A NEED TO LOVE
By Sergio Salotto

Love.

A small, powerful four-letter word used to convey as many meanings and interpretations as the people expressing it. This word can probably be listed as being amongst the most miss-used of words because despite its real meaning, people use it to gain acceptance, personal satisfaction, power and control, manipulation, justify ongoing abuse, seek forgiveness, self gratification and to justify many other hurtful and destructive behaviours and actions. If this word was used to express and show its true or real meaning, there would be no ground for warring or quarrelling of any kind.

Through the ages we have been taught how God, Messiahs and Prophets have brought us the message and meaning of true love. Their messages have been unmistakenly clear that love means unconditional acceptance. Yet each day we are exposed to news and events showing how man’s actions all over the world result in sufferance, pain, violence, poverty, inequality, discrimination, famine and wanton destruction of our environmental and ecological systems. Where is true love in all this? How is this a manifestation of true love? Clearly we are not. If we were, there would be no pain and suffering. There can be little doubt that mankind is just as far away from practising true love today as it has ever been.

The need for love and peace is promoted by heads of state, religious leaders and followers, community leaders, and the ordinary man in the street all over the world. But do we have anything to show we are practising love and achieving peace other than the mere utterance of these words? If we look at the state of beingness in the world, the only thing we have to show is the exact opposite of true love and peace.

So why does man find it so difficult, if not impossible, to live or to do this thing called love? Why is it that man cannot practice what he is preaching?

Is it possible that even though we talk about loving one another, what we really don’t know is how to put this into practice? Is it also possible that we don’t know how to put this in to practice because no one has been able to teach us, or, preferably, show us how to do or put this ‘thing’ we call true love into practice? Is it also possible, even probable, that we do not know how practice true love because we are not really and truly experiencing its power in our own lives?

From birth we are taught that the doing of love is shown by being:

• caring, friendly, warm and considerate towards others
• understanding and forgiving
• willing to compromise oneself for the sake of considering others' needs
• humble, submissive, charitable
• considerate of other people’s emotions and feelings
• unselfish and thinking of others before oneself

Noble teachings. But what results have these produced? Have they resulted in us unconditionally accepting everyone as an equal, brought us harmony, given us freedom of choice, inner peace and contentment, ensured the wellbeing for everyone and everything on our planet earth?

Given that what we are really experiencing and living with is stress, frustration, depression, poverty, malnutrition, slavery, wars, discrimination, inequality, crime, destruction, abuse, and much more, the answer has to be a definitive NO.

Since our teachings about the practicing of love are proving not to be very effective, something must be very wrong. In fact, we really might have it all wrong. Perhaps the doing of true love is something very different to what we have been taught.

So how can you experience and practise the real doing of true love?

First and foremost you must be willing to accept the possibility that what you have been taught about the practicing of true love may indeed be all wrong. If you cannot accept the possibility of being wrong, you deny yourself the chance of exploring other alternatives thereby “dooming” yourself to your present way of living. Having the willingness to be wrong will allow you to question your beliefs about true love by asking and exploring such questions as, is love:

• simply an emotion or type of feeling? (when you are angry, frustrated or break ties with your loved ones, does that change your love for them?)
• something you work at by practicing a positive attitude or behaving lovingly? (and if you don’t, would that result in you experiencing a wavering kind of love?)
• a state of being attained believing you are at "peace and harmony” with the world?
• something that requires you to compromise yourself for?
• dependent on one’s attitude and how this shows up in behaviours?

If we analyse these statements closely, we will see how the manifestation of this love is dependent on conditions, circumstances, expectations and people reactions. What that means is that unless the right set of conditions and circumstances are in place to evoke "loving" emotions and feelings in you either as a giver or receiver, you will not experience love. Like for example, when someone or any given situation does not meet your expectations, you are likely to feel unloved, rejected, angry, depressed, frustrated and stressed out. At that moment you will feel that life is really not OK; nobody is OK; the whole world around you is not OK; you hate; you fear.

Conversely, when your expectations are met, you experience loving emotions and feelings; you feel great, loved and accepted, everything is great; the whole world is great and OK; you love; you are in love.

What this demonstrates is how your sense of experiencing love is dependent on conditions and circumstances meeting your expectations.

When your emotional wellbeing and feeling of loved is dependent on conditions and circumstances, it is conditional love. The same applies to your giving of love. When this is dependent on conditions and circumstances, you are practising conditional love.

Do I hear you say that whilst you may not feel very loving in a moment when you are upset or angry, it does not mean that you do not love. This is a belief held by most people; a socially accepted norm. In reality however, what this really does is nothing more than justify your anger and resultant attitude and behaviour.

But what message have we been given by the many prophets and Godly messengers that have lived amongst about the meaning of true love? That true love is unconditional.

True and real love cannot have any dependency on conditions or circumstances. It has to be totally unconditional. This means being able to accept unconditionally. Does that mean unconditionally accepting rapists, murderers, criminals and all other such “unsavoury” characters in our society? Not at all.

So what is unconditional acceptance?

It is:

The Unconditional Acceptance of What Is
(no expectations, no judgements, no preconceptions, no discrimination (of any kind), no provisos)

To accept unconditionally is to do love in a very real, practical sense independent of any given set of conditions, circumstances or expectations

The Unconditional Acceptance of What Is is something that shows itself through action, through the doing of, it stands apart from any belief system or ideology, it can be put into practice in a practical manner.

Putting this into practice means to recognise and accept that every one and every thing in our universe and planet has an equal, unconditional and indiscriminate right to share in everything that Life makes available. It means having no such thoughts or beliefs as: “...yes, but ...; provided that ...; only if...; etc.” Any such thoughts or beliefs mean that you are not and cannot practice unconditional acceptance and therefore true love.

Before you can begin to put this into practice however, you first and foremost need to consider and question whether or not you truly accept yourself unconditionally. Are you being and manifesting your real self or are you driven by your emotional needs to be accepted, to feel a sense of belonging, fears of rejection, fear of not being good enough, need to be in control of any given situation or relationship, need to be successful or fear of being a failure?

Regardless of whether you consider any of these needs to positive or negative qualities for your life, they both point to whether or not you accept yourself unconditionally or are living your life to satisfy your emotional fears and beliefs you have of yourself.

Emotional fears and needs create fundamental emotional dependencies that do not allow you to exercise your true freedom of choice. By not being able to exercise your freedom of choice unconditionally, you make yourself a victim of your circumstances—your reasons to comprise yourself to please your partners, bosses, parents, colleagues, society, etc.

The unconditional acceptance of who or what you are means living your life doing what is really important for your life, fulfilling your life “dream,” showing yourselves for who you really are regardless of any possible consequences. It means being true to your Innermost Self. It is about living your life LIKING WHAT WE DO at every moment.

As you read this, you might be thinking and believing that you are living your life doing what you like and that your behaviour and attitude represents who or what you are because this is your personality, your character, the true nature of who you are. But are you? Have you made and are you honestly making decisions about your life without any thoughts or consideration of the possible consequences your decisions and/or actions may affect your emotional needs and fears? Can you honestly claim that if you were given the opportunity to exercise you absolute freedom of choice without considerations to any possible consequences, you would not change a thing about your present lifestyle to allow yourself to go and do something more meaningful and purposeful for your life?

Barring some exceptions, like most people the chances are that you cannot make such claims. The decisions you have made and are still making are more than likely made only after you have considered all the possible consequences and how you may be impacted by these. That shows that what you are really doing is making decisions driven by your fears of the possible consequences.

That means that whilst you may consider your behaviours and attitudes to be representative of who you really are, what you are really manifesting, or living, is a life driven by your emotional fears and needs. Needs and fears that result in you having to give up on you exercising your real freedom of choice. The consequences of this is that you are not experiencing and practising real Unconditional Acceptance of What Is—your love of Self. And that is the root cause of you experiencing anger, resentment, depression, stress, frustration, and other such dis-eases.

If you cannot accept yourself unconditionally, it is not possible for you to unconditionally accept (love) any one or any thing else either. To experience self-love is to be authentic. Being authentic will result in your manifesting your true Inner Self and love regardless of the conditions and circumstances. Practising unconditional acceptance will result in you becoming a GIVER to every one and every thing else on this planet.

Such unconditional acceptance will result in you recognising that every one and every thing has an equal unconditional right to everything that Life makes available. That is the only way to ensure we attain permanent peace, contentment and mutual coexistence for all life forms on this planet.

YOUR LIFE CAN BE DIFFERENT

Back to top