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Interesting comment on Sexuality and Partnership by Dieter Duhm:
Free Sexuality and Partnership
The drama of the world is a drama of love. Humankind suffers from love sickness. This applies to all love relationships…
… no matter whether they are hetero- or homosexual. In our project we have concentrated our work on the relationship between men and women. However, I believe that most of the insights offered in this essay apply to all forms of relationship.Both halves of the human being, man and woman, have searched for one another for generations and always missed one another. When we founded the Tamera project, almost all my former friends’ love relationships had been broken. It is mostly due to the issues of sex and love that so many political and alternative groups failed. We cannot generate peace in the world so long as this issue remains unresolved. It is, above all, about finding an authentic answer to the question of how the wild sexual desire of human beings can be compatible with the longing for the one big love. Is there a solution for the apparent contradiction between free sexuality and marriage?
I write as a spokesman for the Tamera project. The work on the issue of sex-love-partnership is at the center of the project. Since the beginning we wanted to create a societal environment in which a solution for this issue could arise. The principle of free sexuality is part of the ethical and social foundation of Tamera. This is why many people come to Tamera; they want to get out of the old bondages and make up for what they have missed out on so far. Some also do not come to Tamera particularly for this reason. They are afraid to lose their partner if they open up for the experiment of free sexuality. In reality some have lost their partner and sometimes return to them in a new way. It is very obvious that we are facing a key issue of our lives here. Introducing free sexuality is not about an ideological preliminary decision for monogamy or polygamy, but about enabling a new experience.
To start with, I want to clarify what is meant by free sexuality. It is about truth and trust in the relation of the genders; above all, it is about truth in the realm of our sexual desire. It is not about random promiscuity and unreliable relationships. The point is that a love partner who has dared an “escapade” does not lie to their partner! This is an ethical imperative. We cannot realize free sexuality if somebody has to be lied to. There are ethical guidelines that do not permit this. The culture of free sexuality is firmly bound to these guidelines. We know the agony in the soul of a partner who needs to conceal their sexual relationship to another lover. It is cruel for everybody involved; and it is cruel for the children. This misery often has fatal consequences. We are not dealing with a private conflict here, but with a societal issue. How many tragedies are accounted to a hypocritical sexual moral! More people die because of failed love than because of any other reason. Here, a new concept for healing needs to be integrated into the cultural development of human society. This was, and is, the thought that we brought to the world some years ago under the title “Sexpeace.” Sexpeace – peace between the genders!
Free sexuality is no mandate, but an offer. People may experience free sexuality and then decide whether they want to live in monogamy, polygamy… or any other “gamy.” The crucial point is that the experience happens in a social and ethical milieu of trust. So don’t just rush into it with your mind switched off, but the other way around – engage your mind and then act. In this sense we humorously called our project the “Monastic Academy for Free Sexuality.” With the word monastic, we mean the holy spirit of truth and not gray devotion.
Free sexuality is bound to three principles, without which it can never function: contact, trust and solidarity. So that man and woman can again become truthful in their mutual desire and no longer need to secretly swindle, they need contact, trust and solidarity. That is a lot. Contact means that we see the soul of the other and not only their body. Trust means that we no longer lie to each other, not even secretly. Solidarity means that man and woman encounter each other in sincere friendship and cooperation, without condemnation and irony. These requirements are mostly not given in the existing world. This is why we have no choice but to develop new systems where it becomes possible to orient our lives around basic humane values again. We need a system of co-existence where human beings can trust each other again. A system where lying and betrayal no longer carry any evolutionary advantage. A system where the sexual relationship of one to another no longer causes any fear or hatred in a third. These were some of the core thoughts that moved us to found this project. In combination with the ecological thoughts, they form the core of our education internally, and externally by way of the Terra Nova School.
Let’s get back to the problem. How do we solve the apparent contradiction between free love and couple love, between free sexuality and partnership? There is a real problem as a matter of fact because we human beings do not only want free sexuality, we often also want a stable and lasting partnership – “until death do we part.” Suddenly we face a seemingly insoluble conflict – the conflict between the new image of free sexuality and the old archetype of marriage. The archetypal image of marriage, of the eternal relationship between one man and one woman, is deeply anchored in the human soul. We all know it, and within all of us is a longing in this direction. Every longing waits for its fulfillment. The longing would not even exist if there were not also a fulfillment, for our longings are not arbitrary. A community will very surely fail if it fully relies on free sexuality while ignoring this deep longing. Here we can apply the dialectic theory of Hegel: thesis – antithesis – synthesis. Marriage was the thesis; free sexuality was the antithesis; the synthesis consists of a new system in which thesis and antithesis are dissolved or united on a higher level. We’ve been working on finding this synthesis for some decades.
Many people who have gone through thick and thin in this project, and have stayed with it, now feel the “third way” and the real possibility to gain the one without losing the other. They slowly understand the sentence, which has been essential to the project since its very foundation and, which we repeatedly wrote in all our publications: Free sexuality and partnership do not exclude each other; they complement one another. One who lives in a solid relationship does not need to be afraid of losing their partner due to other sexual contacts; and one who lives in free sexuality does not need to be afraid of missing out on the happiness of a stable partnership. All these conflicts only exist in our head, not in the logic of the matter. For the two things, marriage and free sexuality, complete each other, they belong together, and together they form the essence of a new erotic culture. However they can only be compatible under certain social and ethical preconditions. The apparent contradiction between free sexuality and couple sexuality can only be solved on a higher level of order.
What is the higher level of order? To put it in one word; it is the level of trust. As long as there is mistrust amongst the genders, the contradiction cannot be solved. As soon as real trust arises the contradiction is already dissolved, for it is self-evident that both partners again and again have lust for others, and it is also self-evident that a genuine love relationship does not break apart because of this. I wish all couples that come to Tamera from afar can find and understand this self-evidence. Jealousy does not belong to love. We need some time to rid ourselves of the old conditioning and yet this has happened surprisingly quickly for most co-workers in Tamera. If the two genders can fully, freely confess their joys of polygamy, then they can establish their partnership just as freely, for they have extinguished the secret mistrust. If they no longer react to their partner’s occasional escapades with jealousy then their sexual love to each other begins to grow in a new way. When one of them gets into a conflict we can only tell him or her: follow love!
With the principle of free sexuality, a new climate arose amongst the women. As they could reveal their secrets with new openness, a new form of women’s solidarity came into being. A woman falls in love with her friend’s boyfriend. The girlfriend recognizes this and offers her own room to her so that the two can spend a night together. Such and similar stories are not fairytales in Tamera; two women that love the same man is no reason for hostility under the conditions of truth and solidarity. The new women’s field liberates the woman to a certain extent from her fixation to the man and through this offers her the possibility to connect anew with her feminine source.
Love emerges when two partners start innerly seeing each other. It does not happen very often that man and woman “see” each other because their encounter is shaped by convention and projection from the very beginning. The man mainly reacts to the sexual signals of the woman without seeing who this woman really is and what she needs. When encountering the “right” woman, the man often reacts with a subconscious mystification. He is no longer in control of his passions when he is close to her. She is everything to him. She is the beloved, mother, whore and saint all at once. There is an almost unbelievable adoration of woman in man’s subconscious treasure of the soul, one that is not compatible with “ordinary” sexual desire. The saint and the whore at the same time – how should the man be able to cope with this? In the patriarchal era he has solved this problem by lowering and humiliating woman in real life and by elevating her to the holy Madonna in the ecclesiastical life. The gothic cathedrals were called “Notre Dame.” On one hand, they prayed “Ave Maria;” on the other hand they burned women. The trauma has been deeply inscribed into the souls. To this day, the laws of subconscious, psychological projections that originated from a long, vile history reign in both men and women. Human society was unable to solve the issue of the genders in a humane way.
Society is a product of human beings, not of gods. Its valid laws were made by human beings and can therefore also be corrected by human beings. Such a law for example is prescribed monogamy, which means the duty of a married couple to renounce other sexual contacts. An infinite amount of suffering has been produced through this vow, for this prohibition mostly contradicts human nature. Both genders have the tendency to be inclined toward polygamy. As soon as they need to hide this from one another the lies, mistrust and a slow transformation of love into hatred begins. We often see the same pattern when love couples or married couples come to us. The man first begins to step out of the bounds of the marriage. The woman follows in step after some time, and starts enjoying the sexual freedom. The initially quite courageous man often reacts to this with a jealous fear of loss, which he reluctantly admits. After some time the two come to terms with the situation. Now they face the possibility to stay together on a completely new level.
Once the sexual prohibitions are lifted, women react with shyness in the beginning, then ever stronger with unreserved joy. Many women love sex. And they love it far more than the high laws of human dignity allow. This is a fact that we need to accept. Actually, why shouldn’t it be accepted? Sexuality is a natural function of the human organism and generates one of the greatest pleasures that are given to us in this earthly life. Sexuality sometimes ambushes us with such an irresistible power that it would come close to insanity to moralistically strike back. We have lost this fight from the outset; for “Sexus” is a superpower. Instead of fighting this power, we should accept it gratefully. Only then will we be able to liberate ourselves from its tyranny. And this is what it is about in a humane society – humanizing its explosive sexual powers by accepting and integrating them into our cultural life.
So long as an essential part of our sexual drive needs to be suppressed there will consequentially be sadistic excesses, child pornography, psychosomatic diseases, violence and war. Violence against women belongs to daily life in the patriarchal world. A secret war between the genders has already been looming behind the scenes of modern society for a long time. It always has to do with the issue of unfulfilled sexuality. Both genders suffer from a sexual hunger that they cannot admit in front of each other. Facing the dramas of jealousy in our time, facing the horrible consequences for the children and facing the ethical truth, we lift free sexuality to become the foundation for a new culture.
What will happen then with marriage, with partnership and with this deeper form of love that moves us to vow eternal faithfulness to one another? This is a mysterious question, because in fact this deeper form of love and the eternal faithfulness between two people exists. But what has prompted us to connect this faithfulness with prohibiting “extramarital relationships”? What kind of love is it that has to be protected through such prohibitions? Of course the couple relationship between man and woman is exposed to a greater strain if both partners are allowed to stray, but in return both are also alleviated from a great inner burden if they no longer need to hide anything from each other. Even more, it is mostly an enrichment for both because they find new lust for each other, as they no longer take one another for granted. Nothing is more detrimental to a vivid love relationship than a daily routine in sexuality. Variety, surprise, discovery and conquest belong to erotic life. “You can only be faithful when you are also allowed to love others.” This is how it is written in our books.
There is also for sure an authentic form of monogamous marriage. The sacrament of marriage contains a profound essence. If two lovers come to a point in their love where they decide, in deepest agreement, to exclusively reserve their sexuality for one another, then they should do it. There is no law here. There is only the inner truth. In our community we again and again recommend that new couples stay monogamous for a while so as not to lose their young love in the temptations of free sexuality. We do not work against, but in favor of, partnership wherever it authentically arises. We do not believe however that the happiness of human life is mainly dependent on a fulfilled partnership.
At what point is a human being actually able to live in a partnership? Isn’t it good if he or she has gathered enough sexual experiences before they say “I do”? In most cases, it is the totality of sexuality’s first stirrings that prompts two young human beings to vow eternal faithfulness to each other in their happiness. Usually this is the beginning of the end because it is not sexuality, but the cohesiveness of the souls, that is the basis for a lasting relationship. We need to create life conditions where people are able to make such distinctions. These are life conditions of trust. In free sexuality, as well as in partner love, we need absolute trust. We need communities that restore the lost trust of humankind. Where there is trust, there are no lies and no meanness. A new erotic culture can thus arise as it is laid out in the entelechy of the human being – a wonderful connection of free sexuality and partnership. If creating peace in love has succeeded, then peace arises all over the world; and all of evolution, with all its children and animals, leap forward jubilantly.
A historical note to conclude. The drama of the genders permeates our entire civilization. The male world needed to humiliate the woman in order to be able to cope with her sexual radiance. The female gender needed to endure unspeakable atrocities. Three hundred years ago women were still burned alive because they were attractive and were therefore demonized by the powerlessness of the man. In spite of this all, the female gender has not lost their love towards men. As a man, I can only be grateful for this female faithfulness. We are working on a project where both genders can liberate themselves from the horrors of the past forever.
In the name of our children.
In the name of all creatures.
Thank you and Amen.
Dieter Duhm,
February 2014
(Translated from German by Dara Silverman and Martin Winiecki)
Free Sexuality and Partnership
The drama of the world is a drama of love. Humankind suffers from love sickness. This applies to all love relationships…
… no matter whether they are hetero- or homosexual. In our project we have concentrated our work on the relationship between men and women. However, I believe that most of the insights offered in this essay apply to all forms of relationship.Both halves of the human being, man and woman, have searched for one another for generations and always missed one another. When we founded the Tamera project, almost all my former friends’ love relationships had been broken. It is mostly due to the issues of sex and love that so many political and alternative groups failed. We cannot generate peace in the world so long as this issue remains unresolved. It is, above all, about finding an authentic answer to the question of how the wild sexual desire of human beings can be compatible with the longing for the one big love. Is there a solution for the apparent contradiction between free sexuality and marriage?
I write as a spokesman for the Tamera project. The work on the issue of sex-love-partnership is at the center of the project. Since the beginning we wanted to create a societal environment in which a solution for this issue could arise. The principle of free sexuality is part of the ethical and social foundation of Tamera. This is why many people come to Tamera; they want to get out of the old bondages and make up for what they have missed out on so far. Some also do not come to Tamera particularly for this reason. They are afraid to lose their partner if they open up for the experiment of free sexuality. In reality some have lost their partner and sometimes return to them in a new way. It is very obvious that we are facing a key issue of our lives here. Introducing free sexuality is not about an ideological preliminary decision for monogamy or polygamy, but about enabling a new experience.
To start with, I want to clarify what is meant by free sexuality. It is about truth and trust in the relation of the genders; above all, it is about truth in the realm of our sexual desire. It is not about random promiscuity and unreliable relationships. The point is that a love partner who has dared an “escapade” does not lie to their partner! This is an ethical imperative. We cannot realize free sexuality if somebody has to be lied to. There are ethical guidelines that do not permit this. The culture of free sexuality is firmly bound to these guidelines. We know the agony in the soul of a partner who needs to conceal their sexual relationship to another lover. It is cruel for everybody involved; and it is cruel for the children. This misery often has fatal consequences. We are not dealing with a private conflict here, but with a societal issue. How many tragedies are accounted to a hypocritical sexual moral! More people die because of failed love than because of any other reason. Here, a new concept for healing needs to be integrated into the cultural development of human society. This was, and is, the thought that we brought to the world some years ago under the title “Sexpeace.” Sexpeace – peace between the genders!
Free sexuality is no mandate, but an offer. People may experience free sexuality and then decide whether they want to live in monogamy, polygamy… or any other “gamy.” The crucial point is that the experience happens in a social and ethical milieu of trust. So don’t just rush into it with your mind switched off, but the other way around – engage your mind and then act. In this sense we humorously called our project the “Monastic Academy for Free Sexuality.” With the word monastic, we mean the holy spirit of truth and not gray devotion.
Free sexuality is bound to three principles, without which it can never function: contact, trust and solidarity. So that man and woman can again become truthful in their mutual desire and no longer need to secretly swindle, they need contact, trust and solidarity. That is a lot. Contact means that we see the soul of the other and not only their body. Trust means that we no longer lie to each other, not even secretly. Solidarity means that man and woman encounter each other in sincere friendship and cooperation, without condemnation and irony. These requirements are mostly not given in the existing world. This is why we have no choice but to develop new systems where it becomes possible to orient our lives around basic humane values again. We need a system of co-existence where human beings can trust each other again. A system where lying and betrayal no longer carry any evolutionary advantage. A system where the sexual relationship of one to another no longer causes any fear or hatred in a third. These were some of the core thoughts that moved us to found this project. In combination with the ecological thoughts, they form the core of our education internally, and externally by way of the Terra Nova School.
Let’s get back to the problem. How do we solve the apparent contradiction between free love and couple love, between free sexuality and partnership? There is a real problem as a matter of fact because we human beings do not only want free sexuality, we often also want a stable and lasting partnership – “until death do we part.” Suddenly we face a seemingly insoluble conflict – the conflict between the new image of free sexuality and the old archetype of marriage. The archetypal image of marriage, of the eternal relationship between one man and one woman, is deeply anchored in the human soul. We all know it, and within all of us is a longing in this direction. Every longing waits for its fulfillment. The longing would not even exist if there were not also a fulfillment, for our longings are not arbitrary. A community will very surely fail if it fully relies on free sexuality while ignoring this deep longing. Here we can apply the dialectic theory of Hegel: thesis – antithesis – synthesis. Marriage was the thesis; free sexuality was the antithesis; the synthesis consists of a new system in which thesis and antithesis are dissolved or united on a higher level. We’ve been working on finding this synthesis for some decades.
Many people who have gone through thick and thin in this project, and have stayed with it, now feel the “third way” and the real possibility to gain the one without losing the other. They slowly understand the sentence, which has been essential to the project since its very foundation and, which we repeatedly wrote in all our publications: Free sexuality and partnership do not exclude each other; they complement one another. One who lives in a solid relationship does not need to be afraid of losing their partner due to other sexual contacts; and one who lives in free sexuality does not need to be afraid of missing out on the happiness of a stable partnership. All these conflicts only exist in our head, not in the logic of the matter. For the two things, marriage and free sexuality, complete each other, they belong together, and together they form the essence of a new erotic culture. However they can only be compatible under certain social and ethical preconditions. The apparent contradiction between free sexuality and couple sexuality can only be solved on a higher level of order.
What is the higher level of order? To put it in one word; it is the level of trust. As long as there is mistrust amongst the genders, the contradiction cannot be solved. As soon as real trust arises the contradiction is already dissolved, for it is self-evident that both partners again and again have lust for others, and it is also self-evident that a genuine love relationship does not break apart because of this. I wish all couples that come to Tamera from afar can find and understand this self-evidence. Jealousy does not belong to love. We need some time to rid ourselves of the old conditioning and yet this has happened surprisingly quickly for most co-workers in Tamera. If the two genders can fully, freely confess their joys of polygamy, then they can establish their partnership just as freely, for they have extinguished the secret mistrust. If they no longer react to their partner’s occasional escapades with jealousy then their sexual love to each other begins to grow in a new way. When one of them gets into a conflict we can only tell him or her: follow love!
With the principle of free sexuality, a new climate arose amongst the women. As they could reveal their secrets with new openness, a new form of women’s solidarity came into being. A woman falls in love with her friend’s boyfriend. The girlfriend recognizes this and offers her own room to her so that the two can spend a night together. Such and similar stories are not fairytales in Tamera; two women that love the same man is no reason for hostility under the conditions of truth and solidarity. The new women’s field liberates the woman to a certain extent from her fixation to the man and through this offers her the possibility to connect anew with her feminine source.
Love emerges when two partners start innerly seeing each other. It does not happen very often that man and woman “see” each other because their encounter is shaped by convention and projection from the very beginning. The man mainly reacts to the sexual signals of the woman without seeing who this woman really is and what she needs. When encountering the “right” woman, the man often reacts with a subconscious mystification. He is no longer in control of his passions when he is close to her. She is everything to him. She is the beloved, mother, whore and saint all at once. There is an almost unbelievable adoration of woman in man’s subconscious treasure of the soul, one that is not compatible with “ordinary” sexual desire. The saint and the whore at the same time – how should the man be able to cope with this? In the patriarchal era he has solved this problem by lowering and humiliating woman in real life and by elevating her to the holy Madonna in the ecclesiastical life. The gothic cathedrals were called “Notre Dame.” On one hand, they prayed “Ave Maria;” on the other hand they burned women. The trauma has been deeply inscribed into the souls. To this day, the laws of subconscious, psychological projections that originated from a long, vile history reign in both men and women. Human society was unable to solve the issue of the genders in a humane way.
Society is a product of human beings, not of gods. Its valid laws were made by human beings and can therefore also be corrected by human beings. Such a law for example is prescribed monogamy, which means the duty of a married couple to renounce other sexual contacts. An infinite amount of suffering has been produced through this vow, for this prohibition mostly contradicts human nature. Both genders have the tendency to be inclined toward polygamy. As soon as they need to hide this from one another the lies, mistrust and a slow transformation of love into hatred begins. We often see the same pattern when love couples or married couples come to us. The man first begins to step out of the bounds of the marriage. The woman follows in step after some time, and starts enjoying the sexual freedom. The initially quite courageous man often reacts to this with a jealous fear of loss, which he reluctantly admits. After some time the two come to terms with the situation. Now they face the possibility to stay together on a completely new level.
Once the sexual prohibitions are lifted, women react with shyness in the beginning, then ever stronger with unreserved joy. Many women love sex. And they love it far more than the high laws of human dignity allow. This is a fact that we need to accept. Actually, why shouldn’t it be accepted? Sexuality is a natural function of the human organism and generates one of the greatest pleasures that are given to us in this earthly life. Sexuality sometimes ambushes us with such an irresistible power that it would come close to insanity to moralistically strike back. We have lost this fight from the outset; for “Sexus” is a superpower. Instead of fighting this power, we should accept it gratefully. Only then will we be able to liberate ourselves from its tyranny. And this is what it is about in a humane society – humanizing its explosive sexual powers by accepting and integrating them into our cultural life.
So long as an essential part of our sexual drive needs to be suppressed there will consequentially be sadistic excesses, child pornography, psychosomatic diseases, violence and war. Violence against women belongs to daily life in the patriarchal world. A secret war between the genders has already been looming behind the scenes of modern society for a long time. It always has to do with the issue of unfulfilled sexuality. Both genders suffer from a sexual hunger that they cannot admit in front of each other. Facing the dramas of jealousy in our time, facing the horrible consequences for the children and facing the ethical truth, we lift free sexuality to become the foundation for a new culture.
What will happen then with marriage, with partnership and with this deeper form of love that moves us to vow eternal faithfulness to one another? This is a mysterious question, because in fact this deeper form of love and the eternal faithfulness between two people exists. But what has prompted us to connect this faithfulness with prohibiting “extramarital relationships”? What kind of love is it that has to be protected through such prohibitions? Of course the couple relationship between man and woman is exposed to a greater strain if both partners are allowed to stray, but in return both are also alleviated from a great inner burden if they no longer need to hide anything from each other. Even more, it is mostly an enrichment for both because they find new lust for each other, as they no longer take one another for granted. Nothing is more detrimental to a vivid love relationship than a daily routine in sexuality. Variety, surprise, discovery and conquest belong to erotic life. “You can only be faithful when you are also allowed to love others.” This is how it is written in our books.
There is also for sure an authentic form of monogamous marriage. The sacrament of marriage contains a profound essence. If two lovers come to a point in their love where they decide, in deepest agreement, to exclusively reserve their sexuality for one another, then they should do it. There is no law here. There is only the inner truth. In our community we again and again recommend that new couples stay monogamous for a while so as not to lose their young love in the temptations of free sexuality. We do not work against, but in favor of, partnership wherever it authentically arises. We do not believe however that the happiness of human life is mainly dependent on a fulfilled partnership.
At what point is a human being actually able to live in a partnership? Isn’t it good if he or she has gathered enough sexual experiences before they say “I do”? In most cases, it is the totality of sexuality’s first stirrings that prompts two young human beings to vow eternal faithfulness to each other in their happiness. Usually this is the beginning of the end because it is not sexuality, but the cohesiveness of the souls, that is the basis for a lasting relationship. We need to create life conditions where people are able to make such distinctions. These are life conditions of trust. In free sexuality, as well as in partner love, we need absolute trust. We need communities that restore the lost trust of humankind. Where there is trust, there are no lies and no meanness. A new erotic culture can thus arise as it is laid out in the entelechy of the human being – a wonderful connection of free sexuality and partnership. If creating peace in love has succeeded, then peace arises all over the world; and all of evolution, with all its children and animals, leap forward jubilantly.
A historical note to conclude. The drama of the genders permeates our entire civilization. The male world needed to humiliate the woman in order to be able to cope with her sexual radiance. The female gender needed to endure unspeakable atrocities. Three hundred years ago women were still burned alive because they were attractive and were therefore demonized by the powerlessness of the man. In spite of this all, the female gender has not lost their love towards men. As a man, I can only be grateful for this female faithfulness. We are working on a project where both genders can liberate themselves from the horrors of the past forever.
In the name of our children.
In the name of all creatures.
Thank you and Amen.
Dieter Duhm,
February 2014
(Translated from German by Dara Silverman and Martin Winiecki)
LOVE POEMS
***
My sweetheart has no use for love
nor cares for life´s sweet dreams,
but with her typical charm and grace
a love´s lock lying across her face
holds forth on platonic themes.
Platonic love, she sweetly says,
is heavenly, immaculate.
It gives one solace, peace of mind,
self esteem and knowledge of self.
The physical love is the earthly kind
which often shows an ailing mind.
It cannot see, nor hear, nor think.
It´s the kind that is dull and deaf and mute.
Like cupid it is also blind.
Platonic love is a ruse, I say,
it is not what it seems to be.
It´s a state of mind, a vogue, a trend
and the luckless lover´s foolish friend.
It´s an „Ersatz“ thing, like a grafted rose,
all colour and shade but warmth nor scent.
Mais non, Monsieur,
she curtly says,
l´amour Platonic c´est pur et clair
comme l´eau de roche,
ce n´est comme ca avec l´amour naturel.
True love is the natural type, I say,
through which one finds oneself.
It sustains one throughout one´s life
and provides succour in times of strife.
It keeps the ship of life on course
without a compass, rudder or sight…
My sweetheart gives a weary shrug
and makes a cute grimace.
Brushing the love-lock from her face
she rises, turns to leave, then says
with a smile that´s sweet and kind:
…which proves that it is blind.
~ D H April 1971
***
nor cares for life´s sweet dreams,
but with her typical charm and grace
a love´s lock lying across her face
holds forth on platonic themes.
Platonic love, she sweetly says,
is heavenly, immaculate.
It gives one solace, peace of mind,
self esteem and knowledge of self.
The physical love is the earthly kind
which often shows an ailing mind.
It cannot see, nor hear, nor think.
It´s the kind that is dull and deaf and mute.
Like cupid it is also blind.
Platonic love is a ruse, I say,
it is not what it seems to be.
It´s a state of mind, a vogue, a trend
and the luckless lover´s foolish friend.
It´s an „Ersatz“ thing, like a grafted rose,
all colour and shade but warmth nor scent.
Mais non, Monsieur,
she curtly says,
l´amour Platonic c´est pur et clair
comme l´eau de roche,
ce n´est comme ca avec l´amour naturel.
True love is the natural type, I say,
through which one finds oneself.
It sustains one throughout one´s life
and provides succour in times of strife.
It keeps the ship of life on course
without a compass, rudder or sight…
My sweetheart gives a weary shrug
and makes a cute grimace.
Brushing the love-lock from her face
she rises, turns to leave, then says
with a smile that´s sweet and kind:
…which proves that it is blind.
~ D H April 1971
***
I regard not the outside and the words,
I regard the inside and the state of the heart. I look at the heart if it be humble, Though the words may be the reverse of humble. Because the heart is substance, and words accidents, Accidents are only a means, substance is the final cause. How long will thou dwell on words and superficialities? A burning heart is what I want; consort with burning! Kindle in the heart the flame of love, And burn up utterly thoughts and fine expressions. ~ Rumi *** |
A life without love is a waste.
“Should I look for spiritual love, or material, or physical love?”, don’t ask yourself this question. Discrimination leads to discrimination. Love doesn’t need any name, category or definition. Love is a world itself. Either you are in, at the center…either you are out, yearning. ~ Shams Tabrizi *** |
Life is just a certain amount of time and energy. Putting this time and energy to maximum use for everyone’s wellbeing is all that matters.
~ Sadhguru *** |
Love does not claim possession, but gives freedom.
~ Rabindranath Tagore *** |
Love that does not renew itself every day becomes a habit and in turn a slavery.
~ Khalil Gibran *** |
Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour.
Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity. ~ Albert Einstein *** |
L O V E
What role do the capacities for love and caring play in human freedom, and what can this tell us about the nature of autonomy and human individuality?
An Essay about Love from Hilde Habiba - The Wild Woman
April 2014
Love does exist from the beginning of mankind. There are many faces of love. Origin of the word love is Latin lubēre (later libēre) to be pleasing; akin to lief.
We have to differ between self-love, love towards a friend, love in romance, towards family, towards an animal (pet), towards God, or towards an object or idea. One form of love is the platonic love.
It is a type of love that is chaste and non-sexual. It is named after the philosopher Plato. However, in ancient times it was not just non-sexual but a kind of philosophic way to reach the fulfilment of human striving. The lover is going deliberately this philosophic way in order to upgrade insights unto a reality, which Platon calls the Beauty by itself, the worthiest object. For Plato generally, the most correct use of love of other human beings is to direct one's mind to love of divinity. At this point the searching of the lover ends, because only at this state he finds the perfect fulfilment of his striving. It reminds me somewhat of Sufism. Love in Sufism means a developing chain of motivation. Each step in the journey is an upgrade until the entirety is realized.
Considering all these kinds of love it should be remembered that none of these facets can be called true and unconditional if afflicted with possessive and selfish attributes. Love integrated in a new culture, demonstrated by the German writer, psychoanalyst, art historian and sociologist Dieter Duhm leads to the highest degree ever achieved. He recommends a biological humanism as the framework for a new culture. A community with loving communication, fulfilled sexuality, and creative work would no longer be dependent on vicarious satisfaction through the products of industrial society, as is the case today.
Moving forward on this issue means a new behaviour, a new way of life. In the heart of a new approach towards an ecological culture stands a liberated, unsentimental, and active love relationship with all that lives.
It creates the opening that makes everything else visible and understandable. The interconnected processes of disaffection,
mechanisms of destruction, and disorientation of our time has
become so total that, in a sense, we must start all over again
if a perspective for the humane survival of the human species
is to arise. To fulfil our dream of a non-violent society we principally have to realize that the hidden tendency towards violence often lurks in the most gentle and calm souls. It is known that normal and unsuspicious family fathers celebrated their bestial orgies in Auschwitz and other places. Violence is the eruption of blocked life energies. The way to brush aside conflicts does not mean calming down violence, but to practise non-violence in terms of radical and intelligent self-engagement and fighting against every kind of suppression of human longing. Non-violence alias pacifism is the reconciliation for the human with himself.
Our culture of today is a pseudo culture. People want something different from what they say. People are longing for something but do not dare to say what they are longing for. The community of Poona for example is a community based on emotional bounding, but they do not answer the question we are faced with: what organisational form and inner constitution can we create for living together that can be applied generally and, in the long run, make humane structures possible?
Truly responsible humaneness can come into existence
only after the establishment is overcome. Therefore, it is necessary to
firstly, conquer the lifelong childish dependency of authorities by a new social form of raising children including new social forms of love.
Secondly, emotional repression must cease by a social system of free love, free research and free work.
Thirdly, the individual should be allowed from childhood on to take part in current decisions.
Any attempt not considering these points is not a serious attempt for true and free love. Too many political and alternative projects have broken down due to conflicts of authority, competition, jealousy, fears, power and other hidden conflicts. While males often compensate for their emotional and sexual problems by intellectual rhetoric and self-importance females don’t really trust each other whenever men are involved.
To change the entire psychological and cultural system means that we have to regenerate all biological energies and a psychological-ideological protection against all invasions of buried truths, longings and love. The cultural era of the character armour i.e. self-control or rather self protection despised and rejected the lust for which it had always longed, made impotence into the virtue of abstinence and turned cowardice into morals. This factitiousness of society has become a solid structure and a permanent part of all that has been passed on as “education”, “humaneness”, and “human dignity”. People instructed others about freedom and did not see the trap in which they themselves were caught. They developed theories as an excuse for their own fears, attacked the state and society but resisted every attack on their own self-control.
The so called “prana” or “chi” has to be reinstated for clearance of false mutual embrace, for feeling no fear when one needs to fight, for having the courage to scream or cry instead of forcing oneself to smile, to learn to differentiate between love and the need for someone to lean on, between a “yes” that arises from the heart and a “yes” that arises from the fear of being rejected. Prana is needed to make energy and emotions flow again, to let disappear feelings of inferiority and guilt. It is necessary not to confuse emotional hypersensitivity with the spirit of charity, or the rage of being personally hurt with the rage against the destroyers of life, and one’s own cowardice with consideration and tolerance.
Whatever kind of love we are talking about, spiritual, material or physical love, using all available human and sociological intelligence we need to replace fear as a regulating principle by something we could call love. The “home”, of which the philosopher Ernst Bloch wrote, actually does lie in love, in a free, unsentimental love containing no remnants of fear, lies, or hatred. A quote of Ernst Bloch “Love is a journey into a complete new life” should let us hopefully strive for true and unconditional love in society.
Most people cannot even imagine what it would mean to love without fear, as for them love is connected to fear of losing someone, of sexual fears, fear of authority, of rejection, of being alone, of betrayal, so that the absurdity of the situation is no longer recognised. Only the results become visible as jealousy, illness, depression, and broken relationships. Beyond any doubt love without fear is the opposite of what is called love in our present culture.
Why have people been able to cultivate war as a reality, but love only as a dream? People are so hungry for a life never lived. Life is doped by alcohol, medication, or consumerism. Thus, people are lead to loss of self-esteem, finding themselves in a jungle of disguise and compensation. Today the emotional structure of males is more that of teenagers than of grown ups. Women are not taken seriously as partners as long as there is no social relationship between both genders. If sexuality is not experienced as love, then the cause does not lie in the essence of sexuality, but in the blockages and perversions that stem from repression.
Love can break down barriers of fear. Then the individual will be prepared to go the path of which the Eastern say, “Tao is the way that cannot be abandoned; the way that can be abandoned is not Tao.” Pursuing that path causes a change that can lead one radically away from all old habits and fears. The liberation from deeply ingrained feelings of fear and guilt is the first precondition for a creative, energetic life, for being at one with life. It is this precondition that is needed for developing the power of culture and politics of today.
Every living being, all life processes in plants and animals, and all systems in nature function without any effort and – what is more astonishing – without purpose. Even the most powerful movements of a panther happen without effort. That is the secret of power and beauty. The Zen culture of the East follows the same principles in the art of archery and swordsmanship (of the Samurai type): the highest beauty and perfection without intent or exertion. It is the principle of the Centre of Gravity in the human body, called “Hara” or Zen. One who is at rest in his centre has cosmic powers at his disposal – like a blade of grass, a tree, or an animal. The proverb “strength lies in calmness“ is not by chance known worldwide.
The goals we set will only be meaningful in terms of a life-oriented culture if we see and understand a way of existing without intent and effort as a universal principle of the living world. We must – in the sense of humane progress – again become capable of participating in this connection of being.
We are constantly faced with the old-fashioned cultural tradition that any other system than marriage with one partner is a sin. Here I am speaking of the suggestions of the Old Testament and Christianity. In Islam Polygamy is allowed but not often practised any more, whereas Polyandry is allowed only in very few countries. Some freethinking people living with more than one female/male are well on the way to follow a new habit in Europe. However, unfortunately even in Islam it is evident that the fixation of the child on the parents often associates childhood love with fear and hatred, not mentioning the still usable custom of arranged marriages by the parents. The biological (libidinous) energies of the child in a nuclear family system are twisted, paralysed, and blocked. The suppressed need for love is mostly frustrated by sexual morals or by insensitivity or brutality of the parents, leading to a paralysis, which does not allow free movement, resulting in the source of all kinds of psychosomatic illnesses. A chronic emotional blockage escorts the child up to adulthood and the cycle goes on with the new generation.
Thus, the pent-up human lives in constant energetic irritation. His unfilled wishes force him to a constant search for a sexual partner, pornography, peep-shows, personal ads, special contact aids and the endless search for partners. At the cost of an enormous amount of time and energy the trophies are acquired, trophies that mostly satisfy no one. If one considers the amount of fuel used only for driving around in search of a sexual partner, one would have to demand the liberation of sexuality solely for reasons concerning the politics of energy. The generally known system of marriage stands out in an amorphous, fermenting and restless mass of unfulfilled longings and withheld energies. Official life takes place on the surface; “essential” life lies beneath. In this ambiguity of our culture lies its illness. The necessary therapy therefore consists of a direct integration and socialisation of all repressed sexual and emotional energies.
A new culture can be achieved if new relations between the sexes are established. A free life will be possible only in a new sexual and social order where a sexual attraction between two persons does not create abandonment, hatred or paralysis in a third person. In art, philosophy and religion our culture has glorified love. But what happens to love if it is caught in the clutches of an ordinary couple relationship? From experience we know that with almost absolute certainty it turns into jealousy, blackmail and boredom. But in order to avoid the endangerment of their relationship and the comfort of their habits they have to keep it secret from one another, however at the bottom of their heart they know of course, that they keep up pretences which have since long time ceased to be true.
Both the partners become distrustful and suspicious. Whoever is unsure of his own love, does no longer trust the love of the other. A psychological war starts between both, a war that, according to Dieter Duhm, probably claims yearly more victims than traffic accidents. Behind jealousy there usually lies the psychological trauma of a child who fears losing the love of his or her parents. As the system of couple relationships is usually too limited to fulfil the individual’s emotional and sexual needs, this fear of losing one another is constantly reinforced.
If there is only one partner, it is in fact truly traumatic to suffer this loss. A human system needs to be developed that enables so many emotional and sexual relations and so much creative activity that the individual is no longer dependent on one person for the fulfilment of his or her wishes in life. Under such circumstances, true love between partners could develop more beauty and freedom of life.
The undermining of personal relationship in modern times of work, earning money and compulsive consumerism has long since influenced the family. The family is not a source of creative liveliness as in old times, but a resort for passive recovery as proved by the daily evening in front of the TV.
The emotional emptiness is evident in the growing frequency of alcoholism, child abuse and juvenile crime. Psychologists, sociologists, and criminologists are faced with a task that can hardly be solved with their limited professional methods.
Since a new order of emotional and sexual relationships emerges
slowly the removal of marriage and the nuclear family, while
maintaining the other societal structures, would lead to total
chaos. A common experimental living situation needs to be developed where, in free communication and in an atmosphere of growing trust, the forms of our daily lives can be replaced by new ones not based on ideology and standard norm but flow from within.
As a result of the inability to live out ones urges and needs, different emotional shifts have evolved individually nowadays. The most recently discovered shift is that of courtesy, good manners and modest behaviour. Behind that, we find a second shift in the form of fear. Behind this there is usually an enormous rage. Only behind this rage, deeply hidden, lies the shift of love and need for love. It is in this psychological context that the problem of violence needs to be seen and solved. The rage in a form of violence mostly does not appear on the surface, as it is concealed by conventional good manners.
Meaningless rage and violence are a result of an inner and outer life situation, which is cramped and has something to do with a revoked spirit of life and needful freedom. If we were ever aware of how charm and natural beauty, uprightness and courage, honesty and trust as well as burning for action are being betrayed, sold and destroyed in the lives of children and youths, we would at once melt in an ocean of tears.
The reasons for the aggression and violence indwelling in our culture and society are, for example: the environment of a large city cast in concrete that gives the children little stimulus to activity; a career system where the division of labour creates the most meaningless monotony; a system of education devoid of real substance and without opportunities to follow true interests and curiosity; and
a sexual system that keeps the energies of sexual love in the
same old cages. People who grow up in this system have to do
so many meaningless and bad things that they soon lose
respect for themselves. This loss of self-respect then imposes the
perfect conditions for a further insanity. In agreement with Dieter Duhm I believe that this is not an exaggeration, but rather an understatement. The word “peace” needs to get a new meaning and has to be learnt in workshops of peace in such a way that people can affirm themselves and others.
We are horrified to come to know about violence done to tribes, minorities, women, children and animals. We want an end of their suffering. We are longing for peace. In centres of the new culture homeliness, warmth and security could be offered. If we are truly warmed from within by love of the living world, then our fellow humans and other fellow creatures will return this warmth. Then violence cannot easily adopt a life of its own. Then violence can be turned into will power to live a peaceful life.
Energies must be freed wherever violence is caused by blocked life energies, including the energies of aggression. This is possible only by overcoming all life structures that acquire a latent violence by prompting the human to suppress his urges. All humans who want peace must stop suppressing aggressions.
Of course, such new forms cannot be planned programmatically, they must develop as a result of the relations between the persons involved. But within such a community smaller groups are bound to form, maybe in the form of smaller units or living groups of perhaps six to twelve persons. In these subgroups the “family” would then be embedded: the child with the father and mother as primary carers and the others as a care group. Children should have the possibility to choose their carers by themselves, because the free choice of partners without fear and secrecy is the basis for emotional honesty.
In 1995, together with the theologian Sabine Lichtenfels and others, Dieter Duhm founded the Tamera Peace Research Centre in Portugal, which today has more than 170 co-workers. Dieter Duhm has dedicated his life to creating an effective forum for a global peace initiative that can match the destructive forces of capitalistic globalisation.
Tamera is to be neither a therapeutic centre nor an ecological village in the customary rustic sense, but the idea was to realise among other things a centre for cultural research, environmental research, as well as developing the criterion for capacity of love in a community and the individual’s possibility for development.
Tamera Community comprises the principle of truth and mutual support in the areas of sexuality, love and partnership. Hopefully there will arise more such communities in other parts of the world always considering the topic overview and the ultimate purpose of the manifestation “There cannot be peace on earth as long as there is war in love.”
We should make sure that neither chauvinism nor feminism exist, that the genders stand as equals beside each other and work together for the same goal, the reunification of life. Questions of monogamy or polygamy, of couple-love or free-love are not ideological or religious questions, but rather questions of personal development and the decision of those who are involved. Love is a natural process, there is no legal claim on love or right of ownership of a love-partner, but there is great trust and deep solidarity between the female and the male halves of humankind. Sexuality should be liberated from all forms of religious suppression, lies, humiliation and violence. It serves – in
addition to reproduction – only unconditional love, health and joy of life. In a humane world, it can never occur against the will of one partner.
The reader might have noticed that I quoted quite a few sentences of the book of Dieter Duhm, which I hope he does not mind. I did it for the simple reason that I completely agree with his attitude towards a new culture. In his book, he verbalized what I am reflecting, and he did it in a masterly way. Still I tried to express my own opinion about a new culture, mainly about love in general, hoping the reader might appreciate my efforts.
Let me end this discourse about LOVE with a happening I experienced recently:
Sadly, my brother died some days ago. His eldest daughter kindly informed me about his death via telephone. She arranged the funeral and the mourning ceremony together with her brother and sister. I offered my assistance regarding the organization of the funeral but they did not react on my offer. There were no obituaries sent to any other family members, at least not to my daughters and my son-in-law. My elder daughter told me that her husband - my son-in-law - had indicated his wish to condole the three of them personally instead of writing a condolence card. Hence, I tried to encourage them to expand the mourning ceremony to all family members. They reacted quite harsh, specially my youngest niece: “What have I to do with your son-in-law? I even don’t know him properly, and he is almost like a stranger to me!”
This reaction shocked me, because though I knew that she did not like me, even hated me for reasons I cannot explain here, what had it to do with my son-in-law? Why did she transfer her anger on him? He knew my brother very well during his lifetime, which I considered more important contrary to her little knowledge of my son-in-law.
Well, when I visited my daughter and son-in-law I quoted my niece to my son-in-law, expecting him to feel upset. But no, he got excited and called out “she is right, she does not know me well, so one should not interfere with their mourning celebration!” which offended me quite a lot. He was embarrassed somehow because I had tried to treat him as a family member. After all, he had married my daughter and he now w a s a member of our family beyond question! I even noticed a sort of anger in his reaction, because I had had the guts to speak up for him. I now also felt embarrassed and sorry for my own courage to have defended him against his will.
Anyway, the discourse ended up in the subject “Love and Care” topically on how to handle somebody’s (my nieces) unfriendliness or rather hate towards another person (my son-in-law and me). I praised the late Martin Luther King, quoting him:”…Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” The moment I spoke it out, my daughter and her husband burst into laughter exclaiming simultaneously:”…and he was shot dead!” I reacted at once: „But that is the point! We are not ready to stand for our point of view as he did, we do not want to take the risk of being hated or even shot dead for our conviction addicted to love as he did! We must start changing our mind on a small scale if we want politicians to do so on a large scale!” They became calm and thoughtful. Then my daughter reminded us of the movie “Gran Torino“, Clint Eastwood playing the leading role. They praised his behaviour in his role as a peacemaker who was shot dead due to his courage to help others not caring for his life and limb, and they understood my efforts to explain my point of view.
At home again I woke up in the middle of the night; and suddenly the scales fell from my eyes: That is exactly the topic of Dieter Duhms book “Towards a New Culture”! He states that “…Pathological suffering describes the malady of our times: it takes the form of life that has not unfolded but is blocked and twisted from within. At the point where the elementary human drives and growth forces collide with social boundaries, the human splits into a “normal” part that conforms to social customs and an “other” part that keeps seething in the dark, irritating one’s daily life with agitating signals. Truly humanising the human world means redeeming the “other” from its repressed existence and integrating it, piece by piece, into everyday life. Anything that the human has not raised to the state of conscious action keeps pulling him down continuously; what we do not truly master, rules us…”
Why did my niece not care for the “unknown man”, the “almost stranger”? Why was my son-in-law embarrassed when I spoke up to him? Why was I embarrassed on his embarrassment? Why do we humans often have a problem in caring for other humans who are utter strangers to us? After all, we all are strangers at first sight and come to know each other by communication only. If we would not approach one another, we would remain strangers forever. Therefore, it is paradox to refuse contacting a strange person but rather block up all kind emotions and social boundaries before coming to know the stranger.
The feelings of all three of us were blocked. Our behaviour has not spread but it was blocked and twisted from within. Social boundaries and archaic education collided with feelings of care and love. These enlightenments suddenly made me happy and I was proud that I had acted as I did. I had made the first step showing love and care for my son-in-law towards my niece and I had had the courage to inform him about my efforts to integrate him lovingly in our family celebrations – no matter whether happy or sad ones. Both, my niece and my son-in-law rejected me, but since I was sure of my determination to act on behalf of care and love, on peace and pacifism in every respect, their rejection could neither insult me nor change my mind. This time I was rejected but next time perhaps I would be accepted.
We have to differ between self-love, love towards a friend, love in romance, towards family, towards an animal (pet), towards God, or towards an object or idea. One form of love is the platonic love.
It is a type of love that is chaste and non-sexual. It is named after the philosopher Plato. However, in ancient times it was not just non-sexual but a kind of philosophic way to reach the fulfilment of human striving. The lover is going deliberately this philosophic way in order to upgrade insights unto a reality, which Platon calls the Beauty by itself, the worthiest object. For Plato generally, the most correct use of love of other human beings is to direct one's mind to love of divinity. At this point the searching of the lover ends, because only at this state he finds the perfect fulfilment of his striving. It reminds me somewhat of Sufism. Love in Sufism means a developing chain of motivation. Each step in the journey is an upgrade until the entirety is realized.
Considering all these kinds of love it should be remembered that none of these facets can be called true and unconditional if afflicted with possessive and selfish attributes. Love integrated in a new culture, demonstrated by the German writer, psychoanalyst, art historian and sociologist Dieter Duhm leads to the highest degree ever achieved. He recommends a biological humanism as the framework for a new culture. A community with loving communication, fulfilled sexuality, and creative work would no longer be dependent on vicarious satisfaction through the products of industrial society, as is the case today.
Moving forward on this issue means a new behaviour, a new way of life. In the heart of a new approach towards an ecological culture stands a liberated, unsentimental, and active love relationship with all that lives.
It creates the opening that makes everything else visible and understandable. The interconnected processes of disaffection,
mechanisms of destruction, and disorientation of our time has
become so total that, in a sense, we must start all over again
if a perspective for the humane survival of the human species
is to arise. To fulfil our dream of a non-violent society we principally have to realize that the hidden tendency towards violence often lurks in the most gentle and calm souls. It is known that normal and unsuspicious family fathers celebrated their bestial orgies in Auschwitz and other places. Violence is the eruption of blocked life energies. The way to brush aside conflicts does not mean calming down violence, but to practise non-violence in terms of radical and intelligent self-engagement and fighting against every kind of suppression of human longing. Non-violence alias pacifism is the reconciliation for the human with himself.
Our culture of today is a pseudo culture. People want something different from what they say. People are longing for something but do not dare to say what they are longing for. The community of Poona for example is a community based on emotional bounding, but they do not answer the question we are faced with: what organisational form and inner constitution can we create for living together that can be applied generally and, in the long run, make humane structures possible?
Truly responsible humaneness can come into existence
only after the establishment is overcome. Therefore, it is necessary to
firstly, conquer the lifelong childish dependency of authorities by a new social form of raising children including new social forms of love.
Secondly, emotional repression must cease by a social system of free love, free research and free work.
Thirdly, the individual should be allowed from childhood on to take part in current decisions.
Any attempt not considering these points is not a serious attempt for true and free love. Too many political and alternative projects have broken down due to conflicts of authority, competition, jealousy, fears, power and other hidden conflicts. While males often compensate for their emotional and sexual problems by intellectual rhetoric and self-importance females don’t really trust each other whenever men are involved.
To change the entire psychological and cultural system means that we have to regenerate all biological energies and a psychological-ideological protection against all invasions of buried truths, longings and love. The cultural era of the character armour i.e. self-control or rather self protection despised and rejected the lust for which it had always longed, made impotence into the virtue of abstinence and turned cowardice into morals. This factitiousness of society has become a solid structure and a permanent part of all that has been passed on as “education”, “humaneness”, and “human dignity”. People instructed others about freedom and did not see the trap in which they themselves were caught. They developed theories as an excuse for their own fears, attacked the state and society but resisted every attack on their own self-control.
The so called “prana” or “chi” has to be reinstated for clearance of false mutual embrace, for feeling no fear when one needs to fight, for having the courage to scream or cry instead of forcing oneself to smile, to learn to differentiate between love and the need for someone to lean on, between a “yes” that arises from the heart and a “yes” that arises from the fear of being rejected. Prana is needed to make energy and emotions flow again, to let disappear feelings of inferiority and guilt. It is necessary not to confuse emotional hypersensitivity with the spirit of charity, or the rage of being personally hurt with the rage against the destroyers of life, and one’s own cowardice with consideration and tolerance.
Whatever kind of love we are talking about, spiritual, material or physical love, using all available human and sociological intelligence we need to replace fear as a regulating principle by something we could call love. The “home”, of which the philosopher Ernst Bloch wrote, actually does lie in love, in a free, unsentimental love containing no remnants of fear, lies, or hatred. A quote of Ernst Bloch “Love is a journey into a complete new life” should let us hopefully strive for true and unconditional love in society.
Most people cannot even imagine what it would mean to love without fear, as for them love is connected to fear of losing someone, of sexual fears, fear of authority, of rejection, of being alone, of betrayal, so that the absurdity of the situation is no longer recognised. Only the results become visible as jealousy, illness, depression, and broken relationships. Beyond any doubt love without fear is the opposite of what is called love in our present culture.
Why have people been able to cultivate war as a reality, but love only as a dream? People are so hungry for a life never lived. Life is doped by alcohol, medication, or consumerism. Thus, people are lead to loss of self-esteem, finding themselves in a jungle of disguise and compensation. Today the emotional structure of males is more that of teenagers than of grown ups. Women are not taken seriously as partners as long as there is no social relationship between both genders. If sexuality is not experienced as love, then the cause does not lie in the essence of sexuality, but in the blockages and perversions that stem from repression.
Love can break down barriers of fear. Then the individual will be prepared to go the path of which the Eastern say, “Tao is the way that cannot be abandoned; the way that can be abandoned is not Tao.” Pursuing that path causes a change that can lead one radically away from all old habits and fears. The liberation from deeply ingrained feelings of fear and guilt is the first precondition for a creative, energetic life, for being at one with life. It is this precondition that is needed for developing the power of culture and politics of today.
Every living being, all life processes in plants and animals, and all systems in nature function without any effort and – what is more astonishing – without purpose. Even the most powerful movements of a panther happen without effort. That is the secret of power and beauty. The Zen culture of the East follows the same principles in the art of archery and swordsmanship (of the Samurai type): the highest beauty and perfection without intent or exertion. It is the principle of the Centre of Gravity in the human body, called “Hara” or Zen. One who is at rest in his centre has cosmic powers at his disposal – like a blade of grass, a tree, or an animal. The proverb “strength lies in calmness“ is not by chance known worldwide.
The goals we set will only be meaningful in terms of a life-oriented culture if we see and understand a way of existing without intent and effort as a universal principle of the living world. We must – in the sense of humane progress – again become capable of participating in this connection of being.
We are constantly faced with the old-fashioned cultural tradition that any other system than marriage with one partner is a sin. Here I am speaking of the suggestions of the Old Testament and Christianity. In Islam Polygamy is allowed but not often practised any more, whereas Polyandry is allowed only in very few countries. Some freethinking people living with more than one female/male are well on the way to follow a new habit in Europe. However, unfortunately even in Islam it is evident that the fixation of the child on the parents often associates childhood love with fear and hatred, not mentioning the still usable custom of arranged marriages by the parents. The biological (libidinous) energies of the child in a nuclear family system are twisted, paralysed, and blocked. The suppressed need for love is mostly frustrated by sexual morals or by insensitivity or brutality of the parents, leading to a paralysis, which does not allow free movement, resulting in the source of all kinds of psychosomatic illnesses. A chronic emotional blockage escorts the child up to adulthood and the cycle goes on with the new generation.
Thus, the pent-up human lives in constant energetic irritation. His unfilled wishes force him to a constant search for a sexual partner, pornography, peep-shows, personal ads, special contact aids and the endless search for partners. At the cost of an enormous amount of time and energy the trophies are acquired, trophies that mostly satisfy no one. If one considers the amount of fuel used only for driving around in search of a sexual partner, one would have to demand the liberation of sexuality solely for reasons concerning the politics of energy. The generally known system of marriage stands out in an amorphous, fermenting and restless mass of unfulfilled longings and withheld energies. Official life takes place on the surface; “essential” life lies beneath. In this ambiguity of our culture lies its illness. The necessary therapy therefore consists of a direct integration and socialisation of all repressed sexual and emotional energies.
A new culture can be achieved if new relations between the sexes are established. A free life will be possible only in a new sexual and social order where a sexual attraction between two persons does not create abandonment, hatred or paralysis in a third person. In art, philosophy and religion our culture has glorified love. But what happens to love if it is caught in the clutches of an ordinary couple relationship? From experience we know that with almost absolute certainty it turns into jealousy, blackmail and boredom. But in order to avoid the endangerment of their relationship and the comfort of their habits they have to keep it secret from one another, however at the bottom of their heart they know of course, that they keep up pretences which have since long time ceased to be true.
Both the partners become distrustful and suspicious. Whoever is unsure of his own love, does no longer trust the love of the other. A psychological war starts between both, a war that, according to Dieter Duhm, probably claims yearly more victims than traffic accidents. Behind jealousy there usually lies the psychological trauma of a child who fears losing the love of his or her parents. As the system of couple relationships is usually too limited to fulfil the individual’s emotional and sexual needs, this fear of losing one another is constantly reinforced.
If there is only one partner, it is in fact truly traumatic to suffer this loss. A human system needs to be developed that enables so many emotional and sexual relations and so much creative activity that the individual is no longer dependent on one person for the fulfilment of his or her wishes in life. Under such circumstances, true love between partners could develop more beauty and freedom of life.
The undermining of personal relationship in modern times of work, earning money and compulsive consumerism has long since influenced the family. The family is not a source of creative liveliness as in old times, but a resort for passive recovery as proved by the daily evening in front of the TV.
The emotional emptiness is evident in the growing frequency of alcoholism, child abuse and juvenile crime. Psychologists, sociologists, and criminologists are faced with a task that can hardly be solved with their limited professional methods.
Since a new order of emotional and sexual relationships emerges
slowly the removal of marriage and the nuclear family, while
maintaining the other societal structures, would lead to total
chaos. A common experimental living situation needs to be developed where, in free communication and in an atmosphere of growing trust, the forms of our daily lives can be replaced by new ones not based on ideology and standard norm but flow from within.
As a result of the inability to live out ones urges and needs, different emotional shifts have evolved individually nowadays. The most recently discovered shift is that of courtesy, good manners and modest behaviour. Behind that, we find a second shift in the form of fear. Behind this there is usually an enormous rage. Only behind this rage, deeply hidden, lies the shift of love and need for love. It is in this psychological context that the problem of violence needs to be seen and solved. The rage in a form of violence mostly does not appear on the surface, as it is concealed by conventional good manners.
Meaningless rage and violence are a result of an inner and outer life situation, which is cramped and has something to do with a revoked spirit of life and needful freedom. If we were ever aware of how charm and natural beauty, uprightness and courage, honesty and trust as well as burning for action are being betrayed, sold and destroyed in the lives of children and youths, we would at once melt in an ocean of tears.
The reasons for the aggression and violence indwelling in our culture and society are, for example: the environment of a large city cast in concrete that gives the children little stimulus to activity; a career system where the division of labour creates the most meaningless monotony; a system of education devoid of real substance and without opportunities to follow true interests and curiosity; and
a sexual system that keeps the energies of sexual love in the
same old cages. People who grow up in this system have to do
so many meaningless and bad things that they soon lose
respect for themselves. This loss of self-respect then imposes the
perfect conditions for a further insanity. In agreement with Dieter Duhm I believe that this is not an exaggeration, but rather an understatement. The word “peace” needs to get a new meaning and has to be learnt in workshops of peace in such a way that people can affirm themselves and others.
We are horrified to come to know about violence done to tribes, minorities, women, children and animals. We want an end of their suffering. We are longing for peace. In centres of the new culture homeliness, warmth and security could be offered. If we are truly warmed from within by love of the living world, then our fellow humans and other fellow creatures will return this warmth. Then violence cannot easily adopt a life of its own. Then violence can be turned into will power to live a peaceful life.
Energies must be freed wherever violence is caused by blocked life energies, including the energies of aggression. This is possible only by overcoming all life structures that acquire a latent violence by prompting the human to suppress his urges. All humans who want peace must stop suppressing aggressions.
Of course, such new forms cannot be planned programmatically, they must develop as a result of the relations between the persons involved. But within such a community smaller groups are bound to form, maybe in the form of smaller units or living groups of perhaps six to twelve persons. In these subgroups the “family” would then be embedded: the child with the father and mother as primary carers and the others as a care group. Children should have the possibility to choose their carers by themselves, because the free choice of partners without fear and secrecy is the basis for emotional honesty.
In 1995, together with the theologian Sabine Lichtenfels and others, Dieter Duhm founded the Tamera Peace Research Centre in Portugal, which today has more than 170 co-workers. Dieter Duhm has dedicated his life to creating an effective forum for a global peace initiative that can match the destructive forces of capitalistic globalisation.
Tamera is to be neither a therapeutic centre nor an ecological village in the customary rustic sense, but the idea was to realise among other things a centre for cultural research, environmental research, as well as developing the criterion for capacity of love in a community and the individual’s possibility for development.
Tamera Community comprises the principle of truth and mutual support in the areas of sexuality, love and partnership. Hopefully there will arise more such communities in other parts of the world always considering the topic overview and the ultimate purpose of the manifestation “There cannot be peace on earth as long as there is war in love.”
We should make sure that neither chauvinism nor feminism exist, that the genders stand as equals beside each other and work together for the same goal, the reunification of life. Questions of monogamy or polygamy, of couple-love or free-love are not ideological or religious questions, but rather questions of personal development and the decision of those who are involved. Love is a natural process, there is no legal claim on love or right of ownership of a love-partner, but there is great trust and deep solidarity between the female and the male halves of humankind. Sexuality should be liberated from all forms of religious suppression, lies, humiliation and violence. It serves – in
addition to reproduction – only unconditional love, health and joy of life. In a humane world, it can never occur against the will of one partner.
The reader might have noticed that I quoted quite a few sentences of the book of Dieter Duhm, which I hope he does not mind. I did it for the simple reason that I completely agree with his attitude towards a new culture. In his book, he verbalized what I am reflecting, and he did it in a masterly way. Still I tried to express my own opinion about a new culture, mainly about love in general, hoping the reader might appreciate my efforts.
Let me end this discourse about LOVE with a happening I experienced recently:
Sadly, my brother died some days ago. His eldest daughter kindly informed me about his death via telephone. She arranged the funeral and the mourning ceremony together with her brother and sister. I offered my assistance regarding the organization of the funeral but they did not react on my offer. There were no obituaries sent to any other family members, at least not to my daughters and my son-in-law. My elder daughter told me that her husband - my son-in-law - had indicated his wish to condole the three of them personally instead of writing a condolence card. Hence, I tried to encourage them to expand the mourning ceremony to all family members. They reacted quite harsh, specially my youngest niece: “What have I to do with your son-in-law? I even don’t know him properly, and he is almost like a stranger to me!”
This reaction shocked me, because though I knew that she did not like me, even hated me for reasons I cannot explain here, what had it to do with my son-in-law? Why did she transfer her anger on him? He knew my brother very well during his lifetime, which I considered more important contrary to her little knowledge of my son-in-law.
Well, when I visited my daughter and son-in-law I quoted my niece to my son-in-law, expecting him to feel upset. But no, he got excited and called out “she is right, she does not know me well, so one should not interfere with their mourning celebration!” which offended me quite a lot. He was embarrassed somehow because I had tried to treat him as a family member. After all, he had married my daughter and he now w a s a member of our family beyond question! I even noticed a sort of anger in his reaction, because I had had the guts to speak up for him. I now also felt embarrassed and sorry for my own courage to have defended him against his will.
Anyway, the discourse ended up in the subject “Love and Care” topically on how to handle somebody’s (my nieces) unfriendliness or rather hate towards another person (my son-in-law and me). I praised the late Martin Luther King, quoting him:”…Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” The moment I spoke it out, my daughter and her husband burst into laughter exclaiming simultaneously:”…and he was shot dead!” I reacted at once: „But that is the point! We are not ready to stand for our point of view as he did, we do not want to take the risk of being hated or even shot dead for our conviction addicted to love as he did! We must start changing our mind on a small scale if we want politicians to do so on a large scale!” They became calm and thoughtful. Then my daughter reminded us of the movie “Gran Torino“, Clint Eastwood playing the leading role. They praised his behaviour in his role as a peacemaker who was shot dead due to his courage to help others not caring for his life and limb, and they understood my efforts to explain my point of view.
At home again I woke up in the middle of the night; and suddenly the scales fell from my eyes: That is exactly the topic of Dieter Duhms book “Towards a New Culture”! He states that “…Pathological suffering describes the malady of our times: it takes the form of life that has not unfolded but is blocked and twisted from within. At the point where the elementary human drives and growth forces collide with social boundaries, the human splits into a “normal” part that conforms to social customs and an “other” part that keeps seething in the dark, irritating one’s daily life with agitating signals. Truly humanising the human world means redeeming the “other” from its repressed existence and integrating it, piece by piece, into everyday life. Anything that the human has not raised to the state of conscious action keeps pulling him down continuously; what we do not truly master, rules us…”
Why did my niece not care for the “unknown man”, the “almost stranger”? Why was my son-in-law embarrassed when I spoke up to him? Why was I embarrassed on his embarrassment? Why do we humans often have a problem in caring for other humans who are utter strangers to us? After all, we all are strangers at first sight and come to know each other by communication only. If we would not approach one another, we would remain strangers forever. Therefore, it is paradox to refuse contacting a strange person but rather block up all kind emotions and social boundaries before coming to know the stranger.
The feelings of all three of us were blocked. Our behaviour has not spread but it was blocked and twisted from within. Social boundaries and archaic education collided with feelings of care and love. These enlightenments suddenly made me happy and I was proud that I had acted as I did. I had made the first step showing love and care for my son-in-law towards my niece and I had had the courage to inform him about my efforts to integrate him lovingly in our family celebrations – no matter whether happy or sad ones. Both, my niece and my son-in-law rejected me, but since I was sure of my determination to act on behalf of care and love, on peace and pacifism in every respect, their rejection could neither insult me nor change my mind. This time I was rejected but next time perhaps I would be accepted.
***
Last, not least, dear reader, please find attached the
significant story about deep love narrated by the honourable Khalid Sohail:
DEEP LOVE
Khalid Sohail
August 2012
One of my childhood memories is watching my dad Basit writing 10 to 15 pages long letters to my uncle Arif. By that time my dad had become a mystic, a deeply religious person and people used to call him Sufi Sahib, while my uncle was still an atheist and a socialist writer. My uncle never responded to my dad’s letters. I remember one day teasing my dad by saying, “Dad, Uncle Arif never responds because he never reads them.” He smiled and said, “Son, they are love letters, not business letters.”
After ten years of receiving my dad’s long long letters, when my uncle published his new collection of poems he dedicated it to my dad. That dedication reflected to me that not only he read those letters, he read them very carefully and was inspired by them. Later on my uncle also became a mystic poet.
Over the years I have been reflecting about my dad’s long letters. I think most brothers, who did not get any response, would have stopped writing those letters. But my dad did not and I wondered:
What kept him writing?
What was his motivation?
Why did he not get discouraged?
Why did he not stop?
My own answer to my own prolonged reflections and introspections is Deep Love.
My dad loved my uncle at a deep level, deeper than most brothers I know love their brothers. Those were emotional as well as philosophical letters. My dad shared his knowledge, experience and wisdom. He shared his spiritual insights. That is why once my uncle said to me, ‘Your dad is younger in age but older in wisdom. He is a man of integrity.”
As a student on human psychology I ask myself, “How did my dad develop that capacity of deep love?” I think his emotional crisis has something to do with it, a crisis that family members thought was a nervous breakdown but he believed it was a spiritual breakthrough. After that crisis when he recovered and became a mystic his capacity to love became more intense, more profound. He developed a capacity of deep love. I was fortunate to receive that deep love from him too.
While I am reflecting and free associating of my dad’s breakdown and breakthrough and deep love, I am also remembering a time when our neighbors were digging a well in the courtyard. As a child I was fascinated to watch that. As there was no running water in our neighborhood and people got water from a nearby river, it was important for the neighbors to dig a well. After digging a few feet we saw the water. I was thrilled. I thought the project was complete. But my dad told me that they had to dig more because that water was good to wash clothes but not good enough to drink as it was full of impurities. After digging another twenty feet there was another layer of water at a deep level. That water was clean and good enough to drink.
I sometimes wonder whether people’s hearts also has two kinds of love: superficial love and deep love. Most people can only experience and share superficial love. There are only a few, like my dad, who are able to experience and share deep love and sometimes to reach that deeper love they have to experience a breakdown and a breakthrough. Some reach that deep love on their own by life experiences, some need a teacher and some need a therapist. I have seen many men and women in my clinical practice who were able to get in touch with deep love in their hearts after they recovered from their personal, marital, family, social and existential crisis. I feel honored that those people shared with me their honest feelings and struggles and I was able to become a co-traveler in their therapeutic journeys. Such change is only possible when therapy is dynamic and addresses some in-depth issues of personality transformation and growth. Over the years I have become a dynamic therapist and love working with those motivated people who have serious emotional and personality problems and are willing to take the next step in life in their personal growth and social maturity and get in touch with their deeper selves and experience and share deep love. I have learnt so much from them.
Reflecting back on my life I realize that receiving deep love from my dad and sharing it with my patients has helped me become a better person and serve my community and humanity at large as a humanist psychotherapist.
After ten years of receiving my dad’s long long letters, when my uncle published his new collection of poems he dedicated it to my dad. That dedication reflected to me that not only he read those letters, he read them very carefully and was inspired by them. Later on my uncle also became a mystic poet.
Over the years I have been reflecting about my dad’s long letters. I think most brothers, who did not get any response, would have stopped writing those letters. But my dad did not and I wondered:
What kept him writing?
What was his motivation?
Why did he not get discouraged?
Why did he not stop?
My own answer to my own prolonged reflections and introspections is Deep Love.
My dad loved my uncle at a deep level, deeper than most brothers I know love their brothers. Those were emotional as well as philosophical letters. My dad shared his knowledge, experience and wisdom. He shared his spiritual insights. That is why once my uncle said to me, ‘Your dad is younger in age but older in wisdom. He is a man of integrity.”
As a student on human psychology I ask myself, “How did my dad develop that capacity of deep love?” I think his emotional crisis has something to do with it, a crisis that family members thought was a nervous breakdown but he believed it was a spiritual breakthrough. After that crisis when he recovered and became a mystic his capacity to love became more intense, more profound. He developed a capacity of deep love. I was fortunate to receive that deep love from him too.
While I am reflecting and free associating of my dad’s breakdown and breakthrough and deep love, I am also remembering a time when our neighbors were digging a well in the courtyard. As a child I was fascinated to watch that. As there was no running water in our neighborhood and people got water from a nearby river, it was important for the neighbors to dig a well. After digging a few feet we saw the water. I was thrilled. I thought the project was complete. But my dad told me that they had to dig more because that water was good to wash clothes but not good enough to drink as it was full of impurities. After digging another twenty feet there was another layer of water at a deep level. That water was clean and good enough to drink.
I sometimes wonder whether people’s hearts also has two kinds of love: superficial love and deep love. Most people can only experience and share superficial love. There are only a few, like my dad, who are able to experience and share deep love and sometimes to reach that deeper love they have to experience a breakdown and a breakthrough. Some reach that deep love on their own by life experiences, some need a teacher and some need a therapist. I have seen many men and women in my clinical practice who were able to get in touch with deep love in their hearts after they recovered from their personal, marital, family, social and existential crisis. I feel honored that those people shared with me their honest feelings and struggles and I was able to become a co-traveler in their therapeutic journeys. Such change is only possible when therapy is dynamic and addresses some in-depth issues of personality transformation and growth. Over the years I have become a dynamic therapist and love working with those motivated people who have serious emotional and personality problems and are willing to take the next step in life in their personal growth and social maturity and get in touch with their deeper selves and experience and share deep love. I have learnt so much from them.
Reflecting back on my life I realize that receiving deep love from my dad and sharing it with my patients has helped me become a better person and serve my community and humanity at large as a humanist psychotherapist.
And here is another Essay about LOVE written by Dr. Khalid Sohail
WHEN YOU LOVE MORE THAN ONE
KHALID SOHAIL
www.drsohail.com
There are people in this world who never loved any human being in their entire life. I have met many nuns and priests and monks who devoted their lives and energies serving God. For them God was their beloved and their dedication and commitment to Him were so deep, intimate and pervasive that there was no room in their heart for any human being. They could serve many human beings, considering them children of God, but did not develop any personal, emotional, romantic or sexual attachment with them. They considered such attachment sinful deterring them from their spiritual journey. They remained celibate, even chaste, all their lives. Their spirituality excluded any sexuality in their lives.
I have also met some men and women in my clinical practice as a psychotherapist who were so shy and introverted that they could not develop any strong emotional connection with other human beings. They lived alone all their adult lives and never had any close relationship with a friend or a lover. All their relationships were superficial. There were times they felt extremely lonely and sad even suicidal. Some of them wished to love someone but did not know how and wanted professional help to overcome their inhibitions and cope with their schizoid and introverted personality.
Then there are people who can only love one person at a time. They put all their eggs in one basket. Sometimes that love is platonic and affectionate, other times sexual. Sometimes they are friends as well as lovers. And then there are times when that relationship is sensual, more than platonic and less than sexual. Sometimes it is hard to classify such relationships as the words platonic, sensual and sexual do not truly reflect the nature of feelings or the dynamics of the relationships. Even in the same relationship two participants might feel differently. Two people who love each other might have different expectations. One might like to keep it platonic, the other wishing to make it sexual. One might like to get married and the other to live common-law. One might like to have an extra-marital affair while the other reluctant to get involved considering it immoral. One might associate sex with sin and guilt, the other with love and affection. One might be controlled by the cultural morality while the other might easily ignore it and follow his / her heart more than the social norms. Each person who loves gives a unique meaning to the experience.
And then there are people who are able to love more than one at the same time. Such people have poly-philous personality. Such people stir up a lot of intense emotions in themselves and others, and can cause serious emotional and social conflicts. Their lives are complex and complicated. Loving more than one person at the same time is hard for many people to handle as it creates situations that most people do not know how to cope. If those relationships are platonic and affectionate, they are relatively easy to deal with. Even such relationships can generate intense feelings of jealousy. I have met many close friends who are jealous of each other as they want the attention of the same person at the same time. In my opinion those people who have low self-esteem and feel insecure and have not resolved sibling rivalry issues in their childhood have more tendency to feel jealous.
When the loving relationships also become sexual, the conflicts become more intense. Since human sexuality is intimately connected with social morality, such relationships are judged on moral grounds rather than understood on psychological basis. Those men and women who love more than one are perceived as unfaithful and are asked to limit their love to only one person. It is hard for some people to understand that one person cannot fulfill all the emotional, intellectual, social and creative needs of the other person.
Most communities and countries that consider monogamy as normal and healthy have laws to defend monogamous marriages and judge people with poly-philous personality harshly. In these communities those people who love more than one, are always in conflict. Poly-philous people living in monogamous communities are not different than homosexual and bi-sexual men and women living in heterosexual societies. Many of them are judged, penalized and persecuted, even executed.
The more we understand human psychology and sociology, the more we realize that human sexuality is mysterious and love does not follow social norms, legal institutions and religious traditions. Laws of the state and traditions of the religion are made to regulate and control people’s behavior by declaring certain behaviors illegal, immoral and sinful, even unnatural and those people who do not follow those laws and traditions are declared delinquent and sinners. But those people who want to follow their hearts and love many people intensely find those traditions restrictive. For them to follow their love they have to take risks and offer sacrifices. It is also sad that many families, communities and cultures judge women more harshly than men as they have double standards.
With recent advances in science, psychology and technology humanity is passing through a transitional phase and human beings have to make certain choices individually and collectively. We can ask human beings to sacrifice their love on the altar of state laws and religious traditions or we can raise social consciousness and change state laws, social norms and religious traditions so that more and more human beings can enjoy different forms of love without feeling guilty or afraid of punitive social repercussions. In the Western world social acceptance of common-law relationships and legal acceptance of gay and lesbian marriages is a progressive step welcomed by many loving couples.
Those people who have a poly-philous personality believe that if you love more than one, love multiplies, it does not divide. Many such people have a creative and non-traditional lifestyle. When I studied the biographies of creative personalities, whether scientists or artists, poets or philosophers, reformers or revolutionaries, I discovered that many of them had a poly-philous personality. Whether it was Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung, Pablo Picasso or Ernest Hemingway, Mohammad Iqbal or Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Josh Maleehabadi or Mustafa Zaidi, Saadat Hasan Minto or Ahmad Faraz, Sara Shagufta or Ismat Chughtai, Karl Marx or Viladmir Lenin, Anais Nin or Henry Miller, Jean Paul Sartre or Simon de Bouvoir, they all loved more than one person at the same time. Sometimes those relationships were platonic, sometimes sensual and sometimes sexual. Many of them faced a number of emotional, family and social dilemmas to fulfill their dreams. There were times they were judged harshly as they challenged the traditions of monogamous communities, the same way homosexual and bisexual artists and intellectuals challenge the norms of a heterosexual society.
I think time has come for all of us to have a new look at the mysteries of love and try to understand the minority of homo-sexual, bi-sexual and poly-philous people rather than judging them as they experience and express their love differently than the majority of traditional people. Let us celebrate the magic of love as it has different forms and colors like the colors and forms of a rainbow.