In his book The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis divides love into four categories based on the four Greek words for love: affection, friendship, eros (romance), and charity. The last one stands for unconditional love and the author views this as the greatest love. Though he correlates it to Love of God, an Unconditional Love as the name suggests, is something without boundaries--Infinite. It cannot be measured nor can be limited. The best paradigm for unconditional love is “mother’s love”. Where the love is given freely no matter what. It is of a higher nature. Its giving only for the sake of “giving” and not for “earning” anything out of it.
An unknown author beautifully portrays the possibilities of unconditional love in this heartfelt story titled "The Rock" as narrated by Steve Goodier in http://stevegoodier.blogspot.com/
Classic example to show how unconditional love separates the person from his / her behavior. The mother realized that it is the behavior of the daughter that has to be handled and not the daughter herself.
"Love expects no reward. Love knows no fear. Love Divine gives - does not demand. Love thinks no evil; imputes no motive. To Love is to share and serve.” Says Swami Sivananda
Life has hidden this love deep down in the hearts of all of us without any discrimination of caste and creed. Its upto us to go deeper, dig it and bring it to the surface to make this a better planet to live in and love in.
"As she grew older her teenage daughter became
increasingly rebellious. It culminated late one night when the police arrested
her daughter for drunk driving. Mom had to go to the police station to pick her
up.
They didn't speak until the next afternoon.
Mom broke the tension by giving her a small gift- wrapped box.
Her daughter nonchalantly opened it and found a little rock inside.
She rolled her eyes and said, 'Cute, Mom, what's this for?'
'Read the card,' Mom instructed.
Her daughter took the card out of the envelope and read it. Tears started to trickle down her cheeks. She got up and lovingly hugged her mom as the card fell to the floor.
On the card were these words: 'This rock is more than 200,000,000 years old. That is how long it will take before I give up on you.'"
This mother is not saying, "I will love you IF….." Instead she says that she will love her daughter forever and nothing can change that.
They didn't speak until the next afternoon.
Mom broke the tension by giving her a small gift- wrapped box.
Her daughter nonchalantly opened it and found a little rock inside.
She rolled her eyes and said, 'Cute, Mom, what's this for?'
'Read the card,' Mom instructed.
Her daughter took the card out of the envelope and read it. Tears started to trickle down her cheeks. She got up and lovingly hugged her mom as the card fell to the floor.
On the card were these words: 'This rock is more than 200,000,000 years old. That is how long it will take before I give up on you.'"
This mother is not saying, "I will love you IF….." Instead she says that she will love her daughter forever and nothing can change that.
Classic example to show how unconditional love separates the person from his / her behavior. The mother realized that it is the behavior of the daughter that has to be handled and not the daughter herself.
This Unconditional Love is the need of the day. We all need this as bad as we need food and air to survive. We seek it in our relationships, families, work place…. in short wherever we go. Why? Because all our actions have a direct impact on ourselves and the planet in which we live. It is the lack of this love which is causing the prevailing unrest, violence, increasing incidences of alcohol and drug addictions, over flowing jails……..
How do we practice this unconditional love? Life has filled us all with abundant opportunities to show unconditional love by way of kindness, forgiveness, respectfulness, etc. We human beings are endowed with endless powers to recreate the world we live in. We have the amazing choice to create a world of joy and happiness around us. We have the power to transform ourselves and the planet in which we live. We are endowed with tools like compassion, letting go, etc to encounter any negative influences that we come across every day.
The law of attraction operates here in an overwhelming magnitude. When we give love, the world around will give that love back to us in multitudes.
How do we practice this unconditional love? Life has filled us all with abundant opportunities to show unconditional love by way of kindness, forgiveness, respectfulness, etc. We human beings are endowed with endless powers to recreate the world we live in. We have the amazing choice to create a world of joy and happiness around us. We have the power to transform ourselves and the planet in which we live. We are endowed with tools like compassion, letting go, etc to encounter any negative influences that we come across every day.
The law of attraction operates here in an overwhelming magnitude. When we give love, the world around will give that love back to us in multitudes.
"Love expects no reward. Love knows no fear. Love Divine gives - does not demand. Love thinks no evil; imputes no motive. To Love is to share and serve.” Says Swami Sivananda
Life has hidden this love deep down in the hearts of all of us without any discrimination of caste and creed. Its upto us to go deeper, dig it and bring it to the surface to make this a better planet to live in and love in.
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