One of the aspects of dependency is that it is unconcerned with spiritual growth. Dependent people are interested in their own nourishment, but no more; they desire filling, they desire to be happy; they don’t desire to grow, nor are they willing to tolerate the unhappiness, the loneliness and suffering involved in growth. Neither do dependent people care about the spiritual growth of the other, the object of their dependency; they care only that the other is there to satisfy them. Dependency is but one of the forms of behavior to which we incorrectly apply the word “love” when concern for spiritual evolution is absent. We will now consider other such forms, and we hope to demonstrate again that love is never nurturance(养成) or cathexis(全神贯注) without regard to spiritual growth.
We frequently speak of people loving inanimate objects or activities. Thus we say, “he loves money” or “He loves power” or “He loves to garden or “He loves to play golf.” Certainly an individual may extend himself or herself much beyond ordinary personal limits, working sixty, seventy, eighty hours a week to amass(积累) wealth or power. Yet despite the extent of one’s fortune or influence, all this work and accumulation may not be self-enlarging at all. Indeed, we may often say about a self-made(白手起家的) tycoon(巨头), “He’s a small person, mean and petty.” While we may talk about how much this person loves money or power, we frequently do not perceive him as a loving person. Why is this so? It is because wealth or power have become for such people ends in themselves rather than means to a spiritual goal. The only true end of love is spiritual growth or human evolution.
Hobbies are self-nurturing activities. In loving ourselves-that is, nurturing ourselves for the purpose of spiritual growth-we need to provide ourselves with all kinds of things that are not directly spiritual. To nourish the spirit the body must also be nourished. We need food and shelter. No matter how dedicated we are to spiritual development, we also need rest and relaxation, exercise and distraction(娱乐). Saints must sleep and even prophets must play. Thus hobbies may be a means(方法) through which we love ourselves. But if a hobby becomes an end in itself, then it becomes a substitute for rather than a means to self-development. Sometimes it is precisely(正好地) because they are substitutes for self-development that hobbies are so popular. On golf courses, for instance, one may find some aging men and women whose chief remaining goal in life is to knock a few more strokes off their game. This dedicated effort to improve their skill serves to give them a sense of progress in life and thereby(从而) assists them in ignoring the reality that they have actually stopped progressing, having given up the effort to improve themselves as human beings. If they loved themselves more they would not allow themselves to passionately(强烈地) settle for such a shallow goal and narrow future.
On the other hand, power and money may be means to a loving goal. A person may, for instance, suffer a career in politics for the primary purpose of utilizing political power for the betterment(改善) of the human race. Or some people may yearn(渴望) for riches, not for money’ sake but in order to send their children to college or provide themselves with the freedom and time for study and reflection(深思) which are necessary for their own spiritual growth. It is not power or money that such people love; it is humanity.
Among the things that I am saying here and throughout this section of the book is that our use of the word “love” is so generalized and unspecific as to severely interfere with our understanding of love. I have no great expectation that the language will change in this respect. Yet as long as we continue to use the word “love” to describe our relationship with anything that is important to us, anything we cathect(将精力集中于), without regard for the quality of that relationship, we will continue to have difficulty discerning(辨别) the difference between the wise and the foolish, the good and the bad, the noble and the ignoble. Using our more specific definition, it is clear, for instance, that, we can love only human beings. For, as we generally conceive(想象) of things, it is only human beings who possess a spirit capable of substantial growth.
I recognize the possibility that this conception may be a false one; that all matter, animate and inanimate, may possess spirit. The distinction of ourselves as humans being different from “lower” animals and plants and from inanimate earth and rocks, is a manifestation of maya(幻), or illusion, in the mystical frame of reference. There are levels of understanding. In this book I am dealing with love at a certain level. Unfortunately my skills of communicating are inadequate to encompass(包含) more than one level at a time or to do more than provide an occasional glimpse of a level other than the one on which I am communicating.
Consider the matter of pets. We “love” the family dog. We feed it and bathe it, pet it and cuddle(搂抱) it, discipline it and play with it. When it is sick we may drop everything and rush it to the veterinarian(兽医). When it runs away or dies we may be grief-stricken(极度悲伤的). Indeed, for some lonely people without children, their pets may become the sole reason for their existence. If this is not love then what is? But let us examine the differences between our relationship with a pet and that with another human being.
First of all, the extent of our communication with our pets is extremely limited in comparison with the extent to which we may communicate with other humans if we work at it. We do not know what our pets are thinking. This lack of knowledge allows us to project onto our pets our own thoughts and feelings, and thereby to feel an emotional closeness with them which may not correspond to reality at all.
Second, we find our pets satisfactory only insofar as their wills coincide(同时发生) with ours. This is the basis on which we generally select our pets, and if their wills begin to diverge(偏离) significantly from our own, we get rid of them. We don’t keep pets around very long when they protest or fight back against us. The only school to which we send our pets for the development of their minds or spirits is obedience(服从) school. Yet it is possible for us to desire that other humans develop a “will of their own”; indeed, it is this desire for the differentiation(区别) of the other that is one of the characteristics of genuine love.
Finally, in our relationship with pets we seek to foster(促进) their dependency. We do not want them to grow up and leave home. We want them to stay put, to lie dependably near the hearth(灶台). It is their attachment to us rather than their independence from us that we value in our pets.
This matter of the “love” of pets is of immense(极大的) import because many, many people are capable of “loving” only pets and incapable of genuinely loving other human beings.
Large numbers of American soldiers had idyllic(田园诗的) marriages to German, Italian or Japanese “war brides” with whom they could not verbally(口头上地) communicate. But when their brides learned English, the marriages began to fall apart. The servicemen(军人) could then no longer project upon their wives their own thoughts, feelings, desires and goals and feel the same sense of closeness one feels with a pet. Instead, as their wives learned English, the men began to realize that these women had ideas, opinions and aims different from their own. As this happened, love began to grow for some; for most, perhaps, it ceased. The liberated woman is right to beware of the man who affectionately(亲切地) calls her his “pet.” He may indeed be an individual whose affection(爱慕之情) is dependent upon her being a pet, who lacks the capacity to respect her strength, independence and individuality.
Probably the most saddening example of this phenomenon is the very large number of women who are capable of “loving” their children only as infants. Such women can be found everywhere. They may be ideal mothers until their children reach the age of two-infinitely tender, joyously breast-feeding, cuddling and playing with their babies, consistently affectionate, totally dedicated to their nurture, and blissfully(幸福地) happy in their motherhood. Then, almost overnight(一夜之间), the picture changes. As soon as a child begins to assert(坚持) its own will-to disobey, to whine(抱怨), to refuse to play, to occasionally reject being cuddled, to attach itself to other people, to move out into the world a little bit on its own-the mother’s love ceases. She loses interest in the child, decathects(撤回爱慕之情) it, perceives it only as a nuisance(麻烦事). At the same time she will often feel an almost overpowering(无法抵抗的) need to be pregnant again, to have another infant, another pet. Usually she will succeed, and the cycle’ is repeated. If not, she may be seen avidly(热心地) seeking to baby-sit(为人临时照看) for the infant children of neighbors while almost totally ignoring the pleas of her own older child or children for attention. For her children the “terrible twos” are not only the end of their infancy, they are also the end of the experience of being loved by mother. The pain and deprivation(剥夺) they experience are obvious to all except their mother, busy with her new infant. The effect of this experience is usually evidenced as the children grow to adulthood in a depressive(压抑的) and/or passive(消极的) dependent personality pattern.
What this suggests(这表明) is that the “love” of infants and pets and even dependently obedient(服从的) spouses is an instinctual pattern of behavior to which it is quite appropriate to apply the term “maternal(慈母般的) instinct” or, more generally, “parental instinct.” We can liken(把……比作) this to the instinctual behavior of “falling in love”: it is not a genuine form of love in that it is relatively effortless, and it is not totally an act of will or choice; it encourages the survival of the species but is not directed toward its improvement or spiritual growth; it is close to love in that it is a reaching out for others and serves to initiate interpersonal bonds from which real love might begin but a good deal more is required to develop a healthy, creative marriage, raise a healthy, spiritually growing child or contribute to the evolution of humanity.
The point is that nurturing can be and usually should be much more than simple feeding, and that nurturing spiritual growth is an infinitely(无限地) more complicated process than can be directed by any instinct. The mother mentioned at the beginning of this section who would not let her son take the bus to school is a case in point(相关的). By driving him to and from school she was nurturing him in a sense, but it was nurturing he did not need and that clearly retarded(阻碍) rather than furthered(促进) his spiritual growth. Other examples abound(大量存在): mothers who push food on their already overweight children; fathers who buy their sons whole roomfuls of toys and their daughters whole closetfuls of clothes; parents who set no limits and deny no desires. Love is not simply giving; it is judicious(明智的) giving and judicious withholding(保留) as well. It is judicious praising and judicious criticizing. It is judicious arguing, struggling, confronting, urging(激励), pushing and pulling in addition to comforting(舒适). It is leadership. The word “judicious” means requiring judgment, and judgment requires more than instinct; it requires thoughtful and often painful decision making.