Unconditional Love

What's it like to express unconditional love?

Photo by Maessive. Creative Commons License 2.0

Most of us would claim to love someone unconditionally. Imagine a parent who even suggests that they don't unconditionally love their own child! Impossible!

But what exactly does unconditional love look like? How does it differ from other types of love? Do we really feel and express unconditional love for our parents, our spouse, or even our children?

To distinguish "unconditional love" from other types of love, it is helpful to consider two very different, perhaps even contradictory, notions of the word "attachment."

In psychology, the term  "attachment" describes the deep emotional bond that connects one person to another. It is said that if a baby does not experience attachment with a caring adult within hours or days after birth, she can develop an "attachment disorder" that could affect the rest of her life. 

Clearly, a "deep emotional bond" is fundamental to our health and well being and is perhaps the basis for all of our loving relationship ... but is this what defines  a love that is unconditional?

In Buddhism, the term "attachment" is often used to signify one of the "three poisons" that are the source of all our suffering (the other two being ignorance and aversion). Here, the notion of "attachment" refers to the state of mind that engages others in a way that is grasping, that uses the other to fulfill one's own needs and expectations. 

Through such an "attachment" the person we love no longer exist for us in any other way except in how they help to construct our own identities (as a spouse or a parent), or in how they help to satisfy our own emotional needs (so we don't feel lonely). 

To distinguish between these two very different definitions of "attachment," I prefer to refer to the psychological notion as "bonding" and the Buddhist notion as "grasping."

Recognizing this difference is precisely what we need to do in order to understand exactly what constitutes unconditional love.

When we are capable of have a deep "bond" with another, we can experience love, but ... only when our state of mind is free from "grasping" are we capable of experiencing unconditional love!

How do we know if our attachments are based on "bonding" but are free from "grasping"?

We can witness the degree of our grasping in our reactions to loved ones who are not conforming to our expectations, or who we think are not behaving in ways we want them to behave! Who hasn't become angry or frustrated with their spouse, children or siblings when they do things that we oppose or disagree with? Who doesn't feel rejected or dissatisfied when a parent, partner or friend isn't as attentive or considerate or generous as we want them to be? 

Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda

In his Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda recounts a story that illustrates what unconditional love looks like.

As a young boy, Yogananda yearned to go to the Himalayas and practice meditation in seclusion. When he became a young man, he met Sri Yukteswar, who eventually became his beloved guru. But at first, Yogananda did not recognize the significance of his relationship with Sri Yukteswar, and he still maintained his childhood dream. 

One day, he asked his guru for permission to leave, so he could go and meditate in the mountains. Sri Yukteswar responded with neither approval nor disapproval. He simply pointed out to that a mountain cannot be a guru. 

Noting that his guru had not explicitly denied him permission to leave, Yogananda chose to go off and seek spiritual wisdom by himself.  After some months, Yogananda recognized that his journey was not unfolding as he had believed it would, and he finally understood the meaning of his guru’s parting message. 

When he arrived back at the ashram, Yogananda asked his guru if he was disappointed or angry with him for departing so abruptly. 

Sri Yukteswar replied, “No, of course not!  Wrath springs only from thwarted desires. I do not expect anything from others, so their actions cannot be in opposition to wishes of mine. I would not use you for my own ends; I am happy only in your own true happiness” (Autobiography of a Yogi, 1946/2005: 165).


Unconditional love is a deep emotional bond that is free from expectation or obligation. It does not use the other to fulfill one's own ends, but instead experiences happiness when another has found true happiness.

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Abundance In An Instant

OMG! The Winning Ticket!

Okay, I'll admit it ... my heart will start racing at the thought of winning the big prize whenever I occasionally buy a $2 lotto ticket. Just imagine what it feels like to answer that last million dollar question correctly and go from completely broke to staggeringly wealthy in an instant. Wouldn't that be something?

But we all know that there's a difference between wealth and abundance, and only one of them truly leads to happiness, right?

Sometimes, doing something that seems completely out of character (like quitting a lucrative job to follow the dream of living off grid), or having something rather unexpected happen (like losing your job and learning that it is possible live on less), can actually help to put things into perspective. 

Very few of us would ever dare to make the choice to live on less. The vast majority of us, however, have been forced to do so (given the economy and the rate of poverty around the world), but we're not very happy about it. This is because we primarily think in terms of wealth and not in terms of abundance.

The source of abundance is deep within all of us.  Some would say it's in our hearts, others would say it's a state of mind. Abundance can be understood as the opposite of what in Buddhism is referred to as "grasping," which is one of the "three poisons" of the mind, and is associated with "attachment."   

To "grasp" or to be "attached" is to relate to everyone and everything in the world in a way that uses them for our own purposes, in order to fulfill our own needs. It sounds harsh, but it can be witnessed in every moment of every day: we work to get ahead, to have a comfortable home and enjoy some leisure time; our friends and family make us happy and we like to have them around to keep us company and take care of us when we are sick. This doesn't sound so bad, but when we lose our jobs and possessions, or when our spouses leave us and our children don't turn out quite the way we raised them, it is possible to see the degree to which we have needed them to fulfill our own ends.

The shift from "grasping" to "abundance" begins with recognizing the abundance in the world around us. The warmth and light of the sun and the rejuvenating rainfall are examples of abundance; they are given to us freely and without expectation. This abundance can flow through us as acts of kindness, service to others and generosity--when they are offered freely and without expectation. Paradoxically, the more we give, the more we will receive.  

In his autobiography, By His Grace: A Devotee's Story, Dada Mukerjee offers numerous stories that explain the nature of abundance from the life of his guru, the Indian saint Neem Karoli Baba (Maharajji). Dada describes how the storeroom in Maharajji's ashram was always stocked with enough food and supplies to care for all the travellers who came to him for respite. This sometimes raised suspicions regarding how Maharajji made his money. He had so much to give that people expected to find corruption in his practices or hypocrisy in his teachings, but there was neither.

Neem Karoli Baba (Maharajji)

Maharajji explained that everything, including money, came from Ram (an aspect of Shiva worshipped in the Hindu tradition ... think God or the universe, according to your preferences). And he said that "if you use it properly and avoid all misuse and wastage, there will always be enough." 

In addition to avoiding misuse (which includes over-consumption), Maharajji taught another important lesson regarding the flow of abundance.  He accepted all offerings that were freely given and he did not accept any offerings from people who were attached to their money. If there was an ulterior motive for giving and the offering came with "strings attached," he would not accept it; nor did he accept offerings that were given begrudgingly in a show of generosity.

The offering itself was not important to Maharajji. It was the intention behind the offering that mattered.

Everything Maharajji accepted went toward the running of the ashram. He himself owned and required very little. He had no attachment to any of the things that surrounded him, but his ashram was well supplied.

By having no attachment (never using things, other people and the resources of the world to fulfill one's own ends), by consuming only what we need and avoiding waste, and by accepting only what is freely given and in return giving freely, we will always have enough and we will be content with what we have. 

And this can happen for each us in an instant.

For more stories and insights, please see my other blog postings on by scrolling above or below, and also on The Six Realms of Samsara. My books can be found here in my Author's Spotlight. THANK YOU!