Unconditional Love - Is it real or is it fantasy?
By Phil Golding
Is unconditional love real or is it fantasy? It would be fair to say that we would all like it to be real. It would also be fair to say that few of us know how to love unconditionally or have truly experienced it. Is it possible to love unconditionally in this world? I say yes to this question because I experience unconditional love in my own life on a regular basis. One of the most powerful experiences of this love in recent times was at the Manshine Men's Festival held on the Labour Day long weekend at the Sunshine Coast . This festival is run by the Men's Health and Wellbeing Association of Queensland. It was such a powerful experience of loving brotherhood that I didn't want it to end. I also experience unconditional love from my close friends and associates who I consider to be my extended family and I offer the same to them in return. Unconditional love is also the foundation of my therapy practice, philosophy and meditation courses.
Does that mean that we are all perfect? Does one need to be perfect to love unconditionally? My answer to this is no, but you do need an above average level of self-mastery. This is not so much the case when it comes to receiving unconditional love, but even then it can be confronting. Unconditional love is just that - unconditional. It is so open, so loving and so free that many times I experience people mistrusting it. They think there must be a catch, that they will be left exposed to be used or controlled in some way. This is very sad when it happens but it is not surprising considering how love is depicted and treated in our society. Love in the regular world of social interaction is mistaken for dependency - "I will love you so long as you love me back or do the right thing according to my emotional and material needs." When we don't get what we want this so-called "love" quickly turns to hate and fear. "I will love you so long as you don't leave me or don't point out my faults or don't expose my insecurities" or whatever conditions we place on that love. We bound love up in rules and regulations.
We expect unconditional love from others but not give it back in return. Do we even know what unconditional love is when we encounter it? If someone loves you unconditionally, does that mean they never confront you? Does that mean they indulge your every whim and wish, ignore your dishonesty and side with you when you judge others? What would happen if we treated a child in this way? The obvious answer is that we would spoil the child. Clearly the child needs limits, boundaries, discipline. Does that mean love has to be conditional? Can a parent discipline a child without withdrawing love from that child? The answer is clearly yes, but how easy it is to take the child's childish behaviour personally as though it's the child's job to look after us? This is a mistake we all fall into, like it's a part of our human condition, or to word this more accurately, human conditioning.
To take something someone says or does personally, in other words take offence to it means that we are holding that other person responsible for our emotional wellbeing. To most of us this seems like a fair and reasonable thing to do. Aren't our loved-ones supposed to make us happy? Isn't that the way it goes? But wait a minute. Aren't we supposed to do the same for them? Aren't we supposed to make them happy? Are we any better at it then they are? Something doesn't work in this paradigm. The more it's examined, the less it seems to ad up. Aren't adults supposed to be self-responsible? Isn't that what civil law is based on. This law is different for children though. It is accepted that children do not have this capacity for self-responsibility sufficiently developed. They need to be looked after. Adults do therefore have this capacity. Perhaps we just don't choose to use it, or refuse to use it, or don't know how.
Philosophical investigation down the ages has highlighted this adult human capacity to be fully self-responsible, particularly concerning our own emotional wellbeing, and regards it as a key to enlightenment. Discovering, awakening and mastering this capacity for self-responsibility is said to be the path to enlightenment. Perhaps we don't really grow up until we accept this fundamental quality of adulthood and then master it to at least a significant degree. Perhaps we are just children in adult bodies until then. This is not a comfortable statement for our egos to swallow. We feel judged by it - "better to not look too hard just in case it's true," says the ego. What does it mean if this is the case? I read somewhere the results of a psychological report on the world's leaders. It concluded that the average level of maturity displayed by these leaders is at the age of an eleven-year-old. Where does this leave the rest of us who voted them in and continue to do so? Even dictators have their supporters. They wouldn't survive otherwise. Is this the way it must be? Is this as good as it gets? I don't think so. Are you waiting around for others to change in order for your life to improve? Is this another one of those human conditions? We are waiting around for others to take responsibility so we don't have to. Meanwhile the world is falling apart. "But it is all so big and hopeless," we say to ourselves, "what can I do about it?" The world is made up of billions of individuals doing what they do. Governments/countries/societies don't change until individuals do. The buck stops with each one of us individually. Therefore, it all comes down to one simple formula - IF YOU WANT CHANGE THEN CHANGE YOURSELF.
How do we change then, and what has this got to do with unconditional love? In order to change we must be able to access the power to change. Unconditional love is that power. We cannot access this power while we think we are still a child - in other words while we think we do not have the capacity for self-responsibility. We can't even step onto first base without that. It is like Nasa trying to implement the mission to fly to the moon without actually believing it can be done. If that were the case then the motivation to do it would never come. The possibility of flying to the moon would simply be denied. If you want proof that self-responsibility is possible then just go down to the local library and read the biographies and autobiographies of those who have triumphed over adversity. You can of course deny that you have this capacity - "they can do it but I can't." If this is the case then it is no good complaining about your lot. However, in my experience, every adult human being who has normal levels of functioning has this essential capacity.
Let us say then that we do accept this premise of self-responsibility. How do we then awaken this capacity? People have found, when they start acting according to this premise, that the biggest obstacle encountered is not the world around them but rather it is their own mind. Through the practise of meditation it has been discovered that the mind is nothing but a collection of conditioned or habitual thought-patterns and emotions created by these thought-patterns. The problem with the mind is that it can easily be confused. When we are children our mind is open and vulnerable. It simply records whatever is fed into it on a regular basis, particularly on the level of emotion/feeling. Children learn from every action and reaction of the adults around them. By the time we are teenagers, an amazingly complex system of thought habits are imbedded deep into our unconscious mind beyond the awareness of our normal consciousness. To the degree that these thought-patterns are not aligned to reality is the degree that we as individuals suffer.
The mind would be easy to reprogram if it wasn't for what was underneath the mind, which is our instinctual drives that are geared towards physical survival such as food, sex, dominance, belonging etc. These drives are hardwired into our system from birth. These two dimensions of our being weave together to make a human being preoccupied with survival at any cost while looking through the eyes of a mind that is largely confused about itself and the world. The result of this interweaving is the ego. This level of our being does not comprehend self-responsibility. In many ways it is dependent on the environment like an animal is. In a similar way it is always like a child that is in need of care and guidance.
The capacity for self-responsibility comes from a higher level of being which exists beyond or transcendent of the lower-self. On a basic level this higher-self is called consciousness. Consciousness resides in an eternal now state of being. This is in contrast to the mind that is the result of past conditioning and the animal instincts that are hard wired and inflexible. Consciousness is our ability to observe ourselves from a higher perspective. It also contains the power to know intuitively and to choose independent of the mind's confusion. Consciousness is our accumulated knowledge and experience but it is more than this. Unlike the lower-self, it can adapt and learn at any time. It never stops growing. If an individual can live their life from this level of being they can then stay open, positive and vital no matter how life challenges them. In comparison, living life through the lower-self means living a fearful life where everyone is looking out for themselves. As a result we hide behind protective walls and fear anything that might be different to what we are conditioned to believe is "normal". We learn very little as adults apart from what is needed for material gain. This state of being is not conducive to developing emotional maturity.
Of course we are all a combination of these two levels or dimensions of being - human being. A key to learning the power to love unconditionally is to know and accept this human reality. We work with our humanness by applying the laws of consciousness to our own lives. Of course unconditional love is the ultimate law, but this can be broken down into qualities such as loving kindness, patience, non-judgement, forgiveness, kind hearted discipline, honesty and so on. These laws of consciousness are learned by putting them into practice. The most powerful way to practice them is to consciously look after your own lower-self like responsible parents would look after their child. In particular, when your lower-self/child becomes fearful you don't indulge those fears by blindly believing everything they say to you. Instead, to develop your consciousness it is essential to sit with those fears and get to the bottom of them. Listen with an open mind and heart to your own fears and insecurities without judging these childlike thoughts and emotions, like lovingly listening to any upset child. As an adult you develop the capacity to look after yourself and to choose loving and compassionate ways to respond to every situation in life. This also means wisely protecting yourself from those who are confused without having to hate them or judge them. By facing our fears on an ongoing basis we learn the difference between the fearful illusions of our lower-self and the reality of the situation. The result is wisdom. As a result we develop the ability to know when we can open up to people and when we need to step back a little. We realize that we get hurt simply because we are not sufficiently in touch with ourselves, not because other people are bad or wrong. The situation simply becomes an opportunity to learn and grow without regret. This is called "consciousness raising" or "self-realization". This is being self-responsible. This is how to cultivate unconditional love.
Of course it can be difficult to work with the fears and confusions of the mind. This is why we need to reach out to those who are trained in this area and who have perhaps journeyed on this path a little further. As adults we must learn to emotionally stand on our own two feet but we don't have to do this alone, and in fact success is rarely achieved by isolating ourselves. Love is about sharing and walking this path of consciousness together. Also, my book, "Being Human" was written and developed within my psychotherapy practice to help my clients master this journey.
Top of Page