Love, Infatuation, and the Difference Between Them

I'm driving in the car and continue to ponder. How does a child learn from their parents? They love them, imitate them, identify themselves with them. To acquire information from someone, we must internally be unified with them. The consumption process is natural and necessary, but it should not exceed permitted boundaries.

Development means that consumption turns into giving. If we know that only God is worthy of worship, then we feel that the main information, love, comes through turning to Him. And another person can only nudge us towards uncovering this process within ourselves.

However, if the soul is too attached to the body, desires, well-being, we are less inclined to develop this process within ourselves and more inclined to borrow it from another. Imagine a man madly in love with a beautiful woman. He is so attached to her that he is terrified of losing her or of her being unfaithful. Ultimately, he will kill her so that she belongs to no one but him. This is a vivid demonstration of how worship leads to hatred and murder.

Let's consider a lighter scenario.

A man loves a woman, is attached to her, but his consumerism is lesser. Still, he torments her with grievances, reproaches, jealousy. From what we worship, we draw energy. Any jealous person is a consumer and a vampire, therefore they cannot build harmonious relationships. But if the woman cheats on him, leaves, or dies, unlike the first man, he will retain at least a bit of love in his soul. The first, being an absolute consumer, must kill her or himself.

Imagine the third, the best scenario.

A man falls in love with a beautiful woman, and he develops a passion. Disagreements start immediately, and she feels an attraction to another. Then the man says, «You helped me awaken a beautiful feeling, and I am grateful to you. This feeling no longer depends on you. And if you betray, cheat, or leave, it will not affect my feeling».

Initially, the man will say this, but then he will feel it, and gradually the desire to give will significantly outweigh the consumerism. Internally, the man will stop depending on female beauty. And then any woman by his side will be happy because he will internally not rob her, but bestow upon her.

S.N. Lazarev, «Diagnostics of Karma», Book 12