R EAL L OVE : T HE L OVE W E VE A LL B EE N L OOKING F OR U NCONDIT IONAL L OVE

We've heard songs about it, seen it in the movies, heard it talked about on Oprah by relationship experts, and read about it in thousands of self help books. But, what is unconditional love? We all want to feel loved. We think about it, hope for it, fantasize about it, go to great lengths to achieve it, and feel that our lives are incomplete without it. The lack of unconditional love is the cause of most of our anger and confusion. It is no exaggeration to say that our emotional need for unconditional love is just as great as our physical need for air and food. It is especially unfortunate, then, that most of us have no idea what unconditional love really is, and we prove our ignorance with our horrifying divorce rate, the incidence of alcohol and drug addiction in our country, the violence in our schools, and our overflowing jails. Our misconceptions of unconditional love began in early childhood, where we saw that when we did all the right thingswhen we were clean, quiet, obedient and otherwise goodpeople loved us. They smiled at us and spoke in gentle tones. But we also saw that when we were bad, all those signs of love instantly vanished. In short, we were taught by consistent experience that love was conditional, that we had to buy love from the people around us with our words and behavior. So whats wrong with conditional love? We see it everywhere we look, so what could be wrong with it? Imagine that every time you pay me fifty dollars, I tell you I love you. We could do that all day, but at the end of the day would you feel loved? No, because youd know that I loved you only because you paid me. We simply cant feel fulfilled by love we pay for. We can feel loved only when it is freely, unconditionally given to us. The instant we do anything at all to win the approval or respect of other peoplewith what we say, what we do, how we lookwe are paying for the attention and affection we receive, and we cant feel genuinely loved.
A N E W D EF INIT ION
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L OV E : R E AL L OV E

Theres only one kind of love that can fill us up, make us whole, and give us the happiness we all want: unconditional love or true love. It is unconditional love that we all seek, and somehow we intuitively realize that anything other than that kind of love isnt really love at allits an imitation of the real thing. Unconditional lovetrue loveis so different from the kind of love most of us have known all our lives that it deserves both a nameReal Loveand definition of its own: Real Love is caring about the happiness of another person without any thought for what we might get for ourselves. Its also Real Love when other people care about our happiness unconditionally. It is not Real Love when other people like us for doing what they want. Under those conditions were just paying for love again. We can be certain that were receiving Real Love only when we make foolish mistakes, when we fail to do what other people want, and even when we get in their way, but they dont feel disappointed or irritated at us. That is Real Love (true unconditional love), and that love alone has the power to heal all wounds, bind people together, and create relationships quite beyond our present capacity to imagine.
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D O W IT HOUT R E AL L OV E : I M IT AT ION L OVE

If we dont have enough Real Love in our lives, the resulting emptiness is unbearable. We then compulsively try to fill our emptiness with whatever feels good in the momentmoney, anger, sex, alcohol, drugs, violence, power, and the conditional approval of others. Anything we use as a substitute for Real Love becomes a form of Imitation Love, and although Imitation Love feels good for a moment, it never lasts and never gives us the feeling of genuine happiness that Real Love provides.
Most people spend their entire lives trying to fill their emptiness with Imitation Love, but all they achieve is an ever-deepening frustration, punctuated by brief moments of superficial satisfaction. All the unhappiness in our lives is due to that lack of Real Love and to the frustration we experience as we desperately and hopelessly try to create happiness from a flawed foundation of Imitation Love. The beauty of Real Love is that it ALWAYS will eliminate our anger, confusion, and pain. So how do we find this universal cure?

F INDI NG R E AL L OV E

As people learn the principles of Real Love, they almost uniformly ask how they can find and feel the real thing. They want to feel the actual power of Real Love. Fortunately, there are so many courses of action we can take to find Real Love and experience its healing power. We have now seen the powerfully healing effects of Real Love in the lives of tens of thousands of individuals. Impossibly unhappy marriages now thrive, angry and rebellious children now turn to their parents for love and guidance, singles are finding partners interested in a relationship based on Real Love instead of trading in the sure disappointment of Imitation Love, and divisive and unproductive corporate cultures are become nurturing and supportive.

"Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality- not as we expect it to be, but as it is- is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love. "1 Most of our lives consist of socializing with others, beginning new relationships, and strengthening old ones. Love is all around us, embodied in three main categories: parental or family love, love between friends, and "chemical love," between a male and female. Each of these is experienced in a different way; each of these is approached in a different way. However, all of them share one common quality- they are unplanned, unpredicted, and unexpected. This is what gives love its beauty. Because we do not expect it, we appreciate it greatly, realizing how poor our lives have been (or would have been) without it. We simply learn to love love. The first kind of love we encounter is at a very early age, and that is toward our parents. This is a subconscious feeling; the child is too young to decide whether to love his or her parents or not. In the usual case, when the parents show love toward their child, the child feels it and returns the warm feeling which fills the parents' hearts. This love can be shown in many ways. For example, usually the first word a child learns to pronounce is "mama," or something along these lines. This shows the subconscious line of thought- the thought of his or her parents dominates the child's mind. The child wants to be hugged and kissed; he or she rebels when taken away from his or her parents, and does not go to sleep without the security of the loved parent. This kind of love is innate and unpredicted, and seen in almost every individual. Another kind of love is the one we feel toward our friends. When we are young, these relationships are not very profound; they usually consist of getting together to play the favorite game of "duck, duck, goose," or maybe "freeze tag ." When so young, a child's feelings toward a friend are not as strong as an adult's feelings toward his or her friends. However, young children hug, hold hands, and feel the , perhaps to play "hide and seek," perhaps to tell the story of how the family dog chased its tail. As we grow, we begin to encounter more and more difficulties; Mom and Dad will not always solve the problem. This is when we look for other assistance, and this is where our friends come in. Our peers have probably encountered the same problem: a row with a parent, a broken heart, a low grade. From this stage on, we become more and more dependent on our friends, and the bond strengthens until the point (and perhaps further) when the friends feel as though they are one: the pain felt by one is equally felt by the other. For example, when my friend, the person who has been next to me for ten years through everything, including the death of a parent, was left by her boyfriend for drugs, I felt incredible pain; she did not need to tell me how she felt- I already knew. Even now, when we are thousands of miles apart, a telepathy still exists. This kind of bond can be called love- when one is dependent on one's friend, when the opinion of that person is what determines the actions taken. However, such love is felt only toward a limited number of people, for friends are like plants- there are

many that are beauteous and colorful on the outside, but poisonous on the inside. There may be just a few unique ones, not necessarily the most beautiful ones, that complete us."Love means to love that which is unlovable, or it is no virtue at all." 2 This is the third kind of love,"chemical love." When one feels this kind of love, one does not see the loved one's flaws; one sees him or her as an angel that has come down from heaven: suddenly the large nose disappears, and is replaced by the big blue eyes. This kind of love occurs when, upon meeting a member of the opposite sex, one feels an uncontrollable desire to be with this person- a desire which cannot be subdued by mental power. This kind of love is the most unpredictable- it occurs suddenly, when it is least expected. A person might be sitting in a caf, drinking coffee, when a complete stranger walks past and somehow, the coffee suddenly loses its attractiveness. The only thing occupying the person's mind is how to catch the mysterious stranger's attention. When one experiences this kind of love, one feels as though in a trance- the only thought occupying the brain is that of the object of desire.Even a touch on the hand by the loved one can cause extreme felicity. When a person is "in love," the object of desire is the meaning of that person's life; he or she wakes up in the morning, overflowing with vivacity and energy, all fueled by the thought that he or she will be with that one particular person. When someone experiences such attraction to another person, he or she is ready to risk his or her life for the loved one or for the sake of being together, just like Romeo and Juliet preferred to die rather than be separated. "Chemical love," therefore, is stronger than the mental power and cannot be purposely controlled. All three kinds of love share a common property- they are feelings, which are mentally uncontrollable; they completely take over the body, and the brain is helpless in stopping them. Love cannot be forced or decided upon; it controls itself and completely takes over the person experiencing it. This is why love is so potent- the human being is helpless in stopping its effects. A person usually experiences each type of love at least once during his or her lifetime. All three come together to form one of the most powerful forces in existence- love.