Love and Exclusivity
by mikez0r on Oct.05, 2008, under Needlessly Cerebral, Philosophical musings
“What is our love? In the midst of pain and pleasure, we know it is exclusive, personal: my wife, my children, my country, my God. We know it as a flame in the midst of smoke, we know it through jealousy, we know it through domination, we know it through posession, we know it through loss when the other is gone. So we know love as a sensation, do we not? When we say we love, we know jealous, we know fear, we know anxiety. When you say you love someone, all that is implied: envy, the desire to posess, the desire to own, to dominate, the fear of loss, and so on. All this we call love, and we do not know love without fear, without envy, without posession; we merely verbalize that state of love which is without fear; we call it impersonal, pure, divine or God knows what else, but the fact is that we are jealous, we are dominating, possessive. We shall know that state of love only when jealousy, envy, possessiveness, domination, come to an end; and as long as we possess, we shall never love.”
A passage from On Love and Loneliness, a compilation of some of J. Krishnamurti’s talks on the topic.
It’s easy enough to say, but more difficult to truly embrace. I have been thinking a fair bit about “open” relationships lately. I’m a pretty simple, honestly closed-minded person when it comes to dating. I think it has caused a lot of problems for me, for exactly the reasons K describes. I don’t fully understand a difference between open relationships and polyamory. This idea of posession as a component of relationship is a source of great conflict. It’s a necessary component for easing fear of loss, though – for a general feeling of safety. That’s a hard thing to let go of. I see a lot of value in getting rid of the idea of posession, but I also have a really hard time getting rid of the idea of committing to one person. Can committing be independent of posession? Is committing only another way of seeking the same security?
It goes without saying that I am overthinking this, but why not?
” So we have made of love a thing of the mind. The mind becomes the instrument of love, and the mind is only sensation. Thought is the reaction of memory to sensation. Without the symbol, the word, the image, there is no memory, there is no thought. We know the sensation of so-called love, and we cling to that, and when it fails we want some other expression of that same sensation. So the more we cultivate sensation, the more we cultivate so-called knowledge – which is merely memory – the less there is of love.
As long as we are seeking love, there must be a self-enclosing process. Love implies vulnerability, love implies communion, and there can be no communion, no vulnerability, as long as there is the self-enclosing process of thought. The very process of thought is fear, and how can there be communion with another when there is fear, when we use thought as a means for further stimulation?
There can be love only when you understand the whole process of the mind. Love is not of the mind, and you cannot think about love. When you say, ‘I want love’, you are thinking about it, you are longing for it, which is a sensation, a means to an end. Therefore it is not love that you want, but stimulation; you want a means through which you can fulfill yourself, whether it be a person, a job, or a particular excitement, and so on. Surely, that is not love … Love is a state of being, and in that state, the ‘me’, with its identifications, anxieties, and possessions, is absent.”
October 9th, 2008 on 01:41
yeah, i think about this a lot. i fully believe in open relationships but there’s no way my ego’s gonna deflate enough to actually allow me to engage in one. it’s kind of sad when one part of your brain is wiser about this sort of stuff than the other.
October 12th, 2008 on 22:16
Thanks for your thoughts. What do you mean by your ego not letting you get into an open relationship? For me, it’s like a mental block – just a really heavily ingrained way of thinking. Stuff like my parents are a pair, always have been, and no one outside of that is involved (that I know of). Growing up in the South didn’t help, either – all of my ideas about relationships pretty much consist of committed, exclusive partnerships. The media promotes this too – or at least, it used to. Non-exclusive relationships seem to be presented as scandalous or trashy, and nobody really talks about being much else besides sexual.
Do you think it’s possible to overcome all this brainwashing? I find the real benefit of open relationships to be the development of strong ties with more than one person – why shouldn’t romantic feelings with more than one person be possible? At the same time, I think that having kids changes pretty much everything.
So here, I begin thinking that this exclusive model of dating maybe developed as an acceleration of the whole mating process. It would facilitate the whole settling down process if you didn’t have to cut off any number of lovers to go raise a kid. Severing relationships may not be entirely necessary, but I don’t see open relationships being compatible with the demands of child rearing. In exclusive relationships, though, the goal of many relationships is predetermined to be mating, which often dooms a relationship to be more than it really should be. Rather than developing a number of relationships and realizing later that one of them is the one to settle down with, exclusivity puts us on this train of failure until we either give up, settle for mediocrity, or luck out.
October 16th, 2008 on 19:34
I agree that true love, whether it be relating to family or relationships or whatnot, can be a selfless expression of true concern and emotion toward another. However, more so, I think there is inherently a selfish aspect of love, as I believe there is with anything in life. Love does not always yield happiness for the person who is experiencing the emotion, but certainly happiness is preferred, and that being the case proves at least a certain amount of selfishness is involved. Granted, happiness can be gained by fulfilled love but it can also be gained simply by others achieving what makes them happy. Even the latter, and seemingly selfless, situation yields some level of personal fulfillment. So isn’t it fair to say that if these situations are not being met that a person can rightfully fear the possibility of a lack of fulfillment?
…hmm, I feel like I have strayed away from the point a bit. I suppose I have more thoughts, but they aren’t nearly organized enough to keep going. But I would like to say that I am perfectly happy to stick to the old-fashioned, commitment-to-one sort of relationship…ideally.
October 16th, 2008 on 19:36
By the way, I can’t seem to find a way to read complete comments besides going to the comments rss thing, which is not pretty to read. Is there a better way? – Am I just blind/stupid?
October 17th, 2008 on 07:17
That’s weird – the complete comments show up for me just fine. All the comments should show up with their full length if they’re shown at all, I think. See if you can find a “…” or “more” link somewhere – for posts that are too long on the main page, it only shows the first part of them and then adds a “Read more” link. I wonder if there’s something similar for comments.
October 17th, 2008 on 07:54
Does it boil down to fulfillment though? It makes sense – why bother with anything unless you’re somehow better off for having bothered with it? Still, it makes the open relationship thing seem more selfish, like you’re lowering your expectations and willingness to work on any given relationship by acknowledging that not all of them will succeed, and thus having more of them to increase your chances of success. I think (and I hope) that that is not what people are aiming for. There’s an incredibly fine line between this stuff and hedonism. I really like the Krishnamurti stuff because it ultimately focuses on getting rid of the self – the reason that any of this open stuff (and many other things for that matter) get corrupted.
October 24th, 2008 on 11:50
I completely agree. Although, I’m inclined to live life for me. I don’t want to hurt anyone and I like to help when I can, but ultimately we only have this life, and when I can I prefer to do what makes me happy.
Also, I see nothing like that to see the rest of the comments. I’ve moved my mouse over all of it…hmmm.