NAVIS NORD

ART OF THREE LOVES

On earthly and Universal Love

Antares Publishing House

Kraków 2014

Navis Nord Art of Three Loves

On earthly and Universal Love

Copyright © Janusz Wielobób 2014

All rights reserved, including rights to translation, presentation, adaptation, recording, photographing, database archivisation, distribution, electronic publication and reprint.

The original title: Sztuka Trzech Miłości. Rzecz o miłości ziemskiej i Uniwersalnej

Translated from a manuscript by Atlas.

Due to the nature of manuscript different language versions may also contain slight content differences.

Editing: Ariadna

Cover Design: Psyche

Typesetting: Zachariasz

First Edition

ISBN 978-83-939649-1-8

Antares Publishing House

Mobile phone: +48 730 996 969

e-mail: antares@stationnord.eu

www.stationnord.eu

www.prosperitytraining.eu

Opracowanie wersji elektronicznej: Karolina Kaiser

The small man builds cages for everyone he knows, while the Sage, who has to duck his head when the Moon is low, keeps dropping keys all night long for the beautiful rowdy prisoners.

[Hafez]

From the editor, from the students of Station Nord

Art of Three Loves is a presentation of Three Loves Training, meant for all those people, who would like to build fulfilling relationships, long lasting and deep friendships or to perfect their relations with people. Words, ignorance, confusion, lack of understanding make it impossible for many to build relations they would like to have. The book talks about three kinds of love that coexist and it is difficult to limit ourselves to just one of those, without developing the others.

The training was developed and compiled by Navis Nord in 1987-1994 and first presented in February of 1992. Since then, it has been systematically taught at Station Nord, developed and enriched with many new elements. Within the past twenty years, Three Loves Training has changed expression forms many times. This book presents the training as it was used at Station Nord in 2013 and 2014. The very name – Art of Three Loves – appeared only in January 2014.

And though the Art of Three Loves is only an introduction to the training, it presents an original and deepened view on the issue of Love. It is made up of many factors. Firstly, it is an expression of experience gathered over three decades of work with people. Secondly, many topics strongly connected with building friendly and love relations appear, which is not obvious at first sight. Any yet, if we want to love, we must see more and more connections between issues. Thirdly, Navis Nord would also like to remember that those motives have been present for many thousands of years in both Eastern and Western cultures. Hence numerous references to Eastern and Western wise men.

This book presents the training for the first time to a wider group of readers. For many of us, the topics touched upon in training are sobering and help to better understand the situation in which we are, help to uncover erroneous views about Love and wrong habits in relation building. We hope that the material transferred in this book will be at least as helpful to you as it was to us. Love, Friendship, Gratitude, Warmth are the states that become more understandable for us thanks to Three Loves Training. It is also connected with experiencing beauty and happiness, of which so many of us dream.

We believe that Art of Three Loves will inspire you to seek for what Love really is, deepen your reflection and develop your experience. We hope it will be an important point on your way to happiness.

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Footnotes in the text are aimed to direct the reader to sources – if the reader wishes to access them. We have not bothered to adapt them to scientific standards (anyway, there are a couple to choose from) since this book is not a scientific work. Also showing the sources is an expression of the author's reliability, presenting the source we draw on in a given moment.

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We would like to give heartfelt thanks to our teacher, Navis Nord, who transferred those teachings to us, for detailed explanations of difficult fragments, for care and making it possible to blossom with readiness for Love.

The editor and Station Nord students

Introduction

One of the most important topics in existentiology is Love, both Divine Love and human love, both Universal and personal. This topic commences a programme and training cycle that we call the Art of Three Loves.

Nowadays, lack of operational understanding[1] for crucial human terms like love, wisdom and freedom is almost a sign of the times. Since there is no model, objective, idea or goal that surpasses us by at least five levels, love in relationships will not develop, and there will be no fulfilment and no happiness.

From century to century we keep tackling the same important existential issues, to put them in words, which would be comprehensible for the modern man, to say them in concepts and terms adapted to the times, modern mentality and culture. They are topics, which cannot be spoken on, and yet, we undertake the effort of their explanation continuously, because the quality of our life depends on them. The objective of this work is to give the modern people tools that they need for happiness, fulfilment and love.

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Initially, the Art of Three Loves deals with three kinds of Love: Divine Love, Impersonal Relation-Shaping Love and Love between a man and a woman. The three flows, three fervours and three sparks work on them, their development and synchronisation are the basis of developing the Ideal, which we call Fiery Love at Station Nord.

The first element of the training is developing experience, which enables us to perceive Divine Love. To put it in other words: if you enter a relationship, you must answer a question: what Value do you follow? The greater the Value you accomplish, the bigger, better and more fulfilling your relationship will be. Those Values come from the realm of the Absolute, more from the Divine than the human realm. If there is no Absolute Objective in a relationship between two people, the relationship is pushed down by the power of gravitation and is absorbed by the heaviness of the matter. This part of the training teaches, what can and what can not be a value, provides us with materials that help us develop the understanding of Value, teaches to formulate objectives of Global and Absolute character. The Values, of course, are Love or Wisdom.

If Value as an Objective will be wrongly set, we will materialise a wrong model, which will be a source of trouble and suffering. An example of wrong love ideal is the film vision of pseudo emotional fulfilment, shown by many film industries.

The second element is Impersonal Universal Love which is decisive for the art of human relation building. The love between a man and a woman is never better than the quality of the relationship. Sex is never better than the quality of the relationship. Let's skip the definitions, which may still be incomprehensible and let's focus on the answer to the question what are we working on at this level? For most people an equivalent of Universal Love in relations is social patterns of behaviour and relationship models. Social adaptation and social utility training are a basic but not sufficient stage of individual development. This is well illustrated by a joke about a small girl, who asks her mother:

– Mummy, if I marry, will I live the sort of life you live?

– Something like that.

– And if I don't, will I live like Aunt Mary?

– Yes.

– Hmph, mum, that's an unattractive prospect…

The story illustrates a simple fact that social models and behaviour patterns do not result in happiness. Social models and behaviour patterns exist so that large groups may function well. All social models serve the society, not the individual. They are only an outward form, which will blossom with happiness or frustration, depending on the inner content of the people.

And what is the inner content?

Underneath there is an unsocialised, wild, underdeveloped, human nature, full of destructive tendencies. It is neither good nor evil, like the ocean, it is simply a part of Mother Nature. This human nature, in spite of being built also from jealousy, lust and hate, is alive and revitalising. Leaving it out in a love relationship removes life from it and makes it stale. When we hug our sweetheart, what we feel is their inner state or our own inner state, our mental state that dominates the contact in a given moment. It can be an ecstatic feeling or something that suffocates and clips the wings. Human nature is responsible for the way we build relations with everyone. The subject of work is destructive tendencies, which can destroy both relations with people and love relationships.

The third Love blossoms when a man and woman meet. Without work on Values and without work on developing relationships with people based on Universal Relational Love, the meeting between man and woman closes space and isolates us from the world and from people.

A relationship between two people must be worked on, if it is at least to bring fulfilment. Some people imagine that the quality of a relationship is decided by meeting the right person. Of course, finding someone who suits us is important[2], but with no proper skills we will lose them sooner or later. Trying good and hard will not be enough. We need access to knowledge how to direct the effort, where and in what direction to work, what will bring us desired results and what will help us to find fulfilment.

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This book was written at the request of Station Nord disciples. May it become a basis of building fulfilling relations for many people.

Navis Nord

Can passion and excitement be a base for love relationships?

Before we start to think about the possibilities of work with deepening love relationships, it is worth considering if and why this is worthwhile. In order to obtain an answer to that question, we will first analyse information from psychological research results, which could tell us what is the common model (dynamics and course) of a love relationship in European and American societies.

An eminent American psychologist, Robert Sternberg[3], listed three components of love between a man and a woman: intimacy, passion and commitment.

Intimacy – refers to the feeling of closeness, unity, relationship bond, it encompasses feelings of warmth within a relationship, common support and understanding and a desire to contribute to the wellness of the beloved.

Passion – refers to drive, physical attraction, erotic wishes, a strong longing for 'the one and only', and a state of intensive longing for intimacy with the person. Passion contains wishes and feelings connected with sexuality, such as arousal at the sight of the beloved, strong longing for contact, dreaming and fantasizing, the wish to look each other deep in the eyes, caressing, touching, sexual intimacy, strong arousal and admiration felt when thinking about the person we desire. Symptoms of passion are also jealousy of the beloved and a constant hunger of feelings displayed by them. Passion is a constellation of strong emotions with very considerable physiological arousal. Passion is a component of love that is only characteristic for romantic or erotic love. Intimacy, on the other hand, is met in a different kind of love: partner, parent, siblings, and friend.

Decision / commitment – encompasses decisions, thoughts and actions directed to transforming a love relation into a lasting relationship and keeping it in spite of difficulties. This component may manifest as sexual fidelity, engagement or marriage. Passion is not subject to the reason and will of the interested parties, intimacy – moderately, commitment is highly subject to conscious control.

The fact that passion passes quickly was familiar to Plato. Certainly, it had been discussed much earlier. In modernity, the problem was well presented by an eminent Polish psychologist Bogdan Wojciszke. The following information about the dynamics of love relationships were taken from Wojciszke book[4].

A huge percentage of relationships start with the phase of falling in love, which is dominated by increasing passion. Then the relationship moves into the phase of romantic beginnings, when, apart from strong passion, the couple is also united in intimacy. They start to get to know each other better, they communicate more and more precisely, they recognise each other's emotions and needs, they understand each other better, the mutual trust level increases. They keep spending more and more time with each other and they more often interact as a couple in relations with other people. If a couple makes a decision to sanction their relationship by living together, engagement or marriage, an intimate relationship goes into the phase of a complete relationship. It is the stage where all the components of love: passion, intimacy and commitment are the strongest. The longevity of the commitment depends on a conscious decision and partner will. Intimacy may be maintained or even developed, if both partners make an effort in this direction and if their levels of emotional and social competence make it possible. Yet passion is like a wave – it is irrevocably doomed to fall. Its dynamics are very rapid, it rises quickly and falls just as quickly. Sometimes passion lasts a few months, sometimes a few years, but it is seldom possible to maintain its high temperature for longer than seven years. When passion falls, assuming the pair is still linked by intimacy (psychological closeness, warmth and trust) and mutual obligations – the relationship goes into the stage of a friendly relationship. Partners are close to each other, they can count on each other, they are united by many things they have in common, but lack of passion and desire connected with it may cause intimacy problems. Many people have difficulties in satisfaction in that field when 'the partner does not turn them on the way they used to'. Psychologists claim that the stage does not have to fall quickly, because work on developing intimate closeness in a relationship is possible. Many people, however, being influenced by the romantic love models popularised by the media, cannot build a relationship that does not float the waves of passion. Maintaining and developing intimacy, on the other hand, requires more than just conscious effort in this direction. What is required for this is such a high level of understanding your own and your partner's emotions, coping with those emotions, such an ability to read and satisfy your own and your partner's needs and such a communication level, which is only achieved by relatively few people. As an effect, quite frequently this stage also ends as the result of a lowering intimacy level. When people grow more and more apart, become more and more estranged or even hostile, and the only thing that connects them is formal obligations: marriage, children, common house – we observe the empty relationship stage. Decision about break up is the end of the last component that kept the couple together – the commitment.

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My own observations in 30 years of people work show that there are at least two kinds of passion connected with different kinds and stages of human development: youthful passion and the passion of a mature man. The first one seems to be more the work of Mother Nature. The second one occurs within a mature man, who has achieved fulfilment on one or a couple of life levels, i.e. on the professional level. If the first passion did not bring him fulfilment, pain and longing appear which make the man search for fulfilment in adult passion. Usually people turn towards their regular partner first. Then they rediscover new sexuality and new quality of married life. However, if they do not find answers there, they will start to look for a new partner, with whom they are able to fulfil their dream. But this passion also ends. This passion is like nine cups, if you empty the ninth, what will you do then?

Youthful passion rarely brings fulfilment, though it is possible. Lack of fulfilment in this passion is perceived as pain, suffering. It also brings inner contraction, frustration, painful disappointment, bitterness and sometimes even hatred toward the opposite sex. Many people suffer while trying to bring it back to life. You cannot bring the past back to life. Yet you can turn towards the search for adult passion, if you meet the eligibility criteria.

In subsequent stages of life, we have to achieve different individual objectives in love relationships. In youth – youthful passion, in adulthood – adult passion which, for everyone who has experienced it, is much more attractive than the emotional youth. There are, of course, further stages. The further we go the less we want to turn back.

Unfortunately, mature passion can happen to people who meet the eligibility criteria, the others are left howling at the moon and chasing the shadows of youth. One more thing: the other passion is only one! So it cannot be repeated, later on we seek for higher values, which can be the basis of a relationship.

We can differentiate a couple of elements within the youthful passion: hormones, hopes, longings, other impulses of Mother Nature and emotions. But basically, due to function, we may divide them into sensitizing and desensitizing. The more desensitizing components, the higher the probability that we will never experience the next stages of development on the path of love. In spite of appearances, excitement as a way for a love relationship is a desensitizing component. Excitement can be a spice, but not 'the main course'.

If we do not want to close the door to the next stages of the love relationship development path, we must develop, amongst others, sensitivity, receptivity, and perception. Especially bodily sensitivity, since a human being lives in their body and only in their body may they experience fulfilment.

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It is obvious then, that passion cannot be a basis of a longlasting relationship. Of course, this does not mean that there is to be no passion at all in a relationship. The passion just cannot be its basis.

This book answers the question how to work on the development of a love relation which can last, become deeper and deeper and thus bring fulfilment, joy, strength, the knowledge of self and another person and all necessary nutrition.

Footnotes

[1] Operational understanding is an understanding where no difference between theory and practice exists. If you know or understand, you know how to do it.

[2] The training also teaches what criteria to take into account when selecting a partner.

[3] Sternberg, R. (2006). A Duplex Theory of Love. In R. Sternberg & K. Weis (Ed.), The New Psychology of Love (pp. 184-199). New York: Vail-Ballou Press.

[4] Wojciszke, B. (2012). Psychologia miłości [Psychology of love]. Gdańsk, Poland: GWP.

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