What Exactly Is Platonic Love?

[Image_of_God]

I was just wondering what it was. I’ve seen it in a lot of things I’ve read.

 

[lemondiesel]

Research Plato’s concept of Symposium, which is an excellent starting point.

I was trying to find an insightful link about this, but most of these say “The affection you feel with the opposite sex, but is not the “love” you are use to” which is a very simplistic idea ha.

 

[nickybr38]

I have always thought of platonic love as the; “I love you as a friend but do not desire you” love…

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

My understanding of it is along these lines:

The love of another (regardless of gender!) should lead us ever more and more towards love of the One. As we move towards love of the One, we begin to abandon physical desire towards those we love, but we do not cease to love them any less deeply. In fact, we grow in our love for them as we grow in our love for the One. It also often refers to the effort or commitment to love in this way, such as, “I recognize that my love for you is complicated by my physical desire for you. I renounce that desire and will not pursue it so that I may love you more and more deeply.” It means a great deal more than refusing a romantic relationship and remaining “just friends.” In fact, I’m not sure that a romantic relationship *per se *is *directly *proscribed by Platonic love, but sexual expressions of that relationship are certainly not to be desired. To my understanding, it is not so much the abandonment of eros, but the purifying of it from all selfish or purely sensual considerations.

Such is my my admittedly flawed understanding.

The suggestion to read the Symposium is the best advice.

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

 

[lemondiesel]

The suggestion to read the Symposium is the best advice.

See, I do somewhat know what I am talking about

I also think TRUE Platonic Love is love for a “God.” You do not think things like, “Oh I want to mate with God or Damn, God is sexy.” Your love for a “God” is beyond sexual, it is the love of understanding, comfort, and guidance.

 

[Deo_Volente]

Grace & Peace!

Your love for a “God” is beyond sexual, it is the love of understanding, comfort, and guidance.

Lemondiesel, I think this could be re-phrased in more Platonic terms as the love for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. I think we can experience eros for these “things,” but only insofar as we desire to participate in them, not insofar as we desire to possess them in the sense that sexual love, erotic love, can often become a degraded form of the desire to possess something–be it a person or a quality–rather than a desire to share in and with that something.

Just out of curiosity, where in the range of hermeticism(s) do you fall?

Under the Mercy,
Mark

All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!

 

[lemondiesel]

Lemondiesel, I think this could be re-phrased in more Platonic terms as the love for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. I think we can experience eros for these “things,” but only insofar as we desire to participate in them, not insofar as we desire to possess them in the sense that sexual love, erotic love, can often become a degraded form of the desire to possess something–be it a person or a quality–rather than a desire to share in and with that something.

Just out of curiosity, where in the range of hermeticism(s) do you fall?

!

Grace and Peace to you too! :hug3:

Love for any type of “God” is Platonic Love. The love of emotions that we as humans feel towards others, which includes sexuality, is an illusion of reality. In the end, no matter your beliefs, you will know these emotions no longer. You will not know the love for your wife on Earth, or your love for friends, because these are types of love that we as humans, with our advanced conscious, create.

I find myself still an Initiate of the Mysteries. It takes years, decades, perhaps even longer to fully understand this life. I am currently in my 6th year of meditation, 3 of which are focused on Egyptian meditation. I differ from other hermeticist that I know, because I believe our universe was created by “something,” and just “played out”, knowing that at least one conscious being would come to existence, yet I believe we can achieve “infinite bliss” with this “God” while we are in existence.