Spiritual Love

(6-minute read) – The concept of spiritual love is alien to the youth of our first world. They’re bombarded instead with sex and addictive pseudo love. And they mistake this norm of our age for spiritual love.

The status quo

Surveys are finding that online sexual harassment is becoming a normal part of everyday interactions. Many girls report they’ve received requests for naked pictures of themselves. The requests are commonly from boys as young as fourteen and fifteen years old.

Pseudo love also comes in the more subtle guise of inappropriate, excessive compliments about the way a girl or boy looks. This is typically uninvited bombardment with sexually loaded compliments that may make the recipient feel uncomfortable or unsure about how to respond.

Some people may consider over-done compliments to be the skill of charming. Some parents are proud to bestow this skill upon their sons and daughters. But it can be inappropriate from relative strangers.

If this forwardness comes from a fellow youngster, maybe from school, surely there’s nothing wrong with it?

The danger is that we’re focusing on appearances. And we’re implying the far more important deeper stuff is irrelevant. So, adolescents, who may not even know or admit that they’re interested in love, are sucked into pseudo love.

Forward, unrelenting ‘charm’ is a dangerous problem. It’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The charmer becomes accustomed to a superficial, physical, sexual modus operandi. The charmed are duped into believing this is loving behaviour and that frivolity, at best, or crudeness, at worst, is required in response.

Love is reduced to a shard of what it really is.

What to tell the youngsters

I’d like to consider what we should be teaching any youngster, boy or girl, in order for his or her yearning heart to avoid the trappings of pseudo love and rest instead in spiritual love.

First of all, they should be told that the start of any new relationship is never real love in its entirety. It may, if they’re lucky, have some of the exciting aspects of real love – some of the red, orange and yellow aspects of real love.

But too often young people, and sometimes adults too, think the exciting feelings at the early stages are the deepest love they could ever hope for. They attach to this ‘puppy love’ and will do anything not to lose it once they have it. What started out as free excitement may become strangling neurosis.

In fact, we all want exciting, sexually-charged love from before we’ve even experienced it. We are programmed by evolution to seek this love. It is an essential drive to our success in evolution for it ensures reproduction.

But there are aspects to real love that are only discovered with time in a relationship, through ups and downs and shared experiences. These aspects are not necessary for reproduction. But they do elevate human sexuality to a spiritual level. These are the blueish aspects of love.

These slow percolating aspects do not usurp the exciting aspects but rather complete them and lift them up in the light of the full beauty of our humanity.

Spiritual love

Real love is so much more than a romanticised, physical experience. Real love is spiritual love. It plays its music to your soul not just to your ears. Yes, it is the fiery energy and joy of youthful love. But it is more. Its eternal, life-giving vibrations are in the commitment and self-sacrifice of time… and beyond.

There is an inevitable and enduring quality to spiritual love. It even transcends human relationships in which it finds magnificent expression.

Our teenagers would relax more if they knew this. The bombardment with sex and superficial pseudo love would not phase them. They would pick and choose appropriate and healthy interactions. And they would not feel uncomfortable or pressurised.

But still it is not easy because the various forms of pseudo love are a pervasive influence.

Adolescence is a time of rapid growth accompanied by tumultuous change and often feelings of insecurity and confusion. A young mind full of the influences and confusions of adolescence might not be able to discern pseudo love from spiritual love.

Six simple guidelines

Here are six simple guidelines for discerning between the two:

Spiritual love is not demanding.

We should teach our youngsters that any time someone wants something from them, or offers to give them something that they believe they want, they should be cautious. Love is not wanting. It is relaxed and comfortable in the present moment. No expectations. No demands.

Spiritual love is not rushed.

There is always time with real love. The minute there is any pressure to do something quickly or now, they should run a mile. A person with spiritual love in their hearts is in no rush. There is a sense of the long term with real love. So there is no rush – ever.

Spiritual love is not constraining.

It doesn’t cut off lovers from the rest of the world. It is part of everything else and open to others, flowing and giving and receiving from the world. So, we should tell our youngsters that no one should limit them. No one should put neurotic constraints on their love.

Spiritual love calls for fidelity. But it is not closed attachment to one another at the expense of standing independently in relation to the rest of the world as well. There must be joy in the relationship, but there must be joy around it and outside of it too.

So when there’s jealousy or neurotic attachment, run another mile.

Spiritual love is never degrading.

We must tell our children of their value and dignity so they know when they are being treated disrespectfully. They must know their inner beauty and be sensitive to crass pseudo love. They must spend time away from the world, alone, learning to know their inner selves. And then they will know degradation and walk away from it.

Spiritual love is never aggressive.

Uninvited pornography and unwanted sexual forwardness are aggressive. Tell your kids these things come from people who assume something of them and expect them to fall into line. They should be insulted and walk away. If they must, they can explore these things on their own terms.

Spiritual love is not boastful.

Brazen charmers, slick givers of clever compliments and experts at making you feel good should be handled with caution. They are usually boastful or immodest people. They’re fun, for sure. But, most likely, they’re not where you’ll find real love. Seek spiritual love rather in gentle and modest souls.