Support for anyone witha mental disorder
Support for anyone withLove bade me welcome; yet my soul
drew back,
guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me
grow slack
from my first entrance in, drew
nearer to me,
sweetly questioning
if I lacked any thing.
"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on Thee."
Love took my hand, and smiling did
reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"
"That is true, Love, but I have
marred them:
let my shame go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who
bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and
taste My meat."
So I did sit and eat.
by George Herbert (1593-1633)
Thus, separateness is the source of intense anxiety. Beyond that, it arouses shame and feelings of guilt. This experience of guilt and shame in separateness is expressed in the biblical story of Adam and Eve. After Adam and Eve have eaten of the "tree of knowledge, of good and evil," after they have disobeyed, after they have become human by emancipated themselves from the original animal harmony with nature, i.e., after their birth as human beings--they saw "that they were naked--and they were ashamed." Should we assume that a myth as old and elementary as this has the prudish morals of the nineteenth-century outlook, and that the important point of the story wants to convey to us is the embarrassment that their genitals were visible? This can hardly be so, and by understanding the story in a Victorian spirit, we miss the main point, which seems to be the following: after man and woman have become aware of themselves and of each other, they are aware of their separateness, and of their difference, inasmuch as they belong to different sexes. But while recognizing their separateness they remain strangers, because they have not yet learned to Love each other ( as is also made very clear by the fact that Adam defends himself by blaming Eve, rather than by trying to defend her ). The awareness of human separation, without reunion by Love -- is the source of shame. It is at the same time the source of guilt and anxiety.
The deepest need of mankind, then, is the need to overcome our separateness, to leave the prison of our aloneness. The absolute failure to achieve this aim means insanity, because the panic of complete isolation can be overcome only by such a radical withdrawal from the world outside that the feelings of separateness disappears--because the world outside, from one is separated, has disappeared.
The answer to the need to overcome our separateness lies in the achievement of interpersonal union, of fusion with another person, in Love.
This desire for interpersonal fusion is the most powerful striving in mankind. It is the most fundamental passion, it is the force which keeps the human race together, the clan, the family, society. The failure to achieve it means insanity or destruction--self-destruction or destruction of others. Without Love, humanity could not exist for a day. Yet, if we call the achievement of interpersonal union "Love," we find ourselves in a serious difficulty. Fusion can be achieved in different ways--and the differences are not less significant than what is common to the various forms of Love. Should they all be called Love? Or should we reserve the word "Love" only for a specific kind of union, one which has been the ideal virtue in all great humanistic religious and philosophical systems of the last four thousand years of Western and Eastern history?
What matters is that we know what kind of union we are talking about when we speak of Love. Do we refer to Love as the mature answer to the problem of existence, or do we speak of those immature forms of Love which may be called symbiotic union?
Symbiotic union has its biological pattern in the relationship between the pregnant mother and the fetus. They are two, and yet one. They live "together" (symbiosis), they need each other. The fetus is a part of the mother, it receives everything it needs from her; mother is its world, as it were; she feeds it, she protects it, but also her own life is enhanced by it. In the psychic symbiotic union, the two bodies are independent, but the same kind of attachment exist psychologically.
The passive form of symbiotic union is that of submission (masochism). They escape from the unbearable feeling of isolation and separateness by making themselves part and parcel of another person who directs them, guides them, protects them; who is their life and oxygen, as it were.
The active form of symbiotic fusion is domination (sadism). Dominate people want to escape from their aloneness and sense of imprisonment by making other people part and parcel of themselves. They inflate and enhance themselves by incorporating others, who will worship them.
In contrast to symbiotic union, mature Love is union under the condition of preserving one's integrity, one's individuality. Love is an active power in mankind; a power which breaks through the walls which separate one from one's fellow men, which unites one with others; Love make one overcome the sense of isolation and separateness, yet it permits one to be one's self, to retain one's integrity. In Love the paradox occurs that two beings become one yet remain two.
Love is an activity, not a passive effect; it is a "standing in," not a "falling for." In the most general way, the active character of Love is primarily giving not receiving.
The most important sphere of giving is not that of material things, but lies in the specifically human realm. What does one person give to another? They give of themselves, of the most precious they have, they give of their life. This does not necessarily that they sacrifice of their life for another--but that they give onto others that which is alive in them; they give of their joy, of their interest, of their understanding, of their knowledge, of their humor, of their sadness--of all expressions and manifestations of that which is alive in themselves. In thus giving of their life, they enrich the other person, they enhance the other's sense of aliveness. They do not give in order to receive; giving is in itself exquisite joy. But in giving they cannot help but bring something to the life in the other person, and this which is brought to life reflects back onto ourselves.
Beyond the element of giving, the active character of Love becomes evident in the fact that it always implies certain basic elements, common to all forms of Love. These are care, responsibility, respect and knowledge.
Love is the active penetration of the other person, in which my desire to know is stilled by union. In the act of fusion I know you, I know myself, I know everybody--and I know nothing.
The Art of Loving -- Erich Fromm
We come out of Love, with Love as our guide it will be to Love that we go.
You know you are in a healthy, intimate relationship when you have created an environment where:
Remember that physical beauty wears thin with age, but the beauty of thy soul remains forever.
In the infinity of life where I am,
all is perfect, whole and complete.
I live in harmony and balance with everyone I know.
Deep at the center of my being, there is an infinite well of Love.
I now allow this Love to flow to the surface.
It fills my heart, my body, my mind, my consciousness, my very
being, and radiates out from me in all directions
and returns to me multiplied.
The more Love I share, the more I have to give.
The supply is endless.
The use of Love makes me feel good,
it is an expression of my inner joy.
I fill the rooms of my home with the vibration of Love so that all who enter, myself included, will feel this Love and be nourished by it.
All is well in my world.
