There are so many ideas about love,...however, to get to a statement about Unconditional Love, it is probably best to begin by discussing what it is not. For one, it is not uncovered through personal experiences. Experience born of belief (personal experience) can only be experienced through the condition of that belief (personal experience). Unconditional Love is recognized through impersonal experience.
In America, Christian love, what the faith-based call agape, is often considered the highest love, but that too is merely a conditional love. To better understand this type of love, simply consider the Great Love Chapter of Christendom, Corinthians 13; for example, "love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things", 1 Cor 13:7. Although this form of love, that is, bearing, believing, hoping and enduring is more commitment orientated then fleeting, it isn't Unconditional Love, but the submission, devotion, expectation and suffering to the conditions of their religions brewed beliefs.
Ontosophy (literally the wisdom of real being) on the other hand, understands that no matter how one perceives it, experience born of belief can only be experienced through the condition of that belief. And thus all wisdom rejects Christianity's conditional, self-perpetuating ideas.
Passionate or emotional love, is another type of conditional love. This is the love of solicitudal desire and enthralled obsession. Such love is usually, but not necessarily, accompanied by biological, chemical or instinctual love, which manifests a yearning for the welfare, possession and companionship of another. Ordinarily, emotional love is based on something received through physiological or psychological arousal, and commonly includes, as in Christian love, an attached expectation.
Then there is the amoral intimacy of Conscious Love. This is the Love of the Bodhisattva; the wish for the well being and liberation of all; without predisposition, and indifferent towards the consequences to the lover. In other words, as Alfred Orage said, "so she becomes perfectly herself, what matter I?" In regards to Buddhist, most Christians are surprised that they do not believe in a God; but they do recognize Love,...a love without the conditions of hope and faith.
The Bodhisattva wish, in the above context, is not synonymous with hope or desire. Hope and desire belong to an anticipation and expectation of the future. Hope and desire ensues from the thought of lack; that things should be other than they are. A wish on the other hand, is an intention, unencumbered by predisposition; to allow Love to flow, and arrive at its own harmonium.
Individuality is incessantly convinced of its separateness; it bears, believes, hopes, and endures within a perceived encapsulated form, manifesting conditions that perpetually repeat themselves. A wish arises from the Heart of one's Essence. There is no absence of Love, anywhere; only an enshrouding by brewed beliefs and predispositions that have been built against love. Thus, to realize the love (and light)that we are, complete and without lack, we simply bring love to another through a clear presence. We cannot do that through conditions, because all conditions are in the past. Love is only in the present. Which isn't saying "relative or perceived present", because THERE IS NO PRESENT IN TIME.
The fragrance of love is as a tremendum uncovered by surrendering expectation, and through that immediacy, one witnesses a grand preferenceless reality. A reality of Love's own flow; unveiled of what belief and predisposition think it should be.
Ontosophy, the path of the wisdom of Being, understands that belief implies doubt. It is merely a concept we use to make the unknown palatable. To trust in a monotheistic god, or any belief, is committing ones reliance, dependence, certitude, allegiance and potential transcendence to something that is not ratiocinatively known to be true. If a belief were true, we wouldn't have to believe it. Failure to recognize the false as false, or a belief as that which suppresses, denies, disempowers and disconnects, is the ruination of destiny's and self-sabotage of the full expression of one's inherent talents.
If we are to trust, let our trust be with something we can never leave and that can never leave us. Let our trust be in love.
Love is not something that has been canonized, or whose definition has been closed to change, like Christian scripture. To trust in old myths, is not love, but blind faith perpetuated by our ancestors; a behavior no less than insane. Simply consider the hundreds of conditions that the Judaeo-Christian-Muslem Gods put on their faithful. Of course, to divert the truth and preserve the lie, their faithful insist on playing pick-n-choose with what the Bible actually says. Is it really a wonder why Christian conservatives understand the dynamics of truth suppression so well?
Unconditional love is neither positive or negative,...unconditional is always neutral and impersonal. I once heard it said that, "positive and negative do not exist except as we see them as such."
Now,...how can one answer the question, "do I love myself unconditionally." There are 5 words in the question. What does one mean by I? Or myself? If the I is attached to ego, then it is a condition, and thus cloaked from the threshold of the unconditional.
I fully agree that the way to love is through the heart. But who understands what the heart truly is. Do not most mistaken the heart for cerebral-centric positiveness? Some think the heart is about humility,...I agree with Wei Wu Wie who said, "there is no humility, only degrees of pride."
Muddied love, like a muddied diamond, has not lost its luster. Love is our essence,...and undivided light is the proof that statement is true. Of course in our society, people don't want to see that what they thought was meaningful may actually be meaningless, thus for most, love is buried in mud.
I agree that Unconditional Love is beyond boundaries,...but also beyond any center. Unconditional Love is beyond Duality, it has no center or boundary, no here ot there, no One or Many.
Let me repeat that for you,...love is beyond One and Many. No "One" can love you Unconditionally. No "One" can ever realize enlightenment.
I agree, that Unconditional Love can arise from a "boy that never ages,...never changes,...deep inside." That's why the second most important Absolute Bodhichitta is to "find the consciousness we had before we were born."
V
