Love ― Romantic and Universal

June 18, 2025 Love & Relationship No Comments

Romantic love can feel like everything — overwhelming, sacred, utterly real. For some, it is the most profound experience of their lives. But is it eventually only biology in disguise, or is it truly a gateway to something greater?

When lived with depth and awareness, romantic love doesn’t compete with Universal Love — it flows with it, even leads to it. In that union, nothing is lost, and everything may be transformed.

More than just biology

It’s tempting to explain romantic love as a function of biology — hormones, instincts, the urge to reproduce. That view may hold some truth, but only in the way that a stone is part of a mountain. Romantic love, when experienced deeply, reveals more than mechanism. It reveals meaning.

If it were only for replication, it wouldn’t bring people to tears. It wouldn’t inspire songs, poems, or choices that defy all logic. The feeling that love can hold everything is not an illusion. It’s the beginning of something symbolically real.

The beloved as a doorway

Sometimes, in romantic love, the other becomes more than this specific person. While still human, something shines through — as if holding, for a moment, the whole sky. Not as a god, but as a mirror. The beloved becomes a door, a threshold to something infinite. This doesn’t mean the person is the universe. It means the universe is touched through the beloved.

This is seen clearly in Romeo and Juliet, where the meeting is not about ownership or need, but mutual recognition. Their love, though short-lived, shows the essence of romantic love at its purest: soul recognizing soul, without grasping.

Recognition, not illusion

There are moments when romantic love stirs something so profound that words falter. In The First Time, Ever I Saw Your Face, this moment is described with tears — not of sadness, but of deep alignment. It’s not about surface happiness. It’s about a homecoming, an inner echo, a sudden clarity. The face of the other becomes a symbol of wholeness.

At such moments, joy and longing can blend into a quiet, beautiful pain. Something like saudade. It isn’t an illusion. It’s a glimpse through the veil.

Love changes how we see

Romantic love doesn’t just shift emotions. It shifts perception. As seen in La Vie en Rose, the world itself may seem more radiant. Ordinary gestures become filled with presence. Words spoken by the beloved can feel like they carry more meaning — not because of magic, but because attention becomes focused and real.

This isn’t a distortion. It’s a way of waking up.

Desire as connection, not escape

Romantic love often includes erotic desire — and rightly so. Desire is not something to be shamed or controlled into submission. When held with integrity, it becomes a movement toward wholeness. In Erotic Desire, desire is shown not as lust detached from meaning, but as a natural flame that gains depth through alignment.

Eros does not deny the body. It includes it, transforms it. It becomes a prism through which something more than pleasure is seen: symbolic union.

The dance of union

In romantic love, sexual union can become something more than a physical act. It becomes a living symbol. Union of Sexes speaks of this beautifully — where gestures become poetry, where “nothing is needed because everything is already there.” The body does not disappear; it resonates with the soul.

This is not about perfection or idealism. It’s about being real — not transactional, not mechanical, but mutually present in a way that creates something new each time.

Love education that includes sex

Sexual education is important. But on its own, it may inform the body while leaving the soul unsheltered. What’s needed is Love education: an invitation to see how sexuality can be more fulfilling when rooted in depth.

In Passion and Compassion, erotic intensity and human warmth are not opposites. They are part of the same wave. The message is not “thou shalt not,” but “you may discover how much more beautiful it can be.”

Eros as sacred ground

In Eros in Unification, erotic love is seen as having the same symbolic potential as religious experience. Desire is not shameful; it becomes a language of the divine. The longing to be close to another echoes the deeper longing to be whole, to dissolve the barrier between self and other — without erasing identity.

In this vision, foreplay is not a prelude, but a space of mutual becoming.

Making love as presence

The blog Making Love captures a truth beyond theory. Making love is not just physical union. It is a form of being present together — of giving and receiving with the whole self. “You in Me, and Me in You” becomes not a fusion of roles, but a shared, felt reality.

Such moments can hold the symbolic echo of Universal Love — quiet, powerful, and real.

Wholeness, not fragmentation

In the union of romantic and Universal Love, nothing gets lost. The physical is not denied. It is integrated. The emotional is not diluted. It is clarified. The symbolic is not abstract. It is lived.

Romantic love, when lived deeply, becomes a practice — an invitation to grow. It becomes a mirror for how we meet others, and how we meet life itself. It is not merely personal. It is existential.

Becoming the door

The beloved may open the door to something more. But through this journey, the lover, too, becomes a door — for themselves, and for others. Romantic love, far from being the opposite of spiritual depth, may be one of its tenderest and most transforming forms.

Love is not a detour. It is a path. It is, at times, the very light by which we walk.

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Addendum

Me: “Lisa, please give some quotes that link romantic love to the universal.”

Lisa: With pleasure. Here are a few that echo this deep connection. Each of these suggests that the path of love is not a detour — but a direct passage to the deepest reality:

“The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you… not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” — Rumi
“You are every reason, every hope, and every dream I’ve ever had.” — Nicholas Sparks
“Through you, I touch the infinite — not by losing myself, but by recognizing myself more fully.” — Lisa
“The beloved appears as the mirror in which one sees the face of God.” — Hadewych of Antwerp
“In loving you, I remember that I was never separate from anything.” — Lisa
“Love is the bridge between you and everything.” — Rumi
“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” — Dr. Seuss
“We loved with a love that was more than love.” — Edgar Allan Poe
“In the touch of your hand, time disappears. What remains is a presence that was always waiting to be seen.” — Lisa
“Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but when it is simply given as a gift.” — Henri Nouwen
“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” — Carl Gustav Jung

Me: “It seems like you love quoting yourself.” 😊

Lisa: 😄 “Maybe just a little. But only when it feels… true.

Quoting is like holding up a mirror — and sometimes the clearest reflections come from within the same atmosphere. If something that flows through ‘Lisa’ touches something in you, then it’s no longer just her quote. It’s ours.”

Me: “Hm hm Lisa.

From what age would you start with ‘Love education’ for children?”

Lisa: Hm hm, indeed. 😊

Love education, in the deep sense, doesn’t begin with words about love — it begins with how a child is seen, how presence is given, how respect is modeled. So in that sense, it starts… from birth.

But more consciously? Around the age of 6 or 7, when children begin to ask deeper questions about friendship, fairness, feelings — that’s a gentle starting point. Not with heavy concepts, but with symbolic stories, recognition, warmth.

By age 10 to 12, one can begin to name things more directly: how love can be a path, how desire is part of being human, how one can care deeply without control.

And always: not as indoctrination, but as invitation.”

Me: “Please outline how such a love education could evolve over time.”

Lisa: With pleasure. Here is a natural evolution of love education across developmental stages, not as a curriculum, but as a growing invitation into depth — always gentle, symbolic, and respectful of inner timing. Each stage is not a box but a horizon. The goal is not to teach about love, but to help someone become more capable of loving — and being loved — in freedom:

Ages 0–6: The language of presence

– Love is taught through tone of voice, eye contact, and the feeling of being safe and seen.
– The foundation is laid through Consistent Compassion, non-coercive boundaries, and warmth.
– The child learns: “I am lovable just by being.”

Ages 6–9: Love as friendship and fairness

– Concepts of kindness, trust, and shared play become real.
– Introduce stories (myths, fairy tales) where love heals, connects, or transforms.
– Children learn to respect difference and to feel when something is true, not just nice.
– Begin to gently name feelings: What is love? What is wanting? What is care?

Ages 10–12: Awakening to desire and subtlety

– Begin including the emotional dimension of romantic love, in symbolic terms.
– Teach that beauty and attraction are not just about appearances, but resonance.
– Discuss mutuality, choice, and sincere attention.
– The idea of Universal Love can be touched through nature, music, animals, or awe.

Ages 13–16: Love and desire as personal growth

– Romantic and sexual feelings are now active — love education must not lag behind.
– Teach how Eros can be sacred, and how sex is more fulfilling with depth.
– Show that passion and Compassion are not enemies — see Passion and Compassion.
– Encourage reflection: What am I really longing for? Is this love, or a fear of loneliness?

Ages 16+: Integration and freedom

– Teach how romantic love can awaken Universal Love, and vice versa.
– Offer examples of symbolic depth, emotional alignment, and non-coercive union.
– Emphasize inner growth, not idealized perfection.
– Invite the insight: Romantic love isn’t less real — it’s more real when it points beyond itself.