Love Can Transform Everything - But Not the Love that You Know

A dialogue on Unconditional Love - Silent Leadership Institute, Tsukuba Japan, October 2023.

Whatever difficulty you are facing, whatever challenges you may have, love can transform your entire consciousness. But not the love that you know.

Participants: What do you mean, “not the love that you know”?  I don't understand what you are referring to. I know that love can transform everything, but this is nothing new. I haven't seen love change the world in any compelling way - it’s always only in pieces, parts, here and there, now and then.

GC: Indeed, you are right. Can it be love if it’s in pieces? If it happens in some places and not others? If it’s only sometimes and only to certain people, is it love? Perhaps the love the speaker is referring to is not the one that is known to you, or at least not immediately evident. In order to understand this love, one must discard the love that you have defined in your mind, by your history.

Participants: Not understanding.

GC: Okay. What is love? Unfortunately that wonderful word has been so misused, so misunderstood, but let’s look at it anyway. What does it mean to most of us here? Is it an emotion? Are you waiting for me to answer? Why don’t we talk together. What is it?

Participants: An emotion. Happiness. A kind or gentle action.

GC: An action. Emotion. Got it. Is that action produced as something you practiced in the past? And, is it only applicable to certain people, such as my partner, or children, or parents? Does love exist where there is control in a relationship - that is, you get jealous when your partner is alone with someone else so you prevent them from seeing other people, or install some tracking app in their phone, or constantly check-in on them - which is a form of possession isn’t it. There is also sexual pleasure and the desire to be fulfilled physically as well. Or do you place certain expectations on your partner - that is, you work but you expect your partner to stay home with the children and do the housework, etc. This may seem old-fashioned but it is still happening across the world.

Perhaps your partner disagrees with something you do and you in counter-disagreement become hostile and try to change their minds to force your partner to think as you do. And if it synchronizes, there is love. Is that it?

Participants: But isn’t that part of any relationship? Disagreements occur out of who we are.

GC: Yes, look at it for what it is. You say, disagreements occur out of who we are. What are you? Do you know who you are…

Participants: Yes I ….

GC: …Just a second, wait, please I am still in the middle of a sentence. Do you know who you are or are you a product of everything you have come to think and believe you are?

Shall I say it again? Do you know who you are, or is that “who” an accumulation of knowledge, experience, beliefs which are all learned in the past?

Participants: Are you referring to my conditioning?

GC: That’s part of it. Isn’t that why disagreements are occurring? Why do we pressure the other person into doing things our way and they vice-versa, pressure us in doing things their way - sometimes with consequences.

And do we define levels of love. For example, there is a level of love reserved for one’s country and a different level or type of love reserved for one’s God? And if there is a war, you either fight in the name of a God who is apparently full of love but doesn’t condone the murdering of other human beings. Or, knowing that education around the world is producing psychotic children who can’t live without the internet, are violent, and are being setup for disease and stress but yet you still send them to such places to fill their heads all day. Is there any love there? And is there any love if I am seeking my own well-being and security through self love, self-improvement and so on? Must I love myself first before I can love another? If each of us pursuing our own interests such as career progression, wealth, status, power, do we have love at all?

Participants: Isn’t self-love important? Without it how can I know love?

GC: What do you mean by, self-love?

Participants: If I don’t look after myself, my well-being, accepting my pain, staying away from negativity, being positive, accepting myself for who I am. Without that, how can I love another?

GC: And I say with that, how can you love another?

Participants: What do you mean? If I am full of hatred, won’t I project that into the outer - onto other people?

GC: Yes probably.

Participants: Then why wouldn’t I want to love myself more?

GC: Because the love you speak of, is what we are questioning the very essence of. Let me put it this way, how long will it take you to “love yourself” unconditionally before you are satisfied and can then love another? Most people go through their entire lives not knowing what love is -trying to seek something unconditional with the same tool that is conditioning their seeking.

Participants: Isn’t unconditional love the ultimate form of love - is that the love you speak of?

GC: How does one unconditionally love themselves and not another? You are missing something here. And also what is unconditional love? Is it a greater love that is divine? Or perhaps it’s uncorrupted?

Participants: It can be cultivated if you practice meditation…

GC: Oh no, can it be cultivated? You see you are missing the point. The moment you move away, you seek to improve, you try to “make better”, you are basing your action on an idea. Right now, I don’t love unconditionally as you put it, so I need to love myself more so I can love others. Do you follow?

Participants: It sounds like you are saying that love is not something made-up or defined.

GC: And therefore? How can you ever seek it out? Cultivate it? Anyone trying to sell you a method of having more love in your life is leading you on. There are many forms of meditation to try and cultivate unconditional love which are based on ideas, practice, repeat repeat repeat - all processed by thinking. You practice to make it part of who you think you are - so your subconscious or conscious acts are righteous. How can we possible cultivate something unconditional when the very instrument you use is conditioned, limited?! How can you cultivate a wonderful quality such as empathy when the instrument you use is not empathetic? Compassion is another one. Or is unconditional - the word itself means it has no conditions. There is no “if this then that”. There is no expectation. There is no measurement between what is and what you project - between a see-er and a do-er. The moment there is I have create a condition, haven’t I? Which leads me down the path of choosing. The moment choice presents itself it is the moment you’ve introduced conditions.

Participants: Are you referring to the ego-self?

Gab: Perhaps - I don’t know. We are just investigating freely here, questioning what is love and perhaps what it is not. Perhaps, if you would allow, can we take love in terms of a relationship - or at least what we think is love. Because if one is to understand love, we also need to understand the problems of pleasure, and jealousy.

Participant: Could you explain why one gets jealous?

Gab: Is that what you want to talk about? Why don’t we explore it together - not you asking the question and the speaker answering it. There is no learning in that. Together means look at it, each of us, within our own minds what is jealousy and then go from there. But I’m afraid we will have to do it in another dialogue since time is running-out.