Love - Love

Love, Love, Love… All you need is love, love is all you need…

Yes, we all know that! It was from many years ago, as a teenager I must have heard the song a thousand times. Thanks to the Beatles!

Well, I've been in the last phase of my life for a while now. After a long time, I've brought back the content of my original love website which I created in 2017. It's now stylistically up to date. But the content has stayed the same. The only new addition is the last chapter «The Story» as addition.

The subject of LOVE is still fascinating and one of the most important. Especially when you approach the subject from a humanities perspective.

Love - what is it about?

First of all, this is not about art, but rather a mental, spiritual process. It is about the sense of life.

Love is used for many things in everyday environment. I love music, I love food, I love my pets, my cell phone and everything else.
I love you... (and of course I expect to be loved as well) and much more.

But it goes much further.

Here is an attempt to illustrate this. The picture contains a symbol with four parts on a background, a light gradient.

I will try to describe the individual parts below.

The beginning

It starts in silence. Within myself. At the beginning is a meditative process, a discovery, the own love in myself.

This is a power that develops out of one's inner self. Quiet and silent, very gentle and yet very active, because the silence is just not just quiet.

The term "love" could be misunderstood here, because the word love is used all too often for many things.
Love is understood here as an inner process and has nothing to do with externals.

The effect

Once this inner love has consciously manifested itself, it can have an external effect. It will not be a shouting out, a manifestation like we like to do on social media.

Conscious, unconditional love is simply there. Only that.

The gift

Now I can give this love to my partner if I want to and am ready for it. It is a very conscious process and, above all, it may not contain any conditions, because these would degrade the gift to a simple deal or trade like "I love you but you have to love me too..."

The unconditional nature of love is of central importance here. All too often, the term "love" is associated with other things in normal daily interactions. But this is something different. Such mutual conditions sometimes go so far that one could speak of an arrangement or a "business model". The same word "love" is just used. Such a different kind of love is not mentioned here in this context.

The reflection

My gift will arrive! Sooner or later, just when the time and the circumstances are ready.

This unconditional gift will be reflected. But not just back to me, because it will form something new!

This will create a new level of consciousness for both of us, me and my partner.

The union

The unconditional love of the partner with my unconditional love has arrived at this higher level of consciousness, both will merge, both become one.

This sequence does not only take place once. On the contrary! It is omnipresent in our lives and can occur daily, hourly, over and over again.

It is the task of life, it is the meaning of life!

It goes on!

Both this image and of course the theme as well, are not just limited to our partner. It goes much further! Our colleagues, friends, the people around us, the community, the country is also involved.

Everything, our whole environment is affected!

And then...

There is a lot left after we say goodbye to this world and when we are back in the spiritual world. Then, only one thing will really be of value:

Your own, self-developed unconditional love.

A picture

I developed this symbol myself over 20 years ago. Since then, it has accompanied me every day. This attempt here is a very personal interpretation. The linked themes have become established over the years and have thus become part of myself.

Conscious engagement with the theme and extensions are also welcome. Other interpretations of the image and topic are of course possible.

Kommentare und Anregungen (in German)

Einen ersten Kommentar, der mich ganz besonders gefreut hat, habe ich von Dr. Gabriel Looser aus Bern erhalten. Mit seiner Erlaubnis veröffentliche ich seinen Text hier.

Lieber Peter,
Besten Dank für Dein meditatives Bild und die tiefen Kommentare dazu. Ich habe sie heute als «Sonntagspredigt» genutzt, d.h. das, was Predigt eigentlich sein sollte: Anregung zum Mit- und Weiterdenken.

Natürlich gibt es so viele Interpretationen von Liebe, wie es Menschen gibt. Und Du bringst Wesentliches ein. Z.B. Liebe ist kein Geschäft auf Gegenseitigkeit.
Liebe muss bedingungslos sein. Wahre Liebe beginnt bei mir selber. Selbst- und Nächstenliebe sind keine Gegensätze, wie unser Pfarrer uns in unseren Kindertagen vorgelogen hat. Nur wer sich selber lieben kann, ist auch fähig, andere zu lieben. Selbstliebe wird erst dort zum Problem. wo sie eigene Interessen auf Kosten anderer durchsetzt. Hier wird Selbstliebe zum zerstörerischen Egoismus. Du fokussierst auf die Liebe zwischen zwei Menschen, also Partnerschaft. Das ist gewiss ein wesentlicher Aspekt.

Ich möchte es gern auf die allgemeine Menschenliebe erweitern (wie Du das zum Schluss andeutest). Und dabei ist mir besonders wichtig: Liebe ist nicht nur, auch nicht in erster Linie Gefühl. Ich habe es in meinen Seminaren so formuliert: «Liebe» ist eine Haltung des Herzens. Auf den einfachsten Nenner gebracht: es geht um ein Ja (beim Gegenteil um ein Nein) in meinem Herzen: Ja zu mir selber, ja zu den Mitmenschen, ja zu den Mitgeschöpfen.
Ein mir wichtiges Mantra bei den Buddhisten heisst: «Mögen alle Wesen glücklich sein!» Das ist für mich eine sehr zutreffende Formulierung für das, was Liebe ist.

Dr. Gabriel Looser, Bern

Origin

My mother taught me some principles of anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner's spiritual science, when I was young. She awakened my interest in these topics. Much of it then was just dormant in me.

But even in my early photography, from today's perspective, some aspects became apparent.
The themes of "love" and "freedom" were always there.

From today's perspective, with slightly deeper knowledge of the anthroposophical world, I have become aware of one thing. Love, unconditional love, can only arise when freedom exists. Freedom is the basis for unconditional love to arise at all.

The development

When I look back at my old photographs, I can certainly recognize some of these aspects in them.

For example, freedom: the short picture story "Judge and Judge". That was in 1984.

Or the series of images entitled "Je t'aime – moi non plus" triggered by the "Swiss file scandal" in 1985.

A photograph from the 1987 nude series with Luc-André definitely contains something that I have described here in the chapters The Beginning and The Effect:

Discovery of one's own love for oneself and its manifestation to the outside world.

You can find out more about the nude series with Luc-André in my retrospective in the chapter ► «Akt und Bewegung» (in German).

A bit more complex is my photo story AURAMA. But there are also aspects of freedom and the exchange of love to be discovered.

This is achieved in particular through the "reversal of perspective" approach, the basis of the AURAMA theme. This creates a completely new way of looking at things.

More about the concept and AURAMA photos can be found ► here.

Likewise, some of the images in my subject area of multidimensionality contain views on freedom and love.

However, they can usually be seen in the multi-layered nature of the images.

More about the concept of my multidimensionality and images can be seen ► here.