Plato and Aristotle, two of Greece’s greatest philosophers, declared that there were three types of love: eros, philia and agape. Several centuries later, Christian patriarchs who wrote the New Testament in Greek reaffirmed their point of view.
According to Plato and Aristotle, the most mundane form of love is eros or sexual love. Eros derives its name from the Greek god of fertility. Eros includes passion as well as the emotions, feelings and sensations elicited by the sexual act. In Greek myth, Eros assisted Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty and passion, which is why he has always been associated with the human heart.
According to the ancients, Eros could be playful and impish; at other times, he could be cruel by afflicting his victims with ‘mania,’ a form of madness that emerges when someone has been penetrated by one of his arrows. Stalking behaviors, co-dependency, control, extreme jealousy and violence are all symptoms of mania and the negative aspects of human love.
Although the ancient Greeks recognized that mania was associated with the human heart, they failed to recognize that the human heart could only reflect energy, which meant that it could be influenced by both life-affirming energy and energy that is self-limiting. When the human heart reflects life-affirming energy, it will radiate the inspiring qualities of human love, including affection, kindness, empathy and generosity. When it reflects self-limiting energy, it can radiate just about anything negative and destructive, even things that are obsessive and that lead to pain and suffering.
Fortunately, eros can be elevated into higher forms of love by reducing the number of self-limiting fields and attachments that have blocked the human hearts’ ability to reflect life-affirming energy. Enhancing the activities of the heart chakra and the third heart (Atman) will also enhance the human hearts’ ability to radiate the inspiring qualities of human love. If you actively support these measures, eros can serve as a steppingstone to philia, brotherly/sisterly love, and agape, divine love.
Philia
The second type of love described by Plato is known as philia. Plato associated philia with friendship and affection; so do I. But I’ve also recognized that philia can only exist when people share life-affirming life resonances.
A person’s life resonance is composed of the resonance of their spirit, soul and body. A healthy person’s life resonance will be life-affirming and the same on all three levels. Only then will they be able to experience philia and share it with other people.
When a person’s resonances on the levels of spirit, soul and body vary or they’re not life-affirming, they will experience resistance, self-doubt and anxiety when they associate with other people, and it will be difficult for them to share philia.
Since neither Plato nor the Christian patriarchs who followed recognized the significance of resonance, they couldn’t know that it influences a person’s relationship to themselves, their loved ones and to the ecology of life on Earth.
There are a variety of different resonances that determine a person’s life resonance. But not all are positive or life-affirming, and only those that are live-affirming will enable someone to experience philia.
The factors that determine a person’s life resonance include where their subtle field, which includes spirit, soul and etheric body, originated (not everyone’s spirit, soul and etheric body originated on Earth), how many lives they’ve lived – as well as their experiences in their present and past incarnations, especially those that were violent and left subtle wounds and trauma scars in their subtle field of energy, consciousness and etheric matter.
Compatible Life Vibrations
When partners share the same life-affirming life resonances, they will feel comfortable with one another, understand one another, and they will have a strong foundation for intimacy. This will make it easy for them to share pleasure, love, intimacy and joy with one another and experience both philia and eros. Partners with the same life-affirming life resonance will naturally respect each other, and they will enhance each other’s best qualities. They will be able to share more activities than partners whose life resonances aren’t naturally compatible – and they will find it easy to compromise and reconcile their differences.
While it’s possible for people with different life vibrations to share eros, philia is far more exclusive. Only partners with compatible, life-affirming life vibrations and sufficient space within their subtle fields will be able to share philia. Partners who meet these conditions support each other’s spiritual growth and help each other overcome self-limiting core values and character defects that block the radiance of life-affirming consciousness, energy and etheric matter.
Spiritual adepts who’ve experienced all three forms of love associate philia with the soul and the chakras which animate it, particularly the heart chakra, which regulates intimacy as well as the chakras above body space, specifically the 8th through 13th chakras. These six chakras are located directly above the head.
Unlike eros, which can be fickle and short lived because of its association with the human heart, philia is durable because of its association with the chakras. In fact, once philia has strengthened the bond between two people, it will remain a solid pillar of their relationship even during times of duress. There is a simple reason for this. Unlike the human heart, the chakras are essential organs of the subtle field. When functioning as designed and not blocked by distorted fields of consciousness, energy and subtle matter, they will radiate both life-affirming consciousness in the form of prajnana and energy in the form of prana.
Agape – Universal Love
Agape, universal love, emerges directly from Universal Consciousness, the source of both the Self and the Akasha. It’s called Ananda in yoga, and unlike eros and philia, which are forms of energy, it’s a manifestation of pure consciousness. Agape is closely associated with the third heart, Atman, which is located on the right side of the chest, directly opposite the human heart.
In the Keno Upanishad, we learn that “The Purusha …, the internal atman, is always seated in the heart of all living creatures; one should draw him out from one’s own body boldly, as stalk from grass; one should know him as pure and immortal.”
Unlike other forms of love, agape is unconditional. It sets no conditions and shines like the sun on saint and sinner alike. Because it sets no conditions, agape can’t blow hot or cold. It can’t be controlled or limited by inauthentic desires, judgment or fear. And it can’t be reserved for any selected group or individual.
Agape is not something you have; it’s something you become. That’s why it’s associated with the enlightened state of Samadhi. Suffering no longer binds someone who has been transformed by agape. This means neither the ego nor the I can distort or replace it. Like truth and freedom, agape transforms a person’s character; no longer can the mundane affairs of the world trap a person who has embraced it. A person who has been transformed by agape will be able to share compassion and empathy. They will recognize that they’re part of an ecology of life that extends throughout the multiverse of physical and non-physical dimensions.
According to the adepts of Yoga, agape is associated with the universal Self, Paramatman. It’s the shift from Jivamatam, the individual self, and its needs to Paramatman, the universal Self, that separates agape from other forms of love.
According to the Kathopanishad, having realized agape, “... one is released from the jaws of death. He (she) is liberated from the bondage of birth and death. He (she) is freed from the bondage of ignorance, desire and action. The three knots or Granthis, viz., ignorance, desire and action are rent asunder. He (she) attains Immortality.”
Danke .
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