I Thought I Knew What Unconditional Love Was...

[scarface]

I remember for myself the biggest confusion in this state was about Love (in general) and in Love in the romantic relationship sense (especially what to do with the preferences (looks and personality) I had).

Yeah, no kidding!!

I've had ppl think I'm gay because I'll simply sustain eye contact with them for so long, guys included.

There's the confusion of if I'm gay or bi since there's so much love for both men and women. Fundamentally I don't feel much difference, yet it's not a romantic love at all. There's a different love that arises that is more sexual and romantic, but it seems so secondary.

Plus there is the ability to get really connected and deep with any person, and that too can be confused with romantic love.

Yeah, the confusion I experienced was mostly on the fact that I had selective criteria's when it came to Romantic/Relationship Love. Which didn't fit in with the Love/Compassion I was starting to experience on a daily basis for all people. With that here there were no selection criteria and merely experiencing and accepting people as they are.

I experienced that I treated people that I wasn’t sexually/romantically interested in with more Love and compassion then women that I was sexually/romantically interested in. This caused confusion for me, and took some time to resolve. The reason that I treated women I was sexually/romantically interested in not as well, was because I created all kinds of criteria/standards and also rules which over time had gotten pretty hardwired into me. You know criteria’s like she: needs to be open, attentive, good communicator, etc.. And therefore I was less accepting (and therefore Loving and Compassionate) of certain character treats or behaviour. And also rules like: if after 3 dates no sex it’s over, etc..

This confusion I did resolve with the concept that: the Love/Compassion I was experiencing for all people, and the Romantic/Relationship Love is just that also, and that I not needed to be adding it with selective criteria's and rules. I couldn’t bare the difference any longer I had conceptualized about Love/Compassion in general and Romantic/relationship Love. To me they had always appeared as 2 different kinds of Love, but then I saw they are were actually One and the same kind.

So from then on the Romantic/relationship Love was just that Love/Compassion I experienced for all. The only difference for me from then on was that with the Romantic/relationship Love there is the added want to spend more (intimate) time with that women. That (extra) want being something which I see as a hormonal/biological response in my body, saying: "she matches with my genes, etc.”.

Well that was my experience on this, bye Scarface.

[Ariel]

Yeah, I can really relate to that, scarface, particularly the part about loving people you're attracted to less. It's almost like you're less vulnerable with strangers because you have less interested vested in the outcome.

Thank you for sharing your experiences. They're very helpful, as usual.

[jeffusu]

Ariel, scarface, totally guys I know what you mean.

It's like I'm a love machine with girls that don't necessarily meet my "criteria" because I'm so unattached, but as soon as I start feeling she is a "prospect" then I start sucking

I'm feeling like I might just let go of the whole idea of criteria and standards, it seems constricting. Like I thought I needed a girl who was super into spirituality, wanted to become enlightened or unconditionally loving or whatever, but now I'm feeling like I'm rejecting the ordinariness of myself and others. I really really love just being ordindary - liking pizza, movies, and dumb stuff like cuddles.

There's a part of me that's afraid that if I don't find that "super-girl" then I'll get bored with the relationship. Maybe that's true I dunno.

I remember the girl I was happiest with though was one who was open to spiritual stuff, but not that into it, cute, but pretty "normal", but she just laughed at all my jokes. Aahhh life.

Still working through this, romantic love and spiritual love being reconciled.

[Ariel]

Like I thought I needed a girl who was super into spirituality, wanted to become enlightened or unconditionally loving or whatever, but now I'm feeling like I'm rejecting the ordinariness of myself and others. I really really love just being ordindary - liking pizza, movies, and dumb stuff like cuddles.

There's a part of me that's afraid that if I don't find that "super-girl" then I'll get bored with the relationship. Maybe that's true I dunno.

I remember the girl I was happiest with though was one who was open to spiritual stuff, but not that into it, cute, but pretty "normal", but she just laughed at all my jokes. Aahhh life.

You too!?

[Lissa]

Its not natural to bind our hearts up like that... I think we do that to protect ourselves.

[Yashua]

Wow what an incredible post and thread about unconditional love, one of my favorite topics!
I'm learning so much and as i keep reading, a feeling of bliss arises within me. It's almost like reading these posts triggers something within me, an incredible experience. Thanks!

[Carly]

Yes, I’ve had what sounds like a similar experience a few times beginning just this year. I think what prompted it was when I began using the Release Technique (similar to the Sedona Method) which really focuses on opening your heart. I’ve known for a few years now that my heart was closed. For the past 10 or so years I’ve had dreams and now waking states and where I meet (or feel) a “soulmate” (or his presence) and my heart just opens up completely. It was beyond anything I had ever felt when I first expereinced it at age 15, but it does not compare to the complete divine love experiences that I’ve had recently. I never felt that type of heart opening when in an actual relationship, but it was somewhat open. After a difficult relationship I closed my heart up completely. Maybe a year or 18 months ago in meditation I received the thought “Why do you open you heart so completely only to this one person/presence; why is it only in dreams? Why can’t you be in love with God, in love with the world?” I didn't know how yet at that time.

The ‘unconditional love’ experiences happened spontaneously, either when meditating or when listening to particularly beautiful music. The first time was about 3 months ago. Basically my heart just burst open and I felt unconditional, divine love for all of humanity and the world. All that I wanted to do was spread and share this love with everyone. I just kept crying with love and gratitude beyond measure. I felt that it was the end of my personal path and now I was here to serve humanity. There was not necessarily anything to do; I felt that I was just “being” love and radiating it. Yet still it was not complete, because there was a door that I could have went through, to make this experience permanent, but I got scared, because it was so foreign. It would have been an end to the ego, and I didn't know who I would be on the other side! It is one thing to know from books, and another to be up against it. I thought, “Who am I to be feeling this, I am not Christ, I cannot feel this amount of love!” I felt almost arrogant or delusional! I didn’t know who I would be if love of that magnitude would continue to pour through me; it felt too powerful, so I stopped it. It happened again about a month later, and it was exactly the same, though there was no opportunity to make it permanent.

Another thing that happened which was similar but not quite the same was while in meditation, (not sure what “I” that was exactly) realized that from some perspective I loved the experience of finiteness. I somehow became aware of all the emotions I had in past lifetimes (as well as this one), not necessarily the memories, but the emotions, and knew then how perfect it always was, and knew that all the people and experiences I thought were terrible and I thought I hated I actually had always loved on some level. Not only was “Infinite Being” perfect, this finite experience with all of its strife and sorrows was perfect as well. I was sad because I wished to tell my past incarnations how perfect it is, and to appreciate it, and I felt sad because I got the impression I was about to leave finite reality, and move to the infinite. I was sad because I loved it so much and only just then realized it.

Regarding the ‘ups and downs,’ this has been a large part of my journey. Besides a 5-month long “Dark Night of the Soul” 2 years ago, there are defiantly times when I feel tested. What can upset me is when I have to learn the same thing over and over. I’ll think I really have ‘gotten it,’ only then to forget for several months until I have another ‘realization’ and think “didn’t I already know that?” But in my case I am tested again and again just to make sure I have integrated on the deepest level. I have found in my case there is such a big difference between mental understanding and really knowing, really being that truth. Even recently I feel a struggle again, and it’s so silly because I am resisting resisting, I am trying to force surrendering, force releasing, force enlightenment. Sometimes having these amazing experiences makes me feel bad when they are over and I try to force my way back to them, because I think I’m doing something wrong now that they aren’t here anymore (maybe sometimes we cannot take in too much at once, like that divine love was too much for me right then to have it be permanent, but little by little we need to build up – also, I think often there is too much focus on spiritual experiences or “highs” and not enough on the day to day choices, thoughts, and practices that build the base of permanent spiritual realization, but that is for another post! ). I guess what it comes down to is that on some level I’m thinking “this isn’t good enough,” or “I’m doing something wrong, closing my heart, resisting God, and life isn’t how it should be,” which of course is not the case. I’ve just realized that (AGAIN! – for the innumerable time!) and now I have to go back to that state where ‘this is it,’ as in THIS right here is perfect, there is no where else to go, nothing else to strive for, God is now, now is God, and accept that completely. That is simultaneously the easiest and the hardest thing to do!

[~ Julie]

Interesting Carly. With my first awakening experience I noticed that I was letting go. I didn't connect it so much with opening my heart, but now that you mention it, it's interesting because that day as I started driving out to a nearby lake, I started to really cry and release and I recognized that I had always feared opening my heart fully in a relationship.

I was just in the process of walking away from a guy that I really felt a connection with, but the circumstances between us weren't ideal. I had 2 psychic readings a couple of weeks prior and they both told me that he wasn't the one and that someone else would be coming into my life. For the first time in this life, I felt ready for that, that I would really be able to open my heart and not worry about getting hurt.

I recognized that whatever was meant to be would be and I also wanted to experience the freedom of not holding back because I had started to do that with this guy and it was an amazing experience.

It seems like letting go and opening are sort of synonymous. Thank you for bringing that to my awareness Carly!

[CaterpillarWoman]

For some time, I've been consciously "casting love" to people, just indiscriminately most of the time, but also people I see on the news (even the "bad guys"), read about in magazines, etc. I find that the more I do it, the more I'm capable of doing it, if that makes sense. These days I don't even think about sending love to specific people, I just sort of allow myself to radiate love, as much and as far as it will go. I don't even have to consciously initiate it most of the time now, though I admit I don't always do it. When my drama-queen ego-self gets upset about something and drags my attention to something petty, it can block pretty much everything above and beyond ego-bound emotions and thoughts.

Anyway, I've noticed three things from this practice of casting or sending or radiating love. First, people make eye contact a lot more meaningfully than they used to. I don't know how to describe it. It's not creepy or anything, it's just that people look me right in the eye and tend to smile at me.

Secondly, dogs absolutely ADORE me. I've always been a dog person, having grown up with dogs and had them most of my life, but these days, it's like dogs can see me coming from blocks away and start to get excited that I'm approaching, long before I get there. They get all happy when they see me coming, it really is kind of strange. It's true that I have good doggy body language, but the way dogs get all wiggly-happy when they see me is both amusing and a little weird, in a funny kind of way. I just radiate some sort of doggy-goodness or something. Oddly, I haven't noticed any change in the way cats relate to me, but cats are peculiar beasties at the best of time (I am currently the slave of a rather grumpy elderly female cat who rules my household, so it's not like I don't get along with cats or anything).

Thirdly, children seem to instantly and immediately trust me. Babies will smile at me spontaneously for no reason, and then stare at me, grinning. Kids at my daughter's school will walk past me when I'm waiting for my daughter and sort of do a little double take and then smile at me (I dress completely normally and look completely ordinary, so it's not like I'm wearing a clown wig and a red nose or anything else to particularly get their attention). Sometimes kids I've never met will come up to me and start up conversations with me for no apparent reason, which is cool with me, as I like kids, but I do find it strange that kids just seem to immediately trust me and want to talk to me. I'm no different than any of the other parents who hang around waiting to walk their child home, as far as I can see on the outside.

As I've written this, I think I'm going to try to deliberately cast love to animals. Cats (my own is bathed in love, so it probably won't affect her; she knows she is adored), wild birds, whatever I find. I do send "I won't hurt you" vibes to spiders when I catch them inside, and that seems to have a positive effect, so maybe I can draw more birds to my home or encourage the worms in our compost bin or something else useful like that.

I've got a Beatles song stuck in my head now. No prizes for guessing which one.

Love, love, love...
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need

[Ariel]

CaterpillarWoman, as I was reading that, I had this immense feeling of, "My God, I love you" welling up.