It's not possible to unconditionally love someone. Here's why.

[John Doe]

This is something I could never understand in a long time. I can see how someone can be "unconditionally loving". But I fail to see how someone can unconditionally love someone or something i.e. I don't see how unconditional love can be objective. And this boils down to a problem with identity. Let me elaborate.

Consider that you, the subject, unconditionally love Leo at some timestamp T. Sometime later, assume he said something really bad to you, but you still love him because your love is unconditional. Now tomorrow, Leo uploads a video saying he was bullshitting you the entire time, that all this enlightenment stuff is nonsense - quite a radical shift in the man you thought was Leo, but you still love him. The day after, you find out that he is a raging psychopath serial killer, but you still love him, because it's unconditional. Now I will take the liberty to get a little crazier, it's a thought experiment after-all. Let's assume Leo is in-fact a shape-shifting alien, and he changes his body into that of an alien, completely unrecognizable. At this stage, both Leo's mind and body has changed completely from what it was at time T, wherein you were 'unconditionally' loving towards him. In other words, every identifying characteristic of the entity 'Leo' has completely changed.

But your love is unconditional, so your are still loving towards this alien entity ... okay. Now tell me, is this entity even Leo anymore? No it's not. Leo's existence in the universe was always a conditional reality. That is, if{condition 1} AND if{condition 2} AND if{condition 3} are true, THEN "Leo Gura". It doesn't make sense to "unconditionally" do something to a conditional object. So unconditionally loving someone or something fails at the logical level.

Either this, or I'm missing something super obvious.

 

 

[Synchronicity]

So the only thing I would say you missed here is that you were thinking of Unconditional Love as applying to one object. But Unconditional Love is a boundless form of Love. It loves all objects and states because it loves no matter the condition (unconditional love). So it loves all the states of Leo you just mentioned because it loves all Leos. 

[Nak Khid]

24 minutes ago, John Doe said:

it's a thought experiment after-all. Let's assume Leo is in-fact a shape-shifting alien, and he changes his body into that of an alien, completely unrecognizable. At this stage, both Leo's mind and body has changed completely from what it was at time T, wherein you were 'unconditionally' loving towards him. In other words, every identifying characteristic of the entity 'Leo' has completely changed.

But your love is unconditional, so your are still loving towards this alien entity ... okay. Now tell me, is this entity even Leo anymore? No it's not. Leo's existence in the universe was always a conditional reality. That is, if{condition 1} AND if{condition 2} AND if{condition 3} are true, THEN "Leo Gura". It doesn't make sense to "unconditionally" do something to a conditional object. So unconditionally loving someone or something fails at the logical level.

Either this, or I'm missing something super obvious.

 

 

No you can't make a logical argument with a given thing and then construct an argument based on it transforming into something entirely different. 

Love is a feeling. 

"Unconditional love" is not love.   A mother might love their child deeply but when "unconditional love' is mentioned it is something in addition to this love. What it actually means is " I vow to help and protect you under any circumstances" .

So what it  actually is a vow.   

Edited June 12, 2020 by Nak Khid

[Inliytened1]

@John Doe very nice realization.. .remember form is hallucination.  What is Truth is God in its purest form - the formless - or the infinite -   complete unconditional love for Itself.    

[Inliytened1]

@Synchronicity exactly.

[Nahm]

All that is is unconditional love. There is nothing else. 

[John Doe]

4 minutes ago, Nahm said:

All that is is unconditional love. There is nothing else. 

@Nahm I still don't understand how that's possible. Let us assume the universe is all 'that which is'. You say 'that which is' is made out of unconditional love. But 'that which is' is conditional, is it not? How can something conditional be made out of something unconditional?

Anything unconditional would simply dissipate and encompass the entire universe wouldn't it? It seems to me that it cannot exist in isolation.

[Forestluv]

54 minutes ago, John Doe said:

Now tell me, is this entity even Leo anymore? No it's not. Leo's existence in the universe was always a conditional reality. That is, if{condition 1} AND if{condition 2} AND if{condition 3} are true, THEN "Leo Gura". It doesn't make sense to "unconditionally" do something to a conditional object. So unconditionally loving someone or something fails at the logical level.

It doesn’t matter. It’s whatever arises. Imagine loving whatever is. Any IS that you create is loved. You can make up any story or object you like. Whatever it is now, it is loved. It could be Leo the human one day and then Leo the ham sandwich the next day, then Leo the delusion, then Leo the space kangaroo and on and on. Whatever is arising now is loved unconditionally. 

Even if you misinterpret a stick as a snake. The misperception of the snake is love, The realization it’s actually a stick is love. The perception of the stick is love. A rabbit perceives the stick differently than you - that’s love too. Unconditional love includes all relativity. There is no escape from unconditional love. 

[John Doe]

@Serotoninluv I agree that it is possible to be 'unconditionally loving', indiscriminate love - yes of course. But can we agree that it is not possible to unconditionally love Leo Gura, or Mike Tyson, or my dog or my water bottle because all of those are conditional? The statement "I unconditionally love my water bottle." is a logical fallacy, is it not?

[James123]

20 minutes ago, John Doe said:

@Nahm I still don't understand how that's possible. Let us assume the universe is all 'that which is'. You say 'that which is' is made out of unconditional love. But 'that which is' is conditional, is it not? How can something conditional be made out of something unconditional?

Anything unconditional would simply dissipate and encompass the entire universe wouldn't it? It seems to me that it cannot exist in isolation.

because all is you, nothing else. You are not the body, nothing is inside of it.

[Forestluv]

22 minutes ago, John Doe said:

@Serotoninluv The statement: "I unconditionally love my water bottle." is a logical fallacy, is it not?

I’ve found it easy to get contracted into notions that love is an emotional feeling. In that context, it is hard to imagine unconditionally loving a water bottle. Yet even in this context, I have felt deep emotional love for inanimate objects. Not in the sense of “I love my car because I feel so good in it”. More like loving a tree similar to how one would love a human. I’ve never had it for a water bottle though.

This emotional love is of course within absolute Love. Yet absolute Love is infinitely broader and deeper. Your water bottle itself is Love. It is an expression of Love. . . Ime, the easiest way to get a glimpse of this is going out in nature. The entire forest is Love, regardless of wether I feel emotional love for it or not. There can be a heart awakening in which one realizes “Omg!! The entire forest is Love!!!”. Wether the body feels emotional love for it is irrelevant. For example, the body might feel a sense of appreciate or awe as it realizes the entire forest itself is Love. Or the body might start laughing or crying during the heart awakening. It doesn’t matter, the entire forest is still Love. 

I’ve noticed that adding in humans can make it harder to realize absolute Love for some beings. Perhaps due to all the conditioning and baggage people have with humans. Imo, it’s easier to first remove the human element, have a heart awakening of human-less absolute Love (such as in nature). This can be a half-step. Then, add back in the human element and have another heart awakening of Love that includes humans. 

At a transcendent level. . .hate, love, sadness, anger, guilt, joy. . .are all Love. As are ham sandwiches, paper clips, dogshit, sunsets, piano music. . . 

[Inliytened1]

30 minutes ago, John Doe said:

 "I unconditionally love my water bottle." is a logical fallacy, is it not?

Not if the water bottle is not actually a water bottle - but it's You.

[John Doe]

@Serotoninluv Got it.

Not to be disrespectful, but I feel I didn't get my point across clearly. The water bottle thing was just an example, I'm trying to convey that any statement, "I unconditionally love <insert anything you'd like here>" seems to be a logically incorrect statement. But I don't want to be too pedantic about it. 

Yes, love is something I can never grasp. That is another huge mystery for me. I've tried to 'latch on' and examine what love really is, but I only seem to be grasping at what arises as a result of love, not what it actually is.

Thanks for your answer.

[DivineSoda]

6 minutes ago, John Doe said:

Yes, love is something I can never grasp.

Love in all it's forms? Seems like that's something we're all striving to grasp. 

[Nahm]

@John Doe 

‘How’ is a condition.

 

 

[John Doe]

@Nahm  Hmmm ... I still don't see it.

@DivineSoda Yeah. God being unconditionally loving towards His creation is understandable. But the creation is MADE out of love? Wtf!

@Inliytened1 Let's say the universe we are basing our assumptions on is dualistic. We can't appeal to non-duality here because it will collapse too much stuff. Even the word "you" is logically inconsistent in a non-dual universe, you see?

@Synchronicity Being "unconditionally loving' = no problem. Unconditionally loving something or someone = logical fallacy, that is the argument, please see. There's no "all states of Leo". Leo is completely gone, because the existence of Leo is limited through conditions/boundaries.

3 hours ago, Nak Khid said:

No you can't make a logical argument with a given thing and then construct an argument based on it transforming into something entirely different.

@Nak Khid If unconditional love is directed at an object, then the argument absolutely allows for transformation of said object, in order to test and see if the "unconditional" nature of the love still holds.

3 hours ago, Nak Khid said:

"Unconditional love" is not love.   A mother might love their child deeply but when "unconditional love' is mentioned it is something in addition to this love. What it actually means is " I vow to help and protect you under any circumstances" .

So what it  actually is a vow.   

No no, that's not correct at all. "Unconditional love" is not a "vow", unconditional love is unconditional love. No offense, but I feel your understanding of even the surface of the argument is very limited. The core of my hypothesis has completely flown over your head. It's probably my fault, maybe I didn't make it clear enough.

[Gili Trawangan]

It's impossible to unconditionally love an object, because there are no objects!

Unconditional love is not about form, it's formless. It's not a relationship subject loves object, it's the collapse of the subject-object duality. It's not-two!

[Synchronicity]

22 minutes ago, John Doe said:

Being "unconditionally loving' = no problem. Unconditionally loving something or someone = logical fallacy, that is the argument, please see. There's no "all states of Leo". Leo is completely gone, because the existence of Leo is limited through conditions/boundaries.

That’s why I said it loves all Leos 

It doesn’t matter if the alien is a different being than the human Leo you started with. Unconditional Love loves both

[John Doe]

12 minutes ago, Gili Trawangan said:

Unconditional love is not about form, it's formless. It's not a relationship subject loves object, it's the collapse of the subject-object duality. It's not-two!

@Gili Trawangan I completely agree. Yes, this is something which makes sense to me. So I'm assuming you are in agreement with the original hypothesis?

@Synchronicity Got it. So when I say, "I unconditionally love Leo", I am including all Leos - alien Leos, all humans-on-planet-Earth Leos, water bottle Leos (lol) etc. In other words, any objective implication of unconditional love is, in fact, universal. So we agree objective implications are logically incorrect? Their universal alternative is the correct and only expression of unconditional love?

[Synchronicity]

Just now, John Doe said:

 

@Synchronicity Got it. So when I say, "I unconditionally love Leo", I am including all Leos - alien Leos, all humans-on-planet-Earth Leos, water bottle Leos (lol) etc. In other words, any objective implication of unconditional love is, in fact, universal.

Bingo??You got it