Posted September 16, 2013

This mandala uses the symbol of love in Western culture, the stylized "heart," but presented in such a way as to suggest the many forms that this takes. Fundamentally, it is the archetype that powers social bonding, which for humanity is pro-social. Thus we idealize it as a value, even romanticize it. Cosmically, though, it's God saying "Yes" or "Do It" to the world, or more, "Let's Do It" because it's not as if God is over there and God's creatures are over here. It's all God doing it at many, many levels, from forming Ozone in the atmosphere to warming the core of the planet by the energy released from the fission of weightier "radioactive" elements.

Of course all types of sex are included, and many forms of sex to use seem aggressive, even murderous. It's all part of the great mystery. For humans, we should remember that we are herd animals, deeply programmed to bond and be social, to belong and enjoy belonging. So many human behaviors and types of "love" spin off from this, and not infrequently collide.
Every form of love---love for parents, tribe, nation, religious or spiritual love for the intuited beyond-self, love for mates, true love that we feel in infancy (bonding), in childhood (best friends forever), in crushes of early adolescence, in the way these overlap with lust in mid-adolescence, in the balancing of the many types of love and loyalty---all are manifestations of the Source trying to do its thing.

Don't think that it's all been worked out. There are infinite variations among the species---and don't even get me started with species on other planets!---and, yes, all is Love, God trying to work out what "Yes" means in as many ways as possible. Humans can hardly know all the ways. We discover new ways through research every day!

There's a kind of love of the Sea, love of Adventure, love of Discovery, love of doing research, love of play as exploration, or art as exploratory play. Doing it, finding out, going there, seeking, the core of motivation for what tastes and feels good, and by extension, the whole enterprise of seeking that good---all are God-like ways of expanding and probing.

There's a love even in dying, surrendering, giving up, getting tired, giving in, a shrinking back into letting be whatever comes. There is love in the cessation of desire, too---which is what Buddha suggested. So many kinds of "love."