RELATED: The Origins of the Myth of Romantic Love<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In a talk on love he gave in Paris, Abdu\u2019l-Baha described this kind of temporary infatuation we often think of as love:<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the love which sometimes exists between friends is not (true) love, because it is subject to transmutation; this is merely fascination. As the breeze blows, the slender trees yield. If the wind is in the East the tree leans to the West, and if the wind turns to the West the tree leans to the East. This kind of love is originated by the accidental conditions of life. This is not love, it is merely acquaintanceship; it is subject to change.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Today you will see two souls apparently in close friendship; tomorrow all this may be changed. Yesterday they were ready to die for one another, today they shun one another\u2019s society! This is not love; it is the yielding of the hearts to the accidents of life. When that which has caused this \u2018love\u2019 to exist passes, the love passes also; this is not in reality love.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n So what, then, is the distinction between the feelings we commonly accept as love and the authentic love alluded to in The Hidden Words of Baha\u2019u\u2019llah<\/a>,<\/em> in which he describes what God feels for us and what He desires that we feel for Him in return? <\/p>\n\n\n\n O Son of Love! Thou art but one step away from the glorious heights above and from the celestial tree of love. Take thou one pace and with the next advance into the immortal realm and enter the pavilion of eternity. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Or, stated in terms of Baha\u2019u\u2019llah\u2019s The Seven Valleys<\/em>,<\/a> if this powerful attraction which follows on the heels of intensive and dedicated search is a valid part of an organic process, what can and should follow this initial stage that we seem so ready to mistake for the entire experience?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Socrates portrays this process in The Symposium <\/em>in terms of the metaphor of a ladder of love. For while the concept of \u201cPlatonic love\u201d has come to connote a non-physical relationship, the process often begins with physical attraction or infatuation and proceeds by degrees through graduated stages\u2014rungs on the symbolic ladder of the refinement or ascent of love. Thus, Platonic love portrays this blinding magnetic attraction not as an invalid part of love; rather he describes this as one of the first stages in a sequence of what can become an ever more refined relationship. His point is that this initial stage should not be accepted as the end stage or as the objective of the love relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This graduated sequence, which became the basis for most mystical treatises in both Christianity and Islam, is similar to the process portrayed by Baha\u2019u\u2019llah in The Seven Valleys<\/em>. Here, too, love as ardent attraction is not disdained, nor perceived as inappropriate. This intense ardor and longing and passion may be the initial stage of authentic love, but only if it leads the lover to other succeeding stages of progress and development. Otherwise, the intensity and blind attraction has no meaning in and of itself and may ultimately become destructive if no progression results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n RELATED: <\/strong>A Modern Affliction: The Neurotic Concept of Love<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, the succeeding stage of this process consists of extricating oneself from this blind infatuation in order to examine the nature or character of that to which we are attracted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since it is not uncommon for us to be attracted to that which is unhealthy for us, even as one who is a condition of poor health may find appealing foods that are unhealthy, this stage or rung or valley requires that we withhold acceding to passion until we determine if what attracts us is worthy of proceeding further in this process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But understanding whether what attracts us is healthy for us or not requires that we understand how we are constructed\u2014that is, what is conducive to our health and what is detrimental. For example, the Baha\u2019i writings affirm that God fashioned us with an inherent love of reality because reality as a whole, as well as all of its constituent parts embody or manifest some divine attribute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stated another way, we know we love stuff, and we can\u2019t seem to get enough of stuff because the first emanation from God to humankind is our desire to find out about stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a talk he gave in Washington, DC in 1912, Abdu\u2019l-Baha explains<\/a> this desire as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Science is the first emanation from God toward man. All created beings embody the potentiality of material perfection, but the power of intellectual investigation and scientific acquisition is a higher virtue specialized to man alone. Other beings and organisms are deprived of this potentiality and attainment. God has created or deposited this love of reality in man. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n
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