Mature love is union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity, one’s individuality. Love is an active power in man, a power which breaks through the walls which separate man from his fellow men which unites him with others; love makes him overcome the sense of isolation and separateness yet it permits him to be himself, to retain his integrity.
Envy, jealousy, ambition, any kind of greed are passions; love is an action, the practice of a human power, which can be practiced only in freedom and never as a result of a compulsion. Love is an activity not a passive affect. In the most general way, the active character of love can be described by stating that love is primarily giving, not receiving.
What is giving? For the productive character giving is the highest expression of potency. In the very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy. I experience myself as overflowing, spending, alive, hence as joyous.
The most important sphere of giving lies in the specifically human realm. What does one person give to another? He gives of himself…he gives him of that which is most alive in him; he gives him of his joy, of his interest, of his understanding. of his knowledge, of his humor, of his sadness. In thus giving of his life he enriches the other person, he enhances the other person’s sense of aliveness by enhancing his own sense of aliveness.
The ability to love as an act of giving depends on the character development of the person. It presupposes the attainment of a predominately productive orientation, in this orientation the person has overcome dependency, narcissistic omnipotence, the wish to exploit others, or to hoard, and has acquired faith in his own human powers.
Care and concern imply another aspect of love; that of responsibility. Responsibility, in the true sense of the word, is an entirely voluntary act; it is my response to the needs, expressed or unexpressed, of another human being. To be “responsible” means to be able and ready to respond. The loving person responds.
Responsibility could easily deteriorate into domination and possessiveness, were it not for a third component of love, respect. Respect is not fear and awe; it denotes the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his unique individuality. Respect means that the other person should grow and unfold as he is. Respect thus implies the absence of exploitation.
To respect a person is not possible without knowing him; care and responsibility would be blind if they were not guided by knowledge. Knowledge would be empty if it were not motivated by concern. There are many layers of knowledge, the knowledge which is an aspect of love is one which does not stay at the periphery, but penetrates to the core. It is possible only when I can transcend the concern for myself and see the other person in his own terms.
The most fundamental kind of love, which underlies all types of love, is brotherly love. By this I mean the sense of responsibility, care, respect, knowledge of any other human being, the wish to further his life. Brotherly love is love for all human beings; it is characterized by its very lack of exclusiveness.
Brotherly love is based on the experience that we all are one. The difference in talents, intelligence, knowledge are negligible in comparison with the identity of the human core common to all men. In order to experience this identity it is necessary to penetrate from the periphery to the core. If I perceive in another person mainly the surface, I perceive mainly the differences, that which separates us. If I penetrate to the core, I perceive our identity, the fact of our brotherhood.
Love of the helpless one, love of the poor and the stranger, are the beginning of brotherly love. To love one’s flesh and blood is no achievement. Only in the love of those who do not serve a purpose, love begins to unfold.
Erotic love is the craving for complete fusion, for union with one person. It is by its very nature exclusive and not universal, it is also perhaps the most deceptive form of love there is.
Sexual desire aims at fusion—and is by no means only a physical appetite, the relief of a painful tension. But sexual desire can be stimulated by the anxiety of aloneness, by the wish to conquer or to be conquered, by vanity, by the wish to hurt and even destroy, as much as it can be stimulated by love.
Love can inspire the wish for sexual union; in this case the physical relationship is lacking in greediness, in a wish to conquer or be conqured, but is blended with tenderness. If the desire for sexual union is not stimulated by love, if erotic love is not also brotherly love, it never leads to union in more than an orgiastic, transitory sense.
Erotic love is exclusive, but it loves in the other person all of mankind, all that is alive. It is exclusive only in the sense that I can fuse myself fully and intensely with one person only.
Erotic love, if it is love, has one premise. That I love from the essence of my being—experience the other person in the essence of his or her being. In essence, all human beings are identical, we are all part of One; we are One.
One neglects to see an important factor in erotic love, that of will. To love someone is not just a strong feeling—it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever.
