Unconditional Love

An important quality of love is that it should be unconditional. When we say we love someone and if that love is dependent upon or is influenced by that person’s behaviour or tangible (physical) and intangible aspects then this is ego love or self love. It is a love that is based on what we can get out of this love and this is driven by our own need and what is most pleasing to us. So its more like “I love you for what you do or can do for me” rather than a pure ‘I love you”. FULLSTOP. It is a love based on our own expectations that are internal and based on what we want to be fulfilled. Conditional or expectational love is an extension of our own selfishness and you fall in love (?) with whoever is in a position (at that point in time) to satisfy that need. Needless to say that as with time your own needs change or when the object of your love is no longer able (or willing) to satisfy those needs, love ceases to exist. That is the danger of conditional love, when the conditions aren’t met or they are not there, where does love go?

So what? All love is expectational love, isn’t it. Yes it is in almost all cases (yes we are all humans) and that is why unconditional love is so difficult because you have to rise above your own selfishness and rather than look inwards about your own needs and what you can get out of loving a person you look outwards and selflessly as to what you can give.

Conditional love is like a role play. At the beginning when two people are falling in love (conditionally), what is involved here is that each is judging the other person to see if the person is a perfect “fit” to fulfilling his/her own needs. At the same time both put on masks and start a game of role play where they try to be the what they think the other person wants to see – as they want the other person to fall in love with them. So the mask which will achieve that objective is put on in order to be loved – which is far from reality. So when falling in love of this type, you put on a mask (play the role) which your partner wants to see. Conditional. What you have not realised is that your partner has not fallen in love with you but with the mask that you have put on !! And with time it becomes difficult to keep the mask on and when the mask ultimately falls, what have you ? Yes a case of falling in love with mistaken identity. (If you are reading this but haven’t read my posting below on Beauty and the Beast then please do so – it has an element of unconditional love).

Unconditional love involves several elements like surrender, trust, non possessiveness, beyond body (non sexual), self sufficient and of course non judgemental. Rather than talk about all of these elements in one piece I will post separately on each aspect.

I claim no authorship on this. My writings have been influenced by several authors and reflect what I have read, understood, adapted and of course in addition based on my own personal experiences (he he he).