Finding True Love in the 21st Century: Following the Path of the Biblical Sages

By Marvin Schwartz

That loving feeling? Unrequited love? In love? These are just a few of the ways that we talk about love. This book reimagines a school of love in biblical times based on ancient scriptural texts, that had developed a path for anyone who wished to become skillful at love. This path remains available to everyone, secular, atheist or religious, who sincerely wishes to have love in their life. Follow the directions and you, too, can find true love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Aug 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9780228839057

Marvin Schwartz

Marvin Schwartz, B.A. (hons), M.P.A., has spent his life pursuing many interests, especially in the fields of psychology, relationships, religion, philosophy, and spirituality. This book represents the culmination of one of his many passionate labors of love...love itself. Marvin lives in his hometown of Ottawa, Canada with his wife Dana, and their golden doodle, Kuper.

Book preview

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all who

have trod the path of love in the past,

who tread the path of love in the present, and,

who will tread the path of love in the future.

Your very action pursued single-mindedly in the name of love has already guaranteed your success.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

A Note to Beginning the Path

Chapter 1: The First Initiation: Do not do unto others

The Teaching

Commentary

Practicing the Teaching of the First Initiation

Exercise #1: Your Hate Journal

Your First Hate Journaling Exercise

Exercise Two: The Gift of Your Hate List

Exercise Three: What Others Hate

A Personal Example of Hate Journaling:

Chapter 2: Love Lost in Translation: Part One

Chapter 3: The Second Initiation: Be Loving towards your Neighbour

Context

The Teaching

Day One of the Second Initiation

Day Two of the Second Initiation

Day Three of the Second Initiation

Commentary

Practicing the Teachings of the Second Initiation

Your Hate Journal: Phase 2

Your Second Hate Exercise

Your Third Hate Exercise

Your first love exercise: Be Loving to yourself

Your second love exercise: Be Loving to your neighbour

Hate Journaling: A Personal Example:

Chapter 4: The Third Initiation: Be Loving towards the Strangers in Your Midst

Context

The Teaching

Commentary

Practicing the Teachings of the Third Initiation

Practice 1

Practice 2: The Art of Admonishing

Chapter 5: The Fourth Initiation: Be Loving towards your Enemies

The Context

The Teaching:

Commentary:

Practicing the Teachings of the Fourth Initiation

Practice 1.

Chapter 6: Love Lost in Translation Part Two

Chapter 7: The Fifth Initiation: Loving the Divine

The Teaching

The Fifth Initiation: An Important Lesson

Commentary

The Practice of the Fifth initiation

Practise, Practise, Practise

Afterword

Appendix 1

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Preface

The book you are holding contains a complete program, universal in scope, for finding true love. The elements of the program have been around for eons, and you are probably familiar with most of these. Unfortunately, the program has been preserved piecemeal and some of its elements have been disguised or separated from the program. The program itself does not take long to read which is both a blessing and a curse.

The blessing is that it does not take long to read. This makes it rather easy to say: I know this and this is easy.

The curse is that because it doesn’t take long to read, we dismiss it as simplistic, not worthy of serious regard. Or, when someone gets heavily involved in the elements of the program, they give up because following this path is difficult. However, if you truly want to find true love, then you must take each element seriously. Putting this program to the test requires a constant commitment. With such a commitment of both time and effort, profound love is within reach.

Introduction

In 2011, Business Insider, a Silicon Valley Internet business site, reported that the number one question, asked more than twice as often as any other, was: what is love?¹

Love captivates us with its ephemeral nature and with that comes a desire to understand the timeless nature of our quest for love. I, too, have been, and remain, entranced by the question. For the past fifty years I have studied biblical texts and scholarly tomes in search of answers. For the past twenty-five years my focus has been on the study of spiritual texts and spiritual practices that have as part of their goal and philosophy the establishment of a love connection. My years of experience exploring these connections has led me to a variety of important insights for people interested in love, love in the Bible, or both.

Like us, the ancients in the land of Israel wanted to know how to live a good life in a difficult, violent, and unpredictable world. Agonizing over these issues, they searched for and discovered methods of finding inner peace –the love teachings. At the time, their ability to record their discoveries was limited by technology. Maintaining their teachings required passing them on, mostly orally, to their followers or disciples. They eventually created a cohesive set of love teachings that can still be found throughout Biblical texts today.

These teachings represent the wisdom of ancient Israelite schools of love. Like much biblical literature, whose authors we do not know, the names of these teachers and the whereabouts of their schools have remained shrouded in obscurity, hidden by the passage of time.

Some of the final editors of the Bible were very familiar with these love schools and were determined to preserve their teachings. With some ingenuity they managed to place these teachings within Biblical texts in such a way that they were maintained until they could be resurrected and brought together. In some cases, elements of the teachings are presented in vignettes. In others, the teachings are in small pieces, scattered and placed in the middle of lists or stories, making it more difficult to assemble them into a recognizable whole. Although these editors of the Bible managed to retain some of the love teachings in this way, by spreading the teachings throughout the Bible much of their cohesiveness was lost.

The love schools also had a very specific way of relating to what we would call the divine; their stance was radically different and so remains at odds with coreligionists and with many who follow any religious teachings.²

In this volume, I strove to reassemble the love teachings because I believe that they are still applicable today. And, while the love teachings and the schools that grew up around them came to maturity in a patriarchal society, you will clearly see that the teachings have universal application.

These insights have formed the basis for reconstructing the initiation process used at the Israelite Biblical Wisdom School of Love. Although we often believe that modern wisdom has superseded the old, the wisdom of this ancient love school offers answers and guidance for what remains one of humanity’s most enduring questions: What is love? Moreover, the ancients’ response actually contains a complete path towards love.

To reconstruct the love path and reconstitute its power we must view certain biblical passages with fresh eyes, fight against our natural inclination to accept the text as it is and see the edited text as having more to give us. The Bible is not an easy text to read. It has an obscure vocabulary and even good translations don’t convey the intent of the text, making it difficult for the modern reader to understand what it is trying to tell us. One goal of this book is to make those pertinent texts more readable and their messages more accessible.

As children, we often learn Bible stories in a particular order and over time it becomes hard to conceive of them in any other way. And, since most of us read a translation of the Bible, we don’t see how hard the translators worked to make the Bible read as if one person wrote it. This book revisits the love teachings in their original language. It teases the teachings out of their edited positions and reassembles them into a coherent whole, showcasing the brilliance of the love path that they represent.

These teachings provide the opportunity to follow a spiritual path of love. When honoured this path can transform your life. Following the Love Teachings permits anyone to progress; each of the five initiations expands our inner knowledge engendering a more profound awareness of the self and how we relate to those around us. Each teaching has its own requirements to make progress on the spiritual path of love and reach the innermost initiation. So, what do you do with these teachings once you know what they are? Mastery of the teachings of each initiation is difficult. It is simply not enough to read these teachings or intellectualise the lessons. Rather, you need to learn how to live them. The process takes time, effort, and reflection. Perseverance on this journey will show itself to be worthwhile as you begin to see yourself and your relationships change for the better.

While working on this book for the last five years, I developed a keen appreciation of how deeply these teachings have affected my life. The teachings provided the tools necessary for reviewing my life and enhancing my ability to be loving and to be loved. However, the caveat to learning to be more loving, was that it required me to explore the various times in my life where my actions (including my words) were less than stellar. The more deeply I followed the teachings, the more deeply I felt the pain of those memories of people whom I may have harmed in some way. These memories are particularly uncomfortable because most of these people, with whom I have spent and continue to spend time with, are exemplars of some of the love teachings.

My need to be loving ultimately permitted me to find a partner who shared my approach to