In an event when someone confessed to you that he or she really loves you, have you ever wonder up to what extend his or her love will go? Same goes to your families, up to what extend do you love your families? When your beloved partner is no longer up to your expectation, he or she is experiencing difficulties or faced with miserable incidents such as accidents or serious illnesses, will you still stand by him or her and provide comfort to him or her until the end? To your families, will you still spend time and effort to accompany them in times of difficulties or miserable moments? Yes? No? Maybe? It depends? Well, I believed this is much subjected to conditions at that moment.
Here, I would categorized love into two. First to be conditional, while the other one is unconditional. Conditional love basically is restricted to several particular individuals and often comes with a package of obsessions and expectations. A case study here, you might confessed to her, "Oh my darling! I love you! My love to you is unconditional! No matter how will you become, I will still love you! Please accept my love!" I believe many would regard this as romantic, but what I'm focusing on is not the romance of the phrase, but rather the truth itself. Before exclaiming that your love to her is unconditional, please ask yourself, do you love her because you like her? If yes, then your love is already conditional. And basically, conditional love would end up with various mental sufferings. Referring to the same case, if she rejects you, will you still love her? Or would you feel heartbroken and miserable? Well, the answer is obvious. When the mental suffering extend up to an extreme level, it might bring about the claiming of one's life by oneself. Even the love towards the family can be conditional too. One obvious example is during the situation when your parents have to face with various illness at their old age. You might once mentioned that you love your parents unconditionally, but when it comes to this situation, will you still love and care for them unconditionally despite all the troubles that they might cause to you due to the aging factors or illnesses? If their troubles had made you feel weary, restless or stressful, then your love towards your family that you might exclaimed before is undeniably conditional.
Now, what about unconditional love? What it has to be to love someone unconditionally? Basically, this category of love is not restricted to just some particular people, but rather it extends up to everyone, it is boundless. This love is dedicated for the well-being of oneself and others as well. Some might called it boundless love or spiritual love. To be honest, one who is able to develop this unconditional love will have no enemies as he or she has no one to like or dislike. One might ask, how can you love without liking someone? Yup, it is possible as you have no obsession or expectation for a reciprocated love. This love is integrated with the four immeasurables, which are loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity. Having loving-kindness means that you are willing to share your joy with everyone around you regardless of who they are. Having compassion means you are putting yourself into one's shoe and willing to lend a helping hand to relief their sufferings. Having appreciative joy means you would feel happy and joyful towards others' accomplishment or success without feeling jealous or envy. While having equanimity means that no matter how the outcome will be, whether you will be treated well or whether the love is requited or not, your love would still pertain without suffering from any negative mental conditions such as hatred or anger. These four immeasurables are the foundation towards developing this unconditional love. Without these four, the love would remain conditional.
Frankly speaking, in reality, it is not possible for one to abandon conditional love and just focus on loving unconditionally, unless he or she is a very noble person, not in terms of power, but in terms of spirituality. But, everyone has the potential to develop this unconditional love. By simply wishing oneself and all beings, regardless of who or where they are, to be free from enmity, danger, mental & physical suffering and to be well and peaceful always, one is on the right path towards developing this love. Before developing this love towards others, one must first develop this love towards one own self. Or else how would you able to love others if you are not even loving yourself? Of course, it would be a bonus if one could rightfully understand the truth of life. So, let's start to love unconditionally! Let the love that we develop be boundless as the air that we breathe!
Mata yatha niyam puttam
Ayusa ekaputta-manurakkhe
Evampi sabba bhutesu
Manasam-bhavaye aparimanam
~Khp 9, v.7~
Just as a mother would protect her only child with her own life, even so, let one cultivate boundless thoughts of loving-kindness towards all beings. My life journey continues...
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