Knowledge and Love, Two Path One Goal

„To know God is to love him and not to love Him is not to know Him.“ (F. Schuon)

When one thinks about love the first thing that came to mind is that it is a relationship. Because subject presuposes an object of love. And in that relationship, there are many levels or grades. One can love only what one has an affinity for or affection. And that can be done from the objective or from the subjective pole. Subjective pole: we love things that give us pleasure, happiness things from the phenomenal world. We love people that we have sympathy for, or for pragmatic reasons. That is the lower or falsified level because it proceeds from the lower self.

The higher level of love is more objective and is possible when it has its basis in God, when it is the reflection of the divine love, that Love that personal God has towards us. And this is possible when we are awake when we transcend the lower self and lead the egoless state.

In such case - The power of love is transformative, it has an alchemical effect upon the soul and can transmute its very substance and our ego dies. Probably that is the etymological relation between love and death - amor and mort. We may also suffer when our love has found no response (when suffering is illuminative we may also awake and die to our lover self). The question was posed if man can suffer when he has knowledge. Since man is a man he suffers. On his terrestrial pilgrimage, he cannot avoid suffering...but for the man of Gnosis it is not empty suffering, it is full of grace and in the suffering, that is caused by the distance between man and God he can be gifted by the gift of tears.[1] Nevertheless in the light of the fact that God (Supreme Love) created the world out of Goodness suffering is necessarily limited in its nature and duration , loosen its grip and fades in the shade.

Like knowledge love seeks union: in knowledge union is intellective, in love it is affective,

Knowledge and love, both seek Truth. The path to truth results in the discovery of Truth, and knowledge of it, but one cannot know the Truth without loving it. Here two paths merge into one. And yet there is a risk in both cases. When knowledge is restricted to mental activity and love to a sentimental or emotional level (or has not risen above it).

During the concersation were posed questions about the mind (killing the mid), devotion and we also discussed the problem of emotions. Now, holy wrath, holy anger expressed by saints, or saintly kshatrias and heroes who were not possessed by it. (I recommend reading F. Schuon´s Ambiguity of the Emotional Element, Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism).

In Hindu bhakti marga or in Christian mysticism there are branches or traces where this emotional, sentimental approach dominates. It can be illusive and misleading. We can see it in new protestant (or charismatic) branches or in Vaishnavism [2] where emotions supply the role of the holy ghost, the Spirit.

In Sufism love is the complement of gnosis. In Christianity, it is gnosis that is the complement of love. But we should stay out of the temptation to draw too a strict demarcation line between them. Because it seems one cannot do without the other. One cannot love what one does not know and one cannot know what one does not love. Here the binding element can be faith. In faith one loves what one does not know fully... on the other hand knowledge does not abolish faith but gives it a more inward meaning.

For Bhakta the most desirable quality is compassion. For Jnanin it is the wisdom. Bost qualities take roots in the human being the more close they are to God, when our hearts are attuned to the sound of eternal SELF. Bhakta tries to avoid pride, jnanin tries to avoid the error. In bhaktism, we can discern there the dualistic approach: God there - i here. God is HE, ego is I. For gnostic or jnanin God is I - or the SELF and ego is he, or the other. For realized person knower, knowing and KNOWN become one. Finally it is God in us who wishes to be known (through Him and by Him).

The one thing that wishes to be mentioned here is: On the level of transcendence we love only the Supreme GOOD, on the level of immanence we love the supreme good manifested. Famous Hindu saying states that it is not for the love of the spouse that spouse is dear, but for the love of Atma which is in him.

It seems here nevertheless that knowledge has precedence before love... or it may be said that love proceeds from knowledge, from gnosis that encompasses it, as Schuon has remarked

God is light before He is heat...

From an esoteric perspective, we must first know the object of love to love it unconditionally. When we realize that all objects emanate from God, or if one recognizes in all beings one unique and imperishable, indivisible essence, then there is no way to escape the Love towards them.

When this metaphysical knowledge is effective it produces love that directs the will toward God and the perception of “myself”—and of God—in the neighbor. From this springs our whole being and acting, which is most complete when it i s not I who does act, (know, love) but God in me.

God answers knowledge with love and love with knowledge.

[1] Tears are a gift and a blessing (in Christian mysticism, the gift of tears – dona lacrimarum – is a sign of a high spiritual degree). John Chrysavgis says: "Tears mean penetration into a new life, refinement of the soul, clarity of mind. They bring us to rebirth and the world to healing. They mean a real homecoming. Through tears we can enter the sanctuary of our hearts" (J. Chrysavgis, In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, World Wisdom, 2003, p. 51). Martin Lings also writes about the spiritual meaning of tears in his book Return to Spirit (Fons Vitae, 2005, pp. 44–56). Tears accompany sadness, which in the spiritual universe represents the desire to return to the original purity, the Centre. The Cloud of Ignorance (a significant anonymous text in medieval mysticism) describes sadness as a holy desire, an obedient readiness to receive Grace or any response from God. "Let yourself be consumed by sadness, drown in it. (...) Every person has something to feel sadness about, but no one feels as much sadness as one who knows and feels his existence", i.e. distance from the source of all joy, fullness, and fulfillment. The Constantinople monk and abbot Nikitas Stithatos states that "tears of repentance are one thing, and tears shedding as a result of divine grace are another. The former is like a swollen river that destroys all bastions of sin, the latter can be likened to rain or snow, which fertilizes the field, because they cause the soul to give forth an abundant harvest of spiritual knowledge" (qtd. in Filokalia, Volvox Globator 2008, p. 25).

[2] Not to say in New age circles- where hugging, chanting, and expressing love towards humanity is practised on one side but staying cold towards the family members, passing beggars on the street, on the other only confirms its hypocritic approach, due to absence of Traditional framework or religion in sensu stricto.

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