Obligations?

Way back before we were human, whatever that is, we developed social groups because we found it easier to protect ourselves - safety in numbers - and to hunt and gather food. It was also easier to find mates if you were kind to them (sharing food and protection). Much like modern day non-human primates, our packs, or tribes, or whatever you want to call them, consisted of a restricted number of individuals, all somehow related. You could call them families. These families needed every member to fulfill a role - raising the young, finding the food, fending off predators, etc. It wasn't a very complicated life. From this sharing of basic values, we started to develop what eventually became love.

In Greek, their are five words I know that speak of different aspects of love. Mania is the first. It is a love of lustful want, a desire to possess. Eros is the kind of love that can be sexual or emotional passion. Philos is brotherly love (Philadelphia - the city of brotherly love. You think it was an accident that the Tom Hanks movie was set there?). It is the love that we have for our fellow humans. Storgy is the kind of love a parent feels for her offspring. It speaks of dependency and affection. Finally there is Agapeo, which is a total, openness to everything the loved one is. It is acceptance without judgment. It is love because we choose to love and has nothing to do with what the lover is getting in return.

As love developed in our early human stages, we first went through Eros and Mania, being sexual, needful creatures, to storgy, feeling for those we were dependent on and who depended on us. Then we developed  Philos as we started to see others like ourselves. The one remaining, Agapeo, is one which is still seldom practiced and which we still may be on the verge of developing.

I asked myself why this is: Why can't human beings simply love each other for the sake of love? Why can't we take care of one another simply because it is the right thing to do? And I found a startling answer: because we don't have to. In modern day America, family members do not depend on each other for survival. We still have Storgy love with our young, and Eros is alive and well. Mania has become a disease. But even Philos is getting rarer, not to speak of Agapeo. We see Philos when natural disasters strike. We see it on a small scale when neighbors and friends get together. But Agapeo seems to be the love of the Buddha, or of Jesus, or Gandhi. They loved totally because they wanted to - they felt it was the right thing to do.

Our motivations are so often about what we will get in return. Reward or punishment? It is how a child learns to behave. If we could only teach our children to love without any return. If only we could all practice Agapeo we would all be taken care of where we need it the most - our sense of self-worth. But we don't have to. We think that our material needs are more important, and those needs are met by the sweat of our brow. We no longer have packs to protect us or help us get food or mates. We are all individuals, and we are more or less alone. If we're lucky we have a life-partner, but that's as much as most people get. We might feel Agapeo love for them, but our motivations are still often childlike - we want something in return.

So what is our obligation to love? We really have none. We don't have to help anyone or be kind to anyone. It will not help us to survive as individuals. And we are just not that concerned about the survival of our species, being as there are now seven billion of us. And why should we do something that does not help us survive as individuals or as a species? There is the concept of the Right - the Good. We don't know where it originated, but we have a general idea of what it means. We say that growing up is learning the difference between Right and Wrong. But it can be so much more than that. Doing Right makes us feel good. Agapeo makes us feel good. So all actions can be said to be self-motivated. We do what we feel is Right. Even martyrs do what they do because it makes them feel part of the Right. Some do Right for a supposed eternal reward. I say we should all strive to do right because we all need to feel better about ourselves.

I don't see a lot of happy people in the world. They were not taught Agapeo and so they cannot know how good it feels. And you can't practice something that you were never taught. Work on Philos, and you may feel spikes of Agapeo. Practice all the many kinds of love. They all feel good. Do it because it is right, as abstract as that is. Now that we're successful as animals, let's work on being successful as sentient beings. Let's stress the oneness of all life. All of life is perceived by your mind and your experience of life is happening inside you. Don't leave it up to others to love. No one has to. Do it because you want to. Agapeo. It's acceptance of all that is.