Love

By Nico Cost for GlobalSouth.co

Let me get comfortable with a simple topic like “love”. And at the suggestion of loved ones also talk about my own experiences with it and look for some depth. My expectation is that it can never meet the expectation of others, but, nothing ventured nothing gained.

The trigger for this was a conversation in the car with a friend. It was about love and whether it was unconditional toward others. My contention was that love could not be unconditional, even toward babies or animals. You will not unconditionally love a pet that is once vicious. People who claim to love their children unconditionally ignore the fact that “being the child” is the condition. Were it not their child, the love would apparently be over more quickly.

Anyway, first let me look at that umbrella term “love.” What is love? Because we lump quite a few things together when we talk about love. In a pure sense, love for me is the love of life itself. Love in this spiritual sense is not a verb but a “Being”. I Am. I Am Love. Life itself is love. It is the continuous flow of life that is love. In this sense, love transcends everything. Looking at a bee on a flower and “Being” in that moment is pure love. Only this pure form of love could be called unconditional, but the spiritual world is immune from dualism and there is no other state than unconditional love in that unity field.

Everything below that in the physical world is a derivative of spiritual pure love. In our dual world a counter-force is introduced by our still primitive mind and that is hatred. Actually it does not exist, but because we create it in our mental field it is there. Just like darkness does not exist because it is only the absence of light. Everything is light. Everything is energy. Everything is love. But man is finding his way, and in that long error we think we know love. Precisely because of the conditionality, we make a mess of it.

Being born

When we are cast on this Earth, our soul discovers the separated nature and therefore has become dependent in a world full of loners. As a child I found it only strange that no one really understood me. And when I tried to understand others I found it only strange that they never opened up completely.

My parents raised me in good conscience, but I missed love. Later I understood that they did their best and that they surely loved me in their own way, but for me it was insufficient. I needed more love. I wanted to be hugged. I wanted to be understood. I wanted my soul to be seen. However, the distance I experienced is unbridgeable for anyone, because no one knows the other the way they want to be known.

Being raised

This may not be done and that must be done. Parental education is aimed at preparing the child for society. You must somehow fit into the culture. You will have to work for your money. What remains of the “Self” that the soul “Is” and how dependent are we made by and for our environment? Which way do we move in that process of attachment and detachment? Are we moving to become more dependent by attaching or more independent by detaching?

We are born as souls with a description in which we have some degree of attachment and detachment. I was and am a soul that is very detached and probably my parents had a hard time with that. An independent child is nice, but for parents who also need love, that is a challenge. My parents were born in 1928 and 1929 and went through quite a turbulent time. They never talked about love. They never talked about feelings.

Relationships

This is how we enter the world, conditioned and mentally handicapped. No one excepted, though many will deny this phenomenon. We fall in love with another, even though we do not “Be” our “Self” and that other person does not “Be” their “Self”. We do not know ourselves and that other person does not know themselves. We immerse ourselves in one big illusion that we call infatuation and later experience as love. While it has nothing to do with that spiritual pure love. We are and remain “alone”.

Most relationships arise just as most of us find work, namely that the other person does want us. We think we will be seen and that delights us greatly. We enter the relationship and start that job. But what is a relationship worth if both people don’t know themselves? Why would that job be good for you if you don’t yet know who you “Are”? I’m not saying that things should necessarily be different, but that we can be aware of this. Talk about depth.

Mid Life

About halfway through life, most of us start thinking about where we stand and what we actually want for our “Self”. After all, that’s when life really starts nagging us by constantly sending signals we should listen to. Who am I and what am I here to do? Is my relationship still relevant? Am I still enjoying myself at that job? How do I relate to others, colleagues, acquaintances, friends and family? Many end up in a midlife crisis.

Actually, all of this, all of life, is an issue that is about love. Love for the “Self”. Life demands that we be engaged in love and live life consciously as ourselves. Not that nonsense of infatuation and dependent relationship love, but the pure form of spiritual love. No bigotry or mental high trotting, but going to see it for what it really is. Earthly love as a mental concept and Spiritual love as essential “Being”. What happens in your relationship when the other does not see it this way?

Partners

If we have any goal at all in this life, it is to become our “Self”. Given the primitive state that humanity is still in, this is a very difficult task. To become yourself in a world that is not itself and still chooses en masse to keep it that way is tough. On a small scale, this also takes place in relationships. Partners have come to know each other while not even knowing themselves. We see only a fraction of the other and we show only a fraction of ourselves to the other.

What we fell in love with often disappears like snow in the sun as that other person develops, becomes aware and more himself. Where is that partner I fell in love with? What happened to me that that partner is no longer in love with me? Loving is a form of having tolerance for each other, but the more we become ourselves, the more likely we are to see that we don’t actually fit together that well after all. Do you stay together, for the kids, the house or the business, or not?

Friends

So what is the essence of being partners if we start from everyone’s purpose on Earth; “becoming yourself”? The essence is friendship. Relationships do not exist, only friendship exists. We are not each other’s husband or wife. We as souls are alone on Earth and must accept that separateness. Many will disagree with me, which is also why we are here as humanity at this stage of evolution. We want to consider love Earthly rather than Spiritual.

I need a lot of effort to become myself and I need a friend to support me in this. I do not need a partner who has an interest in keeping me as I was. Which friend is real and which friend has an interest? Is a friend also becoming themselves and is that friend open to a journey of discovery together? Can I then experience that Spiritual Love and not confuse that with Earthly Love? Is Earthly love really “Love” at all? I say: no. And certainly not unconditional.