The Ancient Way of Love: Love Your Soul Mate as The Ancient Greeks

Jacques Lacan, the psychoanalyst, once spoke about how the language we learn shapes our minds. Our needs and wants depend on language, parental language, and culture, shaping our needs and desires.

We mention this because some languages have an incredibly sophisticated vocabulary expressing many nuances of an idea and situation.

In the case of this article, The Ancient Way of Love language of the Greeks is the star of our appreciation: the Greek words for love.

It can be hard sometimes to differentiate the types of love we feel in English since we can connect all the different modes of love under just that one word.

We have many forms of love, especially about our soul connections. They include the love we experience with our soulmates, with our twin flames, and with kindred spirits. We even experience various degrees of self-love and self-compassion as well.

We’ll dive into The Ancient Way of Love, Greek words for love, and see how four correlate to four main types of soul connections: soulmates, twin flames, kindred spirits, and life partners.

The Greek Form of Love: What Is Love?

What is love? That’s a question we don’t have any solid answer to.

Some people, like Slavoj Žižek, believe love has no rational or logical reason. He once said, “If you have reasons to love someone, you don’t love them.”

That might sound a bit crass, but it’s a great quote to emphasize the mystery, passion, and unknowingness love has. Even in The Ancient Way of Love Greeks, love was seen as a way to the divine.

There’s a concept known as the Ladder of Love used in Plato’s Symposium. (The same Symposium that originated the Western idea of soulmates!) We have an article about Plato’s Ladder of Love and how you can apply this to your love life and relationships!

But in a nutshell, the Ladder of Love describes love starting from a sexual passion for loving that has transcended the ego.

For example, we go from being physically attracted to someone to experiencing love for each other as self-realization and even transcendence. For them, beauty and love were to be disconnected from human appearance.

There are eight words for love in The Ancient Way of Love Greek language.

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Eros

This is the love of romance, passion, and obsession. It’s our lust, pleasure, and desires. This shared love is often felt with physical attraction for our romantic partner. A similar love is called “mania,” which brings out the darker side and can lead to stalking, impulsive decisions, possession, and obsession.

Eros and mania can lead to codependency and even violence when not controlled.

Ludus

This is a playful and light-hearted love. Often we equate this to having a crush or flirting with someone. It’s non-committal, teasing, and temporary.

This is a “no strings attached” type of love or “friends with benefits.”

Philia

This is a form of affectionate love for our friends and siblings. This is what we might know more today as “platonic” love. Physical attraction and sexual feelings aren’t necessary to love someone, so we also have this form of love based on affectionate, humorous, and close feelings.

Storges

This love describes a parent’s love for a child, a teacher/mentor to the student, an owner of their pet, or the caregiver and the one being cared for. Usually, it’s for parents and their children, but the nurturing and protective bond of storges can be felt and expressed in many situations outside of just parents and their children.

Married couples often express a feeling of storges.

Philautia

The Ancient Way of Love: This is self-love and self-compassion. It’s an often-used saying (and sometimes even a bit cliche) that we must love ourselves before we can love others. If we don’t have values for ourselves if we don’t have boundaries for ourselves, and if we don’t care for ourselves, how can we respect others?

How can we show others the proper care and love they need?

As a quote from Aristotle states, “All friendly feelings for others are an extension of a man’s feelings for himself.”

Pragma

Like storges, this is a love based on commitment and choice. Pragma is more often used with married couples (similar to storges). It blossoms over time when compromise, respect, and honor are part of the relationship.

Pragma is building stable structures and foundations for love to stay steady.

Pragma, found in the word “pragmatic” and related to the word “practical,” is often seen as love based on duty, service, and exchange.

Agape

This is The Ancient Way of Love, often understood as “unconditional love,” selfless love, universal love, and transcendental love. Agape love is not only for yourself and your romantic partner but for mankind. This is a love greater than our egos because it constitutes the love of the divine whole of every being is a part of.

This love, sometimes called God’s love, is boundless compassion for ourselves, our soul mates, family members, and distant strangers.

Some sages believe agape love to be only attainable after the immense sacrifice of the ego—some believe it is not attainable at all.

Agape is the love of the divine that Plato believes must be reached through the Ladder of Love.

Other Plato followers at the time, like Plotinus, expressed agape to be reached through a series of divine-logical exercises in the Enneads.

Greek Words For Love & Soul Connections

The Ancient Way of Love: Each form of The Ancient Way of Love can be connected to the different soul connections we experience! Looking at this article, you’ll see we’ve delved into the differences between all these soul connections.

All these The Ancient Way of Love words for love are nuanced — they can overlap and are very distinct. These forms of love can also appear in all the soul connections but can appear differently.

We’ll only be going over four Greek words for love because these can be excellent symbols for four types of soul connections: soul mates, twin flames, life partners, and kindred spirits.

It’s important to note these loves can exist at the same time. One can experience eros, philia, and storges for their lover. These emotions can vary in intensity by the day, and their expression may vary.

Expect yourself to feel multiple emotions for your life partner, or maybe just one for your kindred spirit. Most romantic relationships will experience all forms of these loves.

Again, these describe the multidimensional complexity of your beautiful soul connection and love! With that being said, let’s get to the nitty-gritty.

Some of these words have their roots in The Ancient Way of Love Greek mythology, which you’ll notice, especially when discussing Eros.

Eros and the Twin Flame

The attraction twin flames experience is similar to the Greek love of Eros. Passionate love.

Obsessive love. It can be a spiritually liberating feeling to explore this love with your twin flame. However, it can also be an emotionally traumatic experience.

Eros, mania, and a twin-flame relationship can produce extreme jealousy! We often see this emotional attachment prized and romanticized by young lovers (or people in a young relationship).

The Ancient Way of Love Greeks considered Eros to be dangerous. They felt like Eros gave an insatiable primal impulse to relieve sensual urges. It’s an intense form of love that calls for desperation for physical closeness and love.

 The Greek god Eros is the son of Aphrodite, a well-known Greek god of fertility.

Philia and the Kindred Spirit

The Ancient Way of Love: Philia, and its similarities with Ludus, is a playful The Ancient Way of Love. Your kindred spirit is usually your best friend, and this playful affection is a joy in our lives!

Philia describes the love kindred spirits have. The friendly feelings of a deep friendship that occurs between two equals and two peers. This love appears in the early stages of a relationship that can transform into more intense bonds.

The ancient Greeks valued philia because the best friend was seen as a natural and playful form of love.

The kindred spirit and philia are a type of unique soul mate on the same team: rooting for us, fighting alongside us, and inspiring insightful thought in us.

Storges and the Life Partner

This deep, comradely friendship and love develops into unconditional love for life partners.

If you’ve read our articles about life partners, you’d see that the life partner is built upon a deep understanding that focuses on each other with a strong foundation. Both partners focus on their emotional, financial, and physical needs.

When you and your life partner feel stronger love for each other, this transcends romantic and sexual feelings and romantic love.

This can also translate to a familial love between you and your life partner.

Agape and the Soulmate

The Ancient Way of Love: Greeks weren’t the only culture to describe a that transcends the self. Even other religious traditions have a concept of a transcendent divine universal love.

For the clever Greeks, agape was a universal loving-kindness. It encouraged infinite empathy for the world.

It’s a familiar love we feel with our soulmates and encourages us to advance on our spiritual journey. To understand more about the soulmate journey, read here.

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