Some persons are
“interpersonal addicts”; others are “mature lovers”; but most relationships only tend
toward one extreme or the other. Most relationships are a combination of the two.
As an addictive relationship unfolds, the lovers may seem to be going together for the
sheer pleasure and excitement of it, but this doesn’t last. After a while, the lovers are
just there for each other, not for mutual growth or self-expression, but for comfort and
familiarity. They reach a level of tolerance for each other. As for withdrawal, we have all
seen the emotional and physical havoc that follows in the wake of some breakups, and
the desperate ploys a jilted lover will try in order to get another “shot” at his or her
beloved.

An addictive relationship is ultimately self-destructive, for the pair and for the
individuals involved.

WHAT LOVE IS
1. Love is an encounter.
“Encounter literally means “meeting”. It is not merely seeing, greeting and talking.
When we travel in a crowded bus, we are very close to others, but we do not
encounter them. Encounter is “you and I joined together to generate something
new”. When the piano is joined as an ambit forming a field of possibilities for
creating music, an encounter takes place, the fruits of which are a new ambit,
namely the musical piece played.

In the context of love, encounter is a meeting of beings, subjects, or persons and not
a meeting of functions, objects and animals. This meeting, therefore, requires “inter-
subjectivity” and “mutuality”. In the words of Reichmann, “Love in its truest form is
love with a will to promotion, whereby the other person is loved for what they are
as ‘persons’, and not for what they possess.” West wrote: “We must use things and
love people, not love things and use people.”

The persons involved in this encounter are unique individuals. They may come to a
communion or we-relationship but still each remains as separate from the other.
One initiates the appeal or the invocation to love while the other makes a response
to the other’s invitation. Since the two are unique, separate and independent
individuals, it is expected that they have a lot of unlikeness that both of them may
not be aware of or probably don’t want to know. “People are each unique, each
worth knowing in their own right.”
 Croonenburg puts a little modification on the concept of encounter. Love as an
encounter, is a transitory experience. Love reaches the beyond the actual encounter
and that is, the “engagement of encounter”, in which the union is sealed by the
indelible mark of permanency. So that in times when mutual engagement ceases,
there remains an active yearning for the other, or in times of absence, each one
remains permanently attuned to the other.

2. Love is a gift.
A gift is an object that is given and received. These concept is emphasized in Adler’s
two modes of desire. They are as follows:

1. Acquisitive – desire that leads to taking or getting.

2. Benevolent – desire that leads to giving or sharing.

“Love is a gift” and “material gifts” are two distinct things. Their differences can be illustrated in
the following points:

1. “Love is a gift” is more of something to be given or to be shared with another. “Material

gifts” are sometimes associated with return, renumeration, or exchange. When the
emphasis of love is on taking, then it may endanger the relationship especially if it is not
reciprocated.
2. “Love is a gift” refers to the “self” of the giver. “Material gifts” are extensions of the self.
Love in this sense is not an object, but a subject-self being given to the other. It implies
therefore that the recipient has no strict claim of ownership over the gift that he or she
received.
Material gifts should not be perceived in its material value. What is important to
consider is that they are extensions of our being through which our inner selves may
come in contact with another. The moment you receive say a box of chocolates, the
objective nature of the chocolates ceases to be. What you receive is not the object
itself but the subject of the giver who is more willing to share his or her love with you.
3. “Love is a gift” is not bounded with conditions. It is an unconditional giving of one’s self
to another. ”Material gifts” are given and received oftentimes under certain conditions.

I will love you for as long as you’re still beautiful.

I will love you for a period of one year.
I will love you provided that you will give me a kiss.
 These are examples of conditional love. There are terms that control the other person.
Regardless of the degree of its manipulation, the end result of conditional love is always
unfavourable to the person being controlled.

Unconditional love says John Powell is a “love without limits”. It never asks another
person to be a doormat, a compulsive pleaser, or a peace-at-any-price person. It has no
strings attached. It is a permanent gift of the heart. This gift says simply that “I have
chosen to give you my gift of love and you have chosen to love me.”

It is the person who is the focal point in an unconditional giving. We are lovable because
we are human beings and not because of any reason. We are lovable on the basis of
“being” rather than of “doing”; on the “values we are” rather than on the “values we
do or we have.”

In Max Scheler, “love does not even desire to change the beloved. A desire to change
the beloved is rooted in a love that is conditional. Genuine love is loving a person for all
that he or she is, including the weaknesses.”

The party who demands change may say, “ if he loves me enough, he’ll change even a
small thing to please me.” Sensitive to these conditions, the other party oftentimes is
resentful. He may say " you don’t love me for myself, but for the person you want me to
be.” When you try to change the people they feel you don’t really love them. Rather,
you just want to turn them into someone who can fill your needs.

3.Love is mature.

Maturity is a universal value or good, something that everyone desires for because of the
prestige it expresses. Everyone wants to be labelled as “mature,” rather than “immature”
because the latter has negative connotations.

Williams defines maturity as an agreement between the way one lives and one’s true nature. In
a loving relationship, one is called to live its true nature, that is, “to produce love in the other”.

Immature love says: “I love you because I need you.” Mature love says :I need you because I
love you.” Here are some illustrations of these distinctions:

Immature love: I love you and I will go to school for as long as you will help me take down
notes. Mature love: I love you and I am more inspired to go to school and take down my own
notes.
Immature love: Both spend their lives exploring endless possibilities; then they do nothing.
Mature love: Both take a stand; a decision in seeking new ways to help each other grow.

“What matters in relation to love is faith in one’s own love; in its ability to produce love in
others. Productive love always includes care, responsibility, respect and knowledge.”

1. Care – I am actively concerned with the others growth and happiness. I am not just a
passive spectator but an active actor.
2. Responsibility – I respond to the other’s needs both those he or she can express openly
and those he or she does not.
3. Respect – the independent well-being of the other is a must for a healthy relationship.
In respect, we relate to the other as he or she is not distorted by our wishes and fears.
4. Knowledge – I know the person. I have penetrated through the surface of his being.

Three Myths or Errors of Maturity

1. To conceive maturity as invulnerability. “Invulnerable,” in this context, means cannot be

wounded or affected. It does not mean that a mature person cannot be affected by his
weaknesses and limitations. He can still be affected but he knows how to recognize his
weaknesses, avoids wrongdoings, and looks for opportunities to do good.

2. To conceive maturity as infallibility. “Infallible” means free from error. It does not mean
that a mature person is free from all errors and he has all the answers. For St. Theresa of
Avila. Each of us is capable of error. The mature person recognizes his own weaknesses
and is not hasty in judging. He ponders, he studies, he consults, and he decides with
prudence.

3. To conceive maturity as inflexibility. “Inflexible” means “permanent”. Some erroneously

think of maturity as a permanent state of seriousness. The person who is truly mature
knows when it’s time to be serious and when it’s time to take things lightly. His life isn’t
carried away by superficiality but rather guided by clear principles.

Maturity does not mean perfection. In a loving relationship, we can never expect our
love partner to be free from weaknesses, limitations and misgivings, free from errors,
and who is permanently serious. We can never expect a “perfect partner”, but each is
still a “perfect-able partner”. It requires discipline, training, and motivation. It involves
a process.
4.Love is discipline.

Love is a dynamic, or a learning process. It requires discipline and courage. And the energy to
work for self-discipline is derived from love.

The attitude of the immature person is expressed in the context of being lacking in discipline
and self-control. “I want what I want when I want it”.

“The bedrock of character is self-discipline; the virtuous life, as philosophers since Aristotle
have observed, is based on self-control. “It means having the vision to see the long term picture
and keep things in balance. Regret can cost hundreds of hours, discipline costs minutes.” In M.
Scott Peck, discipline is a structured training in right living. He associated feeling as slaves. The
art of self-discipline is like the art of slave owning. The common error a master commits is not
giving the slaves a structure; not setting limits. The worst result is that: the master becomes the
slave of his slaves.

Self-discipline is a feeling of love; a feeling of “cathexis” (to invest energy into). In training
ourselves to be persons living the art of self-discipline, we basically need this energy of self-
control and setting boundaries for ourselves. The final exaltation of this effort is the building of
a disciplined relationship. A disciplined self is now worth sharing things. “For to attempt to love
someone who cannot benefit from your love, or obtain spiritual growth is just a waste of your
energy.

5.Love is empowerment.

Power is significant in relationships where the partners are seeking to control each other’s
behaviour. The we-relationship becomes like a “master-slave” or “superior-inferior”
relationship. Hierarchy of positions in loving relationships should be discouraged. The respect
for equality and the complementarity must be nurtured.

To love is to empower, says Jean Vanier. It is not just a question of doing things for others but
of helping them to do things for themselves, helping them to discover the meaning of their
lives.

An empowering love requires that the other be cared for with respect to his needs, but it also
wishes to teach the other care for self; love will take the form of service as need demands, but
it wants to encourage responsibility as well.

6.Love is healing and growth.

Pain is part of life but it is not life itself. We can not ignore it. It should be treated as a wake-up
call and it can trigger renewal of entrenchment. “If we only experience joy and no pain, then life
is one-dimensional. So pain is a part of life, pain is a part of the process of learning and
understanding. We have to view it in a very, very positive sense.” We should understand that
with love comes pain. “The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all
the dangers and perturbations of love is hell.”

The pain of “rejection” and “infidelity” are the common circumstances in a loving relationship
that cause pain. We must not be driven by discomfort, but we should put ourselves in a
friendlier relationship with pain. “We don’t want to be the victim of pain, but we want to listen
to its messages.”

When our partner rejects us, the pain we feel is created by our own feelings of self-rejection.
We feel we are unfairly treated by our partner; we feel down and discouraged. We should take
the pain of rejection positively. It is an instance of rediscovering ourselves and redirecting our
future. It is a moment of opening a new promise for healing and growth. Gerald Jampolsky
listed down twelve principles of attitudinal healing which could help us befriend pain and
confront suffering.

Twelve principles of Attitudinal Healing

1. The essence of our being is love.

2. Health is inner peace. Healing is letting go of fear.
3. Giving and receiving are the same.
4. We can let go of the past.
5. Now is the only time there is and each instant is for giving.
6. We can learn to love ourselves and others by forgiving rather than judging.
7. We can become love finders rather than fault finders.
8. We can choose and direct ourselves to be peaceful inside regardless of what is
happening outside.
9. We are students and teachers to each other.
10. We can focus on the whole of life rather than the fragments thereof.
11. Since love is eternal, death need not be viewed as fearful.
12. We can always perceive ourselves and others as either extending love or sending a call
for help.

“Forgiveness” is also central to communion. It is an activity of the heart

that will bring healing to pain and the way to growth and enrichment of
this communion.
7. Love is an art of listening.

John Powell left us with a wonderful quote: “God gave us two ears but only one
mouth…(perhaps) a divine indication that we should listen twice as much as we talk.” Most of
us can hear, but not all of us listen. Listening, however, doesn’t come naturally. We’re not born
with a talent for listening. The good news, however, is that listening is a learnable skill.

There is no greater gift than to listen to another’s heart. Unfortunately, most of us rarely listen
at this depth or know how to listen at all.

By lending our ears to listen, we are giving importance to the person of the other. Our partners
will feel more connected to us if they sense we are interested in them rather than in impressing
them. This is what Powell calls a level of peak communication or a communal-level
communication in which the two individuals experience sharing exactly the same emotion with
the same level of intensity.

Listen with understanding. You’ll understand more of what the speaker is saying if you can
listen with empathy. When you’re feeling what the speaker is feeling, you’re listening with
empathy. While it is the province of knowledge to speak, it is also the province of wisdom to
listen.

Also remain non-judgemental. You cannot understand what someone is saying if you’re passing
judgement on that person in the back of your mind. Even when you dislike the person who’s
talking, you’ll understand more of what he or she is saying if you can hold in abeyance any
negative feelings toward him or her.

VII. Contextualizing Love

Christian View of Human Love.

Love is the highest among all Christian virtues as reiterated in the words of St. Paul to the
Corinthians, “But now abideth faith, hope, love, and these three; and the greatest of these is
love.”

It implies that love encompasses all human activities, so that everything that we do without
love is nothing---just like a “tinkling cymbal”. We cannot boast how strong our faith is and how
deep our hope is if these things are not founded on love.
The heart of Christian love is Christ’s commandment “to love our neighbors”. “There is no
greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”. Every Christian must be aware
of the commandment to love; of their obligation to submit to and serve our fellow-men.

Soren Kierkegaard illustrated distinctions between natural love and the neighbor’s love as
follows:

1. The source of Christian love. The Christian neighbor love is grounded on God’s
command to love. Only in this context can we may find security in our neighbor’s love.
Love which is dependent on natural human inclinations comes and goes and cannot be
relied upon.
2. The object of Christian love. A neighbour is anybody other than your self. He is the “first
person I see”. Christian neighbour love never excludes any person from the category of
neighbour. Natural love selects objects in a partial or preferential manner.
3. The equality of Christian love. Christian neighbour love is equal regardless of the
person’s status in society. This is because each person has the capacity to love; each
person has the need for love. The command to love is directed to rich and poor,
educated and uneducated, powerful and insignificant.

Corinthians 1:13 briefly summarizes the different qualities of Christian love. But the most
important is the quality of love as an action. The nature of true Christian love esposes us to the
reality that we have neighbors who need our undivided attention, services and other forms of
action.

Islamic View of Love

Love in Islam is viewed in two ways: “love of Allah” and “love for Allah.” God’s love for His
servants is boundless.

“Love for Allah” is love for one another for the sake of God. This is what they call “universal
brotherhood” which every true believer must hold on to.

God’s love in Islam has a degree. At a lower degree, it includes all beings, even those who are
sinners. At a higher degree, it includes those who are true believers, those who believe in Him,
the ultimate Truth and do good deeds. These are the people “He loves and who love Him”
(5:54). In the Qur’an, we find that God loves “the doers of justice” (5:42;8:60; 9:49), “ those
who purify themselves” (9:108), “the pious” (3:76; 9:4 & 7), “those who do good (to others)”
(5:13 & 93; 3:134 & 148; 2: 195) “those who trust (Him) (4:35) “the patient” (3:146) and “those
who repent very much and purify themselves” (2:222).

Evil in Islam is the absence of love. God may reward good deeds and punish the wrongdoings,
but there is always a scope within His scheme of things to look upon sincere repentance and to
show His divine mercy to true repentants.

Buddhist View of Love

There are four sublime states in the Buddhist way of life, namely, love (metta), compassion
(karuna), joy (mudita) and equanimity (upekkha). Metta is a Pali word that means “loving-
kindness,” or “friendliness.” It is a kind of love different from ordinary, sensual,emotional and
sentimental love. It is an ideal of unselfish and all-embracing love. Metta Sutta is loving-
kindness for all beings. It is just like a mother who would give her own life to save that of her
child; a love without a desire to possess but with a desire to help, to sacrifice self-interest for
the welfare and well-being of humanity.

Love or Metta in Buddhism can be summarily defined as “wanting others to be happy.”

“Others” means not a single person but everybody. Thus, in Buddhism, love is not something
personal or special but universal. Universal love is the only real love. “A personal loving heart is
a mind dominated by desire; and from the seed of desire comes the fruit of desire, that is
attachment, and through our attachment with the world comes suffering. So that those who
love nothing in the world are rich in joy and free from pain. Individual love is no good because it
means a limitation of freedom from everyday life.” The transition from an everyday life to an
enlightened life is the transition from personal non-universal love to universal love.

VIII.Valuing Love
There is something common in the religious views on love, that is, the “love for the other.”
Christianity calls it “neighbors,” Islam calls it “universal brotherhood,” and Buddhism calls it
“universal love.” The ultimate value of love is therefore the other as a “person.”

The “person” whom we loved can either be singular or universal. To love at the level of
individuality is to give the person “the freedom to become his self or herself; or as Kant
expresses it, to give the other a “priceless value.” Kant distinguishes between “price” and
“dignity.” Price is a value compared to the value of other material things. Dignity is a price
above all other price or a priceless value. In valuing the beloved individual, we are not giving
him a corresponding price but we are showing to him our respect for his dignity. Respect is the
minimum required response to the dignity of the person.

By respecting the dignity of the individual we love, we are at the same time affirming the basic
humanity common in the brotherhood and sisterhood (universal love) of mankind. By doing it
to one, we are doing it to others (Kantian moral principle of universality).

Love is an essential element of every loving relationship regardless of age, sex, education, work,
nationality, culture, religion, and the like. The most important value love has taught us is to let
these relationships grow. Love reminds us to transcend from our-selves to the selves of the
other; to depart from being self-centered and selfish to something altruistic and sacrificial.

Love that is not placed in a right perspective will end only as an empty word but love that is
correctly understood and reflected will be fruitfully fulfilled in good actions. It demands that
one must be sensitive to the needs of the other. And we value so much love when we care for
the other in his physical and spiritual needs (eros & agape). Without love, hatred and
indifference may prevail, evil instead of good, war instead of peace.

IX.Conclusion
Love is a personal initiative and it needs a personal touch. It starts from the very self of the
lover. Once we love ourselves so much, without knowing it, we also tend to love others. The
lover and the beloved both engage a loving relationship in the level of eros and agape. They are
called to love not only for what their body desires but for both their body and soul; material
and spiritual.

Inasmuch as love belongs to the domain of the subject, it has no universal notion acceptable by
all. It remains to be a creative work of the person who loves. Wither he or she may take the
negative insights about love positively or the positive insights negatively, no one can compel
him or her to change for what he or she believes right or wrong for their relationship. What is
important for them is to continue putting dignity or a priceless value on their persons rather
than to exploit each other and eventually destroy the mutuality they have built and treasured
together.