Chapter Three

Agapao, Living for Your Neighbor

Agapao can perhaps be best described in the modern world as a state of madness or intoxication. This state can be compared with that of the front-page heroes who give themselves up to some need as discussed in Chapters One and Two. This state of “giving” or “losing ourselves” is fundamental to agapao. It will be beneficial to describe this state as sacrificing our ego, reason, judgment, controlling, and thinking. When our ego disappears it is common to speak of being taken over by some uprising inner power that makes us forget reason.

This intoxicating state of madness is encountered by perhaps the majority of the population of the earth, as that strange ecstatic state of infatuation experienced during first love. Generally, this love is first experienced by people in their middle to late teen years after having started to seek answers in the outer world. During this first love, you are both quickly “swept off your feet” by the other person. What you both say, the way you say it, and what you are, is sensed as being a part somehow of the other one. It is as if each of you suddenly finds a new door to the other’s own feelings and thoughts. Both of you feel exactly what the other feels, and hence both of you become as one. The joy of being with each other consists of openly sharing feelings, ideas, thoughts, experiences, hopes, and dreams without any inhibitions or reservations. In this sharing, the world takes on a new clear reality and becomes joyous. There are no conflicts, concerns, worries, or judgments since both of you are perfect in each other’s eyes. It does not matter if the two of you are from families that hate each other, or if you are from Mars, or one is fifty years older than the other. Both of you are simply beautiful to each other. You have absolute control over each other and exist only to give each other everything that you are, possess, and will become. You are both lost in sacrificing yourselves to the other and living for each other is ecstasy.

A further understanding of this state of agapao can be obtained by looking at what happens to many people involved with this state of first love after a period of time.

Because of the extreme joy that they experienced, there is the rising desire to make the love last forever. Countering this desire, however, is the shaking of the heads of the surrounding adults who state that the relationship is doomed and that they cannot make it last. From this warning there arises a fear that instead of always living for each other, the love might be lost forever. This sudden fear arouses the conditioned response of using everything that they have learned to keep the love going. It is at this stage of the relationship that separation begins.

In order to keep their love, the couple now attempt to do everything right so that nothing injurious can happen to decrease their love for each other. They start to strive to please each other and become concerned about the effects of what they say and do. They start to ask each other if what they do is pleasing, but to please the other, the response must always be yes. Each one cannot be outwardly critical of the other, because it would be an admission that they are failing. Each one starts to believe that they are to blame, and they must work harder to do what is right. They fall into the same trap as caregivers, when they attempt to follow the law rather than their hearts. The relationship loses its vitality, originality, purity, and spontaneity as the two attempt to adopt the physical mannerisms of giving to each other that they learned from their earlier observances of television dramas and social interactions.

The early Mystics of India described a love relationship[11] or agapao as consisting of three separate elements:

1. a yearning to merge with one another,

2. the ability to completely surrender to each other, and

3. opposing conflicts to the above two.

The yearning to merge with another is common enough, although it generally is promptly suppressed with conditioned fears of what might or could happen if it gains in strength. Similarly, we may observe ourselves finding a union with others in a discussion or some mutual endeavor. If the interaction increases favorably, there is a growing awareness of a joy and comfort of being with the others in the activities and that we want more. With the desire for more arises the start of the pleasurable abandonment of judgment and lack of concern for self and ego. However, it is generally during this stage that our conditioned alarm bells start ringing and warn us that we are going to get into some form of trouble if we continue. In responding to these built in warnings, we become analytical and judgmental, and the yearning and desire to surrender quickly die and, of course, so does any real closeness of interaction.

Jesus used the “Parable of the Talents”[12] to describe this seemingly contradictory interaction with others. In this parable, individuals are given money (talents), and the one who attempted to carefully save what was given in a safe place finds that what was safe and secure is finally taken away. One of the others, however, who invested it and helped it grow was given even more. The message is quite clear that agapao can only be kept by increasing it. As long as the above couple in first love attempted to discover more within each other and to increase what they had to share, their love flourished. It was lost, however, in attempting to preserve it, as it is for anyone else who attempts to cling tightly to agapao.

The major technique of finding agapao is to find a strong dedication or yearning for others and then sacrifice ourselves to whatever occurs, to live only for them. Surrendering to someone else is almost invariably associated with pleasure and surprisingly when done under a dedication, the long-range results are never injurious as the Sermon on the Mount illustrates in Chapter Sixteen. Nevertheless, it is quite common that after some deep experience of agapao, we may have second thoughts such as a worry that we were “too naïve”, presumptuous, foolish-looking, or made a spectacle of ourselves. Many heroes, for instance, are acutely embarrassed later upon reliving their exploits. The later review of what happened will, however, always demonstrate the extreme value that resulted from the experience of agapao.

Surrendering our Will and ego to another is first found in childhood in creative games. Typically, each child assumes a new ego or role such as a spaceman in a spaceship going to Mars. One child may be Captain with the other children all finding some role to play. Once the game is outlined and agreed upon, the game proceeds without coaching or judgments of one another as if they become synchronized[13] together. All of the children respond as if from a master manuscript and are able to change their roles as required by the hidden script.

Adults likewise play similar games in which the ego is surrendered. It happens generally with people with whom we have some common purpose such as seeking to have a good time or to share ideas to solve some problem. (Often the use of alcohol is erroneously used to make the surrendering of the ego easier as the self is easily forgotten and the enjoyment of interaction takes over the mind. Of course, the use of alcohol also diminishes the ability to be creative or to bring excitement to the game such as encountered in childhood games. Imagine children attempting to play space ship if they are intoxicated.) It is not uncommon when people get together and yield their egos to solve some problem, that we get lost in the rising flood of ideas, feelings, and excitement with the novelty of the ensuing interaction. Time may be forgotten along with outside commitments as the power of the game[14] overtakes the players. Later we may have second thoughts about our contributions to either the party or the problem-solving group. It is not unlikely that we have the feeling that we went beyond our limitations and that someone will resent us in retrospect. Nevertheless, what is interesting about letting our ego fall away (without alcohol and with a firm purpose in mind) is that everything turns out perfectly.

Another experience that we commonly find with agapao is meeting someone to whom “our heart goes out to.” We can have an acquaintance at work that corners us during lunch and asks for our attention and then starts to tell of some problem. Initially we may have doubts about listening to someone else’s problems and not want to get involved, but somehow, we find ourselves being overpowered by the other person. We not only hear, but also feel and know the situation being described. We become the other person in the described situation. We look at the situation without our conditioned judgments and emotions. It is as if we take on fully the role of some perfect advisor with the wisdom of Solomon and find that we have no limitations in our response to the other person. Later both of us may speak of the perfection of the meeting and we may well wonder at the source of our knowledge.

Yet another example of surrender to others is given in certain group activities such as a choir, orchestra, theater group, drill team, or other groups in which we must integrate our activities with that of others. In such groups, an individual cannot say, “Look how well I did”, rather he or she can only identify with a “we”. The majority of people, however, feel that becoming a “we” is humiliating or degrading and resist any loss of self-identity.

As mentioned earlier, agapao is well documented by Eastern Mystics[15]. Perhaps one of the best descriptions of what happens with agapao or when we enter into the Kingdom of Heaven is given by five Sanskrit words that begin with the letter M[16]. These are listed in English as being: intoxicated, Quickened, sensual, able to play any role, and united with others. (It should be strongly noted that as pleasurable as these five sound, they are not socially acceptable nor politically correct in either the modern societies of the West or of the East.)[17]

The remainder of this chapter will therefore attempt to outline the ancient Eastern methods that assist in loosening the hold of the strong ego such that one can touch the fullness of love or agapao.

Agapao is the being overpowered by someone else. This requires that all judgments be suppressed and that the person be seen entirely in a new role much as a child sees an older sister as the Captain of the spaceship in an imaginary game. This stage is described in religions as the act of forgiveness of the other persons and then the seeing of the Divine within them. In the East the preparation for this was called meditation[18] and the West seemingly has lost this practice, even though instructions for it can still be found in such places as the Sermon on the Mount as will be described. The East has also lost an important aspect of meditation as it became a religious tool and its use was limited to finding inner experiences with religious concepts instead of an active experience with the outer world.

There is a preliminary step in seeing another person without any judgment, bias or expectation and that is the concentration[19] upon that person. Concentration on something is not a problem in the modern world, although we are many times loath to do so.

After this initial concentration, meditation on another person allows him or her to be seen in a new role with the full powers, appearance, and actions associated with the new role. As for instance, a fellow passenger on a bus may be seen as an interesting person with a much different experience and viewpoint of life. Following the concentration and centering of our attention on that person, he or she gradually can be perceived in the expected role (if both parties agree to play such a game).

The next step in obtaining agapao was called samadhi in the ancient Eastern writings, which means putting together or joining together the object of the concentration/meditation and the meditator. At first the meditation separates the other person from our expectations and judgments such that the other person becomes independent from us, but capable of taking on their own image or role. Then the stage of samadhi provides the union of the two such that we can now find ourselves taking on another role that is suggested by or is compatible with the other person. In other words, we attempt to perceive a role in the other person and after it can be perceived clearly in meditation, we then take on a new role that can then interact with the other person or play a new game with him or her.

The third stage according to the ancient practices is called samyama[20], which means the controlling together. It is at this stage that the interaction of the two individuals takes place according to the rules of some game or of the expected interaction. The fellow passenger now seems to have a great deal in common with us, and it is as if we have known each other for a full lifetime. What each of us says or does is met with complete acceptance by the other one as if we are both controlling what is said somehow.

It is with this stage of samyama that the modern East has problems. Most modern writings on Yoga do not even include the term, and samadhi is only generally discussed in terms of a God or the Divine and not our neighbor. The general complaint about the Eastern religious practices turning one inward rather than outward are justified, and the act of interacting with others is as problematical to them as samadhi is to the West. Both cultures need to be able to practice samyama in order to find the ecstasy promised in both of their early religious writings.

One more addition to samyama is the increasing of the intensity[21] of the interaction similar to the rising crescendo in a movie as the plot increases. This is experienced as the conversation or action “pulls” us further and further into the game or interaction.

Now, of course, the young couple as described above who are experiencing their first love and being lost in each other’s presence, have not had to practice these ancient practices, nor does the woman who suddenly becomes mobilized with only the thought of saving a child in danger. The young couple have not become “hardened” against sentimentality or sensuality, and the woman’s conditioned resistance to being overpowered by the outer world is overcome by the shock of seeing a child in danger. Yet admittedly, it is a much different case when encountering your neighbor in the grocery store.

The ancient practices can be perceived as a counter force to the hardening and resistance to outer forces. There are two principle areas of re-training. The first is the quieting of the mind against all of the things that we should or should not think or do. This requires faith in whatever is to take place as being evolutionary or developmental. The other practice leads to the relaxing of the abdomen normally kept pulled in and tightened and allowing it to become responsive to the outer world. Many practices strengthen the lower abdomen and stimulate the inner organs that in turn increase the Quickening forces.

Interaction within a group is used to support a heightened response to others that is similar to the developing relationships found in “first love” where judgments of each other fall away. One characteristic of ancient (and modern) mystical groups was the incessant command not to have sexual intercourse that provided a further release from worry about adverse personal interactions. (The stories from their opponents of their sexual orgies should be seen as being completely contrary to their actual practices.)

A further addition to the effects of agapao should be mentioned, and that is the associated sexual feelings that result after its appearance. The Gnostic writings refer frequently to such things as androgynous Gods and the followers of the religion preparing to enter or entering a bridal chamber (as a female). Other writings speak of women changing into males and everyone becoming androgynous or taking on the androgynous nature. These feelings can be related to the very pleasurable prepubescent feelings and changes found in the perineum of both sexes commonly excited in childhood with teeter-totters, slides, swings and falling games. Some mystical groups have made a deep study of this area of the body and found particular practices to keep the area active in adulthood.[22] Many individuals who experience agapao or ecstatic sensations report the very feminine-type feelings that accompany the experience. Chapter Fourteen provides a good introduction into the references to this feminine center.

11. samaj

12. Matthew.25:25

13. The joining together in one mind or game is discussed later in the book. This uniting together in one mind, purpose or functionality is described in more scientific terms and detail in Synchronicity.

14. Eastern Mystics call this involved and shared game, Lila, or the Game of Life.

15. by the Tantriks (not to be confused with the modern Tantrik sexual cults)

16. madya, matsya, mansa, mudra, and maithuna, see The Golden Triangle Chapter 16

17. In Indian modern society the five “M” terms (panchamakara) are mistranslated by the detractors of Tantra as 1) being drunk with alcohol (forbidden), 2) eating fish (a forbidden food), 3) eating meat (a crime against nature), 4) eating grain that is an aphrodisiac (sinful), and 5) engaging in sexual orgies (unforgivable).

18. dhyana

19. dharana

20. Samyama is discussed and described in the fundamental book of Yoga written by the Sage Patanjali, see Bibliography.

21. vimarsha

22. See The Golden Triangle.

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