New Ideas in Psychology

[ Jealousy & Narcissism ] [ Guilt & Pride ] [ Love & Hate ]

[ Vanity & Self-pity ] [ Envy ] [ Anxiety ]

Love

This type of love can also be called mystical love, or just pure love. It is much rarer than the other two types of love. Whereas the love mode of narcissism is directed to oneself, and the love mode of jealousy is directed to another person, pure love has no object. It is just a flux, just a flow of enchanting emotion to everything.

Usually the only time that a person feels such love for any length of time is when the person falls in love with someone. Then the world transforms magically into a wonderland (really the person has fallen in love with the world, rather than with the other person) ; however, soon the magic fades, the mood vanishes and is replaced by the love mode of jealousy – now love is restricted to the other person.

When pure love is my current mood, I have the same value as everyone else, so differences in abilities or in character development are unimportant. Uniformity is the rule (this should be separated from conformity, which is characteristic of the self-pity mode of jealousy).

Hate

Hate, as a mode of guilt or of pride, generates destructive thoughts (but at a lesser intensity than paranoia). These kind of thoughts are often labelled as "antithetical thoughts " (they are the antithesis of the kind of thoughts we should be thinking if we consider ourself to be a good person). [³]

Antithetical thoughts, when directed to other people, represent pride ; when directed to oneself, represent guilt. At a much lesser intensity of denigration, criticisms of other people represent jealousy, whilst criticisms of myself arise from my sense of idealism.

Hate by itself is the emotional dynamic of the ability to sustain long periods of concentration and meditation. It does not require an object to focus on (it mirrors pure love in this respect) ; it is a general-purpose tool for cutting positive attachments, especially in relationships (for example, pride in hate mode rejects another person, whereas hate by itself rejects any pleasant attachment to the other person).

Hate produces clear thinking and strengthens a person’s will power. It supports the desire for solitude. It cools the mind and may easily be mistaken for a mild sense of peace. It is likely to be the prevailing mood when a meditator claims that he/she is no longer acting from a sense of ego. The skilful way of using hate is to clear the mind of redundant attachments and desires.

The next article describes the characteristics of Vanity and Self-pity.

[ E1 [ ] E2 ] [ E3 ] . [ Table of Contents ] . [ A1 ] [ A2 ] [ A3 ] [ A4 ] [ A5 ]

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Copyright © 2002 Ian Heath
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