“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”[1]

It is oh so true. The whole focus of loving anyone, anything, is to be loved in return. The people who wrote the New Testament of the Bible understood this greatest need of mankind and provided us with the image of Christ, the perfect love, the truly unconditional love, which perhaps does not exist outside of the Christ ideal. Love, just by its nature, demands that it gets something in return. We need to be loved and to feel loved unconditionally, for just ourselves or in spite of ourselves.

As seen in a previous blog, the Greeks had six words for love; I would like to narrow that down to two – eros, which is hormonal and mental, and agape, which is mental and spiritual. Erotica comes from the root work eros, but it is much more than that. It covers all the aspects of romantic or physical love.  I will not attempt to add anything to this most used and misused word in the English language, except to say it is hormonal in nature and connected to the pleasure center of the brain. Agape is the essential part of the love virtues that we have just covered in the last five blogs. They include kindness, compassion, empathy, desire, and passion. Rather than rehash them individually, I would like to demonstrate how they all fit together to provide us with agape love.

First of all, agape love is a feeling that comes from the higher self. It is the love energy, or universal positive energy, or the god energy that flows through us when we are interacting positively with other human beings. It involves a three way resonance of vibration from the higher self, another’s higher self, and the external universal flow. It is the feeling we all seek; it is part of our physical and spiritual genetic makeup. The writers of the Old Testament tried to express this love by the action of god breathing life into Adam. In other words, love is essentially our life energy.

It is this life-love energy that is part of the bonding process, where we give of ourselves to mate, create and nurture our offspring. This child-parent bond is the closest we will ever get to unconditional love; yet, the motive is still based on the desire to be loved. If our children return the love we give, we are content and feel a kind of divine purpose being fulfilled. If our children do not return our love, we suffer the greatest of heartbreaks.

The next closest we get to unconditional love is with our romantic partners; however, if we do not feel love in return, we will eventually wear down spiritually and seek a new partner who is willing to give us the love we desire. And what is this love? Yes it is romantic, and yes it is eros based, but it is much more. It is what I call intimacy or the heart to heart connection that is based on sharing the life journey to self-actualization. In other words we support each other, offering encouragement, and mirroring back to each other where we are on the journey of life, and where we truly need to go.

The agape love stems naturally from these other two loves, but it can also exist in isolation by attaching our higher self to the universal flow of love. We can receive a tremendous boost of energy to share with others in the form of kindness, and compassion.  Yes it is altruistic in nature, but we still want some form of love in return. This can be experienced through appreciation, respect, and connection with other human beings in the form of empathy. When we receive these three gifts in return, it invigorates our desire to give and receive more. This becomes a passion that is based on helping others get on and stay on the path to self-actualization, which in turn moves us onward on our own path. Somewhere on this journey, we drop the need for respect and appreciation from others and do things just because they are the right thing to do according to our higher self. This in turn takes us closer and closer to the universal flow of love.

This is why I spend hours each week trying to understand myself and why I do the things I do. I write this blog because I feel it is the right thing to do. It is the expression of my appreciation of my own road to self-actualization that I feel a need to share to help others on their own journey. I expect nothing in return, but I sure appreciate a kind comment now and then. Even though I have never met you, I can honestly say I love you. Enjoy your love journey.

Five applications to bisexuality:

1. This is not really about bisexuality; it is about being a loving human being. We are all on a life journey. The purpose is to experience universal love in all its forms. Enjoy the journey.
2. Sex is great but do not stop there. Use it to form connections. Go for intimacy.
3. Love yourself. Without self-love there can be no love for anyone else.
4. Love one someone else and if you love to the best of your ability you will receive love in return. Enjoy this person and always seek the best for them and they will seek the best for you.
5. Expand your circle of love to include others but do it for the connection to universal love. This is all we will take from this life into the next.

[1] Hugo, victor.  (http://www.yourtango.com/2013182354/love-quotes-inspirational-famous)