Love is one of the themes that runs through Nectar of Time. Below is everything in the Nectarium that touches on it.
Where it comes up 11
Within this theme 56
Concepts 12
- The Shadow
Jung's term for the disowned parts of us, usually formed in childhood when a need wasn't met; Ian equates it with Watts's 'devil' and argues suppressing it costs more energy than bringing…
- Love's dark side
The episode's title question. Tamir argues love is as dangerous as it is beautiful (Paris and Helen, thorns on the rose). Sheela says the darkness comes from doubt and judgment: we 'cancel'…
- From Mourner to Investigator
Mia's framing of the shift that happens in grief when the mourner starts investigating, Sherlock Holmes style, the person lost or why they left (as in the Murakami novel, or her own urge to…
- Love as action
Sheela's idea, from an earlier interview Tamir cites, that 'love is not words, love is action'. Tamir links it to the Upanishads and to finding God more on a mountain or a run than in…
- Grief as Love's Shadow
The episode's central image: grief is love's shadow or ghost, so like love it is a unique thumbprint, inherently personal and subjective, and possibly spiritual in nature.
- Addressed love
From the Osho audio that opens the episode: the 'basic fallacy' that love is always for somebody, and that the moment you address your love to one person you destroy it, as if saying 'I…
- Love as free fall
Sheela's image of falling in love: shutting down all other senses and going into free fall, which teaches trust. Love and trust 'are part of one another', and entering a relationship full…
- Double life in Murakami
The recurring motif of protagonists living two lives, in the real world and another universe, including sex 'without touching' (Tengo and Fuka-Eri, Killing Commendatore's impregnation).
- Incel movement
Tamir mentions it as the opposite of Dante's response to unrequited love: telling the world why you're a victim instead of turning the pain into something you share.
- The ick
Modern slang Tamir explains: suddenly falling out of love with someone because of something they did. He asks whether Sheela 'got the ick' with Bhagwan; she says no, leaving was about…
- Earthly vs. divine love
Tamir's framework: divine love treats the beloved as a conduit for a greater force, while earthly love falls for the smile and the body. Sheela refuses to place her love for Osho on the…
- Radical Acceptance
Mia jokes that two neurotic partners cancel out, and that love lets radical acceptance take the place of neuroticism.
Books 11
- 1Q84
Tamir calls it Murakami's only real romance: unrequited love from page one.
- Think and Grow Rich
Tamir notes that this popular business book has a chapter on dreaming in which Hill describes dreams and imagined meetings with mentors such as Thomas Edison and a U.S. president, and…
- Divine Comedy
Dante's epic in which Beatrice has a clear role. Tamir mentions it with La Vita Nuova as Dante sharing a piece of his heart with the world.
- Meeting the Shadow
A collection of essays subtitled 'The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature', which Tamir holds up while asking Sheela whether love has a dark side. She says she doesn't think in…
- Sputnik Sweetheart
In both guests' top five. Tamir's most indelible visual is Miu on the Ferris wheel seeing herself in her apartment; also the pan-flute music on the Greek island. Salih reads the Ferris…
- The City and Its Uncertain Walls
Murakami's new novel, due out November 19 (2024) in English, his first in six years and a kind of sequel to Hard-Boiled Wonderland.
- South of the Border, West of the Sun
Salih's example of Murakami pushing the double-life theme to its limit as the protagonist nearly leaves and betrays his wife. Also the book at the center of the Literarisches Quartett row…
- A Grief Observed
Lewis's account of grieving his wife, the love of his life. Tamir reads the opening ('No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear...') because grief, like love, is crazy-making and…
- Norwegian Wood
The Murakami novel Grant likes best; Tamir notes it is his only novel without magic realism.
- The Dark Forest
Second book of the Three-Body trilogy. Tamir's favorite example of fusion: it opens like a romance, with a writer inventing and falling for his ideal woman, then turns into an existential…
- La Vita Nuova
Dante's first book, about his love for Beatrice. Tamir cites it as an example of turning unrequited feeling into art instead of victimhood.
People 5
- Ma Anand Sheela
Born Sheela Ambalal Patel in Gujarat, India (1949); personal secretary to Osho and spokesperson of the Rajneeshpuram commune in Oregon in the early 1980s, widely seen as its…
- Osho
Indian mystic also known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh ('Bhagwan', meaning Lord), whose provocative teachings joined sex and spirituality. Sheela fell in love with him in 1972 at 22 and…
- Dante Alighieri
Tamir points to statues of Dante in Florence as evidence that Italian culture honored poets and artists alongside warriors, a multifaceted ideal of manhood.
- Ambalal Patel
Sheela's father, who took her to hear Bhagwan's discourse because he believed that if this man lived long enough he would be 'the second Buddha'. He read Kahlil Gibran to her on his lap and…
- Marc Harris Silverman
Sheela's first husband, whom she still calls by his sannyas name Chinmaya ('Shin Maya' in the captions). They met at school in the US; he had Hodgkin's disease and was given a year and a…
Quotes 8
When the moment is there to be in love, I didn't waste it with too much mental masturbation. I don't doubt, which saves me from negativity. And we are so prone to judge and define and cancel things out. Suddenly now being in love has a darker side.
So people say I love you, I love you. Better, more honest would be to say: hey, come, we roll together on this carpet. Cause it's different. It's not the same thing.
This falling in love is to shut down all other senses and just go for a free fall. And that free fall will teach you trust. Love and trust are part of one another.
Grief is crazy making. So is love. Love is crazy making, at the risk of sounding like a pop song.
I look at grief as almost a shadow of love, like love's shadow or love's ghost. And just as love is its own unique thumbprint, I guess so is grief, because it's just that reflection.
The basic fallacy that you are carrying within you is that you loved always somebody... Their love is always for somebody. It is addressed. And the moment you address your love, you destroy it. It is as if you are saying, I will breathe only for you. And when you are not there, then how can I breathe?
It seems to me from my research and personal experience that love is dangerous as much as it's beautiful. There are thorns on the rose for a reason.
I am on the happy side. Because my love doesn't depend on anything, except my feelings.
Insights 9
- Doubt, not love, creates love's dark side
To Sheela, love has no dark side of its own. The darkness comes from a culture that judges, defines and cancels, and from entering relationships full of doubt, which guarantees there is no…
- Wisdom sticks when delivered with love
What stayed with Sheela was not the Gibran text but her father reading it with affection, and teaching his children the stars. As Tamir puts it, the teaching mattered because it came from a…
- Clarity about when to leave keeps love from suffering
Sheela says her love never turned dark because, when the time came, she was clear it was time to go and left without looking back. That clarity gave her strength instead of leading her…
- What we seek outside is our inner core
Sheela reads the Princess of Kashi as a profound reminder that we look outside for what we already have, our inner self. She adds that her own falling in love was an inner process from the…
- Grief cannot be prescribed
Because grief is as personal as the love it reflects, no one can set a time limit or tell another person where to draw the line. Mia still feels a pull to a mother she barely knew, decades…
- Sadness is part of love; suffering is optional
Sheela admits there were sad moments after the falling out with Bhagwan, but calls them 'also part of love'. She accepted them graciously and let thoughts and feelings leave as they came…
- Tradition makes us call desire love
Sheela observes that when two people are attracted, 'love' suddenly appears because tradition, religion and culture only permit sex in its name. She would rather people be honest about…
- You can leave someone without falling out of love
Sheela insists she never 'got the ick' with Bhagwan. She left because staying would have cost her integrity, not because her love ended. In her view, love and leaving are not opposites when…
- Acceptance freed her to take responsibility
Sheela says she could carry responsibility for the whole commune because she wasn't chasing achievement. She did it out of love and accepted life as it came, which she says makes life…
Stories 10
- Giving up an art apprenticeship for love
At 21, Sheela was accepted by the well-known Michigan artist Ed Harding to apprentice in lithography and watercolor. Before the semester began she flew to India to see her mother after an…
- Meeting Bhagwan through her father
Sheela wasn't looking for spirituality and 'didn't even know what it meant'. Her father asked her to come with him to Bhagwan's discourse because he believed that if this man lived long…
- Drop both lovers if they're jealous
Sheela told her lovers plainly that none of them could compare with Bhagwan, 'a category of its own', and they loved him too, so they understood. If her lovers grew jealous of one another…
- Gibran on papa's lap, stars in the garden
At five, Sheela sat on her father's lap while he read her Kahlil Gibran, which she didn't understand but felt as affection. In summer the family slept outside in the garden, and every night…
- How can we be against marriage unmarried?
Every evening Sheela and Chinmaya ate sitting back to back on the floor of her little room, talking and philosophizing, as long as it was logical. One night they agreed they couldn't be…
- Leaving Bhagwan with tears in her eyes
When Sheela decided to leave Bhagwan, members of her commune 'family' begged her to stay, reminding her of everything she had and all the work she had put in. Tears ran down her face as she…
- Rise of Rajneeshpuram (intro)
Tamir's cold-open history: in 1972 in India, 22-year-old Sheela fell in love with Bhagwan and devoted every waking moment to him. 'Whatever he willed, Sheela made it happen.' When they had…
- Women who call in avoidant partners
Nev describes a pattern she often sees in clients. A woman says she is fully open to love but keeps attracting emotionally avoidant partners. Underneath, unresolved trauma has closed her…
- Arguing a dying man into love
Sheela's first husband, Chinmaya, had Hodgkin's disease and a year and a half to live, so he refused to get involved with her because it would be unfair to her. Both loved logic, so she…
- Calling her partner twenty times
Mia's relationship is securely attached, but if her partner doesn't say goodbye in his usual way and something feels hidden, she might call him 20 times: 'me going from investigator before…
Films, music and art 1
- The Princess of Kashi
A Vedantic story Tamir tells at the end. A prince falls in love with a 15-year-old portrait of a princess, then learns it is him as a child, dressed for a palace play, and his longing…