The Seven Levels of Love
Love is love ultimately. It is pure divine energy. The problem is that our relationships often don’t last long enough to experience love in its purest states. There is a debate on whether love at first sight is possible. Some psychologists and skeptics believe that love can only exist in a long-term mature relationship based on trust and respect. Some would even argue that love doesn’t exist. Bitter and jaded, love’s harshest critics claim that only lust exists. Physical urges make the world go round. Love is merely a romantic notion to the practical and the prejudice. We have poetry because it fulfills a need we have to believe in love. Some would say the idea of love is as empty as the idea of God.
I’ve heard it all and I choose to believe in both a divine source and collective unconscious. I even believe in love at first sight. Over the years though, I’ve refined my perceptions. Experience has not destroyed my belief in love; it has merely demanded some revision and amendments to my personal codex. Here is my way of explaining love’s progression.
It is really all about widening and deepening our perceptions. When we meet someone, we recognize the soul. This is how we can love someone instantly. Love then exists in the Atomic Stage. It is a particle, a possibility. When two people actually connect, then love is in its Electrical Stage. When a couple makes love or has sex, then it is in its Volcanic Stage. It is fiery, passionate and powerful. Then slowly it evolves into a fertile Garden Stage. This stage is a place of growth and development. A relationship that lasts more than a few weeks or few months moves into this rich spot. When a couple survives the changes that they go through over the years, then they can consider themselves part of the Earthly Stage. It is time to settle down, get married and have kids during this time. This is mature love. When we open our hearts and learn to be completely vulnerable, we reach the Oceanic Stage. Oceanic love leads then to the Cosmic Stage. The Cosmic Stage is a spiritual love. This is a sense of timelessness and divinity.
All of your needs can be fulfilled and all of the stages can be reached, but it isn’t common or easy to do so. Some relationships will only hit some of the stages. It is a rare relationship indeed that hits all of them. The romantic notion that we have only one chance at love seems to go hand in hand with the idea that we have only one life to lead. We lead many symbolic lives, and perhaps many actual lives. Why not have many actual loves? To say I could not love someone I know briefly is to discount the Atomic and Cosmic Stages of love. There is more to love than just reproduction, just as there is more to emotions than chemical reactions. I ask what good are chemical reactions without the intellect to comprehend them or the physical body to enjoy them? And without our faith how could we ever hope to reach the spiritual level of love? I’m not sure we could reach those levels without the element of faith, nor would I want to live without faith. I wouldn’t like to live in a place without love or limit my definitions of love. If we need spiritual connections and spiritual love, why can’t it already exist for us?
