Awakin Readings

Unconditional Love Really Exists

Ram Dass
  3 min read ·   10 reflections
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Hand-drawn art by Rupali Bhuva
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Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not "I love you" for this or that reason, not "I love you if you love me." It's love for no reason, love without an object. It's just sitting in love, a love that incorporates the chair and the room and permeates everything around. The thinking mind is extinguished in love.

If I go into the place in myself that is love and you go into the place in yourself that is love, we are together in love. Then you and I are truly in love, the state of being love. That's the entrance to Oneness. That's the space I entered when I met my guru.

Years ago in India I was sitting in the courtyard of the little temple in the Himalayan foothills. Thirty or forty of us were there around my guru, Maharaj-ji. This old man wrapped in a plaid blanket was sitting on a plank bed, and for a brief uncommon interval everyone had fallen silent. It was a meditative quiet, like an open field on a windless day or a deep clear lake without a ripple. I felt waves of love radiating toward me, washing over me like a gentle surf on a tropical shore, immersing me, rocking me, caressing my soul, infinitely accepting and open.

I was nearly overcome, on the verge of tears, so grateful and so full of joy it was hard to believe it was happening. I opened my eyes and looked around, and I could feel that everyone else around me was experiencing the same thing. I looked over at my guru. He was just sitting there, looking around, not doing anything. It was just his being, shining like the sun equally on everyone. It wasn’t directed at anyone in particular. For him it was nothing special, just his own nature.

This love is like sunshine, a natural force, a completion of what is, a bliss that permeates every particle of existence. In Sanskrit it's called sat-cit-ananda, “truth-consciousness-bliss,” the bliss of consciousness of existence. That vibrational field of ananda love permeates everything; everything in that vibration is in love. It's a different state of being beyond the mind. 

Excerpted from Be Love Now.
Seed Questions for Reflection

What does unconditional love mean to you? Can you share a personal story of a time you experienced bliss arising from your consciousness of existence? What helps you enter the state of "being love"?

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10 Past Reflections
MA
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Matangi
Nov 30, 2021
In conditional love to me is purity of your heart . It’s an energy that is your true nature . When u demand you create distance . Nature loves us unconditionally. It’s not an emotion for that matter every emotion is distortion of love only . Compassion is flow, anger is blow, jealousy is fermentation when it’s all about me is hate expressed in distorted way .when you have self love it flows in every direction . Self inquiry and spiritual sadhana are tools to make us aware of patterns and replace it with love .
PA
Patrick
Nov 30, 2021
“Some believe in a God of wrath and become wrathful with others as a result—They conceive of God as the manipulator of the universe, rather than its blessing-Maker. . . .” ~Sister Joan~

From a daily meditation of Friar Richard Rohr and the Center for Action and Contemplation.
PA
Patrick
Nov 30, 2021
Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity. ~Gautama Buddha~

Such a life emanates from Divine LOVE Themselves. Many Christians will recognize these words as “Christ speech”.

Today’s “Awakin Weekly” references an experience of Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) when he and others were immersed in Divine LOVE. Such LOVE supersedes anything of man or his religions.

Hoofnote: To be a mystic monk is to be lost to the institutional church and man-made religion. }:- a.m. (anonemoose monk)
JC
julie considine
Nov 30, 2021
Unconditional love means walking the journey of radical forgiveness for oneself. It means loving oneself for all the all the decisions we have made even though some of them have been painful and have presented us with difficult lessons. It means taking responsibility for our part in all these decisions and learning how to forgive ourselves and all the people in our lives that have hurt or wounded us. It means setting healthy boundaries with our brothers and sisters and detaching with love from those who continue to cross these sacred boundaries. It means loving all those parts of our bodies that are so difficult to find peace with and beginning an inner peace with who we truly are at our core. If we can love and forgive our own inner selves we can then accept others for their limitations and send compassion to this world that is struggling to find intimacy and connection. What this world needs is unconditional love and that starts with loving ourselves unconditionally...
DD
David Doane
Nov 27, 2021
Love means abiding in togetherness,oneness, unity. Unconditional means no condition, no ulterior motive, no agenda, no goal. Unconditional love means oneness without condition or motive. Ram Dasssaysloveis "like sunshine, a natural force, a completion of what is, a bliss." I have felt such bliss in feeling togetherness, oneness, unity in relating to some people and in relation to some natural events. In love or oneness a feeling of bliss or awe comes over me like a wave that seems to touch and move me throughout my body and soul, filling me fully. I have felt some amount of that many times, the intensity of it related to the extent of togetherness or oneness I felt. What helps me enter the state of "being love" is awareness that all creation is one, that I am part of all creation, and that I am one with the person or object in my presence.
RA
rahul
Nov 27, 2021
The paradox is that we're all seeking unconditional love through conditional experiences. The real question is 'what does it take to get beyond conditions?' We've got so many practices, but they're all just pointers, not the destination. What needs to break down so that love can break through? May we all have just enough cracks and just enough support for breakthroughs instead of breakdowns.
JP
Jagdish P Dave
Nov 26, 2021
There are many faces of love. The most common is conditional love. It has "if" and "then". What Ram Dass is talking about is unconditional love. To put it in Ram Dass's words," It's a part of our inner being. It's love for no reason, love without an object...This is an entrance to Oneness." This is an accurate description of unconditional love. Do I love me unconditionally? Do I love the other unconditionally? When and how? My answer is Yes . All the time? Most of the time. It is a state of being, not having and doing. In Such a state I feel Oneness within me and beyond me. Walls of outward differences melt away and I breathe the pure air of love filling my heart with unbound joy and fulfillment. My first experience of such unconditional love was with my mother whose face was shining with unconditional love. As I grew up I often experiencedsuch love when I used to chant with my father. And the same kind of love I experienced with my beloved be... View full comment
NK
NAREN KINI
Nov 26, 2021
Lovely passage. There has been a revelation in me that only when we transcent inquiry will we enter the realms of feeling and experience. Unconditional love is akin to space. We unfortunatley have been drawn to object that have filled the space and the space never gets discussed. Thus making it conditional. Unfortunate or outcome of such an approach of ignroing space or unconditional love is that we start accepting the object that filled the space OR conditions that helped us identify or experience love as the very definition of love. I loved the object, the company, the dress, the car, the house etc., becomes a norm. Quite like the MOMENT Ram Dass had, where, in complete stillness but in THE PRESENCE of his Guru or the very epitome of Unconditional love he felt that UNCONDITIONAL LOVE all of us have the opportunity to feel the same, every moment. All we need to do is expand our awareness, move from thinking to feeling and let our consciousness expand. Just one moment is enough and tha... View full comment
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