The Art of Loving

Okay peoples this book is becoming by far one of my favorites in a long time. Anyone who really knows me, understands that finance/ business is not my first love but rather science. I have always, for as far back as I can remember been in love with the arts of science and math. Everything else is a necessary evil. Anyhoo, that's a little besides the point. The fact is that this book is written by Erich Fromm, whom is a renown psychoanalyst and his book is written along the themes of psychology, amongst other things such as basic logic and physiology. It's extremely interesting brothers and sisters. Here's an excerpt:

To respect a person is not possible without knowing him; care and responsibility (which have also been explained) would be blind if they were not guided by knowledge. Knowledge would be empty if it were not motivated by concern. There are many layers of knowledge; the knowledge which is an aspect of love is one which does not stay at the periphery, but penetrates to the core. It is possible only when I can transcend the concern for myself and see the other person in his own terms. I may know, for instance, that a person is angry, even if he does not show it overtly; I may know him more deeply than that; then I know that he is anxious, and worried; that he feels lonely, that he feels guilty. Then I know that his anger is only the manifestation of something deeper, and I see his as anxious and embarrassed, that is, as the suffering person, rather than as the angry one.

Or....

The problem of knowing man is parallel to the religious problem of knowing God. In conventional Western theology the attempt is made to know God by though, to make statements about God. It is assumed that I can know God in my though. In mysticism, which is the consequent outcome of monotheism (which is outlined later), the attempt is given up to know God by though, and it is replaced bu the experience of union with God in which there is no more room -and no need- for knowledge about God.
The experience of union, with man, or religiously speaking, with God, is by no means irrational. On the contrary, it is as Albert Schweitzer has pointed out, the consequence of rationalism, its most daring and radical consequence. It is based on our knowledge of the fundamental, and not accidental, limitations of our knowledge. It is the knowledge that we shall never "grasp" the secret of man and of the universe, but that we can know, nevertheless, in the act of love. Psychology as a science has its limitations, and, as the logical consequence of theology is mysticism, so the ultimate consequence of psychology is love.

End Quote

And that's within the first 50 pages!!! The book itself is only 100 or so pages, so maybe I'm overexaggerating seeing that the first 50 pages is actually half the book, but still.....sue me. It's very interesting and I do believe even after reading some, that it would serve as a good basis for a many conversation. Once again the name of the book is, "The Art of Loving" and it's written by Dr. Erich Fromm. Check it out at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060958286/sr=8-1/qid=1148402184/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-4811753-8300924?%5Fencoding=UTF8. You can still get it for the low!!!!

Asalaamu-laikum
MAS