What is "The Art of Loving"? What does it have to do with Tantra?
The late sociologist Erich Fromm coined the term "The Art of Loving" in the fifties, which formed the title of his best-selling book.
Fromm's thesis is simple: Love is a verb.
Perhaps you've heard it stated this way in the more current, popular literature. As bell hooks states, "Imagine how much easier it would be for us to learn how to love if we began with a shared definition. The word 'love' is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb."
Many people have the idea that the way to have love is to "find" it, that is to find the objects of one's love. Fromm's view is different, as he himself states, more mature. According to his understanding of mature love, love is not simply a pleasant feeling which virtually anyone can experience. Rather, mature love is an art, which one cultivates slowly and carefully over time, as with any other art. It requires deliberate effort, and skill. As Fromm puts it,
"This attitude-- that nothing is easier than to love-- has continued to be the prevalent idea about love despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary."
"There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly as love."
Although love is the most difficult work, "the work for which all other work is mere preparation," still, To Touch is To Live.
(Quote is from the famous poet Rilke.)