Unconditional love

I don't have an answer.

I think in the sense it was recently discussed, framed as love vs intellect, it is more of an overarching frame of mind. Humans typically are absorbed into their mind (intellect) by the time they are adults. Indeed, some disciplines teach to "tame the monkey mind." We tend to "run off at the brain," as it were...I know I do and I know people who "think circles" around me. I think (there I go again!) that life in a modern first world civilization almost demands it of us, the only way to get around that would be to be institutionalized...or live the life of a hermit deep in the woods.

I can see where we (often?) try to regain / retain / redevelop that lost sense of overarching love, but once the intellect genie is out of the bottle there is no putting it back (short of brain damage or disease). It seems impossible to "unlearn" anything. We may forget, but knowledge never truly goes away...or so it seems to me.

As for conditional vs unconditional love...hard to call. I think even a child can attach some conditional elements to their giving of love, such as the dog until it bites or the bicycle until it breaks or hurts them. I think some of it may be parental "conditioning" in that children learn more by observing the behavior of their parents more so than the spoken lessons (especially in the early years), so a judgmental parent might foster a greater sense of "condition" attached to love...but that is a guess on my part. Children who receive such judgmental love can tend to grow up being hypercritical of themselves, forever seeking parental approval that never seems to come...which itself can radiate out in their relationships with others.

I think too there is an element to a child's love that is far more forgiving. How often we see kids at each others' throats in one minute playing nicely the next as if nothing ever happened between them? If ever adults could learn that single lesson...

Even after writing all of this, I have to ask what precisely you mean by the term "love?" It can have such a wide range of meanings...
 
Seems to me the only theoretically unconditional love is agape...some may argue familial or Eros... But either time has shown that not to be so...or 90% of those relationships it doesn't exist?
 
LOL...I dunno. I come and go, it seems. I guess my spirit needs some refresher courses...can't say where I will be tomorrow.
 
I must start by citing a maxim I learnt years ago:
"There is no real Love in the material world, it is just a 'give-and-take' paradigm"
I agree with this. That our self-motivation always has ulterior-motives, namely, 'What benefit is in it for me"?
BUT motive can often be complicated by a fickle ego.

OTOH, I see unconditional love exemplified by actual performance of assigned & obligated duties, beyond the call-of-duty [as if one "Enters the Zone"] and risk's their own life & limb. IE Police, Firefighters, Doctors without Borders, GreenPeace, Mother Tereasa's MCC LowRiders, PETA, etc
 
Namaste all,

thank for the interesting question. unconditional love. hmm...

let me answer that by relating a situation that find myself in. a former lover had decided to break up with me months before telling me that they were feeling unhappy. we didn't talk about what was going on and they didn't give me a chance to fix it. i was very hurt yet i hadn't broken up with them and my feelings of love were intact. they have nowhere to live in our city if they don't live with me and sleep in my bed and so even while they are seeing another partner i am going to allow them to sleep here, i'll continue to buy their food and allow them to use my computers and other limited resources. is that unconditional? no, i don't think so. i get something from it.

i get the opportunity to test the courage of my convictions, to put my ethical and moral training to the test and is something which i find difficult to get in most situations (i.e. mostly it's easy to navigate these things yet this isn't). i have the opportunity to look at my unhappy and ugly emotions plainly, to recognize my foes and call them by their names. i don't know if i'll be successful however it's what i get.

perhaps it's also unconditional. she doesn't have to love me for me to love her. i'm heart broken yet i really know of nothing else to do to help prevent her suffering.

though i do love...it's becoming clear to me the wisdom of the Buddhas teachings regarding love in particular. attachment to in all the ways... *sigh* sometimes i'm irked that the Buddha is correct about these things as often as he was.

metta,

~v
 
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