It is a terrible thing to have to say it, and yet it must be said over and over again: there is no possibility of a woman ever coming to understand the Infinite. She simply lacks what it takes to attain it. If, however, she were to be reborn as a man that would be another matter. In other words, if she could develop the masculine within herself and at the same time eliminate the feminine, then she has a chance.
- David Quinn
So does that mean that love is feminine? What of Divine Love - is that also feminine? How then could someone aligned with love not undersatnd the Infinite? It seems that it would be a rather natural understanding.
"Divine Love" is a different thing altogether from what we normally label love. Kevin wrote something about this some years ago at Genius-l, which I'll offer here by way of my own reply:
Agape is Infinite Love, which is fundamentally different in kind to all other forms of love, which are finite in nature.
There a number of different kinds of love which are commonly mistaken for agape, or selfless love:
1. Motherly love.
This kind of love is in fact finite in nature because it is limited to those people the mother feels motherly towards - and these few may exclude those most in need, or most deserving of her love.
This kind of love is only selfless in the sense that women generally have not evolved to the stage of having a self - a fact which prevents them from becoming selfless (in the spiritual sense of transcending or growing beyond the self).
2. Poetic or romantic love.
I have in mind the kind of deeply passionate love expressed in some love poems which speak to a relatively profound yearning for something such as the "Woman" principle - a yearning which is relatively constant, or seemingly "infinite".
Yet this kind of love is also finite, because it seeks a particular thing, and is directed towards that thing, and necessarily away from all else.
3. Love of those close to one.
Such as loving one's spouse, or friends, or pets, or plants. This kind of attachment, or appreciation, usually happens purely through familiarity. One's environment tends to grow on one, and to interpenetrate one. This kind of love feels infinite because it is all around one, but it too is truly finite, because it does not extend to those things outside of one's immediate environment, and if there is a radical change in one's local environment (such as the death of every person one has ever met) then there is grief.
Agape is different to all those mentioned because it is not directed towards any particular thing. And it is not experienced as joy, as all other loves are, because it comes out of Joy - which is to say that it comes out of an understanding/experience of Reality. Agape is really an
understanding - an understanding of all things - and is hence identical to Wisdom and Compassion. It is not a desire, or a need, or a feeling towards some particular thing or concept. It is equal towards literally all things. It doesn't perceive more beauty in one place than in any other. Such a love is exactly the same "towards" one's enemy as it is "towards" one's friend. Both are understood the same, and are experienced the same. It sees life and death as the same. But it understands all these things for the right reasons. It is a correct
understanding.
