Classes on Relationships



	Classes on Relationships (check 'classes' link, above, for updates on dates and times)

Friendship Love I - Thou relationships Compassion Forgiveness Faithfulness Gandhi's practice of Non-Violence
		What are the types of relationships? What are the depths of relationships? Sponsored by True Relations. Our alliance for the formation of relationships that spontaneously create elemental society.


Friendship discussion and love of truth (Socrates and Plato) integrity and recognition of identity (Ralph Waldo Emerson) spiritual perception, transformation and unity (Kahlil Gibran and Jalaluddin Rumi) imparting, listening, and understanding (J. Krishnamurti) Love Conditional love Unconditional love Romantic love Erotic love Spiritual love Are some kinds of love divisive? Is love a feeling or an objective reality? What makes love possible? I - Thou relationships “That peoples can no longer carry on authentic dialogue with one another is not only the most acute symptom of the pathology of our time, it is also that which most urgently makes a demand of us. I believe, despite all, that the peoples in this hour can enter into dialogue, into a genuine dialogue with one another. In a genuine dialogue each of the partners, even when he stands in opposition to the other, heeds, affirms, and confirms his opponent as an existing other. Only so can conflict certainly not be eliminated form the world, but be humanly arbitrated and led towards its overcoming.” Martin Buber, Pointing the Way Compassion What is good about compassion? What limits compassion? What makes it possible? What is actually good for others? Can too much compassion be harmful? Are there appropriate limits to compassion? (focus on Buddhism) Forgiveness Should we forgive those who harm us? Is ‘easy forgiveness’ harmful? Do we have a right to forgive those who harm others? Should forgiveness depend on repentance or other qualities of the forgiven? Faithfulness How did sex as a lifestyle come to exist in popular culture? Is there an innate sense of the sanctity and dignity of the body, which has to be destroyed by culture in order to promote a culture of greed and sexuality? Does promiscuity reduce dignity and self-respect? Gandhi's practice of Non-Violence John Ruskin, Unto This Last and Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You Mohandas Gandhi: His own writings Monandas Gandhi: Exploration of 'satyagraha.' (A three meeting introduction to our course on Non-Violence.)