[Redbook5:355-357][19880919:1722]{Love
Of and For}[19th September 1988]
19880919.1722
The
distinction between love of another for oneself, and love of another
for the other, is useful. It enables one not to fall into the traps
of those who use declarations of love as invisible grappling-irons to
draw you and bind you to them. As we cannot generally read other
minds, a good way of judging the type of love is by the actions it
motivates. For example, assistance inspired by love of another for
the other’s sake is genuinely disinterested, detached, from the
assistant’s self-interest; but assistance inspired by love of
another for one’s own sake almost invariably results, or is
intended to result, in benefits to oneself. These benefits may be
subtle, even psychological: for example, the satisfaction of a
feeling of obligation or duty.
A
sense of duty often goes with self-centred love, love of or for
oneself. Self-less Love needs no sense of duty, or even of
conscience in the moral sense: it helps the other out of pure Love
for the other, thinking only of the other, which is an example of
con-science, knowing-together, in the spiritual sense.
[continues]
[PostedBlogger22042019]
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