Should love be unconditional?

[HunterO]

I think in an ideal sense, the highest form of love is an agape type of love.

However, application in the practical sense of agape translates into a kind of conditional sets that are necessary for self-evolution.

It's unconditional to love someone during a difficult time in their lives and to be with them through tragedy.

It's NOT unconditional love to endure abuse, verbal or physical, or be with someone who does not respect nor appreciate you, and would love you in the same way.

So much about unconditional love is about wanting what is the best for your partner. Ask yourself, would you want the best for your partner even if you couldn't be with him/her?

Then also ask, would my partner feel the same way?

If there is a misalignment in either, then that will only cause strife in the long run.

 

[Lark]

I think that love should not be limited but I dont think it should be unconditional, although I would say that there is a need for clarification as to what is meant by the words being used.

An unconditional love could really be an obsession or a neurosis, Erich Fromm in response to the suicide of a family friend, a talented artist who killed herself upon the death of her father, tried to figure out how this could have happened and concluded that love could take on those characters and he was pretty clear in concluding that he didnt believe that was love at all. He also deconstructed a lot of other varieties of love, considering some love relationships as a madness of two or egotism of two, which I think could be correct, especially when you consider some almost "professional" marriages or relationships between prominent public figures.

Fromm wrote a book about love called the Art of Loving but in another book seeking the psychological basis for ethics, which may in some respects be better, he wrote about believing that the wisdom of the ages, really old scriptures and traditions, was pretty much vindicated by modern psychology. In that book he concluded that the maxim that you should Love Others As You Love Yourself, often misquoted and mistranslated, was important because of the As You Love Yourself aspect and that the first part can not be and is incomprehensible without the second, if you dont love yourself or have a diminished or injured sense of self you are likely to be engaging in all sorts of maladaptive or unmet needs when you're seeking to love others. Now Fromm was considering it in an expansive sense as he believed that love in terms of solidarity, fraternity and mutual aid was of paramountcy rather than the grand amoree and that falling in love involved more falling than it ever did love.

There is another author Gordon Livingston http://www.gordonlivingston.com/books/ is a good writer too and he wrote about unrequited love in his book too soon old, too late smart, which I actually think is his best book, and its relationship to ideas about unconditional love and he doesnt pull any punches in saying that its just sad and a waste of time and opportunities when someone remains stuck on an individual who does not reciprocate their feelings and believes that the more unconditionally they display their affections the more likely they are to reciprocate when they arent, its just all a waste.

More lately I've been interested in this author:

http://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_tells_us_why_we_love_cheat

Helen Fisher suggests that there are three seperate psychological systems which operate, three drives, that for attachment, that for love and that for sex and they are not all necessarily likely to operate in concert or to become focused upon a single person, hence the propensity to cheat and for infidelity and it would appear to be a challenge to monogamy. I'm not sure about it because it does seem to be a rationalisation for infidelity and forgiveness of cheating but a too forgiving attitude towards cheating would encourage that behaviour in my view and likely be engaged in by someone who hasnt been able to fufil the love thyself aspect of the maxim Fromm mentions.

The other thing about the shouldnt be unconditional but should be unlimited thing, Fromm wrote about that only very briefly in a book about the greatness and limitations of Freud's thought and I really, really wish that he'd expanded upon it. Freud considered loving others to be a taxing affair, your inner resources could become spent in this way. Fromm suggested that this was nothing but an unconscious reflection of the economics or money values which underpinned all human relationships presently. Fromm instead suggested that loving should not be a taxing affair but a rejuvenating or revitalising affair, you get what you give, now I would suggest that he is possibly reflecting extroversion while Freud was reflecting introversion and also Fromm is being optimistic and Freud is being pessimistic, there are some people who are draining and anyone would need respite from them while there are others who are a total pleasure to be with and their abscence is a pain rather than their prescence.

 

[Matt3737]

Ambiguous terms and ill-defined concepts inevitably lead to confusion.

You can perceive such terms as 'unconditional love' and, similarly, 'true love' as representing real, distinct concepts or subsets of 'love' or one might see them as invalid rhetorical tautologies or linguistic redundancies that elicits no meaningful distinction or are arbitrarily redefined.

Often, redundancies occur in speech unintentionally, but redundant phrases can also be deliberately constructed for emphasis, to reduce the chance that a phrase will be misinterpreted. In rhetoric, the term "redundancy" tends to have a negative connotation and may be perceived as improper because of its use of duplicative or unnecessary wording (and some people expand the definition to include self-contradictory wording, similar to double negation); however, it remains a linguistically valid way of placing emphasis on some expressed idea. Through the use of repetition of certain concepts, redundancy increases the odds of predictability of a message's meaning and understanding to others.

Redundancy typically takes the form of tautology: phrases that repeat a meaning with different though semantically similar words. Common examples are: "a variety of different items", "an added bonus", "to over-exaggerate", "and etc.", "end result", "free gift", "future plans", "unconfirmed rumor", "to kill, murder, or electrocute someone to death", "past history", "safe haven", "potential hazard", "completely surrounded", "false pretense," and so on. There is also the self-referential "joke organization" called "The Redundancy Society of Redundancy", also called "Society of Redundancy Society."

 

[54192&#cmy]

I think that to love someone, you are not loving them by making it unconditional. To do so is to say you could potentially love everything. Which means if you love everything so easily, your love has little value to begin with.

Is value not subjective? One can never know the depth of another s love or hate. Or how happy they are versus how happy you are. People are very different. Which makes everything ok in one sense and bad in another. It just depends on what you think....

 

[Severina]

I agree with the concept that unconditional love is true agape love. The love that Christ has for us....truly unconditional. I think it is a wonderful ideal to strive to reach, but as humans, I fail to see how we can ever achieve such a thing. If it were possible, we would never argue with our partners, friends, parents, etc. If only we could be unconditional oh what a beautiful world it would be and how loving our relationships would be. The very fact that many of us are INFJ is interesting in this topic, for studies show that we are the most dissatisfied in our love lives and marriages. I'd like to think it is because I so deeply "feel" that I am dissatisfied when my partner can not "feel" what I do or understand my innermost self. Perhaps it is just because INFJ's are so good at reading others that we simply know when we are being snowed and don't appreciate it. I don't see how I could ever be unconditional. There is always a condition to love whether we see it or not. I do like the idea, though, that love is a choice. Therefore, we can choose to love or not. In itself this idea seems to admit that love is a choice...a condition.

 

[magister343]

If you study real experts on Greek rather than merely C. S. Lewis and those who read this "The Four Loves," you'd know that Apage is not a "higher" form of love. Apage and Philia are pretty much synonyms. They are used interchangeably in the bible, even when talking about the love of Jesus or God the Father. Agape is even used in a case of incestual rape as well as apostasy due to loving worldly pleasures.

(The term Philia however can imply that the lover and beloved are peers of a similar status, and so be inappropriate when one party is disproportionately dependent on the other. Agape is a broader term, which includes everything Philia and more. It was also the common Greek translation of the Hebrew word Ahava, a general term for love that in some cases might even seem closer to Eros.)


The word love and its equivalents in many languages can be used broadly with different definitions in different contexts.

Generally though, I prefer the definition that love is the act of the will orienting itself towards the good of the beloved. It is not emotion, but devotion. Such love can and ought to be unconditional.

This however in no way implies that unconditional love ought to always be accompanied by an unconditional or unchanging emotional state. Affection is certainly conditional and may wax or wane with circumstances. True love may even show itself most strongly in instants when one is upset with the beloved, when the will to work for their interests must overcome a contrary impulse. Love may even be the cause of strong negative emotions directed towards the beloved. Love causes one to be defensive of the beloved and anger towards genuine threats to his well-being. This is equally true when the beloved is a threat to himself. Self destructive behavior might not cause a emotional reaction when displayed by those to whose weal one is indifferent, but it is very upsetting when one's beloved is acting self destructively, contrary to his own good.

Unconditional love is not compatible with unconditional approbation. You can love others while thoroughly disapproving of their behavior. It is the opposite of love to approve of or facilitate self destructive behavior.

 

[muir]

I think that people have been conditioned by Hollywood to pin their happiness on others

This then often leads to dissapointment when we find that the other peron cannot always deliver on our happiness

I think its a better idea to create our own happiness and take responsibility for our own happiness

That doesn't mean we can't share our happiness with others but it means we are not requiring anything from them

Friends are often people we share happiness with but require nothing from

Relationships on the other hand are generally of such a closed nature that we are relying on the other person providing for many of our needs...there is a conditional side there that overshadows the friend side of sharing happiness

I think this causes a lot of problems in our society because when those conditions are not met in relationships it leads to antagonism

So whats the answer? I think that will depend on the individual....but if the individual is to find what works for them they will need to break free from the conditions that society places on them

I think as our society changes this is a subject that people will give more and more thought to

 

[LucyJr]

I've seen threads online where people ask others do they believe in unconditional love but I think the better question is should love be unconditional in the first place? I'm sure it does exist, lots of unconditional feelings exist but should it? Is it something to encourage and validate or not?

Love is not negotiable. There is a intrinsic value in love, worthy in itself, for no other reasons.
If you ask for love to be conditional, you make it negotiable, you make it cheap, you make it buyable.
You steal the beauty and the very essence of it.

 

[Quiet]

Love is my favourite thing to talk about and ive crapped on about it all over this forum lol so i'll try not to go on....well not too much anyway

Im am only able to speak about in a spiritual context, because Love is spiritual.

I'm not talking about 'romantic love', or 'falling in love', although i do believe that this is something that manifests in order for spiritual growth, and can ideally be experienced in unconditional Love.. From a physical perspective, it is easier for many people (not all) to understand Love when they think about children or dear friends, rather than thinking about sexual relationships.

Love is the energy of Source....of Oneness. When we feel Love, we are re-member-ing Source energy
Love is not an emotion, it is our natural state. Love is infinite

The 'conditions' of unconditional Love are that Love is equal and complete. Love that is equal and complete is unconditional Love. To love One is to Love ALL. To exclude ONE is to exclude ALL. All other attempts at love are merely a poor substitution by the ego to maintain separation and duality.

To Love Self, is to Love ALL. To Love All is to Love Self. If you do not Love your self, you do not understand Love, and being unable to recognise it, you are unable to share it. You can only give to others what you know you have. If you believe you have Love, you can share Love.

There is a big difference between unconditional positive regard and unconditional positive approval.

Love is not blind....Love sees all, not only what the eyes show us. Love is perfect clarity, perfect vision, free of filters and judgements, beyond past and future.
Love is always giving someone the benefit of the doubt, because you have faith in life itself.

Sometimes, people get Love and fear mixed up. They might think that fear is love, and that love is fear. Love is the true nature of All That Is. Fear is simply being blind to this.

It is important to understand whether we are acting from Love or fear. Once we have recognised Love, the distinction is clear.
Love is life. Fear is avoiding death
Love is life affirming. Fear is not
Love is freedom. Fear is not
Love is trust. Fear is not
Love is joy. Fear is not


Love is recognising what you are and knowing that you deserve only Love, Joy, and Peace.

When we hurt ourselves and others, this is not Love...it is fear.
When we allow others to hurt us, this is fear.
When we stay in situations that bring us pain and suffering- this is fear
When we forgive others and realease them- this is Love
When we forgive and release ourself- this is Love.
Forgiveness is return to Love...at-One-ment



copied and pasted from earlier-

The first time that i experienced undeniable Love while in this body, i was deep in meditation. I found myself in an infinte ocean of Love. There are no words to explain how this was, it was infinte joy, peace, grace, trust, freedom, power, excitement. Simply perfection. And i knew then without doubt that this was Love, and i was Love in eternity. I knew i was Home. Nothing has been the same since then.

Love is literally the energy, the call...the feeling of Oneness. When we feel Love, we are recognising and re-member-ing who we are, our Home. All Love is infinite and complete. To Love One is to Love All, without fear, reservation or hesitation.

The 'conditions' of unconditional Love is that it is complete, whole, and equal. there are no favourites. There are no variations, no fickleness, no doubts, no less or more. It just is!

Love is all inclusive, meaning that to Love ourself is to love All, and to Love All is to love ourself. We cannot know Love while there is fear or lack.

This is why many feel so dissatisfied with life, because deep down we all know that we are Love, and we deserve only Unconditional Love. This world that we have 'created' conditions us from an early age to accept that Love is conditional, something to be given and taken away, something to be earned, hoarded, denied, used, and exchanged. Essentially, we teach ourselves and our children that Love is something that is finite, fleeting, hard won, painful and gained through the meeting of expectations and sacrifice. We delude ourselves in believing that Love is fear, hate, guilt, shame and security. Many allow ourselves to become attached to things and people because of our fear of losing them, then we worry about losing what we have secured. There are a billion stories, songs, movies, books dedicated to this hateful and fearful 'love'. There is no peace in this 'love', only endless disquiet, vigilence, suffering, and striving.

Because Love is who we are, by its nature it cannot be earned, given, or taken away. It is. We deserve Love, perfect, unconditional Love always. There is nothing anyone or anything can do do change this or jeprodise this reality of Love. Nothing can limit Love because it is infinte by nature, Love is Freedom! When we Love...ourself, each other, we are freeing ourself. Love does not conquor all, Love frees all. It is almost the opposite of conquoring, because conquoring imples that there is a conflict, battle, power imbalance, something to be contained etc. Love is the freedom to see exaclty what IS, without any judgement or containment, it recongises only itself, affirms and praises this reality, and frees and empowers it to just 'be'. This is why 'forgiveness' is so natural when we recognise Love. Love forgives all trespasses instantly, because Love recognises that it is Whole and cannot be less. And then forgiveness becomes impossible because we can no longer see any trespass to forgive!

We all know Love, because we are Love. We may feel that we have forgotten, or feel lost and confused, but that is temporary. Our home is within us, always there, waiting for us to recognise it and live it. We are literally here to Live Love on Earth!


To give and recieve is the same thing in Love. Love is about sharing with no expectations. Love cannot be measured, because it is immeasurable and infinite. In Love, we cease to measure things or try to evaluate them by some arbitary standard. Basically, the measuring tools, the tally, and drawing board disappear. There can be no price placed on the invaluable, because the invaluabe is something that we are never willing to sell or trade. To know whether we are acting in Love, we can ask ourselves whether we are acting from a perspective of abundance or lack. The line between mine and yours disappears, because seeing someone experience joy becomes the same as experiencing that joy for yourself.
The joy comes from sharing. Its like when we see something really beautiful, or hear an amazing song, climb a mountain and see a beautiful view- these moments that captivate us and bring us awe, joy, and peace... we instinctively want to share this moment with others. this is the reason we take photographs and recordings, in the hope that that moment will not be lost and that we and others can appreciate it again.
People have a natural desire to share, connect, relate. Unfortunately, this need to connect is often misconstrued by the ego and translates into miscommunication, judgement, and further separation and alienation. Separate perceptions cannot be shared and understood, which is why perception is so inherently lonely. What Love does, it allows us to share without private perception, directly from Spirit. This allows us to give freely and wholly, without reserve and judgement. But to give without reserve, we must first have what we are giving in abundance. If we are/have lack, we will only give lack. If we have are/have abundance, we will give only abundance. Love, which is perfect abundance, gives All because it is All. This is why there can be no sacrifice in Love. Sacrifice implies that one person needs to lose so that the other person can gain. Sacrifice is a concept based on lack.

What good is it to die for somebody? So often love is tainted with the concepts of death and sacrifice, and these things couldnt be further away from the Reality of Love. Love is about what we want to create and enjoy, not about what we want to avoid and suffer. It would be awful to know that someone i loved was living only for me and would lose interest in life after i passed away. What a waste of life. A much better committment would be to live as freely and joyfully and wholly as possible, with everybody.

To Love without fear is to Love without any attachment or doubt. In the context of relationships...this implies that we constantly give that person the benefit of the doubt, we do not fear that we have anything to lose, or that person will harm us, or that we may harm them. This Love can only experienced in the here and now, in the present moment. Contemplating Love from the context of the past and future set conditions on Love that cannot be met...the past implies judgment of what has been, the future implies judgment on what could be...the potential for Love is lost then in the details of our ego's story

Trying to define Love is difficult, words constrain, restrict, lie. Love is a state, an attitude, a being, and a doing

It is confusing talking about Love, because people think of many different things when this word is used.
It is confusing for me to talk about it.... It feels that Love is the default mode. For a long time it felt to me that it was much easier to Love than to 'like'. I have loved every person that i have come across- Love is easy. Its not something that we have to try to do or strive for. For example, i have always loved babies, There is a feeling i get when i see them...they are perfect, innocent, beautiful, infinite potential...and this feeling doesnt change regardless of how old the baby gets and what that baby grows up to do. In my eyes, the person is still that perfect beautiful innocent seed with infinite potential. Whenever i felt angry at anyone, i would simply imagine them as a baby, and the anger disappeared. Love this 'baby' as i may, it was much harder to 'like' them, to want to be around them etc. Rarely did i ever meet anyone that i 'liked'. Liking someone was much more difficult. To like something delves into the world of judgement and subjectivity...the comfort, security, fickleness and compatibility of ego
This percieved conflict beteen love and like effected me for a long time, and left me feeling somewhat dissassociated, vacant, ungrounded. My judgement prevented me from being able to see anything except my judgement. I didnt really see anyone, i simply saw myself. We dont see things as they are, we see things as we are (Zindell).
That changed when i found myself in a place that some call the 'Akashic Records'. Being in that place, that was the first time in this life that i felt liked and knew that everything around me was inherently likeable. It was amazing, it felt so good! To be completely accepted for everything..not despite of anything...not because of anything...just simply liked. This place has no concept of judgement. I realised that i had never liked myself before, previously i had constantly judged myself. Which is also why i found it hard to like anyone else. Since that experience, i have been working on bringing the non judgement i felt in that place to my everyday life. Some days are easier than others. But now i feel that i 'want' to like people, and this wanting to, choosing to...it opens a window for clearer perception, and every now and again- perfect vision. The more i like myself, the more i like others. This meeting of Love and 'like' has changed the way i thought of Love and how it effects the way i percieve/engage/interact. It gets easier everytime i make that choice, sometimes now i feel like i am 'in love' with everybody

 

[Lark]

Love is not negotiable. There is a intrinsic value in love, worthy in itself, for no other reasons.
If you ask for love to be conditional, you make it negotiable, you make it cheap, you make it buyable.
You steal the beauty and the very essence of it.

I dont like the gays but I do like the frankie goes to hollywood song The Power of Love.

 

[muir]

I dont like the gays but I do like the frankie goes to hollywood song The Power of Love.

What problem have you got with gay people?

[video=youtube;LdnAbtIF3YM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdnAbtIF3YM[/video]

 

[tdk]

Interesting question

I am new to this forum and have no idea if with my answer to this question will be appreciated. But I'll take the chance

Let me ask this question to contemplate upon: suppose we "should", would we then actually do it? Could we at all, on demand?

Anyway, two things:

1. "Should" is a made-up man-made rule. No one "should" do, be or have anything, unless they believe so themselves. A "should" is purely subjective - regardless how many buy a "should" and twist it to be "the truth" - and therefore cannot be used to objectively determine something - unless you want only opinions and no real answer. Because any opinion is subjective and so never answers this objectively. Also, if love appears to never be conditional, or always conditional, the "should" has no place in any case. So, I would remove that word.

The question would then become: IS love unconditional?

2. Next we must define what "unconditional" means. Funny enough that appears to be very interesting when investigated, especially if we use reality. I have discussed this subject for decades with thousands of people and so do have quite an experience with both the subject itself and the responses it evokes

Let me first say that hardly anyone knows what unconditional love actually IS. People love the subject, yet hardly any one of them has actually that experience. It's like discussing what "enlightenment" is, without having had such an experience, let alone being it. You cannot know what that is, unless you experience it first hand. The same goes for unconditional love. But I understand the interest in it.

Unconditional means with no conditions attached. So, the following statements make love conditionally:

I love you/him/her/me, but...
I love you/him/her/me, if...
I love you/him/her/me, because...
I love you/him/her/me more/less

And finally, unconditional love can ever only be truly experienced if one loves oneself unconditionally. This means that any trait preference as better, criticism, compliment, doubt, shame, fear, and more, will make it conditional. Remember, for unconditional love there has to be absolutely no condition attached. A very hard thing!


Then we come to the question "is love unconditional?" The answer is: yes. But I am making a dangerous statement with that. Because as soon as love is unconditional, all else will not be love, but something else, mistaken for love.... And usually that evokes lots and lots of objections. Most people feel quite attacked when this even might be the case.

Nevertheless, our minds (personality, ego - all the same thing, but often misunderstood) are not fit to experience and therefore express unconditional love. The mind is constantly deciding what is better. Therefore it cannot not set conditions, regardless if it's love or something else. And this is where the desire for true transformation kicks in for some, often INFJ's Trying to be "unconditional" before a connection is made with the true self, is only a trick for the mind, that then will divide itself and monitor it's moves, constantly judging itself and so driving itself either crazy or into despair, because it simply cannot not judge. And any judgement, any rule, removes the "un" from "unconditional".

By far, most of the love on this planet is an emotion - the reason it cannot be unconditional. Each and every emotion comes with a story (belief, value, preference, desire, etc), or it won't exist. Regardless if you can find the story behind it. And with every story comes a judgement, based upon an interpretation, coupled with right and wrong - the base engine of the mind.

Unconditional love is not an emotion, but rather an ongoing deep appreciation and recognition of the self and the other, without the need to judge that in any way. It's acceptance at face value, without having to accept. You are and someone else is - and that's it. No rules, no limitations, regardless whatever actions someone might do. So there is no difference between the love you experience for a child molester and your partner. Again, challenging for most, identified with their personality and therefore with that cute judgement system!

So, should we love unconditionally? No, because we simply can't. Until people wake up on the actual workings of their minds, there is little chance it CAN be experienced at all. And truly. does it matter?

 

[CogentPursuit]

Assuming we are not talking about the love that often refers to affection or lust but instead the love that is an active love, selflessness.


Love can be unconditional in two ways.

1. It is not love if it does not come without expectation or condition such as, I will do this for you as long as you make me happy, or give me something I want. This is a bargain, a trade, an agreement. It is not love.
In love you give without expectation therefor it should be unconditional.

2. Loving no matter what, is another way love can be unconditional. This choice is about you and not about what they do or who they are. If you love unconditionally then you consider them first always but that does not mean you give them what they want. It means you take care of their needs. Keep in mind that the self must be maintained in order to care for the needs of others. If you do not sustain your health and happiness you will not of any worth to those around you. Your loving actions will cease to exist when you wither from lack of self sustenance. You must ensure your love is sustainable.

I prefer a life of unconditional love to everyone. I does not mean that I would give up myself and everything I have to the first person I see in need. It means that I ensure that I am a productive part of society so that society may flourish and am willing to give what I can in the many ways that I can to help those I run into around me to ensure their success and health in life as well. It is a way of life. It is simple, it is satisfying and it's needs are few.