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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF�OVE IN �ORLD�ELIGIONS


ENCYCLOPEDIA OF�OVE IN �ORLD�ELIGIONS�

E D I TO R

Yudit Kornberg Greenberg

Volume 1: A–I

Santa Barbara, CaliforniaDenver, ColoradoOxford, England


Copyright 2008 by ABC-CLIO, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in aretrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations ina review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataEncyclopedia of love in world religions / Yudit K. Greenberg, Editor.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-1-85109-980-1 (hard : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-85109-981-8 (ebook)

1. Love—Religious aspects—Encyclopedias. I. Greenberg, Yudit Kornberg.

BL626.4.E53 2008205′.677—dc22

2007019000

11 10 09 08 07 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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�ontents

List of Entries, viiList of Contributors, xiii

Foreword, xxiiiPreface, xxvii

Acknowledgments, xxxi

VOLUME 1Reflections on Love by Contemporary Spiritual Leaders, 1

The Supreme Emotion, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 1Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI, 3

Sufi Love, Javad Nurbakhsh, 7Love and Compassion, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, 11

Love in Jainism, Acharya Mahaprajna, 14A History of Love, The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, 16

Love: Perspectives from Sociology, Philosophy, and Religious Studies, 21The Art of Compassion, Karen Armstrong, 21

Love and Autonomy, Irving Singer, 23Mythic versus Prosaic Love: Sociological Perspectives on the

American Marriage and Culture of Love, Ann Swidler, 26

Entries A–I, 29

VOLUME 2Entries J–Y, 335

General Index, I-1Selected Topical Index, I-17

About the Editor, I-29

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�ist of �ntries

VOLUME 1Adultery in BuddhismAdultery in ChristianityAdultery in HinduismAdultery in IslamAdultery in JudaismAfrican American ReligionAfrican ReligionsAhavahAkiva ben YosefAltruistic LoveAncestorsAndrogynous MythsArt in Judaism, Christianity, and IslamAsceticismAwe

Beauty in BuddhismBeauty in ChristianityBeauty in HinduismBeauty in IslamBeauty in JudaismBeloved CommunityBetrayalBhagavad GitaBhaktiBirth in HinduismBisexualityBliss

BodhisattvaBody in BuddhismBody in ChristianityBody in HinduismBody in IslamBody in JudaismBuddha

Catholic MysticismCelibacyCharity in BuddhismCharity in ChristianityCharity in HinduismCharity in IslamCharity in JudaismChosennessChurch FathersCommandments to LoveCommunity in BuddhismCommunity in ChristianityCommunity in HinduismCommunity in IslamCommunity in JudaismCompassion and Mystical ExperienceCompassion in BuddhismCompassion in ChristianityCompassion in HinduismCompassion in IslamCompassion in Judaism

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ConfucianismConfuciusCovenant

DaoismDead Sea ScrollsDeath in BuddhismDeath in ChristianityDeath in HinduismDeath in IslamDeath in JudaismDesireDevotionDialoghi d’AmoreDisenchantmentDivine ComedyDivine Love in BuddhismDivine Love in ChristianityDivine Love in HinduismDivine Love in IslamDivine Love in JudaismDivorce in BuddhismDivorce in ChristianityDivorce in HinduismDivorce in IslamDivorce in Judaism

EcstasyEmotion in SikhismEmotionsEnvyEros

FantasiesFatherhood in BuddhismFatherhood in ChristianityFatherhood in HinduismFatherhood in IslamFatherhood in JudaismFear and Love in JudaismFeminist Thought in BuddhismFeminist Thought in ChristianityFeminist Thought in HinduismFeminist Thought in IslamFeminist Thought in Judaism

Festivals of Love in BuddhismFestivals of Love in ChristianityFestivals of Love in HinduismFestivals of Love in IslamFestivals of Love in JudaismFilial Love in BuddhismFilial Love in ChristianityFilial Love in ConfucianismFilial Love in HinduismFilial Love in IslamFilial Love in JudaismFood in BuddhismFood in ChristianityFood in HinduismFood in IslamFood in JudaismForgiveness in BuddhismForgiveness in ChristianityForgiveness in HinduismForgiveness in IslamForgiveness in JudaismFragrance in the Song of SongsFreudianism and MarxismFriendship

Gita GovindaGod as FatherGod as MotherGoddesses in BuddhismGoddesses in HinduismGods and Goddesses in Greek and Roman

ReligionsGods in BuddhismGods in HinduismGrace in BuddhismGrace in ChristianityGrace in HinduismGrace in IslamGrace in JudaismGuiltGuru

HappinessHarmonyHasidism

viii | List of Entries


HatredHealingHebrew BibleHedonismHierodouleiaHindu MysticismHomosexuality in BuddhismHomosexuality in ChristianityHomosexuality in HinduismHomosexuality in IslamHomosexuality in JudaismHonor and Love in ChristianityHospitality

Incest in BuddhismIncest in ChristianityIncest in HinduismIncest in IslamIncest in JudaismIntellectual Love of GodInterfaith DialogueIntermarriage in Judaism‘Ishq

VOLUME 2JainismJealousyJesusJoy

KabbalahKamasutraKissing in JudaismKrishnaKundalini

Lesbianism in BuddhismLesbianism in ChristianityLesbianism in HinduismLesbianism in IslamLesbianism in JudaismLilithLiturgy in BuddhismLiturgy in ChristianityLiturgy in HinduismLiturgy in Islam

Liturgy in JudaismLonging in HinduismLonging in SufismLove of Neighbor in BuddhismLove of Neighbor in ChristianityLove of Neighbor in HinduismLove of Neighbor in IslamLove of Neighbor in JudaismLover and Beloved in SufismLust

Magic and Love in BuddhismMarriage in BuddhismMarriage in ChristianityMarriage in HinduismMarriage in IslamMarriage in JudaismMaryMedieval Christian PhilosophyMedieval Islamic PhilosophyMedieval Jewish PhilosophyMessengers of LoveMettāModesty in BuddhismModesty in ChristianityModesty in HinduismModesty in IslamModesty in JudaismMother Earth: Native American ReligionsMotherhood in BuddhismMotherhood in ChristianityMotherhood in HinduismMotherhood in IslamMotherhood in JudaismMuhammadMyth

NarcissismNature in BuddhismNature in ChristianityNature in HinduismNature in IslamNature in JudaismNeo-PaganismNew ReligionsNew Testament

List of Entries | ix


PainPain and Love in ChristianityParadise in IslamPassionsPersian Love LyricPhilosophical Allegory in the Song

of SongsPlatonic LovePleasurePoetry in BuddhismPoetry in ChristianityPoetry in HinduismPoetry in IslamPoetry in JudaismPornographyPremaProcess PhilosophyProcreationProtestant MysticismPuritanismPurity

Qur’an

Rabbinic JudaismRasaReasonless LoveRenaissance LiteratureRomantic Love in BuddhismRomantic Love in ChristianityRomantic Love in HinduismRomantic Love in IslamRomantic Love in Judaism

SabbathSabbatianismSacrifice in BuddhismSacrifice in ChristianitySacrifice in HinduismSacrifice in IslamSacrifice in JudaismSaints in BuddhismSaints in ChristianitySaints in HinduismSaints in Islam

Saints in JudaismSawanihSecular HumanismSeductionSelf LoveSeparationSex in MarriageSexual Pleasure in BuddhismSexual Pleasure in ChristianitySexual Pleasure in HinduismSexual Pleasure in IslamSexual Pleasure in JudaismSexual RevolutionSexual SymbolismShaktiShaykhShekhinahShivaSibling RivalrySikhismSocial JusticeSong of SongsSoul in BuddhismSoul in ChristianitySoul in HinduismSoul in IslamSoul in JudaismSoul MatesSpinsterhoodSpiritual Discipline in BuddhismSpiritual Discipline in ChristianitySpiritual Discipline in HinduismSpiritual Discipline in IslamSpiritual Discipline in JudaismSpiritual Love in Women MysticsSt. JohnSt. PaulSuffering in BuddhismSuffering in ChristianitySuffering in HinduismSuffering in IslamSuffering in JudaismSufi PoetrySufismSymposium

x | List of Entries


TantraTeachers in BuddhismTeachers in ChristianityTeachers in HinduismTeachers in IslamTeachers in JudaismTemptation

Unconditional Love

Wedding RitualsWine in SufismWisdom of Love

Yin and YangYoga

List of Entries | xi


�ist of �ontributors

Binyamin AbrahamovBar Ilan UniversityRamat Gan, Israel

Mustafa Abu-SwayAl-Quds UniversityJerusalem, Israel

Kecia AliBoston UniversityBoston, Massachusetts

Peg AloiEmerson CollegeBoston, Massachuetts

Erez AloniHebrew UniversityJerusalem, Israel

Rebecca AlpertTemple UniversityPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania

Brian AndersonUniversity of PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania

Carol S. AndersonKalamazoo CollegeKalamazoo, Michigan

James B. AppleUniversity of AlbertaEdmonton, Alberta, Canada

Benjamin BalintVan Leer InstituteJerusalem, Israel

Linda-Susan BeardBryn Mawr CollegeBryn Mawr, Pennsylvania

Robert M. BerchmanDowling CollegeOakdale, New York

Zsuzsa BerendUniversity of California, Los AngelesLos Angeles, California

Afshan BokhariSuffolk UniversityBoston, Massachusetts

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Kathleen P. BorresSaint Vincent SeminaryLatrobe, Pennsylvania

Cenap CakmakRutgers UniversityNewark, New Jersey

Abdin ChandeAdelphi UniversityGarden City, New York

Nilma ChitgopekarDelhi UniversityNew Delhi, India

Carol P. Christ Ariadne Institute and California Institute of

Integral StudiesSan Francisco, California

Pamela D. H. CochranUniversity of VirginiaCharlottesville, Virginia

Richard A. CohenUniversity of North CarolinaCharlotte, North Carolina

Richard S. CohenUniversity of California, San DiegoSan Diego, California

Raymond F. CollinsThe Catholic University of AmericaWashington, D.C.

J. Thomas CookRollins CollegeWinter Park, Florida

James P. CousinsUniversity of KentuckyLexington, Kentucky

Paul G. CrowleySanta Clara UniversitySanta Clara, California

Mario D’AmatoRollins CollegeWinter Park, Florida

Nythamar de OliveiraPontifical Catholic UniversityPorto Alegre, Brazil

James A. DiamondUniversity of WaterlooOntario, Canada

Andrea DickensUnited Theological SeminaryDayton, Ohio

Wendy DonigerUniversity of ChicagoChicago, Illinois

Jean DowneyIndependent ScholarWinter Park, Florida

Brian Michael DoyleMarymount UniversityArlington, Virginia

Joel DumanIndependent ScholarJerusalem, Israel

Aron DunlapTemple UniversityPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania

William EdelglassColby CollegeWaterville, Maine

xiv | List of Contributors


Esty EisenmannHebrew UniversityJerusalem, Israel

Yanis EshotsUniversity of LatviaRiga, Latvia

Alexander EtkindCambridge UniversityCambridge, England

Fabrizio M. FerrariUniversity of LondonLondon, England

Stephen C. FinleyRice UniversityHouston, Texas

Paul Joseph FitzgeraldSanta Clara UniversitySanta Clara, California

Nancy FrazierIndependent ScholarLeverett, Massachuetts

Dana Freibach-HeifetzTel Aviv UniversityTel Aviv, Israel

Barry FreundelBaltimore Hebrew UniversityBaltimore, Maryland

Tee S. Gatewood IIIIndependent ScholarBaton Rouge, Louisiana

Rela Mintz GeffenBaltimore Hebrew UniversityBaltimore, Maryland

James GilesThe University of GuamMangilao, Guam

Pinchas GillerUniversity of JudaismLos Angeles, California

Elliot GinsburgUniversity of MichiganAnn Arbor, Michigan

Ilana GleicherTel Aviv UniversityTel Aviv, Israel

Ariel GlucklichGeorgetown UniversityWashington, D.C.

Daniel GoldCornell UniversityIthaca, New York

Jonathan C. GoldUniversity of VermontBurlington, Vermont

James Allen GradyVanderbilt UniversityNashville, Tennessee

David B. GraySanta Clara UniversitySanta Clara, California

Arthur GreenHebrew CollegeNewton Centre, Massachusetts

Yudit Kornberg GreenbergRollins CollegeWinter Park, Florida

List of Contributors | xv


Joshua GroveState University of New YorkAlbany, New York

David J. HalperinUniversity of North CarolinaChapel Hill, North Carolina

Daniel Joseph HarringtonWeston Jesuit School of TheologyCambridge, Massachusetts

Warren Zev HarveyHebrew UniversityJerusalem, Israel

John Stratton HawleyColumbia UniversityNew York, New York

Patrick J. HayesFordham University, Marymount CollegeTarrytown, New York

Joel HeckerReconstructionist Rabbinical CollegeWyncote, Pennsylvania

Maria HeimAmherst CollegeAmherst, Massachusetts

Shai HeldHarvard UniversityCambridge, Massachusetts

Melila Hellner-EshedHebrew UniversityJerusalem, Israel

Phyllis K. HermanCalifornia State UniversityNorthridge, California

Dave D. HochsteinWright State University—Lake CampusCelina, Ohio

Barbara A. HoldregeUniversity of California, Santa BarbaraSanta Barbara, California

Margaret HolubIndependent ScholarMendocino, California

Thomas Emil HomerinUniversity of RochesterRochester, New York

Steven P. HopkinsSwarthmore CollegeSwarthmore, Pennsylvania

Moshe IdelHebrew UniversityJerusalem, Israel

Eva IllouzHebrew UniversityJerusalem, Israel

Charles David IsbellLouisiana State UniversityBaton Rouge, Louisiana

Roger JacksonCarleton CollegeNorthfield, Minnesota

Stephen JenkinsHumboldt State UniversityArcata, California

Nathan JenningsEpiscopal Theological Seminary of the

SouthwestAustin, Texas

xvi | List of Contributors


Nevad KahteranUniversity of SarajevoBosnia and Herzegovina

Harold KasimowGrinnell CollegeGrinnell, Iowa

Claire KatzTexas A&M UniversityCollege Station, Texas

Stephen A. KentUniversity of AlbertaEdmonton, Alberta, Canada

Janet M. KlippensteinUniversity of AlbertaEdmonton, Alberta, Canada

Keith N. KnappThe CitadelCharleston, South Carolina

Richard David KnappIndependent ScholarOrlando, Florida

Mirka KnasterIndependent ScholarOakland, California

Gail LabovitzUniversity of JudaismLos Angeles, California

Francis LandyUniversity of AlbertaEdmonton, Alberta, Canada

Berel LangWesleyan UniversityMiddletown, Connecticut

Beverly LanzettaUniversity of ArizonaTucson, Arizona

Don LattinIndependent ScholarSan Francisco, California

Oliver LeamanUniversity of KentuckyLexington, Kentucky

Yuen Ting LeeHong Kong Shue Yan CollegeHong Kong, China

Laura LevittTemple UniversityPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania

Ze’ev LevyHaifa UniversityHaifa, Israel

Leonard LewisohnUniversity of ExeterExeter, England

Steve MandelkerIndependent ScholarJerusalem, Israel

Wisam MansourFatih UniversityIstanbul, Turkey

Frederique Apffel MarglinSmith CollegeNorthampton, Massachusetts

Nancy M. MartinChapman UniversityOrange, California

List of Contributors | xvii


Andrew McCarthySaint Leo UniversityVirginia Beach, Virginia

Michael McCarthySanta Clara UniversitySanta Clara, California

Kathryn McClymondGeorgia State UniversityAtlanta, Georgia

June McDanielCollege of CharlestonCharleston, South Carolina

Keren R. McGinityBrown UniversityProvidence, Rhode Island

Christopher McMahonUniversity of MaryBismarck, North Dakota

John MerkleCollege of St. BenedictSt. Joseph, Minnesota

Carrie A. MilesGeorge Mason UniversityFairfax, Virginia

Jo MilgromIndependent ScholarJerusalem, Israel

Patit Paban MishraSambalpur UniversityBurla, India

Khaleel MohammedSan Diego State UniversitySan Diego, California

Aisha MusaFlorida International UniversityMiami, Florida

Jacob NeusnerBard CollegeAnnandale-on-Hudson, New York

Andrew NewbergUniversity of PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania

Barbara NewmanNorthwestern UniversityEvanston, Illinois

Alex NiceWillamette UniversitySalem, Oregon

Elizabeth Oakley-BrownLancaster UniversityBailrigg, Lancaster, England

Carol OchsHebrew Union CollegeNew York, New York

Patrick S. O’DonnellSanta Barbara City CollegeSanta Barbara, California

Carl OlsonAllegheny CollegeMeadville, Pennsylvania

Thomas Jay OordNorthwest Nazarene UniversityNampa, Idaho

Natan OphirYeshiva UniversityJerusalem, Israel

Sudarsan PadmanabhanKenyon CollegeGambier, Ohio

Kim PaffenrothIona CollegeNew Rochelle, New York

xviii | List of Contributors


Deven M. PatelUniversity of PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania

Karen P. PechilisDrew UniversityMadison, New Jersey

Todd LeRoy PerreiraSan Jose State UniversitySan Jose, California

Sarah PessinUniversity of DenverDenver, Colorado

Tracy PintchmanLoyola UniversityChicago, Illinois

Annabella PitkinColumbia UniversityNew York, New York

Bryan PolkPenn State AbingtonAbington, Pennsylvania

Alisha PomazonMcMaster UniversityHamilton, Ontario, Canada

Stephen G. PostCase Western Reserve UniversityCleveland, Ohio

Kokila RaviAtlanta Metropolitan CollegeAtlanta, Georgia

Heidi M. RavvenHamilton CollegeClinton, New York

Charles J. Reid, Jr.University of St. ThomasMinneapolis, Minnesota

James Thomas RigneyCambridge UniversityCambridge, England

Naftali RothenbergVan Leer InstituteJerusalem, Israel

Leyla RouhiWilliams CollegeWilliamstown, Massachusetts

Scott RubarthRollins CollegeWinter Park, Florida

Julie Hanlon RubioSt. Louis UniversitySt. Louis, Missouri

Joseph RunzoChapman UniversityOrange, California

Eilish RyanUniversity of the Incarnate WordSan Antonio, Texas

Israel Moshe SandmanUniversity of ChicagoChicago, Illinois

Leigh Miller SangsterEmory UniversityAtlanta, Georgia

Karam Tej SaraoUniversity of DelhiDelhi, India

B. V. Venkatakrishna SastryHindu University of AmericaOrlando, Florida

Lawrence H. SchiffmanNew York UniversityNew York, New York

List of Contributors | xix


Mathew N. SchmalzThe College of the Holy CrossWorcester, Massachusetts

Neil SchmidNorth Carolina State UniversityRaleigh, North Carolina

Gilya G. SchmidtUniversity of TennesseeKnoxville, Tennessee

Tim SchrammUniversity of HamburgHamburg, Germany

Graham M. SchweigChristopher Newport UniversityNewport News, Virginia

Kenneth SeeskinNorthwestern UniversityEvanston, Illinois

James D. SellmannThe University of GuamMangilao, Guam

David ShatzYeshiva UniversityNew York, New York

Miranda ShawUniversity of RichmondRichmond, Virginia

Rita ShermaBinghampton UniversityBinghampton, New York

John N. ShevelandGonzaga UniversitySpokane, Washington

Judith Simmer-BrownNaropa UniversityBoulder, Colorado

Caleb SimmonsFlorida State UniversityTallahassee, Florida

Harpreet SinghHarvard UniversityCambridge, Massachusetts

Nikky-Guninder Kaur SinghColby CollegeWaterville, Maine

Kim SkoogThe University of GuamMangilao, Guam

Eric D. SmawRollins CollegeWinter Park, Florida

Davesh SonejiMcGill UniversityMontreal, Quebec, Canada

Gregory SpinnerCentral Michigan UniversityMount Pleasant, Michigan

Ira F. StoneReconstructionist Rabbinical CollegePhiladelphia, Pennsylvania

Christine SuUniversity of Hawaii at ManoaHonolulu, Hawaii

Eiji SuharaArizona State UniversityTempe, Arizona

Sara SviriHebrew UniversityJerusalem, Israel

Michael J. SweetUniversity of Wisconsin–MadisonMadison, Wisconsin

xx | List of Contributors


John B. SwitzerSpring Hill CollegeMobile, Alabama

Leena TanejaStetson UniversityDeLand, Florida

SherAli TareenDuke UniversityDurham, North Carolina

M. Thomas ThangarajEmory UniversityAtlanta, Georgia

Ithamar TheodorHaifa UniversityHaifa, Israel

James ThullMontana State University–BozemanBozeman, Montana

Hava Tirosh-SamuelsonArizona State UniversityTempe, Arizona

Julius TsaiSan Diego State UniversitySan Diego, California

Herman Wayne TullIndependent ScholarPrinceton, New Jersey

Ellen M. UmanskyFairfield UniversityFairfield, Connecticut

Edward Collins Vacek, S.J.Weston Jesuit School of TheologyCambridge, Massachusetts

Arthur VersluisMichigan State UniversityEast Lansing, Michigan

Alan VinceletteSt. John’s SeminaryCamarillo, California

Darlene Fozard WeaverVillanova UniversityVillanova, Pennsylvania

Michael WelkerUniversity of HeidelbergHeidelberg, Germany

Brannon WheelerUnited States Naval AcademyAnnapolis, Maryland

Abraham ZablockiHampshire CollegeAmherst, Massachusetts

List of Contributors | xxi


Foreword

Love is said to be universal. There is no word as seemingly simple, direct, andresonant as the word love. But the pages of this Encyclopedia of Love in WorldReligions give evidence of just how widely and deeply we must probe to find thescope and meanings of love in the religious traditions of humankind.

To investigate love in the world’s religions is to step into a world as complexas human experience. Opening the covers of this encyclopedia and casting aneye over its contents, we find terms and entries many would readily associatewith love, such as “desire” and “sexual pleasure,” “marriage” and “covenant.”The ironies of alphabetization have landed “adultery” as the very first entry and“divorce” has a place down the list as well, and yet we readily recognize these aspart of the landscape of love. We also encounter terms like “compassion” and“forgiveness” that stretch and expand the scope and quality of love. As we readon through the list of entries we discover the prominence of terms like “sacrifice,”“suffering,” and “pain,” reminding us that we will not be able to explore the ter-ritory of love without looking into the places where it hurts and is sorely tested.And we come face to face with a series of entries on “death,” for there is no ac-count of love in the world’s religions that can avoid the valleys and shadows ofdeath. The investigation of love leads us from familiar territory into a wide, de-manding, and even terrifying landscape.

Love is a simple English word, and yet we know from our first classes in theClassics that the languages and cultures of the world have a nuanced vocabularyof love that expands and enriches the English-speaker’s understanding of humanexperience. The Greeks spoke of the passionate, romantic love called eros anddistinguished it from abiding friendship, brotherly love, and familial love theycalled philia. Yet another word, agape, designated wide, caring, and uncondi-tional love, and it was this term that was adopted by the writers of the ChristianNew Testament to convey the love we should have for one another and the loveGod bears toward us. Indeed, the apostle Paul’s discourse on agape in I Corinthi-ans 13 becomes virtually a definition of love for Christians. This encompassing

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love is underlined in the “great commandments” in both the Jewish and Christiantraditions: love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love yourneighbor as yourself. This is agape, or ahavah in Hebrew.

The Hindu vocabulary of what might be translated as “love” in English is alsocomplex and nuanced. The term kama, like eros, is the one-pointed passion asso-ciated with sexual love. Like Cupid, Kama is personified as a divine being whomoves about gracefully, unseen, creating the atmosphere of springtime whereverhe goes, taking aim at the heart with his bowstring of buzzing bees and his arrowsof flowers. Prema is different from kama; it is the sweetness of love, self-sacri-ficing and pure, not filled with the passion of possession. Viraha is a word forlove that contains within it the searing intensity of yearning. It means “love inseparation,” the longing love that is experienced by lovers separated from eachother. Perhaps the word that stretches the largest canopy of religious meanings oflove is bhakti, sometimes translated as “devotion,” human devotion to the Divine.But the term bhakti more accurately conveys a mutuality that is lost in the mean-ing of devotion. Bhakti is love shared, for the great lesson of the Bhagavad Gitais not only that we find fulfillment in the love of God, but also that God loves us,for we are dear to God.

The loving relation of God and humankind is intricately articulated in the Krishna tradition, where different tastes of love are expressed. Vatsalya is theunconditional love of parent for child, of Krishna’s parents for the baby Krishna,taking its name from vatsa, the word for calf. Vatsalya is literally “mother-cowlove,” the spontaneous love that flows whenever the calf is near. Sakhya is thelove of friends admiring, trusting, like the relation of young Krishna with hiscowherd friends. Madhurya is the honey-flavored love of lovers, risking and ec-static, like the love of Krishna and the milkmaid gopis who met him in the grovesto dance. Shanta is the peaceful experience of the loving heart in the presence ofthe Supreme Lord. The vocabulary of loving God, they say, is as varied as the per-sonalities and temperaments of we human beings.

Finally, we are well aware as we begin this venture that love is not only aquality of the human, some would say the one quality that makes us most trulyhuman, but is also ascribed to the one we call God, however we in various reli-gious contexts use that term. God is always spoken of as Rahman and Rahim inthe Qur’an, meaning “the Compassionate One, the Merciful One.” In the NewTestament the First Letter of John (4.7–16) attests that “God is Love,” as simpleas that: Everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God, for God’s very na-ture is disclosed in agape, love.

My own Methodist tradition includes the seemingly obscure doctrine of “pre-venient grace,” that God’s very nature is love, a divine love that surrounds allhumanity and precedes all that we do. God loves us first, all of us, and only be-cause of that surrounding love are we human beings able to love. In one of CharlesWesley’s great hymns, Jacob wrestles with the Angel through the night, yearning,demanding to know the name of the Holy One. Finally, his repeated refrain re-sounds, “Thy nature and Thy Name is Love!”

The Encyclopedia of Love in World Religions enables us to delve into the manysemantic, cultural, and religious worlds in which concepts such as love, compas-

xxiv | Foreword


sion, sacrifice, suffering, and death are expressed. While there is much that isoverlapping in the range and meaning of these words, there is much more to belearned as we see the ways in which they do not overlap and take us into new ter-rain that expands our vision.

For those of us in the field of religious studies, the Encyclopedia of Love inWorld Religions is a new contribution that amplifies our understanding in count-less ways. This will be useful for our research and will be a valuable resource forstudents, professors, and, indeed, every inquisitive reader.

Diana L. EckProfessor of Comparative Religion andIndian Studies and Director of the Pluralism Project, Harvard University

Foreword | xxv


�reface

The Encyclopedia of Love in World Religions is the first reference work to of-fer a comprehensive, multidisciplinary investigation of the subject of love inthe classic and contemporary literature of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Is-lam, Judaism, and in other world religions, cultures, and philosophies. With con-tributions by more than 190 scholars, the encyclopedia contains over 300 entriesthat examine the concepts, emotions, and relationships associated with love andworld religions. Entries draw on the disciplines of religious studies, theology, phi-losophy, sociology, anthropology, gender studies, literary criticism, and history.The transreligious scholarship features writings by major spiritual leaders andthinkers, who provide the framework for this cross-cultural study.

The Encyclopedia of Love in World Religions addresses a major need in thefield of religious studies. Despite the abundance of publications on sexuality inthe last two decades, the topic of love as an independent category of analysis hasgenerally been neglected. As the first reference of its kind on the topic of love inworld religions, the encyclopedia breaks new ground in an interdisciplinary area ofstudy that discusses the many forms of love and employs multiple methodologiesin the analysis of love’s embodiment in religion and culture. Its objectives are toserve as an atlas to the global terrain of ideas, beliefs, and practices linked to loveand religion, and to provide a balanced view of religion as a distinct thought sys-tem that is, nevertheless, integral to culture. I hope this work will help readersto better understand the differences between popular clichés about love that per-meate Western culture, and more complex, nuanced notions of love that have beeninherited through rich intellectual and spiritual traditions. The expertise offeredby scholarship from the humanities and the social sciences expands the notion oflove beyond the realm of beliefs and doctrines to include the material culture ofrituals, laws, customs, and practices. Another important objective of this encyclo-pedia is to both question and diffuse the rigid dichotomies between sexuality andspirituality, sacred and profane, immanence and transcendence, and earthly anddivine love. Further, I hope that the Encyclopedia of Love in World Religions willcreate an important locus for cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural dialogue.

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The encyclopedia juxtaposes a comprehensive survey of different conceptionsof love with a thorough exploration of their role in religious thought and practice.The premise of the project is that divine love and human love are interconnectedin a variety of complex and intriguing ways. It is impossible to study the story ofdivine love in the world’s religions without referring to its human recipients andtheir dilemmas regarding love. Despite the fact that divine love is usually depictedas the highest form of love, it is at the same time modeled after human relation-ships. Divine love is depicted in religious and philosophical texts in metaphorsdrawn from relationships such as parent–child, husband–wife, and lover–beloved.Both in its metaphoric depictions and in its lived reality, divine and human loveintertwine. The examination of human relationships—including their problematicdimensions—is central to the project and serves as important a role as the studyof sacred texts in which the deity is the protagonist of the narrative.

This reference work incorporates the paradigm that love represents embodiedphenomena, offering new perspectives that begin with the view that love cannotbe extricated from its worldly embodiments. Theologians and philosophers oftenaddress love as an abstract and universal idea. In these discourses, notions of loveas unlimited compassion—ultimately as divine essence—are foundational. Animportant shift in thinking about love and religion that has shaped this encyclo-pedia is recognizing that even notions of divine love are embedded in categoriessuch as the body, sexuality, and gender, and are contextualized in rituals and dailypractice as much as in divine and saintly reality. In light of this new thinking, theencyclopedia expands beyond the metaphysics of love, discussing topics such asbirth, festivals of love, food, and sexual and aesthetic pleasure. As such, love isportrayed in terms of rituals, laws, customs, taboos, and social practices, as wellas in terms of theological and philosophical ideas.

Along with the paradigm of love as an embodied phenomenon, the encyclope-dia adopts the perspective that love is culturally constructed. Whether negative orpositive, religions and cultures have dictated and imposed upon members of theirgroups many social practices—even proper emotions—associated with love. Assuch, cultures and religions have adopted notions and values that have shapedtheir public discourse regarding acceptable social relations. The Western viewand practice of romantic love, the Chinese notion of harmony, and the Arab prac-tice of hospitality are examples of the pivotal role that cultures have played increating and shaping their respective traditions.

Love is treated in ways that contribute to the richness of the subject and per-plex us at the same time, challenging us to expand our particular cultural andintellectual perspectives. Questions informing the selection of topics include:

Is love a decision?Can love be unselfish?What is the difference between human and divine love?What is the distinction between love and desire?Why do some religions insist upon abstinence and celibacy as expressions of

divine love?Must love always be a relationship of mutuality?

xxviii | Preface


Are expressions of love gender-dependent?What is the role of metaphors and allegories in the construction of meanings

of love?

The reader will be challenged to contemplate the wide range of notions of loveas emotion, mood, action, decision, relationship, moral teaching, religious ideal;as joy and tribulation; as conditional and unconditional relationship; as abstractidea and lived reality; and as personal and impersonal phenomenon, temporal andeternal.

The extensive nature of this encyclopedia is evident in the variety of love relationships and qualities of love that it encompasses. These can be broadlyclassified as altruistic love, erotic love, filial love, spiritual love, romantic love,self love, and friendship. Distinct as these types of love are, they are also inter-twined. Spiritual love can be conveyed in the language of filial love, erotic love,romantic love, or friendship. When understood broadly as passionate desire,erotic love can be directed toward another person or toward the divine. Altruisticor selfless love is epitomized as a pivotal characteristic of divine love, yet it isalso illustrated in filial love and friendship. The encyclopedia examines lovein terms of relationships—community, divine love, filial love, friendship, homo-sexuality, and marriage; and in terms of emotional states—bliss, compassion,happiness, joy, longing, lovesickness, and passions.

Selections from religious and philosophical masterpieces, including DialoghiD’Amore, Symposium, Bhagavad Gita, Kamasutra, Sawanih, and the Song ofSongs treat the motif of love in depth—its literary metaphors, its epistemology,and its phenomenology. Another group of entries—Hasidism, New Religions,Sufism, and Tantra—introduces the place of love in historical movements andideologies. Further expositions delve into negative emotions, experiences, andtaboos associated with love: adultery, betrayal, fear, guilt, hate, jealousy, narcis-sism, pain, shame, and suffering.

Contributing to the comparative and interdisciplinary study of religions, theencyclopedia probes concepts, predispositions, and social behaviors common toall cultures, religions, and philosophies. Whether treating love in light of histor-ical influences or as an independent cultural phenomenon or idea, this collectionsuggests a perennial phenomenology—the existence of certain recurring patternsof human experience and thought.

An example of a common motif found in several religions is the notion of di-vine erotic love. This motif reveals itself in mystical visions, myths of sacredmarriage, and metaphors of deep yearning for—and intimacy with—the divine.Entries such as ‘Ishq, Longing in Sufism, Song of Songs, Tantra, and SpiritualLove in Women Mystics transect different cultures, languages, and religionsto explore the phenomenology of divine erotic love. As a further example, en-tries that illuminate cultural distinctions include the topics of monasticism andcelibacy as social practices that are idealized in the history of Buddhism andChristianity but deprecated in Judaism and Islam. The study of such culturalparallels and variations of love is essential to the critical analysis of religiousphenomena.

Preface | xxix


The Encyclopedia of Love in World Religions is arranged alphabetically andcontains three types of entries. There are entries by authors who write about no-tions associated with love from the perspective of one or several cultures, religions,and schools of thought. Examples include Devotion, Fantasies, and Wedding Rit-uals. Composite entries are included about notions of love authored by scholarsof the five major world religions—Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, andJudaism. The writers survey topics such as Beauty, Community, Marriage, andTeachers. Finally, there are entries about historical figures, major literary works,and language- and culture-specific topics whose main theme is love. Examplesinclude Bhakti, Buddha, Dialoghi d’Amore, and ‘Ishq. Each entry offers cross-references as well as a list of references and further reading to assist the reader inquest of a comprehensive understanding of the subject.

My fascination with and commitment to the study of love notwithstanding, Irealized from the very beginning of my research the inexhaustible nature of thistopic. The broad, deep-rooted nature of love as a category of analysis with appli-cations and implications in practically every aspect of religious life, philosophy,and culture remains a challenge that both overwhelms and inspires.

Any book has to deal with inevitable limits on the number of topics and theirlength. Owing to this constraint, I had to exclude, for example, entries with titlesof thinkers and writers. The search for contributors in some areas such as indige-nous religions and cultures yielded meager results, while at the same time, therewas an overwhelming response from scholars who work in Western philosophyand the five major religions. These circumstances demanded a tremendous bal-ancing act.

The rewards far outweighed the challenges. The first step of choosing the top-ics was exciting and full of possibilities, as was the process of soliciting contrib-utors. I received enthusiastic responses from scholars who heard about the projectand supported its goals, which was truly exhilarating, as was communicating withexperts from all over the globe. Constructing this encyclopedia has enabled meto engage in dialogue with scholars whom I would not otherwise have had theprivilege to know. Reviewing and editing the essays as they were submitted was,for the most part, a process of discovery filled with intellectual joy, continuallyexpanding my own intellectual horizons, providing answers to some questions,while provoking many more.


xxx | Preface


�cknowledgments

This project would not have been possible without the love and support of col-leagues, friends, spiritual teachers, and family. As editor, my deepest appre-ciation is for all the contributors whose scholarship provides the substance of thisencyclopedia. They are the choir and their individual voices helped to producethis symphony.

I am thankful to many in the Rollins College community whose support overthe years has helped me grow as a scholar and teacher. I appreciate and value mycolleagues in the Philosophy and Religion Department, who never hesitate tooffer their comradeship and sense of humor. Thanks to Dorothy Mays in the OlinLibrary, whose insights into publishing an encyclopedia were immensely helpful,to Mario D’Amato for his valuable review, and to my students, especially fromLove, Eros, and Religion, whose questions and insights into the complex subjectof love enlighten and enliven my teaching and learning.

I thank the members of my advisory board: Daniel Boyarin, Francis Clooney,Elliot Ginsburg, Zeev Harvey, Barbara Holdrege, Moshe Idel, Francis Landy,Margaret Miles, and Naftali Rothenberg, who provided wise counsel. I am verygrateful to Stephen Post for his enthusiasm about the project and for the grant heprovided from the Institute for Unlimited Love. Heartfelt thanks to Karen Pechilis,a loyal colleague and friend, who graciously shared her expertise, and to OliverLeaman for his advice on the project. The editors at ABC-CLIO have also beenextremely helpful. Special thanks to Wendy Roseth, Steven Danver, AlexanderMikaberidze, and Kristine Swift.

I am grateful to have benefited from both the friendship of special individualsand the wisdom of spiritual teachers. Jean Miyaki Downey is always ready to in-dulge me in deep conversations and the best Indian meals at Woodlands. My deep-est appreciation to Samani Mudit Pragya and other yoga teachers who help keepmy body flexible, my mind alert, and my heart open.

My profound respect for the spiritual leadership of Rabbi Menachem MendelSchneerson (ZTL), whose vision, impact, and presence are still felt around theworld.

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A special tribute goes to my friend and confidante Patricia Ambinder, researchassistant for the encyclopedia, whose dedication, insights, meticulousness, andpassion for the project are above and beyond words. I am immeasurably indebtedto her for countless hours of editing, discussing, and polishing its contents.

I dedicate this work to the memory of my deceased parents, Luba and ArieKorn berg, whose unconditional love gave me the first and lasting sense of lovein the world, and my place in it—may their kindness and their sense of joy serveas a source of blessings to our next generation. I am deeply grateful to my dearsons, Rafi and Elie, whose love and affection continue to be a great source of in-spiration, and to my life partner and best friend, David, for whom the line fromthe poem I wrote for you soon after we met—Im Ein Anu Lanu, Me Lanu (“if weare not for each other, who is for us”)—is as true today as always.

Finally, I am grateful for the everflowing wisdom of love that is as much humanas it is divine. May its power on earth increase exponentially.


xxxii | Acknowledgments


ENCYCLOPEDIA OF�OVE IN �ORLD�ELIGIONS


�eflections on �ove by �ontemporary�piritual �eaders

THE SUPREME EMOTION

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Our innate capacity for empathy is the source of that most precious of all humanqualities, which in Tibetan we call nying je. Now while generally translated simply as compassion, the term nying je has a wealth of meaning that is difficultto convey succinctly, though the ideas it contains are universally understood. Itconnotes love, affection, kindness, gentleness, generosity of spirit, and warm-heartedness. It is also used as a term of both sympathy and of endearment.

Although it is clear from this description that nying je, or love and compassion,is understood as an emotion, it belongs to that category of emotions which havea more developed cognitive component. Some emotions, such as the revulsion wetend to feel at the sight of blood, are basically instinctual. Others, such as fear ofpoverty, have this more developed cognitive component. We can thus understandnying je in terms of a combination of empathy and reason. We can think of em-pathy as the characteristic of a very honest person; reason as that of someone whois very practical. When the two are put together, the combination is highly effec-tive. As such, nying je is quite different from those random feelings, like angerand lust, which, far from bringing us happiness, only trouble us and destroy ourpeace of mind.

When we act out of concern for others, our behavior toward them is automat-ically positive. This is because we have no room for suspicion when our heartsare filled with love. It is as if an inner door is opened, allowing us to reach out.Having concern for others breaks down the very barriers which inhibit healthy in-teraction with others. And not only that. When our intentions toward others aregood, we find that any feelings of shyness or insecurity we may have are greatlyreduced. To the extent that we are able to open this inner door, we experience asense of liberation from our habitual preoccupation with self. Paradoxically, we

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find this gives rise to strong feelings of confidence. Thus, if I may give an ex -ample from my own experience, I find that whenever I meet new people and havethis positive disposition, there is no barrier between us. No matter who or whatthey are, whether they have blond hair or black hair, or hair dyed green, I feel thatI am simply encountering a fellow human being with the same desire to be happyand to avoid suffering as myself. And I find I can speak to them as if they wereold friends, even at our first meeting. By keeping in mind that ultimately we areall brothers and sisters, that there is no substantial difference between us, that justas I do, all others share my desire to be happy and to avoid suffering, I can expressmy feelings as readily as to someone I have known intimately for years. And notjust with a few nice words or gestures but really heart to heart, no matter what thelanguage barrier.

We also find that when we act out of concern for others, the peace this createsin our own hearts brings peace to everyone we associate with. We bring peace tothe family, peace to our friends, to the workplace, to the community, and so to theworld. Why, then, would anyone not wish to develop this quality? Could anythingbe more sublime than that which brings peace and happiness to all? For my ownpart, the mere ability we human beings have to sing the praises of love and com-passion is a most precious gift.

The world’s major religious traditions each give the development of compas-sion a key role. Because it is both the source and the result of patience, tolerance,forgiveness, and all good qualities, its importance is considered to extend fromthe beginning to the end of spiritual practice. But even without a religious per-

2 | Reflections on Love by Contemporary Spiritual Leaders

His Holiness the Dalai Lama conducts a Kalachakra Initiation in front of25,000 followers (1992). (Kazuyoshi Nomachi/Corbis)


spective, love and compassion are clearly of fundamental importance to us all.Given our basic premise that ethical conduct consists in not harming others, it fol-lows that we need to take others’ feelings into consideration, the basis for whichis our innate capacity for empathy. And as we transform this capacity into loveand compassion, through guarding against those factors which obstruct compas-sion and cultivating those conducive to it, so our practice of ethics improves. This,we find, leads to happiness both for ourselves and others.

Source: Dalai Lama. 1999. “The Supreme Emotion.” Adapted from Chapter 5, Ethics inthe New Millennium. New York: Riverhead Press.

ENCYCLICAL LETTER DEUS CARITAS EST

Pope Benedict XVI

Part IThe Unity of Love in Creation and in Salvation History

5. . . . Man is truly himself when his body and soul are intimately united; the chal-lenge of eros can be said to be truly overcome when this unification is achieved.Should he aspire to be pure spirit and to reject the flesh as pertaining to his animalnature alone, then spirit and body would both lose their dignity. On the other hand,should he deny the spirit and consider matter, the body, as the only reality, hewould likewise lose his greatness. . . . Only when both dimensions are trulyunited, does man attain his full stature. Only thus is love—eros—able to matureand attain its authentic grandeur.

. . . Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reducedto pure “sex,” has become a commodity, a mere “thing” to be bought and sold, orrather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man’s great “yes” tothe body. On the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as thepurely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will. Nor does he seeit as an arena for the exercise of his freedom, but as a mere object that he attempts,as he pleases, to make both enjoyable and harmless. . . . Christian faith, on theother hand, has always considered man a unity in duality, a reality in which spiritand matter compenetrate, and in which each is brought to a new nobility. True,eros tends to rise “in ecstasy” towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves;yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification andhealing.

6. . . . Love is indeed “ecstasy,” not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, butrather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward looking self to-wards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discoveryand indeed the discovery of God: “Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, butwhoever loses his life will preserve it” (Lk 17:33), as Jesus says throughout theGospels (cf. Mt 10:39; 16:25; Mk 8:35; Lk 9:24; Jn 12:25). In these words, Jesusportrays his own path, which leads through the Cross to the Resurrection: the path

Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est | 3


of the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies, and in this way bears muchfruit. Starting from the depths of his own sacrifice and of the love that reachesfulfillment therein, he also portrays in these words the essence of love and indeedof human life itself.

10. . . . God’s eros for man is also totally agape. This is not only because it isbestowed in a completely gratuitous manner, without any previous merit, but alsobecause it is love which forgives. . . So great is God’s love for man that by be-coming man he follows him even into death, and so reconciles justice and love.

. . . God is the absolute and ultimate source of all being; but this universal prin-ciple of creation—the Logos, primordial reason—is at the same time a lover with


Pope Benedict XVI waves to the crowd from the central balcony of St.Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican (April 19, 2005). (AP/Wide World Photos)


all the passion of a true love. Eros is thus supremely ennobled, yet at the sametime it is so purified as to become one with agape. We can thus see how the re-ception of the Song of Songs in the canon of sacred Scripture was soon explainedby the idea that these love songs ultimately describe God’s relation to man andman’s relation to God. Thus the Song of Songs became, both in Christian and Jew-ish literature, a source of mystical knowledge and experience, an expression ofthe essence of biblical faith: that man can indeed enter into union with God—hisprimordial aspiration. But this union is no mere fusion, a sinking in the namelessocean of the Divine; it is a unity which creates love, a unity in which both Godand man remain themselves and yet become fully one. As Saint Paul says: “Hewho is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” (1 Cor 6:17).

Part IIThe Practice of Love by the Church

as a “Community of Love”20. Love of neighbour, grounded in the love of God, is first and foremost a re-sponsibility for each individual member of the faithful, but it is also a responsi-bility for the entire ecclesial community at every level. . . . Love thus needs to beorganized if it is to be an ordered service to the community. The awareness of thisresponsibility has had a constitutive relevance in the Church from the beginning:“All who believed were together and had all things in common; and they soldtheir possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need” (Acts2:44–5). . . .

25. . . . The Church’s deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibil-ity: of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria), celebrating the sacra-ments (leitourgia), and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia). These dutiespresuppose each other and are inseparable. For the Church, charity is not a kindof welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, but is a part of hernature, an indispensable expression of her very being.[17]

. . . The Church is God’s family in the world. In this family no one ought to gowithout the necessities of life. Yet at the same time caritas-agape extends beyondthe frontiers of the Church. The parable of the Good Samaritan remains as a stan-dard which imposes universal love towards the needy whom we encounter “bychance” (cf. Lk 10:31), whoever they may be. . . .

Justice and Charity26. Since the nineteenth century, an objection has been raised to the Church’scharitable activity, subsequently developed with particular insistence by Marx-ism: the poor, it is claimed, do not need charity but justice. Works of charity—almsgiving—are in effect a way for the rich to shirk their obligation to work forjustice and a means of soothing their consciences, while preserving their own sta-tus and robbing the poor of their rights. . . . There is admittedly some truth to thisargument, but also much that is mistaken. . . . The rise of modern industry causedthe old social structures to collapse, while the growth of a class of salaried workersprovoked radical changes in the fabric of society. . . .

Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est | 5


27. . . . Faced with new situations and issues, Catholic social teaching thusgradually developed, and has now found a comprehensive presentation in theCompendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. . . .

28. . . . a) The just ordering of society and the State is a central responsibilityof politics. . . . Fundamental to Christianity is the distinction between what be-longs to Caesar and what belongs to God (cf. Mt 22:21), in other words, the dis-tinction between Church and State, or, as the Second Vatican Council puts it, theautonomy of the temporal sphere.[19] . . .

b) Love—caritas—will always prove necessary, even in the most just society.. . . There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. Therewill always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need wherehelp in the form of concrete love of neighbour is indispensable.[20] . . .

29. . . . The direct duty to work for a just ordering of society . . . is proper tothe lay faithful. As citizens of the State, they are called to take part in public lifein a personal capacity. . . .

The Church’s charitable organizations, on the other hand, constitute an opusproprium, a task agreeable to her, in which she . . . acts as a subject with directresponsibility, doing what corresponds to her nature. . . .

30. . . . Today the means of mass communication have made our planet smaller,rapidly narrowing the distance between different peoples and cultures. This “to-getherness” at times gives rise to misunderstandings and tensions, yet our abilityto know almost instantly about the needs of others challenges us to share their sit-uation and their difficulties. . . .

On the other hand—and here we see one of the challenging yet also positivesides of the process of globalization—we now have at our disposal numerousmeans for offering humanitarian assistance to our brothers and sisters in need. . . .

31. . . . Following the example given in the parable of the Good Samaritan,Christian charity is first of all the simple response to immediate needs and specificsituations: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for and healing the sick,visiting those in prison, etc. The Church’s charitable organizations . . . ought todo everything in their power to provide the resources and above all the personnelneeded for this work. . . . [W]hile professional competence is a primary, funda-mental requirement, it is not of itself sufficient. We are dealing with human be-ings, and human beings always need something more than technically propercare. They need humanity. They need heartfelt concern. . . .

. . . Charity, furthermore, cannot be used as a means of engaging in what isnowadays considered proselytism. Love is free; it is not practised as a way ofachieving other ends.[30] . . .

34. . . . Saint Paul, in his hymn to charity (cf. 1 Cor 13), teaches us that it isalways more than activity alone: “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver mybody to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing” (v. 3). This hymn mustbe the Magna Carta of all ecclesial service. . . . My deep personal sharing in theneeds and sufferings of others becomes a sharing of my very self with them: ifmy gift is not to prove a source of humiliation, I must give to others not onlysomething that is my own, but my very self; I must be personally present in mygift. . . .



42. . . . In the saints one thing becomes clear: those who draw near to God donot withdraw from men, but rather become truly close to them. . . .

Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 25 December, the Solemnity of the Nativity of theLord, in the year 2005, the first of my Pontificate.

Source: Pope Benedict XVI. 2006. Deus Caritas Est [Encyclical], Selections. VaticanCity: Libreria Vaticana Editrice.

SUFI LOVE

Javad Nurbakhsh

Sufism is a way to God through love. In Iran, the term used by the Sufis for loveis ‘Ishq, a word derived from ‘Ashaqah, which is a type of vine. When this vinewinds itself around a tree, the tree withers and dies. So too love of the world driesup and turns yellow the tree of the body. But spiritual love withers the root ofthe self. In the dictionary, ‘Ishq is defined as “excessive love and complete devotion.”

Love (‘ISHQ ) : From the Viewpoint of IslamIn the Qur’an, Allah proclaims, “Those who believe have great love for God.”This intensity of love is called ‘Ishq. The Prophet Muhammad has declared, “Onewho has intense love for God is virtuous in love, and keeps his lovemaking hiddenfrom others; when he dies, he will undoubtedly die a martyr.” In a prophetic tra-dition (hadith), God says to Muhammad:

Whoever seeks Me, will find Me.Whoever finds Me, will know Me.Whoever knows Me, will have love for Me.Whoever loves Me, will have ‘Ishq for Me.Whoever has ‘Ishq for Me, I will love.Whomever I love I will kill, andWhomever I kill, his blood money will I pay:I Myself am his blood money.

In a prayer, the Messenger of God, Muhammad, said: “I pray to see Thy Faceand I long for Thy sight.” Imam Husain said: “Thou art the one who removes ‘thatwhich is other’ from the hearts of those who love Thee, until in their hearts thereis only Thy Love.”

Knowledge and LoveThe end result of muhabbah (loving-kindness) is ‘Ishq (love). ‘Ishq is the supremeand most fervent kind of love. ‘Ishq is more special and pure than muhabbah, since‘Ishq is a result of muhabbah, but not all muhabbah leads to ‘Ishq. Muhabbah,

Sufi Love | 7


however, is on a higher level than gnosis (ma’rifah), since muhabbah arises fromgnosis, but not all gnosis leads to muhabbah.

Instinctive Love, Spiritual Love, and Divine LoveIn instinctive love, the lover longs for the beloved for his own sake. In spirituallove, the lover longs for the beloved for his own sake, as well as for that of thebeloved. In Divine Love, however, the lover longs for the Beloved not for himself,but only for the sake of the Beloved.

As Rumi has said in the Mathnawi:

For those who love Him, He alone is their joy and sorrow.He alone is their recompense and their reward.If anything other than the Beloved is seen,Then that is not Love, it is mere passion.Love is that flame which when it blazes up,Consumes all but the Beloved Himself.

Real Love and Temporal LoveTemporal love arises from the beauty of transient forms. Like them, it is also tran-sient—its only lasting result being the perpetuation of the species. It is the resultof the sublimation and the refinement of sexual desire. Real or Divine Love, how-ever, is a profusion and a rapture from the Absolute Beloved which descends uponthe heart of the sincere lover. This lover is like a moth that flutters around thebeauty of the candle that is the Absolute, burning away its relative existence in


Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh. (Courtesy of Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications,New York)


His fire. The lover turns away from himself and perishes, inclines towards Himand becomes alive. When the lover is emptied of himself and becomes nothing,he finds eternal life.

A few Sufi masters have considered Real Love to grow out of temporal love,and indeed it is possible for temporal love to create a vessel for receiving the out-pouring of Real Love. In the words of Rumi, “His aim was the form, but throughit he finally found God.”

Regarding the difference between Real and temporal love, Rumi says:

Hey! Drink this fine fiery wine, these needles of fire,And fall so drunk that you will not wake on the Day of Resurrection.In this godly wine you will find youthful spirit.In the fire of instinct you will never find such unerring fidelity.

Love in SufismGenerally speaking, man’s love is the result of God’s Love, Love being one ofHis attributes. But more precisely, Love is an attribute of the Divine Will, Willbeing an attribute of the Divine Essence.

When love (‘Ishq) acts on anything that exists, it is called “will,” and the cre-ation of living beings is one of its results. When Love embraces the elect, or thosewhom God has chosen, it is called “mercy,” and when Love embraces the electof the elect it is called “bounty.” This bounty is given only to humanity, and itcompletes the bounties of the Benefactor. As is said in the Qur’an, “I completedmy bounty unto you.” This verse refers to that same bounty and favor which iscalled “Sainthood” (Walayah).

By virtue of this favor, by the attracting force of “He loves them,” God burnsaway the lover’s existence as lover and brings him to the state of fana (self- having-passed-away). Then, by the illumination which manifests the Divine At-tributes of the Beloved, the lover is drawn from the state of fana to the state ofbaqa (permanence in the Beloved). In this state, the relative existence of the loverhas gone and Absolute Existence has become manifest. Here, by the Light of God,Reality can be perceived as it is. This is the meaning of the Prophet’s saying, “OGod, show me all things as they really are.”

Ruzbihan has said:

Love is a sword which cuts away the lover’s temporal existence. Love isthat perfection which comes from the perfection of the Absolute. When Itunites with the lover, he will cease to be a mere slave and will no longerbe caught up in the temporal world. Outwardly, he will reveal the DivineMajesty; inwardly he will attain the level of Lordship. It cannot be said thathe dies, for death does not hold sway over one who lives by God’s love.

Sufis believe that the foundation of the created world is Love. All motion,activity, and light throughout the entire universe as we know it derive from therays of Love, and true perfection must be sought in and through Love. Some

Sufi Love | 9


Sufis have said, “Love is the totality of all the perfections that are in the essenceof an individual. And this entirety can only be an attribute of the Absolute.” Forthe same reason, ‘Iraqi considered Love to be the Essence of Absolute Oneness.

Mir Husaini Hirawi has said:

Love (‘Ishq) is a shining star in the heaven of Reality.It is one step above muhabbah.Faith and unbelief are one and the same to Love.It craves neither doubt nor certainty.Love is a diver in the Ocean of the Absolute, its ship is the spirit.Indeed, Love is the dissolver of all difficulties,And the polisher of the mirror of the heart.

The Heart and LoveThe soul encompasses the body; the heart encompasses both the soul and thebody; and Love is the ruler of the heart. Some Sufis have said, “The house of theheart must be made empty of everything other than Love so that Love can residethere.” However, this is an intellectual explanation. For Love, when it comes,burns and annihilates everything but the Beloved. Thus, by itself, Love emptiesthe house.

Intellect and LoveIn discussing Intellect and Love from the point of view of Sufism, what is usuallymeant by the intellect is reason or the particular intellect. But, in fact, the perfec-tion of Divine Love manifests itself as the Universal Intellect; the perfection ofLove is the same as the Universal Intellect.

Reason says, “There can be no more than three dimensions, more are impos-sible.” Love answers, “The way beyond exists and I have been there many times.”

Rumi says:

What then is Love? The Ocean of Nonexistence;There the foot of the Intellect is dissolved.

Intellect is always busy doing things, while Love rests, free of all these imag-inary activities. Intellect has knowledge and eloquence, while Love is free fromboth worlds.

Intellect says, “I know the subtleties of wonderful things.” Love says, “With-out the Beloved, all your words are just empty breath.”

Mir Husaini Hirawi has written:

Intellect says, “I do useful things.”Love says, “I risk all.”Intellect builds, saying, “This is fine here.”Love burns, saying, “This is contaminated here.”Intellect laughs, saying, “This is only name and fame.”Love flies away, saying, “This is only bait and trap.”



Shaikh Najm al-Din Razi, in his book Intellect and Love, compares Intellectto water and Love to fire. He states:

Intellect travels in the world of being and has the attributes of water. Every-where it goes, it flows like water and the two worlds flourish. But Love hasthe attributes of fire, and travels in the World of Non-being. Everywhere itgoes, it annihilates; everything it touches is annihilated.

In our view, under certain conditions, the particular intellect or reason, and thelove of this world can be like both water and fire. When the mind makes use ofpositive feelings, what results is an intellect that has the attributes of water. Itbrings about prosperity. Its investigations and innovations serve humanity.

On the other hand, when the mind acts without regard for positive feelings andrushes into the battlefield of life, what results is a reason that has the attributes offire, destroying mankind and causing conflict and war.

If, however, these positive feelings harness the mind, what results is a lovethat has the attributes of water. Wherever it flows, others flourish and the self isemptied. This love serves others selflessly, as a cloud pours life-giving rain ontothe field of all creation.

If these positive feelings do not consider the mind or are not able to make useof the mind, and go tearing wildly across the battlefield alone (with only selfishdesires), the result is a love that has the attributes of fire. On behalf of the self,such a love burns up everything. In order to achieve its selfish desires, it actuallydestroys others.

Thus, according to the different states and interactions of the mind and positivefeelings, various kinds of love and reason become manifested. In the highest state,when Divine Love obtains the services of the Perfect Mind, True Love appears.The fullness that is experienced then is described in the Qur’an as, “I (God) com-plete the giving of my riches and blessings to you.”

Source: Nurbakhsh, Javad. 1979. In the Tavern of Ruin: Seven Essays on Sufism, Chapter3. New York: KNP.

LOVE AND COMPASSION

Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi

If we penetrate deeply into all aspects and all areas of life, we will find that hiddenbehind everything is love. We will discover that love is the force, the power, andinspiration behind every word and every action. This applies to all people, ir-respective of race, caste, creed, sect, religion, or of what work people do.

The common expression is “I love you.” But instead of “I love you,” it wouldbe better to say, “I am love—I am the embodiment of pure love.” Remove the Iand you, and you will find that there is only love. It is as if love is imprisoned

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between the I and you. Remove the I and you, for they are unreal; they are self- imposed walls that don’t exist. The gulf between I and you is the ego. When theego is removed the distance disappears and the I and you also disappear. Theymerge to become one—and that is love. You lend the I and you their reality. With-draw your support and they will disappear. Then you will realize, not that “I loveyou,” but that “I am that all-embracing love.”

Pure love transcends the body. It is between hearts. It has nothing to do withbodies.

Bhakti is love—loving God, loving your own Self, and loving all beings. Thesmall heart should become bigger and bigger and, eventually, totally expansive.A spark can become a forest fire. So to have only a spark is enough, for the spark


Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, widely known as Amma the HuggingSaint, spends up to twenty hours a day hugging and speaking with peopleall over the world. (Reuters/Corbis)


is also fire. Keep blowing on it, fanning it. Sooner or later it will burn like a forestfire, sending out long tongues of flame.

Love just happens. Nobody thinks about how to love, or when and where tolove. Nobody is rational about love. Rational thought hinders love. Love is a sud-den rising in the heart. Love is an unavoidable, unobstructable longing for oneness.There is no logic in this. It is beyond logic. So do not try to be rational about love.It is like trying to give reasons for the river to flow, for the breeze to be cool andgentle, for the moon to glow, for the sky to be expansive, for the ocean to be vastand deep, or for the flower to be fragrant and beautiful. Rationalization kills thebeauty and charm of these things. They are to be enjoyed, experienced, loved, andfelt. If you rationalize about them, you will miss the beauty and charm and the feel-ings they evoke. Sit by the seashore. Look at it. Feel its vastness. Feel the risingup and down of the waves. Feel and be amazed at the creation and the creator ofsuch magnificence. What good will it do you to rationalize about the ocean?

When love becomes divine love, compassion also fills the heart. Love is theinner feeling and compassion is its expression. Compassion is expressing yourheartfelt concern for someone—for a suffering human being. Therefore, love andcompassion are two sides of the same coin; they coexist.

Compassion is Consciousness expressed through your actions and words.Compassion is the art of non-hurting. Compassion cannot hurt. Compassion can-not hurt anyone because compassion is Consciousness manifested. Conscious-ness cannot hurt anyone. Just as the sky cannot hurt anyone and space cannot hurtanyone, the manifestation of Consciousness, compassion, cannot hurt anyone.One who has compassion can only be compassionate.

Compassion does not see the faults of others. It does not see the weaknessesof people. It makes no distinction between good and bad people. Compassion can-not draw a line between two countries, two faiths, or two religions. Compassionhas no ego; thus there is no fear, lust, or passion. Compassion simply forgives andforgets. Compassion is like a passage. Everything passes through it. Nothing canstay there. Compassion is love expressed in all its fullness.

Anyone who has tasted prema bhakti—devotion with supreme love—even fora second, will never waver from it. But such devotion does not arise in everyone.

Fear is completely absent only when love is present in all its fullness. This kindof love is found only in a devotee who has surrendered completely to God. Sucha devotee lives in love; he has drowned in the ocean of love. Fully consumed bydivine love, his individual existence is lost, for he has merged with the totality oflove. He becomes love. He becomes an offering to his Lord. Like a drop of water,which falls into the sea and merges with its vast expanse, the devotee dives intothe ocean of bliss as he offers himself to existence. In that state, all fear, all wor-ries, all attachments and sorrows disappear.

The spirit of worldly love is not constant. Its rhythm fluctuates; it comes andgoes. The beginning is always beautiful and enthusiastic, but slowly it gets lessbeautiful and less exciting until it ends up being shallow. In most cases, it ends upfinally in upset, hatred, and deep sorrow. Spiritual love is different. The beginningis beautiful and peaceful. Shortly after this peaceful beginning comes the agonyof longing. Through the middle period, the agony will continue to grow stronger

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and stronger, more and more unbearable. Excruciating pain will ensue, and thispain of love will prevail until just before it leads up to unity with the beloved.This unity is beautiful, even more inexpressibly beautiful than the beginning oflove. The beauty and peace of this unity in love remains forever and ever.

In the ultimate state of oneness, even if the lover and beloved retain theirbodies, that is, even if they exist as two bodies, deep in the depths of their lovethey are one whole. It is like two banks of the river. The banks are different; theyare two as we as we see from the outside, but deep down they are one, one unitedin the depths. The same is the case with genuine lovers. Though they appear astwo persons externally, deep within they are one, united in love.

No one loves anyone more than they love themselves. Behind everyone’s loveis a selfish search for their own happiness. When we don’t get the happiness weexpect from a friend, our friend becomes our enemy. This is what can be seen inthe world. Only God loves us selflessly. And it is only through loving Him thatwe can love and serve others selflessly.

If we pour water at the root of a tree, it will reach all the branches. But if wepour water on the branches, the tree does not get the benefit, and our effort iswasted. If we love God, it is equal to loving everyone. It benefits everyone, be-cause the same God dwells within everyone. Through loving Him, we love all.Forming bonds only with individuals, however, just leads to sorrow.

Life in the world cannot be an obstacle once God is enshrined in your heart.So bind Him with the rope of love.

Source: Copyright Mata Amritanandamayi Math, Amritapuri P.O., Kollam, Kerala, India.Reprinted here with permission.

LOVE IN JAINISM

Acharya Mahaprajna

According to Jain philosophy, nonviolence, sociability, compassion, and peacefulcoexistence are the forms of love par excellence. In the context of worldly affairs,the meaning of the word love is the feeling of attachment to and affection for thebody or material objects. A person unites himself or herself with another persononly with the thread of love. Without physical love, the institution of family can-not come into existence: the mother cannot care for her child, nor can the organ-ization become strong. There is no doubt that love imposes its sense of unity onwhat is otherwise perceived as duality.

Yet bodily love often becomes a cause of conflict and malice among people.This kind of love does not belong to the “pure category” but, because it is inevitablefor sustenance of life, it falls under the category of mamatva (“mine-ness” or pos-sessiveness). Bhagawan Mahavir classified “possession” into three types: (1.) Lovefor body; (2.) Love for material objects; (3.) Possession of Karmic Sanskars (im-prints of past actions on consciousness).



The first two kinds of love fall into the category of mamatva. There is a con-comitance between mamatva and fear. The apprehension that “something wrongmay happen to the body” or that “whatever I have may not get lost” generates ten-sion, which continues to lurk over man knowingly or unknowingly. Therefore, inthe category of mamatva, love is a mixture of both happiness and suffering.

Spiritual love necessarily implies submission and total absorption of the selfinto the ideal. There is a wide description about it in the Jain system of medita-tion and also in the Jain poems composed in the form of eulogy and devotion. Thefollowing verse from the Kalyan Mandir (which is one of the most famous eulogistic Jain poems) may be cited as a self-explanatory proof for it—“O Lord!When you are in my heart, all my bondages get shattered, all my problems getsolved just as the snakes at once run away from the tree of Sandalwood with thearrival of the peacocks.” One can only feel but cannot describe how much theheart of a devotee is replete with bliss and affection.

No individual with self-consciousness would like to become a peon, slave, ora servant. In the Jain tradition, high esteem is given more importance than humil-ity. High esteem is toward one’s ideal. Humility is an explicit form of love. Highesteem is an implicit form of love. An individual with devotion surrenders himselfto the ideal by dissolving his ego. There is a natural awakening of the feelings ofsubmission in an individual who has an unshakable faith in his religion or hisideal. Love for religion and love for the ideal are sublime and spiritual. The widerthe horizon of affection, the more the development of consciousness, and this ul-timately leads to the path of supreme welfare and real truth—Anuragat viragah—detachment is born out of affection. This saying points to this reality. The path ofaffection born out of worldly attachment leads toward materialism, while pure con-sciousness is the destination of love that arises from the dissolution of delusion.

Affection born out of delusion creates illusion in human beings. Very often,people give utmost importance only to material objects, wealth, and sexual lust.The affection for religion takes root only when delusion wanes. Although ma-terialistic attachment is inevitable for the sustenance of life, the affection for reli-gion is imperative for truthful life.

One special characteristic has been mentioned for a Shravak (devotee) of LordMahavir: Atthiminjapemaanuraagaratta (Bhagavati 2:94), the devotees’ affec-tion for religion penetrates their bones and marrow. For absolute love and totalsubmission, it is imperative that bones and marrow should be saturated with affec-tion. Genuine love becomes deeply cultivated and gets transformed into Sanskar,that is, it is deeply imprinted on the mind. Only love that becomes deeply rootedpenetrates the bones and marrow. Just as love born out of worldly attachment maypenetrate the bone and marrow, so may spiritual love. One may ask: If love isdominated with worldly attachment, then how can worldly attachment and renun-ciation be made compatible?

We can trace out the source of compatibility between worldly attachment andrenunciation by keeping in view the philosophy of Anekant. Renunciation and at-tachment both are relative. When there is attachment toward materialism, detach-ment toward consciousness is created of its own accord. When attachment towardconsciousness exists, detachment toward materialism becomes natural.

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Love that is defined by bodily attachment generates problems. It can lead aperson toward a criminal life. At present crimes of many kinds are increasing dueto this lust for physical attachment. On the other hand, spiritual love solves ourproblems and uplifts our consciousness. Renunciation of worldly attachment andsublimation are Jain practices that help solve the intricate problems caused byattachment to physical pleasure. Sublimation has the potential to bring down thegraph of social crimes and open new dimensions for spiritual development.

Source: “A Message from Acharya Mahaprajna.” Inner Reflections 4 (3): 1–2. [Online article or information; retrieved July 11, 2007.] www.jvbna.org/newsletter/Newsletter_Jul2006.pdf.

A HISTORY OF LOVE

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson

Man, by nature, is a selfish creature. Even in his relationships with others he tendsto focus primarily on himself or, at most, on his self-colored perception of his fel-low. Love is the endeavor to transcend this intrinsic selfishness and truly relate toone’s fellow, to be sensitive to and devoted to his/her needs as an individual dis-tinct of oneself and one’s own stake in the relationship.

And yet, when the Torah speaks of the mitzvah (Divine commandment) to“Love your fellow as yourself” it does so in the context of man’s duty to influence,and even change, the behavior and nature of his fellow man. In Leviticus 19:18–19), the Torah commands:

Do not hate your brother in your heart; repeatedly rebuke your fellow, anddo not attribute sin to him. Do not take revenge, or harbor hatred towardyour people, and love your fellow as yourself; I am G-d.

As the commentaries explain, there are two possible reactions a person canhave toward a fellow who has wronged him, or whom he sees behaving in amorally deficient manner: (1) He can despise him in his heart, regarding him asa “sinner” and perhaps even persecute him for his “sins”; (2) he can rebuke himin the effort to convince him of the folly of his ways and seek to influence him tochange them. The path of love, says the Torah, is not to “hate your brother in yourheart” but to “repeatedly rebuke” him and seek to better him.

Obviously, the desire to influence is consistent with the idea of love. No onewould stand by as a loved one suffers hunger or is threatened by violence; no lessso, if one sees someone he loves suffering from spiritual malnutrition or moralblindness, he will make every effort to reach out to him, to enlighten him, to offerguidance and assistance. But this aspect of loving behavior carries an inherentparadox. On the one hand, the endeavor to influence and change implies a depar-ture from self and concern with the well-being of the other. On the other hand, it



implies a seemingly selfish view of the other: a rejection of other as he is and adesire to impose one’s own perception of what is good for him upon him.

An exploration of the history of humanity, as recounted in the Torah, revealsfour figures who personified four different points of reference on the relationshipbetween self and fellow.

Each of these individuals was considered the most righteous of his generation.Thus, their lives can be seen to reflect four stages in the spiritual development of

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