Recently I ran across a book that illustrates the struggle that happens in mental and emotional constructs when trying to come up with the spiritual meaning of love. The author of that book, Love 2.0, is the relationship scientist, Barbara Fredrickson. In her book she tries to come up with a new science of love.
Of course, the solution to that unnecessary struggle is to recognize agapé. Although Fredrickson tries to come to terms with spirituality, she insists on a scientific approach to all aspects of love. So she doesn’t consider the Greek version of Christian scriptures. Even though the Greek word for the spiritual power emanating from the heart-center is agapé, and it worked its way into modern usage beginning in the early 1900’s, she tries to stick with the inadequate English language.
That’s partly what’s behind the major mistake in biblical translation after the 1800s when ‘agapé’ was translated into English as ‘love.’ For example in this blog’s posting that is below this posting I talk about the false impression that chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians was merely advice about relationships. So we get a completely different understanding by interpreting the verses from the viewpoint of spiritual development.
To illustrate the improvement that her book could have taken, I went through her book and in the places where deeper inspiration can be found by recognizing agapé, I changed the following quotes to use agapé.
“Agapé can give you a palpable sense of oneness and connection, a transcendence that makes you feel part of something far larger than yourself.
Agapé is life-giving, an indispensable source of energy, sustenance, and health.
Agapé lifts you toward the higher spiritual altitudes of oceanic oneness. And from these new and higher vantage points, you can better see and appreciate your connections to the larger fabric of life as well as your place and influence within it. Agape is also deeply personal. It unfurls within and throughout your mind and body like a wave.
When you experience agapé, you not only become better able to see the larger tapestry of life and better able to breathe life into the connections that matter to you, but you also set yourself on a pathway that leads to more health, happiness, and wisdom.
Agapé ripples out through space and time. In a moment of agapé flow, your awareness automatically expands, allowing you to appreciate more than you typically do. Over time, these powerful moments change who you are. They help expand your network of relationships and grow your resilience, wisdom, and physical health. This repeated back-and-forth sharing helps establish and strengthen healthy communities and cultures.
Agapé can affect you so deeply that it reshapes you from the inside out and by doing so alters your destiny for loving moments.
When you make agapé your prevailing desire, you remake whole domains of your life. You become appreciably and enduringly different, and better. You uplift others, helping them become different and better as well.
Learn to seek agapé out more frequently and it can elevate you, your community, and our world far beyond what you and I can today envision. Opportunities for agapé sharing abound. The more you experience agapé, the more you open up and grow, becoming wiser and more attuned, more resilient and effective, happier and healthier.”
