Do we really understand love? What love is? And, particularly, do we understand what “unconditional love” is? In this short post I’m going to completely change the way you have ever thought about love.
Egoic Love
Ego is the product of conditioning. We are conditioned to feel and believe ourselves to be a separate entity apart from everything else in existence. There is “me”, and this “me” is separate from “you”, trees, animals, nature, buildings, stars, and all other energy and matter. Ego is conditioned by what it calls the “past” and by the expectation of what it calls the “future”. Ego is built upon the belief in separation; separation from all others and things around it, separation from the present moment, and separation from the rest of existence.
Waking up, however, is essentially breaking through the conditioning and the beliefs, and experiencing yourself to be one with the whole of existence. So “enlightenment” is the dissolution of the illusion of separation. There is existence, and “we” are that.
Our common ideas of love have only to do with this conditioned ego. Our common ideas of love are built out of the belief in separation as reality. By “common” I mean almost the entire human population has no idea what love actually is. This doesn’t mean that everyone’s love is not real, of course. It does mean, however, that the common ideas of love all fall short of the purest form of love I’m going to share with you here.
The Purest Form of Love
So, what is this purest form of love? Most would answer this question with some idea of “unconditional love”. Yet, the common idea of unconditional love isn’t “unconditional” at all! It’s still the “love” from the conditioned ego. Love is still arising out of conditioning, whether it be the past, expectation of some future, or simply the ego believing it is producing love toward some “other”. Yet, “other” is an illusion, so this so-called love is built upon this illusion! When someone might say, “I love the other unconditionally,” the very idea of “other” is a condition! It’s a love based on an illusion rather than reality. This statement should in some way shake your understanding of love to the core!
What, then, is unconditional love?
Love, real love, is a state of being when all conditioning is transcended. When one wakes up, recognizes the ego as a product of conditioning, and understands oneself as existence itself, there is then the experience of oneself as inseparable from every so-called “thing” around, inseparable from all “others”. The conditioning is transcended, the imagined dividing walls are broken down, and an inseparable union with the whole shines forth as reality.
Unconditioned life is experienced in this moment. The spontaneous happening of the whole of existence, right now. All is the movement of the energy of Existence itself. Inseparable. Flowing. Happening as one process.
Where’d the Other Go?
The “other” has disappeared, the separate ego has disappeared, and, in this moment we are truly One. And, when the other has disappeared, when the egoic self has disappeared, who is there to love, and who is there to do the loving?
Now, our idea of love changes completely! Love is no longer the doing of one entity (a conditioned ego) towards another entity. Love becomes life! Love becomes union. Love simply IS…without conditioning! Egoic love or egoic hate are illusory, because there is no one to love or hate, and no one to do the loving or the hating. The ego loves on the surface and hates on the surface based on conditions. But, in truth, there is only love without conditioning as being, as life, as Existence. The spontaneous flow of energy as Existence is now synonymous with love. To be is Love.
And, this awakened Love is experienced. Looking out at “others”, yet realizing that “others” are the whole of Existence along with “yourself”, Love is the experience. A unity, a oneness, an inseparable bond is experienced on the deepest level. And it is felt; in fact, it is the deepest of feelings, but more than that, it is to experience reality in its absolute truest expression. It isn’t an “I love you” experience (although it encompasses that). It is a Love experience. Unconditioned, and therefore, unconditional. This is what unconditional love truly means. Love in the state of unconditioned awareness. Love without conditioning. Love without illusion. Love without egoic gain. Ego cannot love unconditionally, because it is a contradiction of its very existence. Love unconditioned is enlightened, aware, conscious life. The state of being when the illusion of separation is no more, and your experience of all around becomes an experience of yourself as Existence!
I Love You
When this experience happens in the awakened state, we will still say “I love you”. Yet, deep down, we mean something far more real, beautiful, encompassing, and true than anything ever meant by those common words. Together we ARE Love. Inseparable. Unconditioned love inseparable.
I love you. Deeply. Consciously. More than words can ever convey.
(You can read my previous and related post here: “Speaking and Silence“. Also, be sure to check out my videos and lives on TikTok and YouTube.)
❤️❤️❤️
Thank you Taysha 🙂