This is all very well, but can we identify something obviously transcendent, universal in any of this? Something which isn't accounted for in the materialist evolutionary account. — Punshhh

The problem is, that is just what the materialist account obscures. It is found in traditional wisdom schools and other sources such as those you mention. It is real, but a 'first-person science' - the sacred science, it has been called - is required to realise it. The point is, there are ways to tap into that resource, like digging for gold, or diving for pearls. That's what spiritual paths are about.

Perhaps, so what is all this religious and spiritual love? What purpose does it have, in terms of survival of the species?

I do know the answer to this question, but I am suggesting it is not required, perhaps it is a byproduct. — Punshhh

A fair consideration. Religious love and spiritual love seem not to fit into the all-is-for-survival bag. However, these so-called sublime loves are born of fear - fear of injury and fear of death. There is also the hope of an afterlife. We're back to square one - all is about survival.

Philosophers get in a mess when they write about love, in my opinion. — mcdoodle

This is such a big problem, though. You mention 'love' and suddenly he is screaming and running away naked into the wilderness while you just stand there scratching your head thinking, wha? There is so much that can be discussed on the subject and I often have to consistently reiterate that I view love to be moral consciousness to avoid the continuous penetration of historical and emotional influences that challenge any rational discussion on the subject.

Read the full Song of Solomon here ! (I know, King James' version, I'm a sucker for its rhythm) — mcdoodle

Song of Solomon is not about divine love, not how it is often interpreted. It is highly erotic but nevertheless shows how her sexual attraction toward him did not defeat her into succumbing to his sexual advances and his games where he hid 'behind the trellis' from her; though she loved him, she wanted more. She is a virgin or 'a garden enclosed' who went through hardships by her siblings or 'mothers children' having had to work in the fields and unaware of her beauty, the intense sexuality between them made her realise that she was a 'wall and her breasts like towers' that is, self-love. She found peace in the end by saying that she hopes he is happy with his other women. It is hard to tell if his love is 'awakened' when he is ready coming out to her and where she crowns him king on his espousal that gladdens his heart (as in, they get married).

It is a story between two lovers with the same affection, desire, passion who fail to tell each other how they really feel. In the end, he still wants her but never says anything and she is still waiting for him to say something.

KJV is the best.

Yes I was thinking this, that all spiritual and religious thought and aspiration can fall within an evolutionary explanation. However, I would not agree that it is born out of fear, but rather curiosity, in the beginning. The curiosity in the minds of the earliest people who found they had a mind and could think, think about themselves and their predicament and the earliest philosophical questions, that these people thought about.

Perhaps the very existence of such beings, realising this capacity and questioning is evidence of something other than the gross physical reality we find around us.

I didn't suggest it is about erotic love. I am refering to the mating/pairing between partners and the bonding process between family members etc, as the basis for the experience of love in humans(and other animals). — Punshhh

The bonding between two people that transcends to something like 'true love' rather than just mating or what is social or customary, is the mutual connection between two people who have both reached that same state of transcendence or consciousness. This is because of the authenticity of their perceptions. Being genuinely self-aware, they admire their partner who shares the same awareness and for the way that they are as a person, virtuous and principled.

So by erotic, I meant the sexual pairing (Fromm, The Art of Loving) but the authenticity of this bonding process requires much more, as said by him: "If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to all others, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism." He shows perfectly well here that when someone doesn't care about all things save for specific objects that he needs, his love is false. That is why we as individuals need to first dissect and understand the intricacy of our own mind in order to reach a frame of mind capable (since it is our mind that is the apparatus of reason) of thinking correctly.

My opinion of transcendence is a type of Kantian consciousness, that whilst we are formed in a deterministic environment, we transcend through free will to become self-aware and a rational, autonomous agent. Moral consciousness - love - becoming aware of our moral obligations and our rational and decisive realisation that a life of virtue aimed at identifying the Platonic form of Good [universal love] as the best way to live is a natural a priori extension of this.

Hence the reference to be 'born again' through love, that is, to transcend what we think we understand of love and apply ourselves consciously and authentically by using the mind as an apparatus to draw rational inferences vis-a-vis the awareness of the interconnectedness of all things.

I bring this up because about 2 weeks ago, while travelling in New Zealand, I had an experience of something which I interpreted as a realisation of universal love and I seek to account for it philosophically. — Punshhh

Weird shit happened to me in New Zealand too :D

The problem is, that is just what the materialist account obscures. It is found in traditional wisdom schools and other sources such as those you mention. It is real, but a 'first-person science' - the sacred science, it has been called - is required to realise it. The point is, there are ways to tap into that resource, like digging for gold, or diving for pearls. That's what spiritual paths are about.
an hour ago

Yes, we are left with personal anecdotal testimony. However I do think that philosophy can go further than this, given some preliminary assumptions. Such as the assumption that there is a spiritual reality and that the form it takes can in some way be accurately intuited by people. This then gives us a large amount of material to sift through and come up with some philosophical conclusions. Such assumptions are I suspect problematic to many philosophers, particularly those who haven't looked into it.

Also I do think that there are many people who are philosophically minded, but who are not academically trained who do look into such ideas, or don't rule them out. In fact they probably outnumber academic philosophers. Perhaps an underswell of innate spirituality within humanity, including an innate wisdom and knowing, a knowing which may be more of a knowing than those academics appear to have.

Perhaps the very existence of such beings, realising this capacity and questioning is evidence of something other than the gross physical reality we find around us. — Punshhh

Yes, indeed. The materialistic view could be at best, incomplete and at worst, utterly false. However, the same may be said of non-materialistic philosophy.

That doesn't matter because current trends in almost everything under the sun seem to express a materialistic philosophy - a dangerous?? situation. Religion, the quintessential non-materialstic philosophy is diluted to such an extent that it would be unrecognizable to its very first followers.

I think it becomes imperative at this point - a time dominated by science (uber materialism) - to remind ourselves that even though the doors of the spiritual are closing fast and irreversibly, we should take note of the window of possibility which admits of an unexplored spiritual world.

You are right -- "self-less love" doesn't make sense. — Bitter Crank

Agreed? Yes? No?

Nice account, I appreciate your reference to the pitfalls of sexual, or erotic love and why you brought it up.
I suppose what I am alluding to is a realisation of a Platonic form of good, as you put it. Although in a more physical way (actually on the plane of the soul*) than simply the mental, or intellectual realisation.

The form that my weird shit took was a crisis of the heart brought about by a brief and fleeting recollection of a brief meeting with someone in India 23 years ago and the crushing realisation that this person was a soul mate, a candidate for true love, as you describe. And the pain of the acceptance that I failed to go with this person, but rather turn away for petty egotistical reasons and subsequently regret it ever since.

*i will reference the egoic plane(Alice Bailey) to be more precise.

I would dispute your assertion that the doors of spirituality are closing irreversibly. Madness indeed :)

I am finding it very hard to connect these two passages:

Also I do think that there are many people who are philosophically minded, but who are not academically trained who do look into such ideas, or don't rule them out. — Punshhh

With:

*i will reference the egoic plane(Alice Bailey) to be more precise. — Punshhh

Alice Bailey? Madame Blavatsky? Egoic plane?

Theosophy - which endorses evil - is not only a New Age fashionable tool used by the ignorant to justify irrational behaviour, but I would hardly consider it anywhere near philosophical.

Ever wondered why Hitler used the swastika?

The form that my weird shit took was a crisis of the heart brought about by a brief and fleeting recollection of a brief meeting with someone in India 23 years ago and the crushing realisation that this person was a soul mate, a candidate for true love, as you describe. And the pain of the acceptance that I failed to go with this person, but rather turn away for petty egotistical reasons and subsequently regret it ever since. — Punshhh

It took you 23 years to realise you were in love with someone?

That is just horrifying. I am sorry and not for you, probably the feelings that I have toward you at this moment are somewhat resentful. Clearly you were a fool and missed out on an experience that could have filled your life - and possibly hers - with something unique, even if it may or may not have worked out, only honesty to yourself would have allowed you to ever know.

That is the only problem here, authenticity. Your dishonesty to yourself. No new age planes that are used to divert your attention away from the truth by the management and even the desensitization of your inner feelings are ever going to change what you did. The problem is, you probably maintained this dishonesty because of the deep guilt you felt, almost repressing it that it may have even hurt you in different ways, until that brief moment in New Zealand where you faced it.

What a shame. It always catches up on you, though, one way or another.

The two passages were comments made to different posters, so amount to different conversations. My comment to Wayfarer was an observation about humanity and philosophy. My comment to you was about a way of describing a personal experience in a way that may convey a difficult to describe circumstance, to a poster who does appear to have some knowledge of these issues. I only mentioned Alice Bailey as a reference where a definition of the part of my experience, or being that I was referring to can be found. If you don't like the school of thought referenced, just read my meaning as of the soul, rather than the intellect. It's a simple but important distinction. Your summary of love, came across as a description of the intellectual processes involved in self realisation. I was pointing out with an example that it entails other levels of being.

Regarding my "weird shit", you seem to have gone off on some tangent and projected lots of your own ideas onto it. There doesn't seem to be much point in trying to explain it further, other than to point out that your interpretation of the situation is wildly off the mark. That I am not in love with the person mentioned, and there isn't anything tragic going on. Have you not in your youth been a "fool", or regretted the one that got away? Come on be honest now?

I was not questioning whether we experience love, but rather asking if from your perspective, it is solely within experience? I agree with the rest of your account about this and the ways people can become confused. — Punshhh

Do you agree, in particular, with the distinction I made between one respect in which love is "in experience", and another respect in which love is "outside experience" in the bodies of the animals who love?

Regarding universal love, the way I am treating it in this conversation is in the sense of the principle, the reality and the experience of love and realities of which love might be a derivative, having some real and fundamental presence in the processes of existence itself, or the existence we find ourselves in. — Punshhh

My view is that it has a "real existence", in the bodies of those sentient animals and in the experience of those sentient animals.

For example our existence might be hosted by a demiurge through a process of creative love and life for that demiurge might be all within the realm of mind where intellectual compassion and love is as concrete as physical matter is for us. — Punshhh

I suppose on my view, love is as concrete as physical matter. Or, a particular instance of love is as concrete as a particular instance of physical matter. But I see no reason to suppose that love is "fundamental", in the sense that it is a basic feature of anything said to exist. Tables and chairs, sunbeams and raindrops.

A story like the one you've told about a demiurge: We can imagine it so, and we can imagine it not so. We can imagine countless alternatives like this one, each as consistent with the balance of appearances as any of the others; each as unsupported by the balance of appearances as any of the others. On what grounds would we choose among all those possibilities?

This particular story emphasizes a connection between love and sentience. That's an interesting dimension of our discussion: Can we conceive of love without sentience?

Are the love and sentience of the demiurge, or of the demiurge's "realm of mind", similar to the love and sentience of our animal experience, or how are they different? How do we know the answer to such questions? On what grounds would we support an answer?

Desires contained our mind define us. We call this ego. Our ego tells us what we deserve in life. In accordance with this pursuit of happiness we identify objects of gratification, like the car, job, spouse, friends. This forms attachments. The more we dwell on an object of gratification the larger portion of our total meaning of happiness attaches with it. This is how we sometimes get to deep infatuations, saying that “I cannot live without such and such”. This can lead to lunatic or fanatic state.

We call this attachment ‘Love’ in usual language. This is based on expectation of future gratification. When the expected gratifications do not come forth we feel betrayed, disappointed. This leads to hate.

On the other side, when we help a stranger, an animal, or give to a homeless on the street, we know that no gain will ever come from this action of ours. This is mercy, compassion. This is universal love. We all have to define the value of selflessness for us, by trying it a few times, and make a judgment, as to what adds to happiness, selfishness or selflessness. World cannot teach this to us, we all have to learn this ourselves.

I only mentioned Alice Bailey as a reference where a definition of the part of my experience, or being that I was referring to can be found. If you don't like the school of thought referenced, just read my meaning as of the soul, rather than the intellect. It's a simple but important distinction. Your summary of love, came across as a description of the intellectual processes involved in self realisation. I was pointing out with an example that it entails other levels of being. — Punshhh

Alice Bailey is a terrible reference. There are a plethora of philosophical arguments on the subject of soul, perhaps give McTaggart a shot or maybe even Schopenhauer if the subject of transcendence is appealing (though I disagree with both). The former is perhaps more in line with what you seek vis-a-vis 'universality of souls' and if this bond is genuine, perhaps love is an experience where time does not exist and that she too is waiting for you.

Why do you somehow assume that the intellect has no relation to this ambiguous and intuitive domain within - what is termed as 'soul'? Intellectual invalidity exemplifies why 23 years later you realised that you were in love. They are not mutually exclusive.

As for 'levels of being' - again, gobbledegook if you are looking at it from a New Age perspective. There are no spiritual beings floating about the place on higher planes, no amount of listening to waves and whale sounds while humming and meditating is going to make you a better person. You can become a better person by reading the right books, having the right friends and people in your life, loving and caring for others in need, fighting injustice, having fun and giving love.

Regarding my "weird shit", you seem to have gone off on some tangent and projected lots of your own ideas onto it. There doesn't seem to be much point in trying to explain it further, other than to point out that your interpretation of the situation is wildly off the mark. That I am not in love with the person mentioned, and there isn't anything tragic going on. Have you not in your youth been a "fool", or regretted the one that got away? Come on be honest now? — Punshhh

The only projection is my dedication to authenticity and there are multiple ways people destroy love due to their inauthenticity - either for their ego or because they are cowards, or for social standards and the image they create, both completely narcissistic. I am not sure if you have ever felt the joy of having a genuine, close friend who cares about you and vice versa, but friendship is the beginning of learning how to give love and to be friends with a woman who you also share intimacy with, who you admire, and all the benefits of sharing a life with someone who actually understands and can see deep within you or your 'soul' and vice versa, what does that make you to turn away from that?

I don't know about tangent; calling you a fool and feeling disappointed that it took you 23 years to realise you were in love is not projection; it is logic.

But I can see why it took you so long. Your excuses are really good. It seems you are more in love with yourself.

As for me, no, I regret nothing because I seek genuine friendship. I never give up on the prospect of love but I do demand authenticity and being mistreated with impropriety by being seen as a mere sexual object is a dishonour I have never allowed any man to make of me. Flattery, conceit, poetry, superficial sagacity and appearances do not work with me, I will and do everything in my power to rid such people from my life and I regret none of the actions that I have done to ensure my virtue remains in tact. But even so, my love for them (care) never ceases.

“Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him, for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low, could still be saved; the bitterest enemy and also he who was your friend could again be your friend; love that has grown cold can kindle.”

Regarding my "weird shit", you seem to have gone off on some tangent and projected lots of your own ideas onto it. There doesn't seem to be much point in trying to explain it further, other than to point out that your interpretation of the situation is wildly off the mark. That I am not in love with the person mentioned, and there isn't anything tragic going on. Have you not in your youth been a "fool", or regretted the one that got away? Come on be honest now? — Punshhh

What is there to regret if it was not love? The foolishness of youth is loss younger self couldn't anticipate, a path someone turns away from because it's too hard, too much work, interfered with their other desires it much or wasn't popular at the time, even though there was something more worthwhile their in the long run.

In these 23 years, how can you say you have lost anything if you did not love her? Are you one to have relationships and a soul mate without love?

Perhaps you are being honest about not loving her (whether then or now), but it would make you profoundly dishonest value. I would mean your regret was a status play, one where you are in love with the idea a relationship with this person or having a soul mate, so you are regretting you didn't take your chance to meet this abstracted standard of perfection.

"Universal love" often works like this. In most instances, it a play for status-- if only I find universal love, then I will be perfect, will be the best, will break out of the ignominy of my worldly existence.

In this sense, universal love is a lie. Love is given by people to other people. It's defined by it is anything but universal, as it is care and respect for a specific person. Those who love everyone do not love universally, and it's what makes them wonderful-- no matter who you are, they specifically have your back, help when you are in trouble, etc. To be loved universally is an oxymoron.

We've been tricked by our own abstraction. Universal love, in sense, takes the significance of being loved by someone and pretends it can be given by no-one, as if love was an infinite with didn't requires anyone else or anything of the world. It's myth which destroys our ability to describe those we love and those who love us.

Our understanding of love becomes a solipsistic pretence, where we think love is only about our own beliefs and feelings, about finding the universal, accessing the transcendent, attaining Nirvāṇa, getting the hottest wife, possessing the perfection of having a soul mate, etc., rather than any person we care about. The selfish desire to have a perfect idea or belief overpowers concern for the people and world around us.

I think perhaps universal love is the only real love, all else illusion and attachment. Universal love comes from recognizing oneself in all others, from realizing the non-dual nature of reality. It stems first from love of oneself, and then extends to all life. It's omni-compassion. Good-will without reason, motive, logic. It's the only stance where ones' feelings are truly unconditional. And it's not at all about ego. It's recognizing the suffering in oneself and in all beings, and wanting to relieve this suffering. Not because another is a friend of mine, or shares some of my blood, or may bear my offspring, or has the coolest personality, but because another, like me, is a conscious being thrown into this world against their will and made to endure the unimaginable pain that is existence.

We've been tricked by our own abstraction. Universal love, in sense, takes the significance of being loved by someone and pretends it can be given by no-one, as if love was an infinite with didn't requires anyone else or anything of the world. It's myth which destroys our ability to describe those we love and those who love us.

Our understanding of love becomes a solipsistic pretence, where we think love is only about our own beliefs and feelings, about finding the universal, accessing the transcendent, attaining Nirvāṇa, getting the hottest wife, possessing the perfection of having a soul mate, etc., rather than any person we care about. The selfish desire to have a perfect idea or belief overpowers concern for the people and world around us. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Really well said, however I think incorrectly interpreted, though an easy oversight. Humanity stands above nature as we are capable of manipulating it and communication between people in a social atmosphere is a necessary requisite for our learning and development. The transcendence from this determinist environ is consciousness - by free-will - and upon doing so we become aware that our individuality is established by the determined components or properties that make our lives; our mind is merely an object that becomes the tool to enable consciousness in order to become aware of our own personhood. In doing so, we become aware of the greater ‘whole’ - that 'I' is no longer since we are finite but that 'we' are eternal as we continue to exist. This transcendence or consciousness of both the 'I' and 'we' encourages the desire to protect the determined plurality or 'nature' by seeking to prevent or stop evil - injustice, environmental depletion etc - anything that may jeapordize this initial state and thus moral consciousness becomes this very transcendence. Moral consciousness is love. Moral consciousness itself contains no contingent parts [the categorical imperative] and our death becomes meaningless or we - in the Heideggerean sense - overcome the fear of death. This is authenticity, our authentic state of mind and awareness.

When you love someone who is also aware or morally conscious, who works hard for good things, for justice, for the environment to ensure humanity - as it stands above nature - does not mindlessly destroy itself, you admire them for their principles, the fruits of their achievements, who they are as a person. It is no longer about what they look like, how old they are, how much money they have, how sexually appealing they are, what other people would think or anything 'worldly' since you have transcended society and all its teachings. It would be as I say: “I love through you the world and back into myself” rather than only loving an object because it has some sort of benefit to you alone. It is where two people share a bond that is both friendship, sexual, filial, affectionate all the types of love that rolls into something enduring where together they make one other better as you make the community or the environment better.

Just as much as being with 'any person we care about' - a person possessing the hottest wife would care about a hot woman because he cares about the image he would represent and that others would pat him on the back for, which is what he really cares about and not actually the hot woman that he painfully and deceitfully tolerates because he cares about possessing the hottest wife - clearly shows it is not full-proof of the danger of solipsistic pretence; what makes the clear difference is authenticity. If you have transcended society and no longer require institutions or religions or societal norms and expectations because you have become self-aware and thus transcended all that, the clarity of your motivations [applying love through moral consciousness] enables you to genuinely perceive and feel without the rubbish of all that.

Only through this universal love - that is to love all things - are we able to access the capacity to love what is authentically true in someone else.

Alice Bailey's work is an example of a western interpretation of Hinduism, as such it derives from the eastern philosophical tradition and is inline with my perspective on philosophy.

I don't see how the western philosophical tradition is addressing universal love other than in arriving at some logical positions from the starting point of an emergent(by evolution) intellect blind to the reality it finds itself in. As such western philosophy can't address any reality there may be in existence, because it is a-priori in ignorance.

It is blind to any spiritual reality other than what it has inherited (primarily) from Christianity. You can't address spirituality and therefore any kind of universal love that there might be without deriving from a spiritual, or religious source. So what is your source?

You are talking as though you have some insight on love, what is your source material?

Again your comments regarding my experience are a monologue exposing aspects of your own personality. I am not surprised to read that your are in fact perfect and I am a fool. Feel free to monologue some more.

Alice Bailey's work is an example of a western interpretation of Hinduism, as such it derives from the eastern philosophical tradition and is inline with my perspective on philosophy. — Punshhh

Occultism has plagiarized from Hinduism to try and legitimize its position, so it is grossly incorrect to assume it derives from the eastern philosophical tradition. Esoteric interpretations of satan by Blavatsky in the Secret Doctrine ameliorates your limited awareness of the subject.

I don't see how the western philosophical tradition is addressing universal love other than in arriving at some logical positions from the starting point of an emergent(by evolution) intellect blind to the reality it finds itself in. As such western philosophy can't address any reality there may be in existence, because it is a-priori in ignorance. — Punshhh

You dont understand because you are not willing to research and read on the subject. You have made your choice and this - in line with your willfully stubborn and immoveable ego - would make it impossible to discuss the subject with you. As I said, you love yourself too much. I gave you philosophers to read. So, go read and stop presenting rubbish.

Who was talking about Blavatsky?

Also what does western philosophy say about love again ( Remember you spoke with authority to begin with)?
Apart from a handful of logical extrapolations from a place of ignorance, western philosophy can only comment on observations about human or worldly love. Areas well covered already by biology and anthropology.

What about universal love, the subject of the Op?

Do you agree, in particular, with the distinction I made between one respect in which love is "in experience", and another respect in which love is "outside experience" in the bodies of the animals who love?

I agree that all animals love and that it is known and felt in experience, perhaps in humans, the kind of love is more self aware than in animals. Also that love can be in respect of external facts, things.

I understand what you are saying about instances of love as facts, but this is not something which I view as important. For me love is a personal experience of sentiment, something which through repetition becomes an established predisposition, or bond within the person.

My view is that it has a "real existence", in the bodies of those sentient animals and in the experience of those sentient animals.

Yes, but I am asking if there is a greater love of which we and our experiences of love are pale reflections? This was spurred by a personal experience I had in which I sensed/intuited such a thing.

I suppose on my view, love is as concrete as physical matter. Or, a particular instance of love is as concrete as a particular instance of physical matter. But I see no reason to suppose that love is "fundamental", in the sense that it is a basic feature of anything said to exist. Tables and chairs, sunbeams and raindrops.

But I do have reason to suppose this, however my reasons fall within the realms of theology.
Namely that our existence is hosted by beings for whom love is the meat and potatoes of life and creation.

A story like the one you've told about a demiurge: We can imagine it so, and we can imagine it not so. We can imagine countless alternatives like this one, each as consistent with the balance of appearances as any of the others; each as unsupported by the balance of appearances as any of the others. On what grounds would we choose among all those possibilities?

Yes, I agree we have no grounds from which to establish such knowledge of reality. (Well there is revelation etc, but putting that to one side for now). For me establishing the facts of such knowledge is not important, or relevant to me. However I do contemplate intuited forms of which such knowledge may take as an intellectual exercise.

Let me illustrate by analogy, many people say why do depictions of aliens resemble so closely the anatomy of humans. I don't because I see how this might be the case through the processes of evolution and that any alien which travels here from elsewhere in the universe would likely exhibit certain anatomical forms, forms mirroring the forms in human anatomy which enables them to develop the technologies which might one day enable them to travel to other planets. Namely, they would most likely have limbs, so as to be able to move in their environment, hands, or means of grasping and manipulating material. Good eyes, most likely bi-focal, for seeing and intricately manipulating the materials. Mouths for accessing sufficient energy and minerals to sustain a large body. An intelligent brain etc, etc. Ther are many examples of animals on our planet who are highly developed, but who will not develop such technologies because their anatomy is inadequate, dolphins for example.

Well by analogy divine beings hosting us, or of which we are a part are likely to have certain forms of anatomy.

This particular story emphasizes a connection between love and sentience. That's an interesting dimension of our discussion: Can we conceive of love without sentience?

I agree, I consider that there are other forms of love without sentience, but the kind of love we can conceive of is through experience reliant on sentience. This is in line with an idea I have about divinity being universally sentient.

Are the love and sentience of the demiurge, or of the demiurge's "realm of mind", similar to the love and sentience of our animal experience, or how are they different? How do we know the answer to such questions? On what grounds would we support an answer?

I would intuit it by analogy, I observe that the love in an animal is similar to that I experience personally, but less selfaware, integrated, sentient. So presume that the love in a demiurge is more selfaware, integrated and sentient than my own.
For me there is a reality by which I intuit knowledge in, from and through interaction with my environment. This knowledge is refined and sculpted through a creative process guided by intuition, rather like an artist. Whilst on the spiritual path this is my daily bread and along with some other practices enables me to walk forward.

The regret was that I had missed an opportunity due to my own failings. I agree with what you say about the foolishness of youth and don't blame my younger self for my behaviour back then. This regret was linked to a deeper feeling and experience of social inadequacy throughout my life.
Anyway, I mentioned this example of an experience to illustrate an experience of an emotional breaking or opening of the heart. Which seemed to me to be deeper than what I would expect in the life of a being in my position. Or in my humility I would never have expected, or imagined that such a thing would happen to to me, a person who lives a peaceful emotionally stable and humble life. The recollection of events 23 years ago was I presume the event in my past which my consciousness found appropriate for the experience to become anchored in my lived experience and was not important in the experience, but rather a way my mind found to understood what was happening.

It is this which started me thinking about a universal, or deeper love than what we normally experience in the world.