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Love in the context of the Golden Rule

Love is about caring for someone or something. There are many
types of love, ranging from romantic love and familial love to
platonic love and love for all of God’s creation.

When we refer to unconditional or conditional love, we are
referring to HOW that love is given.

The Golden Rule gives us a definition of love that asks us to look
inwardly and love others according to the standards by which we
would like to be treated. By defining love in this manner, it
avoids the need to assess how we are treated by others. In
other words, the Golden Rule defines love without conditions.
This love is referred to as “Unconditional” love.

Unconditional love is true love. It expects nothing in return. It
is a much higher standard that merely loving those who love us or
who can provide us with some kind of benefit.

The great paradox of unconditional love is that the reward for
giving unconditional love is so much more than the reward for
giving conditional love could ever be.

To love unconditionally means that forgiveness, respect, kindness
and love are given without an kind of judgement. Think about
how you would like to be treated! If you would like people to
forgive you, respect you, and be kind to you REGARDLESS of the
way you behave, you would like to be treated with unconditional
love.

The Golden Rule requires consistency and congruence. It
requires your behavior towards others to be consistent with the
way that you would like to be treated. If this is not the case,
then your thoughts, words and actions are not congruent.

The ability to give unconditional love is an attribute of a very
advanced and loving soul. Very few incarnate souls have
mastered it. We agreed to incarnate into a physical body in order
to learn to do this. Do not get discouraged if you think that
giving unconditional love is too difficult. You deserve great
credit for your willingness and courage to try.

What souls seek, whether they are consciously aware of it or not,
is unconditional love. A soul may deny this, but where love is
lacking, what we experience in life is unfulfilling. Authentic
happiness comes from unconditional love.

Unconditional love requires empathy. You need to be able to
imagine yourself as somebody else, and be able to answer the
question “How would I want to be treated if I was that person?"

Unconditional love includes empathy, care, concern and respect
for all of God’s creation. It therefore includes unconditional love
for our planet and all the life that it supports.

Our ability to love unconditionally is the key factor in determining
where we will end up in the spiritual dimensions when our bodies
die. We get a huge reward from learning to love unconditionally,
but the benefit is generally not fully experienced in this physical
incarnation.

Some of the souls who have learned to love unconditionally agree
to incarnate here so that they can teach the rest of us.

People who are capable of unconditional love are in control of
their emotions.

God loves us unconditionally. He does not give His love in
proportion to how we behave, how we treat Him, or how much
love we return.

God’s standards are very high, and very few of us are capable of
consistently giving unconditional love. That is why we agreed to
incarnate to test and practice it!

Unconditional love is the most wonderful kind of love to
experience as the receiver. Think of the times when you have
experienced unconditional love. They may be rare, but they are
unforgettable. You instinctively know if someone loves you
without judgment or conditions.

Unconditional love is not fragile; it is long lasting and durable.
Earthly feelings of love are a very pale shadow compared to the
unconditional love of God that we experience in the spiritual
dimensions. Those that have felt this love say that there is no
way to properly describe it in words.

When we love unconditionally, we are driven to serve others.

The state of unconditional love is a state of being, it does not
represent an emotion that is present at some times but not
others.

We all know subconsciously that love is the answer, but for a lot
of us this lays hidden deep within us, and we need to awaken.

We cannot give unconditional love unless we are able to know
the world and ourselves as we really are. When you love
unconditionally, you love someone despite their faults, not
because they do not have any.

Unconditional love is the only emotion that lasts for eternity.
Fear, anger, pain and sorrow all eventually melt away.

Conditional Love

We are practicing a significantly inferior kind of habitual or
limited love, called “conditional” love, if we restrict our acts of
love to those of our own race, nation, or close knit social
network of family, friends and community. Practicing conditional
love is relatively easy, because most of the time we personally
benefit from it.

Love that is restricted to your own interests or community will
often result in behavior that is in conflict with the Golden Rule.

Conditional love is given with the expectation of benefit to the
giver. This expectation of benefit can be conscious or
unconscious.

Conditional love is frequently withdrawn when benefits are not
forthcoming, or the giver does not get what is expected from the
relationship. This is because the trade-off or “barter” associated
with conditional love is viewed by the giver as too expensive or
one sided.

If you withdraw your love because you no longer get any benefit
from giving it, you were giving conditional love.

When we love conditionally, we retaliate when we feel hurt,
humiliated, dis-respected, or judged. Often this “retaliation” is
mild and unexpressed, but it manifests in many ways that are
poison to a relationship. Conditional love may lead to a cycle of
fear and recrimination. Somebody has to forgive first, and the
Golden Rule says that somebody is us!

If you only love what is yours, you are not practicing
unconditional love; you are just protecting your own selfish
interests.

The Golden Rule does not mention loving friends and family for a
good reason. Loving friends and family is relatively easy to do.
The intent of the Golden Rule is to love all of God’s creation as
you love yourself. This is difficult, and it is a much higher
standard than just loving those with whom you have some kind of
relationship.

Often, we give conditional love because of feelings of duty or
obligation, rather than sincere compassion or empathy for others.
There is nothing wrong with being motivated by a sense of duty,
because this motivation can develop into unconditional love if it
invokes behavior which is in line with the Golden Rule.

We all need to practice turning conditional love into
unconditional love.

God is love in its purest form ...
To be in his presence and share
his love, we must become as he is
and learn to love without
judgments or conditions.
Betty Eadie

God's standard is pure love. Our
lives will be compared to this
standard in the light of God. Pure
love is serving God and others
without any self-centered
motives. Self-centered motives
are what makes our acts (as the
scriptures say) "dirty rags" before
God.
Daniel Rosenblit

Love does not inquire into the
character of the recipient but it
asks what he needs. It does not
love him because he is such-and-
such a person but because he is
there. In all this it is quite the
opposite of natural love: it "does
not seek its own". It does not
perform the characteristic
natural impulse of love and life.
Therefore it is basically
independent of the conduct of
the other person; it is not
conditional but absolute. It wants
nothing for itself but only for
others. Therefore it is also not
vulnerable. It never "reacts" but
is always "spontaneous",
emerging by its own strength --
rather, from the power of God.
Love is the real God-likeness of
man for which he has been
created. In so far as love is in
man he really resembles God and
shows himself to be the child of
God.
Emil Brunner

The great secret is not having
bad manners or good manners or
any other particular sort of
manners, but having the same
manner for all human souls: In
short, behaving as if you were in
Heaven, where there are no third-
class carriages, and one soul is as
good as another.
George Bernard Shaw

Intense love does not measure, it
just gives.
Mother Teresa

To give and not expect return,
that is what lies at the heart of
love.
Oscar Wilde

True love begins when nothing is
looked for in return.
Antoine de Saint - Exupéry

Only when we give joyfully,
without hesitation or thought of
gain, can we truly know what
love means.
Leo Buscaglia

The beginning of love is to let
those we love be perfectly
themselves, and not to twist
them to fit our own image.
Otherwise we love only the
reflection of ourselves we find in
them.
Thomas Merton

Love has nothing to do with what
you are expecting to get–only
with what you are expecting to
give–which is everything.
Katherine Hepburn

Love, true love, is that which can
give the most without asking or
demanding anything in return.
Mazie Hammond

Love… What is love? Love is to
love someone for who they are,
who they were, and who they will
be.
Chris Moore

Truly loving another means
letting go of all expectations. It
means full acceptance, even
celebration of another’s
personhood.
Karen Casey

In real love you want the other
person's good. In romantic love
you want the other person.
Margaret Anderson

The only way love can last a
lifetime is if it’s unconditional.
The truth is this: love is not
determined by the one being
loved but rather by the one
choosing to love.
Stephen Kendrick

Indeed, a quick glance around
this broken world makes it
painfully obvious that we don't
need more arguments on behalf
of God; we need more people who
live as if they are in covenant
with Unconditional Love, which is
our best definition of God.
Robin R. Meyers

Self-righteousness is much like a
spiritual egocentricity. It
constitutes a secular type of love
that thrives under conditionality,
one in which is only existent
after an individual meets the
adopted standards of the
condemner; oppositely,
unconditional love is a holy love.
Criss Jami

The love that lasts the longest is
the love that is never returned.
William Somerset Maugham

If we have built on the fragile
cornerstones of human wisdom,
pride, and conditional love,
things may look good for a while,
but a weak foundation causes
collapse when storms hit.
Charles Stanley

Love is just a word until someone
comes along and gives it
meaning.
James Earl Jones

If you love somebody, let them go. If they return, they were always
yours. If they don't, they never were.
David Harkins