One member of the group presented two items for discussion in juxtaposition. The first was a small quote from the Bhagavatam. First for those who do not know, the Srimad Bhagavatam is a large book containing 18,000 verses which is considered the Hindu "Bible". It was credited mostly to Veda Vyasa and thought to have been set down in about the 9th or 10th century CD. However large parts of this Veda could have been written before, and passed down over many centuries being edited and altered over centuries. At least small parts were seen in material that goes back as far as 500 CD. This book consists of bhakti (devotions) to the gods, and mainly to Krishna. Parts also describe the life of Krishna, who is an avatar, or incarnation of the Hindu god, Vishnu. Following is a quote that our member wished us to read and then juxtapose with another reading on psychological transference which is printed second here.
Quote from the Bhagavatam: "Krishna said: Friends love one another actuated by selfish interests; there is no true friendliness there, but only self-interest. Others love even those who do not love them-- this is like paternal affections; here the love is actuated by dharma and friendliness, an it is blameless. Yet others do not love even those that love them; they are either sages who delight in their own self, they whose desires have all been fulfilled, ungrateful people or they who hate their own benefactors and elders. As for me, I do not love even those who love me, so that they may never forget me nor take me for granted, but remain forever immersed in quest of me -- like a poor man who found a pearl which he lost, and is, therefore, for ever looking for it. It is on this account that I disappeared from your midst for a while. But, I tell you, even if I am born again and again for many millennia, I will not be able to repay the debt I owe you nor to recompense your pure love for me."
The second quote comes from an essay entitled Two Cheers for Romance by Stanley Cavell. In this essay Stanley is considering a movie about Charlotte Vale in which she gives up a widower that she was to marry in exchange for her therapist. But what she is feeling for her therapist is likely transference. Here is the quote: "Now before you jump to the conclusion that she has not resolved her transference in her relation with her therapist -- matter surely to bre considered -- I hope you will be willing to thin of these words and images in terms of Freud's 1915 essay, Observations on Transference-Love, in which he insists in all honesty on the point that "the state of being in love which makes its appearance in the course of analytic treatment (ie., the transference-love) has the characteristics of a 'genuine' love. The analyst does not act to fulfill this love in its own terms because it is exactly his or her peculiar task not to act on it, but instead to teach an attitude that allows freedom from the dictation of action by desire. One might say that it is only because of transference-love is a version of real love that this learning can take place. The question for me is whether Charlotte Vale's modification and satisfaction of the various strands of her desire (and the concept of marriage) may be imagined as achieving a credible and creditable degree of psychic freedom. She had written to Dr. Jaquith to inform him of breaking her engagrement to the eligible widower, expressing her confusion over her action. This man, she said, offered everything a woman is supposed to want: a man of her own, a home of her own, a child of her own. Now in these terms my question about this film becomes: Do we see to her version of these things, including work of her own? Or do we feel, on the contrary, that she has merely fallen into the grip of an ideology which forces her to find substitute compensations for the actual or literal possession of such things, as those things are themselves now only substitute compensations for the genuine autonomous queest for a woman's own existence?"
I don't think the group saw a connection between these two quoted paragraphs. One group member said he was quite disappointed in Krishna's viewpoint. He appears to be somewhat of a jerk. But some thought that this Krishna quote is a story that is taken out of context and really is like a parable to illustrate some teachings.
Then several in the group talked about transference in psychoanalytic practice. Transference usually occurs by recalling a former loving relationship -- a later version of something that came before but is forgotten. When transference-love has occurred, it might take several years of therapy for the patient to work through the previous traumatic experience in a relationship. A relationship with a therapist who does not traumatize may show the patient that a more healthy relationship can exist.
One member stated that for example adulation of a Buddhist teacher can be a trap. The one who is adulating is not free to move on, and the one who is adulated is also trapped.
We asked the member who brought these two quotes what he thought might be their connection or what point he wanted to use these quotes to make. He just found them interesting when juxtaposed. But I think the consensus was that there was no connection between these two types of love.
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