There are two fundamental attributes of consciousness. I call them gifts. The first gift is volition – we have the ability to choose. We not only have the ability to choose, in fact we are obligated to choose – something. We make choices all the time, every day. The second gift of consciousness is love. Love and all of its attributes and permutations are present in consciousness. Love is a continuum of feelings that spans the gamut from extreme positive, to the extreme negative - all the way to hate. In order for love to exist we must be able to define its opposite – hate. Love in all of its transformations is emotion.
Our predilections for one thing or another is a curious blend of want and desire. In other words – volition and love or emotion is what forms most of our awareness or consciousness. The substance of our consciousness is mostly concerned with emotion and will. There are other aspects to awareness like recognition, memory and sensory input; but volition and love most fully define our individual consciousness. There is another special aspect of consciousness call pure awareness or stillness. Let’s set this characteristic aside for the time being, perhaps we will discuss it later.
Well let’s be practical and ask where does consciousness come from? I would say the Holy Spirit but this answer is amorphous. So let’s not argue about the existence of God. Let’s focus on what we know and feel and can prove to ourselves. We know consciousness exists and that we all have it. And we know or sense consciousness has two main characteristics – volition and love - desire and emotion. Is there a logical association between volition and love and our behavior that we can be certain of? Can we deduce a causal relationship in human behavior which explains it? I think we can.
Consciousness is not so much a thing as it is a phenomenon. It is consumed with experience and yet everything is claimed and defined in it – both physical and metaphysical. Aside from the spiritual dimension love can be explain on a very practical level. Love exists and is initiated between a mother and a child. From the moment of conception a mother loves her child. Why, because it is not different from her – it is her. A mother loving her child is the same as loving herself, because they evolve as one being. Where did a mother learn love? Answer – she learned it from her mother. Love is born in the mother-child bond. Love of self is learned from a mother or mother figure.
Love has another attribute which reverberates in consciousness - desire. Love speaks to the existence of will in consciousness. Love and will co-create each other in consciousness. There is a symbiotic relationship between the two. Love is not solitary, nor is volition. They need each other in order to exist. We need a push or predilection in order to make a decision. A will needs a desire and a desire needs a will. They don’t exist separately.
I believe love has a spiritual dimension and origin that precedes all of physical existence. However, the defining of God is difficult, if not impossible. Therefore the practical unfolding of the mother-child bond is enough concrete proof of loves origin and existence. We do not have to answer first cause. We do not have to explain how or why the universe exists – it just does. We don’t have to say God created love. We can see a real origin for love and we know it exists, it is true. The mother child bond is enough of an explanation for love. We don’t have to know the origin of the chicken or the egg. We don’t have to explain or prove the universe exists. We know love exists and we know where it comes from. Love is very practical.
However, we are not always aware that loves is the basis of all civilization. Society is held together by collective agreement. The first collective agreement is between a mother and child for the relationship to persist. The mother-child bond is the basis of all relationships – family, hunter/gatherer group, village, town, school, commerce, city and nation. We live in society by collective agreement. All of our institutions are held together by collective agreement and all of these institutions are patterned after the first collective agreement. I would call the mother-child bond the first contract. It is a contract that surpasses all others. It is the mother of all contracts literally and figuratively.
What I mean or what I ask - is there a thing which surpasses everything else in your existence in value? I say it is consciousness because everything is contained in it. All other values are a subset. Now a person could argue that life is the greatest value, but we need consciousness in order to appreciate life. This is the existential principle – existence precedes essence.
So what is love?