Love consciousness

The affective aspect of love brings its object into the field of consciousness in a special way. What is loved is perceived as worthy of love and value may sometimes be imputed to it with insufficient basis. What is loved also may become the focus of attention, and consciousness may be intensified until it has no other focus, as in passionate, erotic love, or as in mystical love which leads to divine union. This latter is variously referred to as charity or naked intent directed to God for God. Ultimately, love is said to be the knowledge God has of himself, which is one with himself.

Intense love of another or of an ideal can cause a state of close attention or scrutiny of the object and raise consciousness of it. Love of country may raise the consciousness of societal needs. Love of a single animal may make one more conscious of all animal life. Love of the condition of loving, or love of love, can cause one to investigate deeper conditions of love until it becomes a way of knowing reality.

Many kinds of love have been categorized, some of great depth some more limited, but none of the categories should be regarded as pure, in reality love is a combination of these categories, and one category can evolve into another (vanity-love into passionate love, romantic love to affectionate love, for example).

Love is an energy that can motivate many human endeavours. Conscious love is a state of awareness which can give purposiveness to actions, making a bridge between reason, which identifies the object of love, and will, which causes love to be expressed as action towards its object or objective. Love, therefore, is evoked in personal relations, in patriotism, in occupation or vocation, in artistic expression, in religious behaviour and attitudes, and in the contexts of human development and planetary consciousness, since its function is to promote wholeness.