Redefining What Love Is
I think Bruce Springsteen would be shocked at my answer to the question in his popular song: “I want to know what love is”. What most people call love is nothing more than infatuation, and its a selfish acquisitively driven emotion. Unconditional love is not an emotion at all, nor is it something that we can really learn to express. Rather, unconditional love is a core part of our state of being which we only experience directly when we are free of judgement and emotion. Unconditional love in this context is synonymous with finding balance and harmony in things, with absolute acceptance and appreciation of what is. Another way to frame it is absolute presence in the moment.
Our belief driven bias and expectation dissects whatever we encounter in reality into a positive and negative duality, and then tries to ignore either the positive or the negative side of the equation depending on our expectations. This distortion of reality then obscures the true order and harmony inherent in everything around us from our awareness. Unconditional love results when we manage to recombine the polar opposites of this judgemental duality back into singular harmony by removing any judgement from the equation. Like in those rare moments where we stand in awe of the magic and majesty of the world around us, where we have no opinion or judgement, where there is nothing that we think should be different in order to conform to our desires and needs, when we accept everything exactly as it is in that moment, and we appreciate it for all that it is. That feeling we have in that moment is absolute presence and unconditional love.
As Einstein noted, the most important question we must answer for ourselves is whether or not this is a friendly universe. The universe itself is unconditional. Nothing is personal in the sense of “karma” or “punishment”, cause and effect is the rule. Nor is anything is inherently good or bad, and we never experience challenge in our lives unaccompanied by support (yes I can prove that statement using your own experience). Every single experience in our lives is geared towards our growth and empowerment, containing valuable wisdom regarding our understanding and beliefs, and the choices we made to get us in our situation in the first place. Vast potential and resources are available to us as long as we do something productive with them, and we remain willing to adapt, grow and evolve. KNOWING and embodying this experientially is the true meaning of “faith” as used in a spiritual context.
The effect of Emotion on Consciousness
When our perception of reality is distorted and unbalanced it triggers an emotional state which is superimposed over our underlying state of unconditional love, obscuring it from our direct perception or conscious awareness. If we balance out our perception and neutralize the emotion, we return to our core unconditional state. With practice, this return to neutrality is possible within every experience in every moment. Be aware however that our ego, identity or persona is not comfortable in this state, as it has no validity or power here. It will always try to impose its opinions and judgements to regain its illusion of control.
The Mechanics of Perception and Emotion
I must note first that a permanent state of enlightenment or unconditionality is not a realistic goal. That would bypass and defeat the mechanics of our growth and evolution. Instead, life is an open ended journey of discovery and development. Every time we get emotional (due to an imbalanced perception resulting from an erroneous underlying belief), and then subsequently manage to balance our perception and return to a balanced state and unconditional acceptance in that moment, we gain wisdom and update our erroneous underlying belief. With repetition we become more present and tuned in to the nature and potential of the reality around us. We are less prone to entertaining myths and fantasies, we have access to more of the opportunities around us and are essentially more empowered to live more fulfilling lives.
An Unconditional Self?
Although access to a truly unconditional state of consciousness is rare, these moments are some of the most memorable and life altering experiences we can have. It makes sense to do whatever we can to increase the likelihood of such access. With attention to our emotions as indicators, and persistent application of critical thinking as a balancing response, our erroneous beliefs are incrementally corrected or updated. Seeking a balanced and empowering perspective eventually becomes “first instinct” upon experiencing an emotional reaction to anything. The magnitude of our emotional swings will decrease over time too, since we are no longer investing our attention in them. The more often we can balance our skewed perceptions of reality the more we accelerate our growth and evolution. For us as individuals, it is all about achieving an unbiased perception of reality. Only then do we stop clouding and corrupting our view of a magnificent intelligent universe with our unrealistic expectation and judgement, and we begin to perceive and enjoy our meaningful role in it.
