"If you play with me, I will be your friend..otherwise I wont be your friend" said my 4 year old nephew.
"We gave you all the love and everything you wanted, but now you are disobeying us!!"
"If you give me a kiss, I will let you watch TV" said a mother to her 8 year old
"If you become a doctor, we will buy you a car"
"We spoke and shared so much together, and I thought you loved me"
"I did all that for you, and now you say you cant do this for me"
"I thought you loved me!! you cheater!! you user!!"
"I loved you too much..my mistake!!"
These are just a few random examples from our daily lives.. Forget the bribes, the "oiling of the system" or "tit for tats", and the "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" of regular life, what I am talking about is our personal, immediate life that we carry in our supposedly pure heart, getting conditionalized and corrupted, so subtly, yet surely.
So where did that expression of "unconditional love" pop up from? Is there something like that at all? Or is it just the creation of some fancy author? I mean they even say " God will do that, IF you dont do this". Everything from love to faith is being brokered by man in this world (I am sure its nothing new, except that we are just taking notice of things now, more than before).
Why are we then complaining about globalization and commercialism? Isn't everything we do motive - ulterior or superior - based? Is there anything that can stay pure?
(Nonsense, MC!!!! Go back to sleep!! Its only 3 P.M!!!)
23 comments:
MC,
So very true. This so so very true.
And those who try to break away are pictures as disobedients.
In fact i just did a post on this.[not yet posted though]
People want to control other people's lives.
And the picture is so very mesmerising!
True love is unconditional. But how many people love unconditionally?
Besides love, like fire needs to be stoked to keep it burning.
ok lack of sleep made me write that. Go and sleep silverine!!
If I post a comment, will you say something nice on my blog too? ;)
Love is unconditional,be it from mother to child, from lover to lover but there is a difference it has to be pure and without other wants or strings attached.
Some people don't know how to reciprocate pure love and in turn end up hurting the person who is giving it.But that's the way the world works, everything cannot be harmonious...where there is good, there is bad.To experience purity, we need to see impurity.
We have to learn to live with it :)
The picture is sooooo beautiful....very good.
MC, lovely picture to go with the post.
I believe love is unconditional. The true variety anyway. Like Maya pointed out Mother-Child, Lover-Lover, God-believer and non believer alike(except that people try to scare you into thinking God loves only the pure and devotional and a whole lot of conditions to go with it. Hardly think the story of the Prodigal Son would have been written if God were Choosy.)
I did all that for you, and now you say you cant do this for me
..I believe if we can genuinely help someone, we should and expect nothing in return. I guess sometimes it is our expectations that make us place conditions and demands.
These are some random, disconnected Monday thoughts to go with your Sunday post. :)
Good one, MC.
Unconditional love.. definitely a mother's love.
But still, I like to disturb my son and ask him for a kiss before he gets something. Its just a way of stealing a kiss ;)
As they grow older, it is harder to experience their love, so, it is ok for a little nonsense ;)
@alex - yeah..at some level its all about control i guess.
thanks..and will be interesting to read your post.
@silverine - lol..hope you slept well after that..
i know true love is unconditional..but what i really meant to ask is, can we as human beings, love and then not expect anything in return? or does the expectation we create make it conditional, rather than unconditional, love?
@ sachin - lol..i had to read that one twice to get the pun..good one!
@ maya - Some people don't know how to reciprocate pure love and in turn end up hurting the person who is giving it.
so this means the one who gave it in the first place was expecting it in return? thats what i was wondering about..see what i asked silverine..
yeah ignoring is best..wish i could ignore everyone when i wanted.
@ quills - exactly..that was my sunday ka nonsense thought..can we love without expectations? if not, dont our expectations ruin the purity of what we give.
@ geetha - soooo sweet! :) i am sure he loves you so much to give it without you asking also..
Well MC,
As far as i think it goes. Nothing can be unconditional. Humans always do things in their own self interest. What is good will be to do things which make one happy along with others.
I believe i help others out of the pleasure i get from it. But some people kill otehrs for pleasure too.
I have been thinking about this too.
I have posted my post!
Unconditional love is and is not like clapping with one hand. Just as miraculous, but not as impossible.
You can't expect anything in return with unconditional love. You can hope though, and I'd rather hope than expect because hope is practical and expecting is impractical. You don't get let down when you hope, but you can when you expect. So, as it turns out unconditional love ends up being practical in itself!
On a side note, many people accuse Gandhi of being impractical in his methods, but I believe he was the most pragmatic of us, because in a time of selfishness, only he realized that selfishness begins within oneself and ends there itself. So, he preached unconditional love, which turned out to be the most practical idea ever. Everything else pales in logic.
There is no need to give back love because it's not like money,there are no scores to settle here(it's an unsaid truth) but there is no reason in hurting the person giving that love...what I meant here is most of the time we end up hurting the one's we love and those who love us the most.by that I don't mean give and exchange.
I meant acceptance not expectance, i must have worded it wrong.
nothing is unconditional..not even love...a person loves another always expecting love in return and that is the reason he is hurt when he does not receive that..but the good thing abt love is that it is something which everybody can give and share without ever exhausting the stock:)
Love is unconditional. If any kind of conditional is attached to it, it is not love. its give and take or whatever name u wanna give it , but dsefinately not love :)
i have this friend who was in the most happiest marriage i have seen, had lovable kids, was a guy who helped his parents and brothers a lot...i had this same talk with him and it surprised me when he said the husband-wife, mother-son, etc, all relationships are conditional.
Nice thoughts bro...
but then I had a friend sometime back... and I can say our friendship was unconditional, at least while it lasted.
(And No, its not the cpl of Heineken's which forced me to write this comment :D
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@ alex - i am not sure if its always self-interest..but i guess for some.. who at least come close to unconditional love..its just a case of human nature..human beings by default expect something in return.
@ abhishek - interesting take..so where does the line between hope expectation and unconditionality exist, if at all?
i guess its all a game of our mind..we are smart enough to see different situations how we want it.
@ maya - so with love, hurt comes by default..thats the reality..what should be unconditional is just a goal and an ideal.
whoa! that was too complicated what you wrote!!
@ anonymous - wow.now thats a perfect analysis!
what makes love unconditional, is not that its unconditional as such, but the fact that it cant be exhausted when its true!!
amazingggg!! you hit the jackpot!
@ neha - whatever we wanna name it..hmm..a deal? :)
your picture looks majestic btw!
@ jiby - hmmm..these are the kind of things that really take you off that track of peace and joy..unsettle you..and makes you look hard at the realities.
@ geo - but then why did it end at all??
@ silverine - lol..i think i gave you the answer to this alreay!
You must be right.Maybe it is conditional....
Bingo this seems so true .. and like a passage out of my thoughts ,, something that runs at the back of our minds. The key I feel is in having no expectations . . I see people regretting what they did , questioning God as to why me ..expecting from evryone and everything instead of accepting because with acceptance comes the strength and purity we talk about but hardly emulate . Doing because that is what you want to , trodding the unchartered route is an exploration to self realisation and understanding of the inner nature of our soul , something we have forgotten long back like lessons learnt in a by gone age .
awesome pic!
I just went thru the other comments on this post ..and just wanted to add..whenever we expect in return from anyone we are transacting and it cannot be love in its pure form ..but we as human beings have been struggling to understand so many things including love . We havent really experienced true love and we cant comprehend what we havent experienced . Why I say that is because like all human experiences love in its true form has been clouded and conditioned by man and his acquired beliefs over time .It is hard to practice human emotions in pure form because of the flase wall that we have build up right from childhood but not impossible and as far as I see life and everything that happens with us is infact chosen such that we move towards our true nature and inner soul . That is why we think and reflect and each new experience adds something to our existence which we carry forward as part of our soul . This dilemma these questions are required and only then can we learn .
First time at your blogspace... Gr8 work !
I dont think there is anything called unconditional love! I strongly believe that even pure love is need based. How often do we hear "I need you to be there for me" line.
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