Can We Love Unconditionally?

A Reflection for Spiritual Seekers on the Meaning of Unconditional Love by Rev. Michael Gadway

“Love is the whole and more than all.” – E.E. Cummings

A Spiritual Understanding of Love

According to Vedic understanding, love is not a single emotion but a spectrum of forces that bind us to one another, to society, and to God. For spiritual seekers exploring practical spirituality and personal transformation, this offers a powerful lens into the nature of love.

At its most primordial level, love is known as Kama; Kama is desire, the impulse that moves the formless to form. It is the motivating energy behind all longing, creativity, and relationships. Kama may be transformed into Prema which is a selfless, altruistic love that seeks union without possession and it is connected to joy, generosity, and contentment. There is also a devotional longing for God that is referred to as Bhakti. Bhakti transforms love into surrender, where emotional attachment becomes a means of transcending individuality and recognizing the sacred in all existence.

The Vedas also recognize love as friendship, and differentiate friendship love from the love of a parent towards their child or child to their parent.

Taken together, these forms of love illustrate a layered understanding: love as desire that creates, affection that sustains, devotion that liberates, and compassion that unites. Rather than taking the position that worldly love and spiritual love are opposed to one another, the Vedic perspective weaves them into a single continuum, where everyday human relationships become stepping-stones toward the realization of unity between the Soul-self and the ultimate reality, God—an idea that deeply resonates with those seeking oneness and spiritual growth.

Love Beyond Definition: Expanding Consciousness

Love is trans-conceptual. It has been defined in a myriad of ways, all failing in inclusivity. It is often confused with bliss which is the natural state of the Soul resting in Self-awareness.

In the Buddhist tradition, love is a koan. It is a concept that defies explanation but, in our attempt to comprehend, we expand our consciousness. For those practicing meditation and mindfulness, love becomes less something to define and more something to experience and embody.

The Human Condition and the Limits of Unconditional Love

I often hear well-meaning spiritual teachers preaching about the importance of “unconditional love.” But unconditional love is not possible from a human being; we are conditioned beings. It is called the human condition after all.

This is a broad phrase describing what it is to be human and it includes a full range of “conditions” that we, as humans, experience. From these experiences, we create and live personal biases that shape our view of the world and our relationships.

Although unconditional love is a noble pursuit, it is impossible to achieve while embodied. It is an unachievable state of energetic awareness. It is not possible to create an unconditional energy from a conditioned being.

The Practice of Love as a Path of Personal Transformation

In stating this, I do not mean to imply that we should not attempt to share unconditional love. Like the Buddhist koan, in our endeavor to love unconditionally, we purify the ego and mind, expanding our consciousness, making us more fit receptacles for an unadulterated spiritual expression.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your Soul, and with all your mind.” – Matthew 22:37

This teaching aligns with a practical spirituality—one that invites us to live love in action as part of an ongoing journey of personal transformation.

Opening the Heart: Love as a Spiritual Gateway

Love is also a key used in many traditions to open the heart or the fourth chakra. It is the sacred whisper that unseals the heart’s inner gate. In the hidden Christian traditions, this is known as the Sacred Heart Meditation.

In the Yoga tradition, it is understood that the fourth chakra is the bridge between the consciousness of the lower three chakras and the higher consciousness of the upper three chakras. Through meditation, prayer, and mindfulness practices, love becomes the bridge between our human experience and our spiritual awareness.

Love is used to purify the heart. By loving, we move from a limited narcissistic understanding of self and life to an altruistic and boundless realization of Spirit as all life. Love transforms the view of self from a narrow, solitary, closed circle into a wide, unbounded field of shared existence.

The words attributed to Jesus in the New Testament, “Love thy neighbor as thyself” (Mark 12:31), take on a more profound significance when viewed from this perspective of oneness and interconnectedness.

Love as a Living Practice in Everyday Life

Love is less an ethereal reverie and more an applicable method to expand consciousness, leaving behind a constricted and rigid view of ourselves in the world. This is the essence of practical spirituality lived in daily life.

Love evaporates the ego and egotistical behaviors. When we love, as unconditionally as possible, we put aside the petty dictates of the ego for the upliftment of those we love.

To give everything we have to love is to surrender egoism and take up selflessness. In doing so, we rise to new spiritual heights, transcending this mundane existence for a sweeter, more sanctified one.

A Spiritual Invitation for Seekers in Raleigh

At Unity of the Triangle, we invite you to explore love not just as an idea, but as a way of being.

Whether you are new to spirituality or have been on the path for years, you are welcome in this inclusive spiritual community in Raleigh—a place where people from all backgrounds come together to deepen their connection to Spirit, practice meditation, and experience personal transformation. Read more about our Spiritual Education department.