Agapé and the science of meditation

 

Once again I found a book that gets caught in word confusion because of trying to stretch the weak English word ‘love’ to mean so much more than the usual understanding of love. As I’ve tried to make the point many times in this blog, such confusion could be straightened out by using a different word. 

Of course, we have a helpful historical example of that being done in the Greek culture of 2,000 years ago. When there was a similar problem with the Greek word for love, ‘eros;’ back then the word that was found to be the best to use instead was the strange, ancient Greek word ‘agapé.’ That example of verbal usage is preserved for us in Christian writings.

This time, the modern book I found with the confusion is Silent Music: The Science of Meditation by William Johnston. The confusion comes when he tries to stretch ‘love’ to gain the meaning of some power that is highly spiritual. For example, when he writes:  

“in mysticism the very highest form of human energy is brought into play, a human energy that is nothing other than love at the core of one’s being. It is precisely this that builds the earth.”

I claim that such statements cause confusion because most people would not understand what he’s referring to there. So when Greek writers in the First Century wanted to avoid such confusion, they didn’t use the common Greek word for ‘love’ but instead used the word ‘agapé.’ The best example that fits what Johnston was referring to is in Romans 5:5 — “God’s agapé has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.”

William Johnston didn’t seem to realize that the original Greek of most of his New Testament quotes used ‘agapé’ instead of ‘eros.’ But Johnston’s efforts with new meanings of love did bring up the point that there is something very similar between the highest type of spiritual love and agapé. But when he tried to explain how love could be understood as the basis of the development toward enlightenment, most people would be confused by how he used ‘love’ to be such a basis. This is especially the case when he started talking about meditation as a “love affair.” 

One example of his confused way of trying to express a very different meaning of love came when he wrote: “The love that builds the cosmos is universal love, the highest love that can fill the human heart. Though the working of mystical love and its power to heal are mysteries that no man understands.” Most people would have trouble trying to figure out what meaning is achieved in the many places where he tacked onto ‘love’ such additional words as ‘cosmic universal,’ ‘mystical,’ ‘highest type of spiritual’ and ‘healing power of.’

That confusion is especially seen in the passages where Johnston quotes Viktor Frankl and Teilhard de Chardin. Two such examples are Frankl’s quote: “Loving represents a coming to relationship with another as a spiritual being.” Then — Teilhard “sees friendship and spiritual love in their cosmic setting — woman leads man out of his cramping isolation, pointing the way to a universal love that encompasses mankind and the whole universe, leading on to God.” So substitute ‘agapé’ for ‘love’ and see the change that brings to your understanding.

That confusion could be cleared up by changing ‘love’ to ‘agapé,’ as we can see for example in the following changed quotes: “The enlightenment that comes from agapé is necessarily incarnational. It involves us in society and never cuts us off from reality. Agapé is the essence of the deepest meditation. The whole process should be undergirded by agapé if the enlightenment is to go the whole way.” 

In other words, the process of understanding is advanced when such substitutions are used to explain to modern people what agapé means. And such attempts to explain are helped by keeping some of the psychic sense of the meaning of love and adding it to the meaning of agapé. And so when the substitution is made in the last paragraph of his book, we can hear him say: “It is agapé that builds the earth and carries forward the thrust of evolution.”

Agapé from a psychiatric perspective

 

Recently I ran across agapé quotes in a book by psychiatrist, Thomas Moore. The following quotes are from his book Writing in the Sand. There he recognizes that many people use the word ‘love’ to mean so much more than the usual understanding of love, that what helps is to use a different word in order to avoid confusion. The word that is the best to use is the old Greek word ‘agapé.’ That is the word used in ancient Christian scriptures.

“If you read the Christian Gospels in Greek, you find the word agapé used again and again to describe the love that defines ‘the kingdom.’ The word appears over 300 times in the New Testament, such is its importance. In context, it connotes a communal feeling of connection, which Paul spells out as being selfless and which is the opposite of narcissism. It goes against conventional wisdom, the ways of the world, and plain, unrefined passion.

“In the context of the Gospels, agapé is different. Agapé doesn’t depend on the other’s actions. The shift in worldview from power to agapé is so radical that one can hardly imagine what the change would be like in practical terms.

“The agapé that Jesus teaches and demonstrates is a spiritually refined form of love. It is not romantic love, nor it exactly friendship. It is an experience of communal enjoyment of another that doesn’t demand conformity or even a return to love. This kind of loving requires an education in the spirit, a healing of mind and heart, and a true baptism — coming into a new level of being by entering the flowing stream of vitality. 

        "Agapé is an alternative to hatred, suspicion, judgment, and paranoia. It is less an emotion and more an orientation toward life. You face the world with an open heart rather than with a suspicious or punitive one. The agapé of the Gospels is not just a feeling; it’s a stance, a position, an evaluation that generates respect. 

“The mystery of who Jesus is will be revealed in the context of spiritual and mundane agapé — only by discovering the power of agapé and how it can operate as a basic life principle.

“You may have to learn how to open your heart without fear and live the philosophy of agapé that is central to the Gospels. You may have to find a conduit to the source of your life, an abiding spiritual awareness that brings you up out of the small perimeters of your mind and your life.

“Your way out of suffering is to reimagine and reinvent your life. That is what Jesus is all about: reinventing your worldview so that you become less paranoid and narcissistic and unleash the creative power of agapé, a base of human interaction that is loving rather than competitive and power-driven.

“In ancient Greece, agapé referred to the value placed on jewels and other precious objects. This nuance fits the Gospels, where Jesus places high value on people who are normally rejected. He sees through surface problems of illness, weakness, and failure to the jewel at the core of the person. Jesus’ example shows that agapé is genuine acceptance of those who are rejected and judged, a warm embrace of a variety of people, and consistent attention to close friends.

“This capacity to see the value in every kind of person, of every level in society, from any place on earth, and with any problem or neurosis imaginable, is central to Jesus’ character and philosophy and his way of walking through life — living in paradox, being open to life’s variety, not judging; walking slowly and attentively through life, offering agapé and kindness in the most combative conditions.

“You can imagine Jesus, completely given to the world of wakening and enlivening humanity through a philosophy of agapé, being profoundly disturbed by our current situation. Imagine Jesus as speaking to the people of the world, not to convert them to a theology or, worse, an ideology, but to persuade them to mature spiritually, to arrive at a point of civility and imagination that allows them to live in peace and under the rule of agapé. Jesus is revealing a truth that everyone knows but forgets or sets aside: if the world could live by the principle of agapé, it would find its healing and would come to life.”

(An example of the verb form of agapé is shown in John 13:34-35 when the Greek is left untranslated: “I’m giving you a new commandment, that you ‘agapate’ each other. As I have ‘agapate’ you, you ‘agapesa' each other. In this everyone will know that you are my disciples: that you have ‘agapen’ for each other.”)

Agapé and Martin Luther King

 

I was asked to preach at Washington Park United Church of Christ, so I showed how Martin Luther King used agapé as the force to overcome segregation. The scripture I based the sermon on was 1 Corinthians 13.

       I started by pointing out that St. Paul inserted into his letter the verses of 1 Corinthians 13 in order to teach people about agapé. That chapter is all about agapé. So why did he need to teach about agapé  Because, when he first started using the word, almost no one had even heard the word. 

       Agapé became a special word that was identified with Christians. It was a main part of Christian identity. Which is what we read in the Gospel of John, if we leave ‘agapé’ in the original Greek, when Jesus tells the Disciples at the Last Supper that people will know them because of agapé.

For those first Greek-speaking Christians who used the word, it was a main spiritual word. It just was not the commonly used word for love, which was ‘eros.’ 

To bring the way of looking at agape into the modern world, we can look at what agapé meant to Martin Luther King. He talked about agapé because he was trying to explain why it was important to the Civil Rights Movement when dealing with the people who were acting like the enemies of his people. He pointed out that when he used the word ‘love’ when talking about enemies, he didn’t mean what we normally think ‘love’ means, but instead, it was agapé he was talking about.

This was especially obvious when he said things like: “Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.” That’s agapé! He was talking about the power of agapé.

History will always remember that those things actually happened. And it mattered a lot to Dr. King how his people responded when treated that way. He was explaining that they could actually gain power to change things by responding spiritually. That’s the point of agapé: it is a kind of spiritual power, what he called “soul force.” 

That was part of Dr. King’s unique understanding. Another unique aspect of his was the way he could take a very long view of what they had to do. His long view of what had to be done was they had to convince white people to do away with the whole legal and social system of segregation. He knew it was so complex that it would take special effort to get it done. 

When we look back to those difficult times, we remember that segregation was a vast system deeply imbedded in both the legal and social structure of all the southern states. The police and sheriff forces were designed to enforce segregation, to keep black people in their place, suppressed. The court system was designed to back up segregation because the white power structure had made segregation the law of the land. And even para-military organizations, like the Klu Klux Klan and White Citizens Councils, had been formed to force black people to conform to the societal aspect of segregation. So Dr. King saw that special, spiritual force was going to have to be activated in order to win. And that — not violence — was the way to win. Dr. King once said that Agape is humankind’s most potent weapon for personal and social transformation.

So that’s one way how old agape was used in the modern world. And that’s why it’s important to try understanding what agape is.

What all this boils down to is — Martin Luther King was teaching people that we have to treat each other spiritually, and we can do that. Not because of who they are. Or even because of who we are. But because agapé helps us in relating to one another. Our greatest hope for the future well being of the human race depends on everyone having deep within the way to respond to each other spiritually, with the power to change lives, to change human relations, and to change the world. So agape helps everyone with tolerance, and openness to one another, and acceptance of one another, and respect for the dignity of all people.

When all of this is working, and as more and more people learn to treat each other with compassion and respect, we will see more and more amazing developments come into this old world. And it will begin to seem like a new world is coming into being.

Agapé is The Way

 One of the activities I did to try enjoying the shut down before I was vaccinated against the coronavirus pandemic was to discover books about love to add to my collection. One of the best is Love is The Way by Episcopal Archbishop Michael Curry.       

He gave the sermon at the wedding of British Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, but like every author who discusses agapé, after explaining that he meant agapé when he talked about love, the rest of his book replaces ‘agapé’ with ‘love.’ (Because Curry has so much to say, this blog page is longer than most of my pages.)

       An example of the difference in the sense of meaning is 2 versions of his quote in which he speaks directly to the reader of his book: “God’s love is everywhere, in all things, and that includes you.” Now when we make the replacement we get: “God’s agapé is everywhere, in all things, and that includes you.” See how that reminds us of Romans 5:5 (when the replacement is made there also): “hope does not disappoint us, because God’s agapé has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

       Michael Curry started discussing agapé as “sacrificial love that seeks the good and well-being of others, of society, of the world.” When he finally got around to seeing the spiritual aspect of agapé, he began by pointing out, “The Greek word used by the New Testament writer for the word ‘love’ is ‘agape.’” Then he commented about John 3:16, “God gave. That’s agape. And love such as that is the way to the heart of God, the heart of each other. It is the way to a new world that looks something more like God’s dream for us and all creation, what Dante spoke of as ‘the love that moves the sun and stars.’”

       Then he quoted all of the scripture chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, but didn’t mention that in the original Greek, that scripture passage is all about agapé. For Paul and the disciples, agapé was something different. So when we think spiritually, the following Curry quotes have ‘love’ changed back to ‘agapé’ so we can see that it is different.

       “Sharing godly agapé liberates the true self, so that we can more fully live. When you know, nurture, and ultimately share your true self, you breathe God’s agapé into every space you inhabit.

       “We were made by a power of agapé, and our lives were meant — and are meant — to be lived in that agapé. That’s why we are here. Ultimately, the source of agapé is God, the source of all our lives.

       “The more we listen to agapé — let it guide us through life — the faster we find that sweet spot, that intersection where our deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet and walk the path of agapé together.

       “Agapé is meant to saturate all levels of human living and existence, because the God who gave us life is agapé. 

       “The agapé you need to discover inside yourself is something fierce. This agapé is a verb: it’s an action, with force and follow-through. When we really put agapé to work, it starts to reveal its extraordinary power.

       “There is a simple way to connect to the divine, anytime you feel like it. If God is agapé, and agapé is an action, you’ve only got to get out there and do it. You’ve got to get out there and receive it. From a small gesture to a large sacrifice, every day provides an opportunity to do agape, so long as you’re not living a life in isolation.

       “The way of agapé can change each of us, and all of us, for the better.

       “Agapé, as I read in the Bible, is ubiquitous. It affects all aspects of life. Agapé is all around us. It is in nature — in the ocean, the trees, the sky, the mountains, all of it. But connecting to God’s presence in nature isn’t passive, either. It requires active presence.

       “The great theologian and philosopher Howard Thurman reflected on the profound experience he had watching Halley’s comet in 1910, and he gave a name to the awareness and awe that came over him, ‘the givens of God,’ which the human heart by its very nature hungers to connect with. When we succeed, we feel it. God’s agapé is everywhere, in all things, and that includes you.

       “Martin Luther King showed how to discover the power of agapé, which he called the redemptive power of agapé that we can use to make of this old world a new world, for agapé is the only way.

       “For agapé to survive when dreams are deferred, it must be practiced day in, day out. And in the end, living the way of agapé requires what Dr. King called ‘cosmic companionship.’ When it’s dark on earth, God is the one who whispers, ‘Say, let me tell you about this dream…’ Dr. King realized that to walk the way of agapé, we need to nurture a relationship with the source of agapé. 

       “Agapé — unselfish, sacrificial, unconditional, and liberating agapé — is the way, frankly the only way, to realize God’s dream of the beloved community, on earth as it is in heaven. It’s the only thing that can, and that ever will, make the world a better place.

       “There is a universal hunger at the heart of every human being: to give agapé and to receive agapé. It connects all people of faith, hope, and good will. That agapé knows no borders, no limitations, no divisions or differences of race, class, caste, nationality, ethnic origin, political affiliation, or religious conviction. That agapé can break down every barrier that blocks the way to the realization of God’s dream of the beloved community.

       “God’s agapé is a gift of God, flowing from the very heart of creation. 

       “Human beings — fragile as we are — are the beautiful, heartbreaking conduit, but ultimately not the source. God may be the source of agapé, but people are the vessels.

       “The way of agapé — the power of God — is the key to our hope and to our future. The liberating agape of God is the key to the Way of Jesus.

       “The way of agapé is how we stay decent during indecent times.

       “So here I am … encouraging a revival of agapé as a way to a liberating and life-giving relationship with God, with others, with all God’s creation on the planet. The revival of agapé as the guide for living; for relationships; for leaders; for our individual and collective spiritual, material, and physical well-being. Our job is to share agapé, and in the case of Christians, to witness to the way of agapé that came to us from Jesus’s teachings.

       “The way of agapé will show us the right thing to do, every single time. It is moral and spiritual grounding — and a place of rest — amid the chaos that is often part of life.

       “Dreamers understand that we need to change the world with agapé, not hate. For John Lewis the civil rights movement, above all, was a work of agapé. He learned that by facing an army of weapons drawn against him with agapé as his only defense.

        “Agapé is God’s way, the moral way, but it’s also the only thing that works.

        “What we call nonviolent resistance, or turning the other cheek, is in fact the strategic deployment of agapé.

       “Striving to look outward at the common good whenever possible is about as countercultural as you can get in this country. But that’s what agapé means.

       “Agapé is powerful, transformative, free, and freeing to all. 

       “When the way of agapé becomes one’s way of life, it’s a game changer. It shapes every decision we make — and that changes everything.

       “Part of living the truth of agapé is working for a good, just, humane, and loving society. It means praying through participation in the life of our government and society. Through caring for others. Through working for policies and laws that reflect Jesus’s call for agapé, to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Through fashioning a civic order that reflects goodness, justice, and compassion, and the very heart and dream of God for all of God’s children and God’s creation. 

       “There’s power in agapé. There’s power to help and heal when nothing else can. There’s power in agapé to lift up and liberate when nothing else will. There’s power in agapé to show us the way to live.

       “When God, who is agapé, becomes our spiritual center of gravity, and agapé our moral compass, we live differently, regardless of what the world around us does. The world changes for the better, one life at a time. So don’t give up on agapé.

       “We need help from the very source of our faith and values — from God’s agapé. And we also need soul companions to help us along the way. We need spiritual energy, the source of agapé that is bottomless and endless. And then, we need each other.

       “Agapé as an action is the only thing that has ever changed the world for the better.

       “Faith dares us to believe that in the end, agape wins. We can’t see it, but we believe it anyway.

       “The world has changed before, and it can change again, for the better. And we can find peace and joy in our hearts in the interim, even as we carry on the struggle for a humane, just, and peaceful world ruled by agapé."