Book 2 – Chapter 10 - Heart and Love – Excerpt 2-8
Confusion about Love
I find it interesting and also amazing how so many people adamantly claim that they love unconditionally, yet in the same breath they express their judgments, rules, conditions, boundaries, etc. They’re unaware of their ignorance as they talk without thinking, and don’t seem to have the mental ability to see that they are contradicting themselves and that unconditional love means love without any conditions. The other possibility is that they are feigning ignorance and are very well aware of what they are saying and are intentionally making misleading statements to confuse and bewilder those that are willing to listen, but afraid to challenge them, like a church congregation that sits quietly, believing what they are told by their preacher. People base their concept of love on their programs and beliefs of their religion, social customs and traditions, political and education systems, as well as their life style. If you strip these away, you’re left with an open Mind that will then allow you to feel what love is and isn’t, and also what unconditional love really is. Love is not something that grows with time, or something that you learn; Love simply is. It’s a feeling that is, or isn’t there. What grows is our misguided and mistaken beliefs of what love is when we blindly accept denial, guilt, shame, self-hatred and self-sacrifice for others as a replacement for self-love.
To say that one is loving unconditionally, or that one seeks unconditional love is really irrelevant as what is important is whether or not there are any denials, judgments, expectations or limitations present in the statement, thereby making it conditional love, and not unconditional. While unconditional love can only have one state of being and action, that being without any conditions, rules, limits or denials, conditional love can have infinite forms of being and action, depending on the denials, rules and conditions present. An example would be a person stating that their dog or cat is an example of unconditional love and that they love them unconditionally. While the statement refers to unconditional love as both a thing and an action, it’s merely an expression of a person’s mental belief of what they think unconditional love is without actually digging deeper to see if in fact, it is unconditional. In this example, they have mistaken conditional love (in the form of self-sacrifice and control) as a form of unconditional love, totally unaware of the unseen role of denial that is at play in the dog or cats behavior and also in theirs. They are unaware that there are conditions, limitations and rules that apply to this relationship, thereby making it conditional and not unconditional as they would have others believe.
People feel that they love unconditionally when in fact their concept of love is based on self-hatred, self-sacrifice, guilt and shame. People do what they do to try to be accepted and loved, or to not feel guilty or ashamed if they don’t follow their beliefs of what love is. People are so imprinted, programmed, and limited by their beliefs that they find it almost impossible to think and feel outside the box of their judgments and beliefs. They talk about being free and having freedom, but fail to realize that they are locked inside a cage of imprints, programs and beliefs. They blindly focus on giving, serving, helping and loving others and call that form of self-sacrifice, unconditional love. They also believe that the more they do what they do, the more unconditional loving they are, totally unaware that they’re contradicting themselves as that statement means that they weren’t as unconditional as they would have liked to be so now they feel the need to make up for their shortcomings. Others claim that they can love unconditionally, especially nature and animals, yet openly admit that they have difficulty when it comes to loving people. They too fail to see their flaw in their thinking.
People blindly focus on the outside presentation of love (words and good deeds) and fail to realize that when they deny expressing their thoughts, feelings, emotions and intuition, that they are placing unloving conditions on themselves internally. They believe that self-sacrifice and denial is unconditional love and that just because something is not expressed, that it either doesn’t exist or matter, depending on whatever twisted imprints, programs and beliefs they are running on. Kindness is often mistaken for love but most so-called loving acts of kindness have unloving intent. Acts of kindness are also associated with guilt. Next to guilt, respect and kindness are often mistaken as love to those that are love starved, that will grasp at anything that appears to be loving and not attacking or rejecting them. Under the so-called loving act of kindness there is the unseen role of denial and unloving intent that is present in both the giver and receiver. A reason we deny expressing ourselves when we are unhappy is because we don’t want to hurt or lose the ones that mean most to us, so our denials make others happy while we are unhappy. We also deny our excitement, passion and joy if we feel that it will make others feel unhappy, and in so doing, we silently destroy a part of us that desires love and life. As you can see, denial is a no win situation.
