The Preconditions for Love

I am a Holocaust survivor. As a child, I closed my heart and could not love for fear that whoever I loved would die. I lived loveless for the first seventy years of my life, putting all my energy into my brain. It paid off with significant career achievements, but I was not a happy passenger in life without love. The last few years, I dedicated much attention to discovering how to open one’s heart. (All of this is reported in my memoir, The Accordion Player.) In this blog, I want to share some insights I’ve gained on the subject and ask two questions of readers—perhaps someone can help and suggest an answer.

The primary condition to love is to feel. The reason I could not love was that I was scared to feel. If I allowed myself to feel, I feared I would fall apart. So, to start loving, I needed to start feeling. How?

I believe people feel something about certain things. It’s not that they don’t feel at all—it would be abnormal. In my case, I felt when I encountered unspoiled nature. When I was in Norway, as far north as I could get, standing on top of a mountain and looking at a beautiful fjord untouched by human settlement, my heart almost exploded. I felt elation, something that filled my chest. I also recall an incredible performance of La Bohème at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. I don’t know why, but it was so wonderful that I cried. Some music—not the rap or other genres my children listen to—opens my heart and engulfs me. The same happens when I gaze at stunning artwork or architecture or when I play with my grandchildren.

We all feel something, somehow, sometimes. No one is exempt unless they suffer from some emotional blockage. Even the Nazis who killed people and took babies to gas chambers must have felt love when they played with their own children.

If we understand why in certain cases we do feel love, maybe we can repeat it and spread love which the world needs. The unprecedented rate of change we are experiencing in modern society yields problems and if we take the easy road to solve them with hate rather than love, the world will be advancing to its demise.So, what is the common denominator, what connects feelings that arise from unspoiled nature, music, art, architecture, or playing with a baby?

When we feel, we stop thinking—the mind quiets. Second, there are no interruptions or disturbances. We are totally present and absorbed in what evokes our feelings. There is no sense of time. Another denominator is that there is a sense of safety. There is no threat or fear that opening our hearts might lead to pain. I could not get hurt by observing unspoiled nature or by opening my heart to a smiling baby or by letting myself be absorbed by music. None of these experiences could harm me. I was willing to feel vulnerable.

To feel, we must stop thinking and analyzing, feel safe, allow ourselves to be vulnerable, have no the fear that what we love can hurt us. There should be no disturbances so that we can remain present, free from past or future distractions. Time, in those moments, ceases to exist. Based on these insights, how can we help people feel more and, as a result, love more?

I believe meditation fulfills all these conditions. When we meditate, we stop thinking and let thoughts drift by like clouds. We eliminate disturbances, such as phones, and find ourselves in secure, quiet spaces. Meditation cannot harm us when we allow ourselves to feel during the practice. During meditation, there are no barriers of space or time. We can love someone from a distance, feeling totally integrated with the absolute. I am sure receivers will feel it. Since loving feelings are contagious, the receiver may share this love with others, and love will spread.

Is there another way to nurture, encourage, and develop love?

I believe the precondition to feeling is awareness. The modern world keeps us so busy with endless tasks and reactions that we rarely have time to notice what’s happening around us. No wonder love is a very appreciated feeling in modern society 

To love, awareness alone is not enough. We need to be conscious, meaning we must understand the implications of what we are aware of. For example, we may notice a homeless person on the sidewalk. But are we conscious of the fact that they are hungry and suffering? Perhaps they are a drug addict in agony due to withdrawal.

The next step is empathy—a feeling for the person whose condition we are aware of and conscious about. I believe empathy is the beginning of feeling. The next step, if we act on our feeling and do something for those we feel empathy for, the feeling is now one of love.  

There is a difference between loving and being in love. I believe we can love millions of people, or even the universe, meaning we “feel for them” care for them, have a sense of empathy but we are “in love” with one person at a time —our lover. What makes this difference? Second question is how to move from consciousness to empathy. Anyone?