The four realms of heart

As we grow, our love develops through four types: children’s love for their parents, fraternal love between siblings, conjugal love between spouses and parental love for children.

There are four realms of heart within which our love grows and manifests itself. As we pass through each realm of heart, our heart grows in its ability to receive and give love between ourselves and those around us, and we also receive a more profound quality of divine love. These Realms of Heart follow each other in order.

four realms.gif (19715 bytes)

The purpose of marriage and the family:

  1. For the couple - the place in which they find God's true love in each other.
  2. For children - the parents who pass on God's true love to them.
  3. For society - the place we should develop our ability to live for others.
  4. For nature - the place we learn to value and respect our environment.
  5. For God - the place in which He planned to find the greatest joy and fulfil His purpose of creation.

It is as if we are in a class teaching a specific course of lessons of love. Once we complete one level, our hearts are at the standard required for entry to a higher realm.

So it is extremely detrimental to our spiritual growth to enter, for example, into the realm of conjugal love before our love for brothers and sisters has matured.

Each realm of heart includes also the realms below it, so a husband and wife can also feel as brother and sister to each other, and even as parent and child.

We can learn certain degrees of love in school or in society, but essential love is learned in the family.

nextbutton.gif (5828 bytes)