Unconditional Love

"You cannot unconditionally love someone. You can only be unconditional love. It is not a dualistic emotion. It is a state of oneness with all that is."

-- Stephen Levine

I'm tempted to say that Stephen has said it all -- no commentary or explanation is needed. And yet, if love is just that simple, why is it the subject of such monumental misunderstanding?

Love, true love, is not about romance, or sex, or even relationship -- it's about identity. To love truly, deeply, and unconditionally we must identify ourselves as love, nothing less. It's not me over here and you over there and somehow we conjure up some emotional resonance between us. It is, as Stephen says, about unity, about recognizing our oneness not just with each other but with all others, with the entire universe.

I know, that's a tall order. Sometimes I don't even like my partner. Hell, sometimes I don't even like myself! How can I experience love for the entire universe? Only through Being, not through doing. Letting go of your limited identity, not trying to expand upon it.

Falling in love is a pretty accurate description, even though the phrase is almost entirely misused. To truly be unconditional love, we must let go, we must fall into it because it is the pure ground of being, the substratum of all our existence.

Falling in love with another person is a step. In its purest sense this type of romantic love is you and another free falling into that space of love together. Where we get confused, though, is in our attachment to the other person. As beautiful, nice, sexy, and wonderful as they are, they are neither necessary nor sufficient to our experience of love. At best they are a catalyst that helps us recognize that the state of love is always there patiently waiting to be discovered.

Attachment is the enemy of unconditional love. By becoming attached we attempt to put conditions upon love. Love will have none of it. Your attachments will only lead to your demise. Love is completely unfettered and for you to be love, you must be, too.

It's both the simplest thing and the hardest thing in life -- to love unconditionally. It is our primal nature, our true calling, and yet it is obscured beneath a gobzillion layers of conditioning. Today, see if you can at least put a small crack, a fissure, in that conditioning. Love for no reason. Be what you are.