Copyright(c) Jan M.

Cox, 1982 Document: 4, GSIBM, January 2, 1982

LOVE
You have each wondered how Love applies to the extension of your nervous system,
and you've wondered why I speak of Love so rarely. My silence on the subject is
for your benefit. Everyone "knows" what Love is. Everyone says they've experien
ced it. The idea, the word, is so pervasively familiar that none can comprehend
that it is impossible to speak of Love.
The idea of Love throughout literature and religious dreams reflects a true pote
ntial in man, but the reality of it is possible only above the Line. At the ordi
nary level, what's accepted as Love is just another picture of the tensile force
s between humans, of energy exchange in operation.
At the ordinary level no one is capable of the Love envisioned in humanity's dre
ams and aspirations. And that is not a condemnation of man's condition or an exp
ression of pessimism. Only the understanding available above Line-Level reveals
the nature of real Love. And each of you must find this for yourself.
Until you know what Love is, you can attempt to willfully use ordinary positive
emotions. First, you have to ignore any claims you may have about what true Love
would be. And you must learn that whatever positive feelings you hold for someo
ne, you also feel the apparent opposite.
One of the most immediately observable areas of twin-bladed emotion is the attra
ction between the sexes. It's common to hear someone say, "I can vaguely remembe
r when I first met my wife or husband. We felt great passion. It was surely clos
e to Love, but I lost it. I guess I married the wrong person." Whatever happened
, the day of great passion seems to be gone. This shift has a biological basis.
It has to do with the continuation of the life of everything, the continuation o
f the Life-of-Life itself.
Anyone with the insane desire to activate the higher areas of his nervous system
must attempt to study Love free from the prejudice of opinion. You should disco
ver that the very people you say you love, you also constantly hate. And this is
true for everyone. From this new found objective viewpoint, you'll See this nat
ural conflict for yourself, and understand why at Line- Level people are incapab
le of Love. Within ordinary, binary consciousness, love and hate are simultaneou
s; one does not exist without the other. It's not that man is depraved or doesn'
t try hard enough, but rather that real Love cannot be experienced at that level
of consciousness.
The vague knowledge that love and hate are tied together squeezes through common
knowledge. Religion, for example, claims, "We, the church, do not hate the sinn
ers; we hate their sins." One beauty of the mechanical mind is that such stateme
nts sound just right, so people accept them at face value with no idea what they
really mean. "The gods do not hate thieves and murderers, they just hate what t
hey do." But, what a man does is what he is.
(Remember: things are as they are, not as they say they are, including Life itse
lf.) You cannot separate what a man is from what he does. Only second class gods
operate on the basis of, "I do not hate sinners. I hate their sins." If you cou
ld truly Love your children you could not say, "Well, I don't dislike my childre
n, but I do dislike their behavior." Their behavior is them.
Anything resembling true Love would be based on extraordinary understanding beyo
nd any contemporary knowledge. Specifically, you'd realize that you are not resp
onsible for the behavior of those you love and cherish. You simply play the role
assigned in your relationships and in your perception.
Only with extraordinary understanding can anyone remember that his children, his
spouse -- and indeed, the whole world -- cannot help what they do. But, of cour
se he cannot help what he has been or done either.
If you allow this to remain mere theory, you may as well be back in church, imag
ining you know what Love is. Because if you would aspire to truly Love, you'll h
ave to learn what it is through experience. You can't say, "I know my wife doesn
't mean to drive me crazy. I realize that no one is responsible for his or her o
wn behavior, but if she's late once more..." You can't continue to complain abou
t the behavior of another person. You should have observed that the closer you a
re to someone, the more intensely you feel these complaints. You imagine you can
tolerate a world of fools, but you immediately mutter, "I've been living with t
his person for twenty years, and every day I'm forced to wait because of thought
less tardiness." You can't analyze it, but it's just stickier when you are deali
ng with someone close to you. Every nuance of behavior assumes global significan
ce. "Who cares if the whole population of Albania is full of idiots? Who cares i
f someone threatens to bomb our borders? I am living in the house with a person
who can't even remember to come home on time! I can't tolerate it."
It's easy to join a church and suddenly assume you know what Love is. But the be
auty of trying to activate the higher areas of your nervous system is that it is
Real Growth -- thus its constant difficulty, uncertainty, the constant movement
required in your "struggle." But I ask you: what kind of real growth could it b
e if all it took was a 5-minute dousing? One great benefit of this "struggle" is
that you cannot continue to nourish your greatest, most immediate complaints: t
he energy normally spent there must now nourish a brand new frontier in your ner
vous system.
Look again at your relationships with those closest to you. They seem to have an
unparalleled emotional impact on you. "Yeah, I'm worried about a nuclear war, b
ut I'll tell you what really burns me up. It's that man I live with leaving the
lights on after I tell him how much money it wastes."
Take your psychological hands off that person. Just treat them as if they can do
no wrong. You must disregard any complaints you may have with them. Cherish the
person closest to you as though your very life depends on how you treat them. A
nd by life, I mean any possibility that you can activate your nervous system abo
ve Line-Level consciousness. Treat them as though they are a god, as if they can
do no wrong. Do not put your hands on the other person psychologically. Do not
argue with them. Every time you put your mental hands on them, every time you th
ink a complaint about them, you bleed the very energy required for your own Vert
ical growth.
All ordinary suffering is an illusionary battle, wherein you only assume you kno
w the enemy. And while any ordinary suffering consumes energy for growth, the cl
oser someone is to you, the more your suffering over him or her can become your
quagmire. You are fighting the worst invisible enemy in the world. If you had an
y understanding, you would See that the very qualities you complain about are, i
n fact, the qualities that attracted you to begin with. And, if you want to See
something, you've got to quit grabbing and kicking at it.
In this extraordinary effort, you must unravel what's closest to you, rather tha
n wrestling with theoretical ideas, such as, "I'm going to try to stop worrying
about whether or not Martians will attack." You have to wrestle on the level of,
"I will quit complaining when he or she leaves the lights on." You will come to
understand that the annoying behavior attracted you to that person. If you want
to continue to live only at Line- Level, and you want to continue to suffer, ke
ep complaining.
Keeping your hands off someone is a trick upon a trick. You must cease having co
mplaints with that person. You must cease having complaints with anybody. And yo
u must become aware that you are putting your hands on another person every time
you give attention to the thought, "Why did she do that again!" Do not talk abo
ut the person's behavior or attempt to explain it. No profit lies in the attempt
to psychologically analyze who's at fault. I don't care what complaints you ima
gine you have with someone. Each time you express hostility toward them you migh
t as well be taking a knife and stabbing yourself, bleeding precious energy. You
're driving yourself away from any possibility of extending your consciousness.
There is no justifiable way that anyone involved with This Thing can express neg
ative emotions. Being hostile towards someone is being hostile to your own poten
tial. And you can't do that.
Although this is not the ultimate Aim, to whatever degree you can keep your hand
s off someone, to that same degree you are closer to real Love than any ordinary
human. Just by ceasing to react to someone close to you -- who has the immediat
e, passionate ability to make you react negatively -- you are closer to the real
ity of Love than all of the world's great religious leaders ever imagined.