Is it really Love? Spiritual Way of the Six Loves: Episodes
<p>This podcast is the first in a continuing series that tries to answer the question "How do you know when you are in love?" It is my belief that there are at least six different loves: friendship, romantic love, spiritual love, marital love, family love and community love. But ...
Last time I offered a definition of love in general, suggesting what all six loves have incommon. Our work was not complete, however. In this episode 2 I suggest three principles to help determine if what you have is an example of love, or something else. I cannot guarantee that you ...
<p>In episode 3, I begin to look at the love of friendship. We start with the story of Kevin & Claire. Kevin & Claire became close friends at work, but only friends. It wasn't long before the ugly rumors began. "How can a man and woman spend so much time ...
<p>Episode 4 is the second part of my discussion on friendship. I offer a definition of what is a best friend, which involves more than the definition of simple friendship we looked at last time. Since our discussion on friendship began with male-female friendships, the topic in this episode ...
<p>In Episode 5, I finish up the three part series on friendship. A major challenge to male-female friendships is the ideology of romantic love. The ideology of romantic love tells us that we cannot be happy unless we find our one true partner, which severely restricts the possibilities ...
<p>In episode 6 we look at the story of Peter & Cheryl. It is a very modern story about falling in love and then losing that feeling of excitement after awhile. Peter & Cheryl had both gotten out of lousy relationships before they met. The first couple of months were great when ...
<p>In Episode 7, I suggest a definition of romantic love. We walk through the definition of romantic love, paying specific attention to what is it that is most unique about romantic love-- a hint: it is not sexual attraction, but something else. We then revisit Peter and Cheryl who were having ...
In Episode 8, we take a look at the experience of falling in love. Is falling in love real? Or is it just a fantasy we believe in, something that happens only in songs and movies? Peter and Cheryl, the couple we looked at in Episode 6, are stuck, trying to move from falling in love to being ...
In Episode 9, we take a look at being in love and how that is different from falling in love. Every romantic relationship must eventually shift from the passion of falling in love to being in love. This is the only way the relationship can survive over time. The heart of being in love ...
In Episode 10, we conclude the discussion on how Peter and Cheryl can move from falling in love to being in love. Before Peter and Cheryl can complete the process, they must first resolve the emotional deadlock into which they have fallen. Cheryl feels she is more in love and more committed ...
In Episode 11, we begin several segments on spiritual love. We start with the story of Larry & Beth. Larry & Beth had their life planned out. They would get married and start a family. Larry went along until he was involved in a serious auto accident. After recovering ...
<p>In Episode 12, I suggest a definition of spiritual love. There is no such thing as 'spirituality' singular, where all religions say the same thing. For example, Judaism, Christianity and Islam each have their unique approach to spirituality. And within each of these religions there ...
<p>In Eps 13 I suggest a way of unraveling the false self. This is the heart of spiritual love- dismantling the false self so that we may become more loving people. The process of unraveling the false self requires that we make a conscious choice to begin the process and to cooperate ...
<p>In Episode 14, we take a look at the rest of my suggested definition of spiritual love. A major point of debate on spiritual love is the question of whether or not spiritual love is unconditional or reciprocal. Is spiritual love offered with no expectation of the other person responding ...
<p> What could Larry & Beth have done differently that might have kept them from breaking up? Larry kept going from one relationship to another, never satisfied with whom ever he was with. What mistakes was Larry making? He was confusing spiritual and ...
<p> In this episode 16, we begin several installments on the question What is Happiness? In previous episodes we have come across this question before. Is love enough to make us happy? I have suggested that the answer is no, love by itself cannot make us happy. ...
<p> In Episode 17, I take a look at an ancient definition of happiness. This view of happiness goes back at least 2,500 years to the time of Aristotle in ancient Greece. The story of Jill from the last episode is a good illustration of Aristotle's view on happiness, ...
<p>In this episode, we will take a look at my proposed definition of happiness and see how it applies to Jill's situation. What I suggest is a religious definition of happiness. While I am writing from a specific religious tradition, I have tried to make my definition of happiness as broad ...
<p> We continue to explore my suggested definition of happiness. Happiness has been notoriously hard to capture. One famous saying suggests you never catch happiness when you seek it directly, it only comes to you when you are busy doing other things, like a butterfly gently ...
In this Episode we will begin looking at the relationship between love and happiness. We will look in particular at one of the two questions we ended with last time: How do you know when you are in the flow of the Plan or Process of my suggested definition of happiness? ...