* Does selfless love really exist? * The conditional love of the willful little "I" * The love that wants to pour out *
Oh, the love..
Admiration, adoration, like, love... are all manifestations and aspects of love. Abstinence, alienation, hatred, loathing... each a manifestation of inhibited love. Are we really living the miracle of love, or are we just parroting this fine-sounding concept?
The mother, when she gives birth to her child, falls in love with her foetus: for flesh is flesh, blood is blood, and then the child comes off the tree, roots itself in life, and the mother is unable to let go of her child. And so it is that the mature adult is dependent on the 'loving' chimpiness of his mother. As teenagers, when our emotions flare up, our sexual desires choose an attractive creature and lie that we are in love, when all that happens is that we have an unquenchable desire for sexuality. Poets, painters, sculptors, artists of all kinds have been inspired by love; beautiful, inspiring works have been created... but are they really about true, unconditional love or about the clinging, or even the chimping, of the selfish 'I'?
It is fashionable nowadays to use the word "love". For so long, the linear, masculine mindset of reason has suppressed our emotions that we feel that love is about to burst out of us. In a social model based on consumption and technical sophistication, we have become totally alienated from each other, man has become like a wolf to man, and the natural love within us has been banished to the hell of the unconscious. All that the unloving, ruthless logic has banished to the hell of the unconscious mind is now emerging: femininity and its manifestations: compassion, empathy, love, are claiming their right to exist. The insane mind that has split the atom to produce weapons of mass destruction; the insane mind that has foolishly subjugated the nature of itself and its environment... well, we are living in the end days of the age of the insane mind.
The silent voice of the heart has spoken and this soft, silent word rises above the demanding rhetoric of reason.
The conditional love of the willful little self
In everyday life, the wanting little "I", the Ego, chooses a nice thing, an object, a way of life: I love my TV, my car, my apartment, my wife, my child, because it is so good to love. I own them and I am terrified of losing them. I love them as long as they are what I expect them to be: I love my phone, my car, all my tech gadgets, until a new, smarter, more design-oriented series comes along. I love my wife because I want her and she makes my life comfortable: I'm used to her; I'm attached to her. I love my child as long as he is unconditionally obedient. I love my neighbours, friends and acquaintances who agree with me and think alike. I love people with similar beliefs because I have invested a lifetime in building and maintaining my belief system - so someone who believes similar beliefs to mine confirms my beliefs, confirms that my life's beliefs are "real". And if someone doesn't share my beliefs, I regard them with fear, even contempt, hatred, and would destroy them if I could (not so long ago, it was a heroic, divine act to destroy those of other faiths).
Our love has become irredeemably conditioned. Programmed, conditioned. As long as you believe, think and do as I see fit - well, I love you. And when you feel, believe, think and do differently than I expect you to, then I despise you, hate you - you become a stranger to me. Somehow, we feel that if someone thinks and feels differently than we do, they are a stranger. Then you are no longer a living thing, a unique, wonderful manifestation of life that deserves unconditional respect, but just an 'other-ness', an alien, an enemy - and if I could, I would destroy it. But I can't, because I am guarded by rigid rules, laws, ethical codes, so that I cannot harm you. Ethics, morals, laws, and other such constraints must guard me to protect myself and society from the unlovingness within me?
According to legend..
...some 2000 years ago in the troubled Middle East, a quiet, soft-spoken young man appeared with a message of unconditional love. "Love! Love! Love everything and everyone!" For if an unquenchable love is kindled in your heart for all that exists, for existence, then there will be no room left for alienation, for discord, for hatred, for all the evil that has made human existence and existence on earth a living hell. Love, because love is salvation for you, for humanity and for life on earth.
The message of unconditional love was (even then) considered dangerous: because if you love, you are not capable of being against something or someone - you cannot be partisan, a bigot of some belief system, easily controlled. Love was (then) destroyed: brutally tortured, crucified, killed. All that remained was a figure suffering on a cross, a symbol of horror, and this symbol of horror became more popular than the doctrine itself. Wherever you look in the Christian world, you find only this symbol of horror, the essence of the doctrine has vanished somewhere... Yes, the doctrine of unconditional love has been grossly misinterpreted, and in the name of love, for thousands of years, hatred, sword-fighting, conquest have marked its path; torture, bloodbaths, misery and terror have marked its path. Now, is that love?
In a state of pure consciousness..
.. pure, unconditional love is the only thing that truly exists. If you observe yourself intensely, you will realize that the only real emotion is love. In the state of waking consciousness, there is nothing but unconditional love: you love everything and everyone, because the existence of everything is a unique miracle. If you have hurt me as a human being, I forgive you, for you have done what your "I" at the level of your consciousness dictated, and if you carry the burden of your hurt on your back and therefore feel anger in your relationship with me, I release you: you are free so that I may be free.
The state of pure consciousness is an all-encompassing love. Loving is easy: you simply allow the love that flows from you to embrace existence.
There is only one real emotion..
.. and this is unconditional love. There are no strings attached, no "ifs." and "because.." - just naked, honest, curious and open love. The unquenchable love within you wants to pour out, to embrace the whole world: to love itself, existence, and all its manifestations. Because to love is wonderful: a soft, light floating, a joy of life from within - that is you. You have experienced the joy of life in moments of carefreeness. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping and you are filled with a deep joy of being. What an incomparable experience! - which lasts for a short time, because the ego, the "little me", thinks of something to spoil the cloudless happiness and comes up with unhappy thoughts.
The only real emotion is the love that is repressed inside you, that wants to flow out. All other emotions, which are not love, are merely manifestations of inhibited love.
Someone you loved has not acted according to your expectations - you no longer love them; you have put up a barrier to the outpouring of love. Break down those barriers and let the love flow out of your heart.
In the fire of awake love, let every barrier burn: every self-limiting thought, belief, idea, with which you bar the outpouring of living love! For if you look beyond the surface, at your self hidden in the depths, you will realize that your true Self is love itself, longing to manifest, waiting to be poured out. Unconditionally, because all conditions are just a barrier...
Excerpt from the book "The Mysteries of Consciousness” by Ervin Kery