kriyayogamalaysia

Unconditional Love

From our e-book “Filling our Life with Celebration”

Our children come to us to allow us to experience the most important aspect of life; unconditional love. It is the greatest gift that they could ever give us. From the first day of my child’s birth, I would give my own life in order to protect her from any harm. Most parents feel the same way. We do not expect anything in return. That is what unconditional love is all about; love that is untainted by any condition or expectation.

However, as our children grow, we begin to develop expectations of them. We begin to compare them to others and eventually lose this gift of unconditional love that they presented to us when they were born.

Although we want our children to grow up to be successful individuals, we must also acknowledge that ‘success’ is very difficult to define. If a person is wealthy but is a workaholic, can he be defined as successful? We can guide our children but it is equally important to allow them to blossom to their true potential.

The love between husband and wife may initially be fuelled by passion and romance. The love between them at that point is conditional upon both parties living up to each other’s expectations. However, over time, they begin to let go of their expectations of the
other and their love develops into something deeper; something that is closer to unconditional love. This makes up for the romantic feeling that was predominant when they first met. If given a choice of seeing a loved one suffer physically or to take on that physical suffering ourselves, most of us would choose the latter. The mental suffering of seeing a loved one suffer would be more painful that the physical suffering itself. This form of love is called compassion.

It is easy to talk about unconditional love and compassion when it comes to our loved ones but what about developing the same feelings for people we hardly know? Our religion requires this of us but is this expectation fair? For a normal person, it would be impossible for him to develop towards a stranger, the same unconditional love and compassion that he has for his loved one.

However, some highly evolved beings have developed the ability to see past life relationships upon looking into the eyes of strangers. For such individuals, unconditional love and compassion for all beings comes naturally to them. From a spiritual perspective, this is where all of us aspire to. Eventually, we will get there; then heaven will truly be a place on earth.

For those who serve others, it is important to keep in mind that an act done with love is more important than the results of the action. Brian Weiss, MD, accidentally discovered past life regression and introduced it to the world through his bestselling book, ‘Many Lives, Many Masters’. In his book, ‘Only Love is Real’, Brian told a story about one of his patient who was hypnotised and regressed to a past life when he was a doctor. He tried very hard to save the life of one of his patient but failed. He was so devastated that he eventually took his own life. Brian asked him what he learnt from that life and he responded that he was overly focused on the results. What mattered more was that he acted out of love when he tried to save his patient. By giving too much attention to the results, the death of his patient, he ignored the selfless sacrifices he made to try to save that patient and he ignored the love he had for the patient. That was more important for his spiritual evolution. Whether or not the patient survived the illness was irrelevant.

Brian knew that the lesson was for him as well because when he first graduated from medical school; his first patient was a young boy suffering from cancer. He spent a lot of time with the boy and his parents. He truly felt that the chance for the boy to survive was
good. However, it did not turn out that way and he was deeply saddened by the boy’s death. After hearing about his patient’s lesson from his past life as a doctor, Brian felt a sense of relief because he loved the boy and tried his best to help him. The boy died knowing that Brian loved him and tried his best to help. That was the greatest gift Brian could give to him. Only love is real.

Most of us often question the karmic consequences of our actions. It is best to use love as our guide. If an action is done out of love, untainted by fear or anger, it can never be wrong.