Can you learn to Love without SELF-INTEREST?

Answer 1

"Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man's character. Only a brute or an altruist would claim that the appreciation of another person's virtues is an act of selflessness, that as far as one's own selfish interest and pleasure are concerned, it makes no difference whether one deals with a genius or a fool, whether one meets a hero or a thug, whether one marries an ideal woman or a slut. In spiritual issues, a trader is a man who does not seek to be loved for his weaknesses or flaws, only for his virtues, and who does not grant his love to the weaknesses or the flaws of others, only to their virtues."

"One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one's own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns and derives from love.

"A "selfless," "disinterested" love is a contradiction in terms: it means that one is indifferent to that which one values."

Answer 2

Yes, look at an image of the earth in space. Now ask yourself what is the purpose of self interest? I am only here because of my love for the world, what about you?

You don't need personal attachment, to begin with just consider the people who designed and installed the water supply... now take it all away, you have no water... how much do you love their work? If you love their work that part of them you also love.

I can even find a way to love the really ignorant people but to understand that our point of focus must improve, you can understand it simply by knowing how civilisation progresses to this point in time :-)

Answer 3

When the person sees his own self in everybody ,when the person learns that everything is made up of the same self and only the outer appearance changes ,when the person has gone beyond the body and the mind and sees the same spirit in everything one can love without Self interest otherwise it is only the lust projected in different relations in different forms!

Answer 4

What does that mean? Can you learn to love theoretically? I suppose it's possible - you can love God, your country, a book, a warm summer night. When it comes to people, I doubt it's possible to love a real person without attachment of some kind, so at least some small portion of self-interest would naturally be involved. What are you Supposed to do -kill that part of your love? Some small part of self-interest does not mean you are being overly selfish.

Answer 5

This should be possible since having a self-interest is actually counter productive in learning love.

There are those who say that you must first learn to love yourself before you can love others, but loving yourself is not necessarily the same as a self-interest.

A self-interest is, be definition, where the interest is only in one's self. But Love of one's self incorporates the more complicated concepts of love where one can fore go self-gain in order to attain spiritual progress.

Answer 6

Good question. I believe so. But even in the love we have for children, wishing them only freedom and opportunity to be who they want to be, and do what they want to do, I think there is a quirky shadow of a wish that they may want to be and do something close to what we ourselves would wish for them (and that, sadly, at it's worst is often what we would have wished for ourselves). That is surely self-interest. Yet true love conquers all, even that. Which leaves us with the self-interest of the joy of seeing children and others grow and develop in ways we would not have predicted (so long as it's legal!) - especially if we have the self-interest of feeling we have helped! Self awareness is always critical.

Answer 7

yes you can if you choose to yet many of us choose to be with someone and to depend on them but not completely,mentally or physically. you can love with self interest in the sense that if you fall for someone and you never intended to like me then you cannot do anything about it.is it just self interest for me to stay in this relationship? no! you need some self interest otherwise the other person will walk all over you if you do not know what you want, have a voice or all those things. i am not saying that i do not possess those things because i am one of the few girls that says what is on my mind and that is rare in today's society especially at the university that i attend where most girls act like they are 5 when they around the guy and make him their world. to love someone is to care about someone yet not make the person your whole world and i am not saying that you have to have an interest like get married or engaged or be a gold digger or such but as long as you know what you want that is what matters in a relationship. yo need self interest to an extent to protect yourself, identify yourself and set you apart.

Answer 8

You cannot learn to Love someone, if you have Self-interest for yourself, if you do, than it is not Love but, a selfish , or hollow Love you feel for that Person.

Answer 9

You mean in a sense of agape love--loving without expecting any in return. It is very difficult to do. I used to love in that manner, but I now think that it takes much discipline and character to make it work. It also takes a great deal of patience. I would like to think that I could love a partner enough to do it once again, but when pain and hurt enters the picture time-and-time again, it becomes suspect that the attempt may become a futile one.

Answer 10

I believe that perfect love is unconditional and therefore takes the "ME" out of the equation. It is a selfless act. Unfortunately, many people place conditions on how or if they will love another. They often seek to get what they can out of a love relationship at the risk of losing the possible rewards that true love can bring.

Answer 11

Hi Rena, I am sure you can, but I am not sure it will have as deep of a meaning without self-interest. When my life was a mess, my dad would tell me over and over, you can't love someone else without loving yourself first. I have and always will believe that.