Unconditional Love, For Real by Rev. Gregory Toole

Is it possible that a quote from Jesus from 2000 odd years ago could be relevant to us today? In Matthew 5:44, Jesus teaches “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you…” For many people today, this seems unrealistic, or people would say “that’s hard,” or maybe even ask, why anyone would want to do this?

There’s a lot contained in those words of scripture. It is a great lesson in the nature of love. Clearly, it shows us that love is not an emotion, because it doesn’t feel good when people curse us or hate us. If we can see that love is actually our essence, who we are in our highest nature, then we might see that this passage is an invitation into a spiritual practice. Then, those that “despitefully use” us become the gift of the ingredients for practice. Difficult as these people may be for us, when we stand strong in the truth of who we are, which is love, in the face of such conditions, we expand our capacity to love, and we expand our embodiment of our own Christ consciousness.

Below are seven steps I have discerned, and that I practice, for embodying unconditional love.

Seven Steps to Loving Unconditionally:

1.       Recognize you are biased.

2.       Decide that the relationship is more important than being right.

3.       See each person as a unique expression of God (regardless of your “opinion”)

4.       Set an intention to love all people (which doesn’t mean you have to “like” them).

5.       Commit to loving yourself unconditionally. (If you find you are unable to love someone, recognize it as some part of yourself you find difficult to love.)

6.       Share that unconditional love with others.

7.       Learn to set healthy boundaries (with love).

 

To explore each step briefly, recognizing we are biased opens a great deal of space for us to love more. So many of our difficulties with others are rooted in our judgments about how people ought to be and what they ought to do.

Knowing that the relationship is the most important thing, we can let go of petty differences and weigh whether a given action would harm the relationship, and whether it is worth it to pursue that action.

Seeing each person as an expression of God removes all the other things we have made up about their identity. Regardless of our opinions, they too are divine.

Setting an intention to love all people is crucial if we are to even have a chance to embody this teaching of unconditional love. Without a clear intention, when presented with conditions and circumstances, not to our liking, we are sure to fall short of unconditional love. However, when we have a clear intention, we have a baseline to help us reevaluate any situation.

Committing to loving ourselves unconditionally is the one step that could get us there all on its own, because most of what we find difficult to love in others is what we find difficult to love in ourselves, or, because we don’t fully love ourselves, we find it challenging to fully love others.

Once we more fully love ourselves, loving others actually becomes easy. Whenever I find it difficult to love someone, I ask “how I am feeling about myself.” When I make the adjustment to loving myself more, it opens the way for me to love the other person.

Finally, to keep ourselves grounded in physical reality, while established in higher spiritual consciousness, setting boundaries is important. With some people, we will find it easier, and sometimes even necessary, to love them from afar. Examples would be people who either show us physical or emotional abuse, people who don’t support our growth and evolution, or people with whom we just don’t feel a resonance. Regardless, the practice is still to hold them in our hearts with only love.

While all of this may seem difficult on the surface, it is doable with practice, and the rewards are great. Since our true nature and essence is love, there is already that within us that knows how to do this, and in doing it, we are sure to feel more aligned and harmonious within ourselves. So, let the low flow!

 

Rev. Gregory Toole is an ordained minister with Centers for Spiritual Living. He is the Senior Minister for Centers for Spiritual Living, Antelope Valley and Bakersfield in California. Gregory is also the Founder of Somseva whose mission is to inspire authentic, compassionate relationships through spiritual education, tools, and practices that promote peacemaking and conscious action. He is the author of the book, A Simple Guide to Planetary Transformation.