Comments on: Haiku Haikus Vol. III aka j.u.i.c.y.

By: Jordan

Jordan — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:23:16 +0000

It’s not the the only fear is of losing love, it’s the fear is the retraction of love whether by ’self’ or in response to an ‘external perception.’ There are two ways energy moves; we are energetic receptors, in, and out, everything else is what we do with it. fear is an action or perception that comes with the attachment to energy retracting. That’s why anything associated with it doesn’t feel good.

I would love to have another hike and talk some more anytime you want. See you Saturday.

Jordan M

By: Sannie McInnis

Sannie McInnis — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:02:54 +0000

You are fated to write at least one book, Sjanie. In public school they said you would be an author.
Love,
Mom

By: einajs

einajs — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:24:23 +0000

oh, thanks Syl…not like I was working on teaching better classes, or anything like that actually a book has been in the back of my mind for a loooooong time. I simply have commitment issues. One wouldn’t want to commit to the wrong book when the right book was out there somewhere.

By: Sylvia

Sylvia — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:24:17 +0000

forget teaching classes – write books instead. noms.

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:20:52 +0000

“There is no more sincere form of love than the love of food.”

George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

By: einajs

einajs — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:52:59 +0000

I’m glad you mentioned that, Eric: the wariness of general or universal explanations. I had the same thing [And I guess I still do on some levels; like you, I don't want to get shanghaied by some Life Miracle Cure]. Interestingly, IMO you mentioned the reason why such explanations are satisfying…”moving from the particular and going to the general” is a two-way street in Tantra, and if one can find an explanation that is resonant, moving from the general to the particular endows the practitioner with considerable responsibility and autonomy. I.e. I am no longer a slave to my sabre-toothed tiger impulses if all we need is love, I just have to hold to the remembrance of this universal flow and my choices will reflect this truth…almost create it, if you like self-fulfilling prophecies.

Oh, and the love of pizza is one of the great forms of love I realized when I wrote “fear of losing love” that it sounds like it applies to romantic relationships only, and that’s very unclear. I meant love of any kind, ESPECIALLY pizza! I suspect that it may actually be one of the major emotional poles of the universe, in spite of yogic scriptural silence on the issue.

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 06:39:48 +0000

Sure, but by the same logic, if you lose your life you also lose the only medium we currently understand for receiving/giving/appreciating pizza, but it doesn’t follow that pizza is the major emotional pole of the universe. It’s too abstract and tenuous a connection (and I say that as a big fan of both love and pizza).

I’m not sure what I’m trying to say exactly, except that I tend to be wary of universal explanations. I think all truth has to be at some level experiential, or it’s susceptible to warping, no matter how benign it sounds. If what you said resonates for you, I have no issue with it. But for me, it’s perhaps at one level of abstraction too high.

That’s what I love about yoga, by the way. It starts from the particular, and moves to the general, which I think is much safer and saner and healthier than trying to go about things the other way around. But it’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.

By: einajs

einajs — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:49:05 +0000

Well, if you lose your life, you have lost the only medium we currently understand for receiving/giving/appreciating love…apart from that, we don’t have any particular reason to fear death as we have no way of knowing what will happen thereafter [reports are mixed]. It is the love of experience and the love of other humans that generate grief and the fear of mortality, no? It just seems to me that we have lots of ways of taking each emotion and saying, no, this is the one that is important to our evolution [anger/lust/fear &c.] and overlooking WHY they are important, that is, what do they have in common? When you are angry, why do you get angry? When you’re afraid, what are you afraid of?

By: Eric

Eric — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:35:12 +0000

A brilliant and thought-provoking post, but I’ll quibble with one point: I don’t think fear is “just” the fear of losing love. I think fear is a more basic and elemental thing than that. What it seems to be designed to do is preserve us by causing us to avert from danger, or what is perceived to be danger. I mean, if something is bearing down on you really really fast, like, say, a sabre-toothed tiger or a Hummer G2, you don’t have time to reason it out and say “hmm, logic dictates that I should perhaps get out of the way”. By that time you’re either flat, or food. The fear reflex impels motion (in the opposite direction), which equates, hopefully, to survival.

The problem is that, big-brained creatures that we are, we don’t just have fear as a survival response: it becomes, like everything else, something we think about, analyze, obsess over. It turns from a response that might be helpful (in the right circumstances) to a mode that holds us back. So yes, in a very abstract sense, fear and love are opposites, because love is about embracing something and appreciating it, in whatever way is appropriate. But fear, at its root, is way more primal and instinctual than “fear of losing love”. Maybe if you said all fear is really in a way the fear of death (which is not necessarily an irrational fear, depending on the extent to which staying alive is your goal) that might be a bit closer to the mark.

On the science thing, it strikes me that there is no conflict as long as one understands that there is a difference between scientific language and mode of thought, and metaphoric language and mode of thought, and that both are or can be valid in their own sphere.

By: josie

josie — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:08:50 +0000

Bellissima.. from dogma-cow to all you need is love… can’t wait to chat about all this with you myself!

Josie

P.S. Just picked up a copy of Ram Dass’ book after Leanne’s awesome review! Onwards and upwards!