The best way to love another is to entirely surrender your conditions. Of course, that's called "unconditional love" and most will simply laugh at such an idea as utopist and unrelated to the ‘real" world.

Nevertheless, it seems clear to me that all authentic spiritual seeking has that goal in mind and absolutely nothing more.

Therefore, "heaven" is nothing more than a state of mind completely absent of all conditions (self-imposed limits) and "enlightenment" or "awakening" is to realize, even for a brief moment, that state of mind.

But then, where do your conditions come from and why do you have them?

Conditions come from fear and are actually a confused attempt to escape fear. But, we need to understand what fear is first, before we can tackle the conditions employed to escape fear. We've all heard that fear is nothing more than an absence of love, but what does that really mean?

Since we have decided that love comes in many shapes and sizes (depending on who we're loving at the moment), we have constructed fear to conform to that same variability. The largest fear is death and we have implemented all manner of protective survival mechanisms to help insure the delay of death (although, ironically, we realize death as inevitable anyway, so it's merely a matter of delaying).

Yet, fear also comes in smaller shapes and sizes too, such as anxiety, depression, anger, guilt, embarrassment, annoyance and whatever other labels we apply to varying levels of internal suffering. These renditions or symptoms of fear involve the threat of death to the psychological ‘self' and have little to do with the body (the ‘psychological self' is the package of beliefs you invest in as "you"). This is because we believe our actual death comprises not only the death of the body, but also death of the mind, both of which comprise the total definition of  "self."

You have just as many, if not more, threats to the psychological self as to the body. This requires protective mechanisms to insure survival or delay of death. Because, lets face it, other than disease or attack, nowadays we have done a fairly good job of insuring bodily protection and delay of bodily death.

On the other hand, the psychological "self" is accosted and threatened constantly in today's society and this results in a great deal of fear and the need for pervasive self protective strategies (the domain of psychology and psychotherapy).

Unfortunately, these self-protective strategies, devised to protect the ‘self' from psychological harm, also impede LOVE. Conditions applied for self-protection are nothing more than the CONDITIONS you inadvertently apply to LOVE in order to protect yourself from the FEAR of psychological death (and threats thereof).

By setting conditions, you mistakenly believe that love will be more available and fear less. Note that the first condition we set to love is that it can only be available from certain specific bodies, which we have chosen TO love, since we certainly do not expect love from the entire world nor do we expect to give it TO the world (although the "enlightened" ones claim to do just that).

The next specific condition we apply to those lucky few is that they return love TO us. Therefore, right out of the starting gate we have applied conditions to what every religion informs us is, in truth, UNCONDITIONAL. Most of us are aware of this unconditional aspect and thus we make compromises such as "well, that may be fine for God or Mother Teresa, but I'm just ‘Joe six-pack' and can't be expected to meet such lofty heights." Hmmm...I wonder if God thought that when he thought YOU into Awareness? Or could it be that God truly expects YOU to love like God in order to know God?

For the most part, we have all basically denied any higher love functioning than what we see and learn from others (parents) and just accept it and this is why we have a divorce rate above 50% and live in our separate domestic hell for most of our lives. But, as they say, some things never change (particularly when we have learned that they can't and refuse to question that learning)

So after the first two conditions I highlighted above, we then begin to set a varying array of numerous other conditions upon the love object(s) and this is based on who we are ‘loving' at any particular time. Woe be it, to the one who fails to meet YOUR conditions and fails to meet them often. Obviously, if conditions are not met, fear is no longer repressed and can rise up with a vengeance (which is obvious, since the product of fear is always vengeance and attack).

Rather than YOUR fear being seen as a product of YOUR silly, irrational conditions, you see it as a result of the loved one failing to meet YOUR conditions. Note the infamous proclamation heard throughout the world: "If you loved me, you would...." But how often do we hear, "I love you with no conditions"? Rarely, and this is because just as you impose your conditions upon me, I too, impose mine upon you.

In fact, I have my own conditions learned from childhood and I feel compelled to add new conditions based on protection from your conditions, which you too, learned in childhood. This results in the anxiety, depression, anger and guilt often endemic to close, romantic relationships and marriages because, it does seem, the closer we are, the more conditions are required to offset fear. But these symptoms of fear are also experienced when the world refuses to meet our conditions for love. Thus, "I will love the world when it shows me love by giving me...."

This fear is most likely due to the threat of loss of psychological ‘self' to the other. Which, ironically, is the reason the intimate relationship was initiated in the first place?

The strong magnetic pull to Join-as-One is the foundation of soul or spirit. The dual couplings and pairings we engage in with others merely mimic, on a microcosmic scale, the Deep Spirit desire we have to join with everyone and the universe macrocosmically. Most of the stress and conflict we experience in our lives is nothing more than our attempts to resist that magnetic pull to join; with other individuals and the world, because this threatens the psychological ‘self' which we believe is what we ARE.

So what about those mother child relationships that many define as naturally unconditional? Well, the mother simply imposes less conditions on her child as there is less fear. In fact, so few conditions are applied as to make it seemingly unconditional. However, although this mother-child love relationship is often deemed of an unconditional nature, there are so many exceptions to the rule as to completely negate the rule, based on the large number of maternal caregivers who have abused, neglected, estranged and literally murdered their children. The fact is that the mother-child love relationship is simply a relationship that in most cases lacks the prevalence of fear found in other relationships and as such, is merely less conditional, but rarely, if ever completely without condition and hence "unconditional."

At the very start of your life journey (early childhood), you learned that certain conditions must exist in order for love to exist. Most likely, this originated from lessons learned from those who clearly did love you, but at the same time needed to protect their own psychological "self" because they in turn learned this was necessary in order to experience "love." Therefore, it was necessary that your parents teach you the conditions that they believed help kept them safe. They didn't teach you out of hate, but from a mistaken notion of love. So what conditions do you teach your children?

Hush, my baby. baby, dont you cry.
Mommas gonna make all of your nightmares come true.
Mommas gonna put all of her fears into you.
Mommas gonna keep you right here under her wing.
She wont let you fly, but she might let you sing.
Mommas gonna keep baby cozy and warm.
Oooo babe.
Oooo babe.
Ooo babe, of course mommas gonna help build a wall.

(Pink Floyd, "Mother")

Unfortunately, conditions tend to limit or even completely stifle intimacy and love. But this is true for you only if you believe that unconditional love can be a reality. Otherwise, you will defend your conditions to the death, "if he/she really loved me, then..."

Sadly, as a result, you may die without ever truly experiencing love and many do just that, in fact, most. However, maybe that is the point of "reincarnation."

Therefore, the solution should be in significantly reducing your conditions by surrendering your need for protection and I am speaking primarily about psychological self-protection. What you actually do is compel the "loved one" to surrender their conditions, denying that they imposed conditions in response to your conditions and you them - round and round we go on the carousel of conditional love.

Identifying your conditions may seem difficult and requires excruciating honesty. But I believe it is a good first step since most folks are rarely even cognizant of what conditions they have imposed and unconsciously place upon others and the world.

To think that you simply do this to yourself is, for most, incomprehensible. This means that for you, I am the reason you are devoid of love and if only I could change, love would be appear, but if not then you must seek another and another and another and......

HA! But that's also what I tell myself about YOU!

Love is definable only when it is unconditional, but words cannot express it and any attempt at defining simply makes it a platitude. Therefore, the less conditions the more it can be experienced as what it is, which you cannot know until the conditions you apply to yourself and others are discarded.

In giving up our silly conditions, we then become prepared for SURPRISE, which is another definition of "unconditional" love, since "surprise" really defines nothing at all. Just an openness to be free of conditions, so as to see what happens. This is a very precarious and frightening place to be in for most, but it may be necessary to finally experience love as it was meant to be.

Peace Angels,
mikeS

I read a wonderful blog post recently (brought to my attention by Nicole on the God Pod) that really was a real motivational read in that the author presented future epochal social and cultural changes that are incredibly exciting and sustainable. The author clearly has the desire that we all do to envision changes to an "outside" world to replace the unsustainable existence we now seem to perpetuate. She even links to a website that delineates these changes in more detail.

One thing that seems to be missing in the changes many claim we are about to envision, as the old, unsustainable paradigms and value systems drop off, are changes to relationships. More specifically the changes to intimate relationships, which may require the very definition of intimacy to be re-evaluated or reinvented so as to be sustainable in a post-modern world.

The problem with the technological fix, which is the chief mode of change most visionaries seem to address, is that we tend to become overly reliant on technology to advance our evolution of consciousness. I feel this is a repetitive problem we face in that technology becomes symbolic of an advanced collective mind, when in reality we continue to compulsively fear and hate each other as we always have throughout the preceding centuries. Though it seems sad to me, technology has not seemed able to accelerate our advancement in our simply being more able to love each other(or in reducing the harm we perpetuate upon each other in so many ways).

The couples I meet, day in and day out, for "therapy," continue to exhibit reliance on the same tired old unsustainable paradigm of relating. The same fights and conflicts, the same patterned defense mechanisms and self-protective strategies continue to be taught by parents to children who then grow to further perpetuate, overt and covertly, mutual victimization of one another in the failure to clearly see the truth of what they do to one another and the global effects of this continued paradigm of 'love.'

Of course, this perpetual relationship conflict is a microcosm of the world and the same self-protective strategies we engage with, in our so called ‘love-relationships,' are the same strategies nation-states employ to maintain sovereign power and self-protection. Your ego is as much a sovereign as any country and when that ‘psychological sovereign-self' experiences threat it will attack. Whether through ICBM missiles or emotional poison darts, self-protection is the paradigm that need be changed.

I don't think this change will be soon availed of and this is because conscious advancement or "enlightenment/awakening" continue to be advocated as a solitary self endeavor. The self seeks enlightenment or awakening and we have very few paradigms which proclaim that this journey is a mutual endeavor that requires two or more. It seems the chief paradigm is of the solitary seeker engaging in austere and esoteric spiritual practices and from that, increases his/her loving engagement with others and the world. I sense that this paradigm is no longer sustainable, merely because it tends to leave out others and deny that we journey together. I feel that this paradigm asserts that this solitary seeking will eventually lead to the unified oneness but negates that it is NOW. I believe this tends to negate that, as many "masters" have proclaimed, the journey is all there is and there is NO destination or goal to be achieved. It is in the journey together that you will find each other and YOURSELF.

In my opinion, the visionaries that seek to change the big picture by reinventing the little picture (the intimacy of two into one) will help create massive changes rather quickly. Otherwise, we merely delay our collective enlightenment, in seeking to tweak the old model/paradigm by applying band aids to surface wounds when the real disease is epidemic and deep within the conscious and unconscious individual and collective mind. Let's go there together and apply the cure so that we can never again think apart. Without this intimacy with ourselves how can we expect to achive the degree of intimacy with the world that will result in the love that will change it?

My prvious posts address the assumed impossibility of unconditional love with the suggestion that it may not be as impossible as we may think.

This suggestion primarily addressed how we could acknowledge and strip away the conditions that we inadvertently and unwittingly apply to our intimate relationships based on a definition of 'love' as we believe it should be experienced. Although such acknowledgment may not bring one full circle to an unconditioned love for another, it may increasingly result in less conditions thereby opening up the possibility of an enlightening "surprise" in our relationships.

I am borrowing the concept of "surprise," as a state of mind, from James Carse and his book, "Finite and Infinite Games." The concept of Surprise is an openness to love, and life, that does not apply conditions, restrictions or limitations to your relationship with yourself, others and the world.

"To be playful is not to be trivial or frivolous or to act as though nothing of consequence will happen. On the contrary, when we are playful with each other we relate as free persons and the relationship is open to surprise."
"Because infinite players prepare themselves to be surprised by the future, they play in complete openness. It is not an openness as in candor, but an openness as in vulnerability. It is not a matter of changing one's unchanging identity, the true self that has always been, but a way of exposing one's ceaseless growth, the dynamic self that has yet to be. The infinite player does not expect only to be amused by surprise, but to be transformed by it..." (James Carse, "Finite and Infinite Games" p. 22-23)

I have been contemplating the numerous ways we apply conditions, hence limitations, chiefly when attempting to engage in close intimate relations with others and more specifically our 'love' relationships. The fear factor in protecting the "psychological self" is the reason conditions are applied. This hypothesis, put forward by many other brighter minds than mine, tends to address our fear of disclosure, or intimacy as deep understanding, for fear of attack. This is because the chief method of attaining self-knowledge is through intimacy or deeply engaging with others, but this can also become emotionally traumatizing if deep understanding is used for attack by others, thereby causing us to close off our channels for intimacy. Often this closing is best on memeroy of past attacks even as far back as childhood.

However, we tend to seek out one "other" as the main mode of self-reflection and this attests to our pairing up and coupling practices. Granted, this union-of-two is apparent in nature or the animal kingdom, but chiefly for instinctual mating purposes. It is true that we have the same drive to mate, but I believe we have a deeper, almost archetypal, drive for a Higher Union. This drive is deeper than what psychology considers as the "unconscious" and is possibly more of a sub-unconscious.

The problem is that this drive toward "awakening" through another is intensely frightening and, because of that fear, for most it is incomprehensible and resisted. This is because the potential of two joining as one annihilates the individual self. Of course, society teaches the exact opposite by reinforcing our need to essentially idolize the individual 'self' and that is referred to in pop psychology as "positive self-development." Therefore, we feel driven to protect the psychological self and, from birth, are taught the supreme importance of a creating a well-rounded self. This is why we maintain division or separation from others through conditions. If we spend decades building up a 'self' we therefore, must protect what we have constructed at all costs.

POSSESSION PRINCIPLE

The first condition of our love simply demands that I be with you, and no one else, in the sharing of sex and emotional bonding. The is the possession principle that most intimate relationships reflect and which is mandated by law. This legalized and sacralized mutual ownership seems advantageous on face value. Unfortunately, it tends to minimize intimacy, rather than magnify, since, in its present mandated form it becomes all to easy to sever your rights of ownership/possession upon the slightest provocation. Love unions mandated by church and state lose credibility only because church and state lack credibility. Nevertheless, we continue to participate in all three in the hope that either state, church or marriage will finally save us.

If there is to be a bond of intimacy it must be made sacred by the participants only. church and state sanctions should be unnecessary. The problem is that church and state sanction ‘love' unions in order to uphold the union, but actually do just the opposite. Deep Spirit should be the only sanctioning factor involved. Yet through church and state "marital" protections must be applied to protect children, uphold religious dogma and protect financial assets. I am not advocating the ban of marriage, just suggesting that we honestly evaluate the underlying dynamics that may impede intimacy. Denying the impediments, simply because "this is the way it's done," will not help to change the institutions and make them more conducive to an intimate knowing of one another.

The fact is that restructuring the institution of marriage in order to increase intimacy can benefit the world since, if I know you deeply I am less likely to harm you and it is only when we are strangers that the propensity for harm is increased. One could argue that parents often harm and abuse their children. My only response is that in many families intimacy is absent and was never available in the first place. Hence, the harm perpetrated by virtual strangers, since to truly hurt you I must make you stranger to me.

RECIPROCATION PRINCIPLE

Although this first 'love' condition is rather inconspicuous and unconsciously adhered to, since we have rationalized the need for legal unions, the second condition is just as unconscious. The second condition asserts that since I proclaim and exhibit my love for you, you MUST reciprocate and this is the reciprocation principle.

Now you might think that this condition is rather self-explanatory and elementary. Of course, why would I ‘love' you, engage in sexual relations, have children and create a 'life' with you, if you did NOT, in turn, love me. Duh!

But the problem is not in theory, but in practice. Who defines HOW I must reciprocate your love? YOU DO! But I too, in my relative defining of what love is, have determined how you must reciprocate my love back to me and, oh, what tangled 'love' webs we weave.

Reciprocating love is a gray area that we demand be black and white. This is because in a relative world, love is a many splendored, and highly relative, thing. I enjoy reading all the pop relationship experts (some who are Ph.Ds) who claim that, in relationships men and women each "speak a different language." Well, that may be, but I can tell you, as a psychotherapist specializing in relationships for the past 25 yrs, gay and lesbian relationships have just as many problems and break up just as often as heterosexual relationships. So who's speaking a different language here?

Actually, the language of love certainly is different. The problem is that there are 6 billion different renditions and each one applying different conditions based on each individual definition of love. Oh sure, there are always similarities, but based on all the variability that makes up each individual 'self,' the devil is in the details (and this is why the ‘devil' often wins and intimate relationships and marriages lose).

The concept of ‘love" is used on ad infinitum, but how do you define it? More specifically, how do you define love in relation to that significant other you have chosen to love "till death do you part." In your current relationship, do your definitions mesh? Are your  mutual 'love' renditions congruent and perfectly compatible?

The answer is easy. Do you fight? If you do, then be clear on the fact that you both define love differently and assert conditions based on each unique definition of love. You give love based on your definition and you expect it be returned by that definition as well. But then, so does your partner, only based on his/her definition and most likely not yours. Thus, "what we have here is a failure to communicate" (Cool Hand Luke).

In western, and many eastern, societies the first condition, or the possession principle, is currently non-negotiable. However, I'm rather indifferent and unconcerned about what brings people together. But I am very concerned about them staying together (and rising up together through a deeper understanding) and that cannot occur unless the second condition, or "reciprocation principle," is closely examined.

I find it interesting that most people have difficulty defining their unique definition of what love is, but they will easily define how and when they are not getting it. Do you demand that love be reciprocated? Can you love your partner without reciprocation? How do you define the loving reciprocation of another and what frequency of that reciprocating would repress the fear of not receiving love?

You might as well face it, you're conditioned to love and those conditions have been determined and applied by YOU (I speak to both parties). The conditions may have been instilled in you from childhood as an attempt to limit fear, but now, only limit love. Time to examine and strip away your conditions because, essentially, they are most likely irrational and often totally absurd (in many ways, just like society).

Many would retort that we must set limits or conditions, such as, you must not physically hurt me, or lie to me, etc, etc. I agree that conditions can be set, but must be agreed on at the start. However, I recall a couple in which the wife was adamant that her husband could never physically strike her and he never did. However, she felt she had a right to smack this 230 lbs man around whenever she felt he deserved it and she did just that, which is what resulted in their meeting with me. She found it incredulous when I suggested that she cease and desist from striking him!

Basic survival and conditions of 'do no harm' are self explanatory and require little discussion. Yet, the deeper conditions resulting in beliefs such as, "if he/she loved me, he/she would....." are the more unconsciously insidious impediments to intimacy that need to be identified and possibly reframed in order to further an intimacy related to Deep Spirit and not just related to conditioned beliefs as to what love is or is NOT.

Time to start identifying your knee-jerk responses to one another, because these are symbolic of conditioned beliefs and may need to be dissolved in order to finally experience the love from Deep Spirit and the union of two into ONE. This type of unconditioned openness will be very "surprising" in that nothing you have learned, or been conditioned to believe about 'love' is true. But something more real IS the truth.

Happy Trails,
mikeS

In my ongoing pursuit of understanding 'intimacy,' I came across some rather ludicrous, but still fascinating, information related to science's need to empirically identify and define every intrinsic experience available to human beings.
 

In it's need to define love based on observable evidence, science has claimed to identify the love hormone, "oxytocin." However, although the release of oxytocin is implicated in sexual mating and maternal instincts, surprisingly, it has also been shown to have a connection, albeit tenuous, to "trust and generosity."

Obviously, in our capitalist consumer society, any developments of science are immediately marketed as consumable products (remember "pheromones"?). Although the research demonstrating the effects of oxytocin on social affiliation is still largely unconfirmed with little replication, a company has recently introduced a spray product called, Liquid Trust

Here is the endorsement:

Imagine

• Getting whatever you ask for
• People trust what you tell them
• Having a competitive edge over others

These things are possible. The key is Oxytocin. When people trust you, doors are opened that were always closed before.

There are different ways of increasing the Oxytocin levels in the people you interact with. Scientists say that simply touching someone who you are talking to, makes them produce Oxytocin. When that happens, they start to form a very strong bond with you. They trust you.

Liquid Trust gives you the added edge by releasing Oxytocin into the air around you. When you walk into the room, almost immediately, people will have a different feeling about you. Their Oxytocin level is rapidly rising. Throughout the day, Liquid Trust is working for you.

The problem is that science has yet to determine if oxytocin creates a desire for social affiliation/love or if the conceptualized desire to affiliate/love creates oxytocin.

Once again, science is promoting the theory that ‘mind' is a result of brain activity as opposed to the mind manufacturing brain activity in response to conscious and unconscious functioning - THOUGHT. We can see the brain but not the mind or consciousness and therefore, in terms of empirical observation brain activity must be the starting point. Unfortunately, in relation to the concept of love, the brain is the beginning and the end of all study.

We need be careful of the scientific empirical paradigm and its need to categorize all functioning to robotronic actions and behaviors reducible to nothing more than brain activity which provokes instinctual urges and drives.

I believe there is a deeper more profound conceptualization to 'love' that goes beyond surface sexuality and pair-boding. Intimacy is not available to the instinct driven animal kingdom and it seems sentience is a requirement for such higher states of "oneness."

Peace Angels,
mikeS