Scale of Romance by:Garry Jacobs
Instructions:
Instructions:
Start by reading the article Stairway of Romance, if you have not already done so. Then return here.
Read through each of the ten levels in order to understand the entire scale. Select READ MORE to read a more detailed description and examples of any of the levels.
Identify the level that best describes your relationship. You may find that it includes some of the attributes of many levels. In that case, the best strategy is to start working to elevate those elements that belong to the lowest of those levels and first raise that aspect to the level of the rest.
Once you have identified the level you want to work on, select STRATEGIES to learn practical ways to move from where you are to the next higher level.
Once you have made some progress, come back and select additional strategies to take you even higher.
1. Attachment - Physical attachment to a partner can provide a sense of belonging, comfort and security. People whose relationship is primarily centered at this level may find it difficult to be physically separated from one another. Physical attachment can foster dependence and reduce individual freedom. Once it becomes accustomed and habitual, it may lack the freshness and intensity of higher levels. Read more
2. Physical Attraction - Attraction between people at this level commonly expresses as sexual passion. Physical attraction can be very intense, especially during the early stages of relationship, so intense that it is often mistaken for real love that will last forever, but sexuality by itself is not a sufficient basis for long term positive relationships. People at this level may try to control one another or experience intense feelings of possessiveness, distrust, suspicion and jealousy. Read more
3. Compatibility - Relationships at this level become more smooth, stable, consistent and permanent because they are organized on a regular basis around recurring activities such as managing a household or raising a family. They may lack physical passion, turbulence and instability of the previous level. When the relationship is positive, it can generate a feeling of compatibility and harmony. When the partners take each other for granted, relationships at this level may become boring, flat and unfulfilling. Read more
4. Vital Attraction - At this level we are attracted to people we feel happy spending time with, who take personal interest in us and makes us feel good about ourselves, who exude an intense vital energy, who have charm and pleasing manners, are popular with friends or acceptable to family. Attraction at this level is more social or psychological than physical, though the physical element may still be prominent. Relations are positive at this level when the partners enjoy one another's companionship. They become negative when either or both partners try to dominate or when they compete with each other. Read more
5. Affection - Affection is emotional enjoyment of the other person which emanates from the heart. It is warm, expansive, cheerful and joyful. When affection is very physical, it can be possessive. When it is vital, it can be dominating or demanding. But true emotional affection is incapable of anger or meanness. It wants only to give and please. Read more
6. Admiration - The heart's affection is intense, but it is difficult to sustain that intensity unless there is also an element of admiration for the other person. Admiration arises from awareness and respect for the other person's higher character and better qualities. Admiration elevates affection into a feeling that is more noble and permanent. Love based on admiration can overcome the greatest challenges and is not diminished by passage of time or physical separation. Read more
7. Mental love - Mental love is a vibration of deep caring and self-giving free of the passionate demands, clinging and longing common at previous levels. It is difficult to sustain vital forms of love without strong positive encouragement from the other person, whereas mental love is based on unwavering loyalty which does not demand reciprocity. Mental love may lack intense sensations, but it brings a lightness, sweetness and refinement of feeling that is uplifting and more deeply fulfilling. Read more
8. Devotion - Devotion is undemanding and does not even require to be recognized. It is idealized emotional love that cherishes another person for their intrinsic value and delights in their very existence. It feels an indescribable and intense sweetness in self-giving without asking or expecting anything in return. Read more
9. Adoration - Idealistic romance is a movement that releases intense, selfless, positive ecstatic energy of adoration. It is incapable of expectation, bargaining, domination, complaining, doubt or suspicion of any kind. This is not the adoration of puppy love, but the adoration of that which is most noble, uplifting and godlike in another person. It can only be felt by and for one who has the highest values of truthfulness, generosity and self-giving. Read more
10. Spiritual Romance - True romance is a spiritual state of inexpressible wonder, novelty and adventure in which love becomes unconditional, everlasting and universal and life is experienced as a marvelous divine mystery. It is a state free from self-consciousness, expansive, lost in the moment, oblivious. Ecstasy is the hallmark of spiritual romance. It is at once the highest and the most intense of all romantic experiences. It fills the mind and heart with ecstatic delight and saturates the nerves and body with honey-like sweetness. Read more
About the author
Jacobs is an American-born consultant on business management, economic and social development with extensive international experience in USA, Western and Eastern Europe, and India.
He has been working in Pondicherry, India since 1973, where he is Vice-President of MSS Research, the social science research division of The Mother's Service Society, engaged in research on issues related to peace and development, including strategies to for economic growth, employment, agriculture, knowledge dissemination, education, technology transfer and credit. He was a member of the Indian Planning Commission's Task Force on Vision 2020 and editor of its report.
He was elected a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science in 1995, elected to the Board of Trustees in 2005 and is also Chairman of the Academy's Standing Committee on Peace and Development.
He is also Executive Director, International Center for Peace & Development, Napa, California (www.icpd.ord), the successor organization to the International Commission on Peace & Food (ICPF), which conducts research on strategies to promote global peace and development. From 1989 to 1994, He was Member-Secretary of ICPF, convener of ICPF's working groups on Employment and on Transition in Eastern Europe, coordinator of the ICPF research team that evolved a strategy to generate 100 million new jobs in India, and editor of the Commission's report to the UN entitled UNCOMMON OPPORTUNITIES: Agenda for Peace and Equitable Development.
Jacobs is author of several books on business management and development.
He has a BA in psychology from the University of California.
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