YouTube Stars!

Our dear friend and popular guest blogger, the lovely CelestialSam (picture above) has written an article about Love for YouTubeStars! Sam writes about what priest Anthony de Mello has said on the subject of Love, and adds her own wonderful thoughts on the affairs of the heart.

Below, we present Sam's thoughts about priest Anthony de Mello's ideas on Love, along with a the first of a 4-part video series...

But first, The News!

This week's Featured Video on our Top 100 and Top 200 Charts is a beautiful music video for an excellent cover of "Mean" by Taylor Swift! Alex G (AlexGMusic7) sang this song which was created by musician Adam Stanton. Its a very nice version of this hit by Taylor Swift. Watch the video right here; click on it!

We have a NEW Featured Video every week on our YouTube Top 100 Chart. If you missed any of our Previously Featured Videos, you can still watch them here.

Check out our Top 100 and Top 200 Charts of the Most Subscribed YouTube Channels every week!


Now, here is CelestialSam's article about Love!


"Falling in love is the exact opposite of love, and it's canonized everywhere! It's a disease!" said the late Anthony DeMello, a renowned Jesuit priest and psychotherapist, in this four part video series on How to Love.

(Watch Part One:)



DeMello discusses how we've been essentially brainwashed, or if you don't like that word-conditioned, societally programmed and drugged by things that are illusory; success, failure, criticism, and the good opinion of others.

He makes several analogies, the first about a group of slaves in the desert who lack sufficient pegs to tie their twenty camels to. When the slaves go to their master and report the deficiency, he says to them, "These camels are stupid creatures. Just go through the motions of driving a peg in the ground and tying this last camel to it, and it will stay put for the whole night," which is exactly what happened. When morning came, the slaves decided to set off, but found the last camel would not budge. The master addresses their quandary: "You probably forgot to go through the motions of untying him!"

How much like those stupid camels are we?

In nature, there is no border between countries, De Mello says: "Being an American is only in your head. There are no American trees or American mountains. This is a convention that people are ready to die for, that's how real it looks to them!" We react merely to words, to ideas in our heads.

And so he begins by discussing what love is not; attraction, possessiveness, fear of loss, jealousy, desire, dependency and the assuaging of our loneliness.

"God is Love," he says, and "love is Divine. But what generally goes under the name of love has nothing to do with love at all."

Love is not blind, and there is nothing so clear-sighted as love!

Yet, most people, when talking about love, refer to niceties reciprocated, like money in exchange for goods. Society programs us to unhappiness and no love by filling us with desires to secure our happiness. And the real evil is depending upon another human being for your happiness. According to DeMello, if you ever give someone the power to determine your happiness, you will inevitably be fearful, manipulative and possessive, unable to let the person free because your happiness depends upon them. That is not love.

Love is clarity of perception and accuracy of response, while passion, which is rooted in the ardent desire of a person or thing, is a strong, but fleeting feeling comparable to and, in some instances, likened to concupiscence. How can one love what one cannot see? Generally, when people see each other, they're not really seeing each other at all, but an image of a person formed in their minds based upon past experiences or preconceived notions; it is as though they are looking through a transparency that has been superimposed on their oculi. Instead of reacting on the basis of a person at a present moment, they react to the illusory transparency they're looking through, while all the while believing that what they're seeing is not essentially a mirage conjured in their minds; thus they lack the clarity of perception necessary for love to exist. How can we love that which we cannot see?

Where there is fear, there is no love, because we always hate what we fear. Perfect love casts out fear.

Paul, in the New Testament of the Bible, says that love keeps no record of wrongs. Love keeps no record of rights either. We should not react to memories, good or bad. He's not saying we should forget everything, but drain our memories of emotion, which is essentially the purification of memory.

Most people do the opposite of this, and do not know what love is.

Love is like listening to a symphony. To love is to be sensitive to the whole of the symphony; to everyone and to everything. Listening to a symphony and only hearing the drums or fixating on a single instrument is like falling in love, having an obsession, addiction or infatuation. Other people are drowned out. Love is not a relationship. It is a state of being.

When the eye is unobstructed, the result is sight. When the heart is unobstructed, the result is love.


CelestialSam has made many artful and entertaining videos over the years, including "Darkness on Her Cell Wall" and "Je ne veux pas travailler...". Also enjoy Sam's Blog and Flickr Pics"

Labels: Bible, Celestialsam, heart, how to love, love

posted by KennyCrane at 6/01/2011 04:19:00 AM