Unconditional Love

It's probably not what you think it is

Photo by Christopher Beloch on Unsplash

As I’ve written before, when you decide to dive into modern spirituality, you’re going to encounter what in the business world would be considered buzzwords.

Vibration, dimension, energy, ascension, and words to that effect take on a slightly different meaning when associated with developing a spiritual connection with your higher self.

And higher self is another of those buzzwords.

But in my humble opinion, probably the most misused or misunderstood term in spirituality is unconditional love.

It’s a phrase that gets tossed around a lot in organized religion also, but by definition unconditional love simply means loving without placing conditions on the receiving of that love.

Saying that an old man on a throne in outer space loves you unconditionally, but unless you do this, this and this and believe that, that and that you will be punished and sent to hell upon death is not unconditional love.

No. That is opposite of unconditional love. That is love only given when any number of conditions are met.

See the difference?

Unconditional love does not require rules and regulations.

Unconditional love does not require constant adoration and praise.

Unconditional love does not require blind obedience.

Unconditional love does not require any sacrifice on the part of the receiver.

Unconditional love…. just is.

And yes, I know that “just is” is another spiritual buzz phrase, and one that is hard for us in human form to understand. It means that some things exist only because they do. There is no other justification needed.

When we’re here in these human bodies, from a very early age, we are taught that life is a series of rewards and punishments.

If we eat all of our brussel sprouts, we can have dessert. If we finish our homework, we can go out and play. If we finish our chores, we can go out with our friends.

And on and on.

As a result, our brains are programmed from childhood to believe that anything good that comes our way is a result of our doing something we don’t want to do or completing some task that we were assigned.

And organized religion, always eager to take advantage of the human condition, jumps right in with, if you come to church and bring your offering, you will be loved by god and go to heaven when you die.

Which is not in any way reflective of the unconditional love that the entire universe has for all of us.

Those of us that have pets have seen the best example of unconditional love available to us here on earth. Dogs love even abusive owners unconditionally, up to a point of course. Cats? They’re a different story, but there is a lot of unconditional love there also.

So what’s the takeaway here? There are two barriers to understanding unconditional love, both of which need a lot of introspection and internal work to overcome.

First, you have to realize that your subconscious is going to keep running that old program that says you are undeserving of love unless you perform certain tasks because it will not throw out an old program until you have a new one to replace it with.

This can be accomplished by recognizing those areas where you don’t feel worthy and doing affirmations to convince yourself that you are.

I know we all laughed at Al Franken when he did his mirror affirmations on SNL, but tell yourself that you are smart enough, good enough, and darn it people like you often enough and your subconscious will begin to accept it as truth.

The second takeaway is that we are taught, also from childhood, that our world is very small, that we are a small speck of dust in an infinite universe, and we are alone.

While it’s true that this platform that we incarnate on to play out our chosen life drama is small in the grand scheme of things, it is surrounded by a universe teeming with life of all kinds. Our puny human minds can’t comprehend infinity, but there are countless types of life out there.

I have been hearing “think big, now think bigger” from Jasper for years and I still only have a partial understanding of the size of the universe.

Knowing the size of the universe is less important than understanding that every part of it is filled with unconditional love for every other part of it.

That is the ultimate takeaway.

The universe loves you and so do I!

Love and light until next time.