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Course Two: Love Made Visible

Conversations with Orland Bishop

Unit 4: Love and the Agreement Field

Topics in this unit: Love as attractor, oracles, the city, Los Angeles, three categories of agreement, Eros, Philos, and Agape. What is your agreement with your life?

Videos

Unit 4.1: The Oracles at the Margins

Unit 4.2: City of Angels

Unit 4.3: The Metropolis

Unit 4.4: Three Agreements

Audio

Study Notes

Eros encompasses that which arouses the spirit and feeds the life force. It is the love of life, that wants always to become more alive and create more life. Agreements around it are about holding that principle sacred, serving life of the body.

It is not immediately obvious how the second, Philos (Orland uses the form “Philippe”), translates into and agreement of will. Orland explains that it has to do with the superconscious choice of our family and circumstances, of our connections. It is a taking of responsibility for our choices, and the recognition of a purpose and an intelligence to the conditions of our lives.

Agape is usually understood to be universal, altruistic love. Orland relates it to the recognition that you, as well as I, have a purpose, will, and life force, and that mine and yours are fundamentally connected. One cannot be fulfilled by blocking the other. The agreements framed by Agape recognize this principle.

Meditation

Discussion/Practice Suggestion

To work with these, perhaps we can attempt to translate these three agreement principles into specific agreements for our own lives. What is your agreement with life, with your will, and with the world? What unconscious agreements may you have carried that do not have the quality of love? What would a new agreement look like that were more faithful to Eros, Philos, and Agape? Actually make a little list – the work of formulating it is already a significant step. The point is not to make it a promise to yourself. It is stir the agreement to life, so that you will recognize the moment you are ready to enter it.