unconditional

In the enlightened state, one’s life has become unconditional. Ordinarily, we have beliefs about life, about how things should be, about what is acceptable. These are conditions which our psychology is demanding of life. Of course, in this ordinary way of being, from time to time, those conditions are not met and we feel somehow violated or let down. We suffer as a result. That suffering is not so much caused by the circumstances of life as by our conditions, our expectations. If these expectations are dropped then we can accept whatever is happening in our life, in the moment, whether it be expected or unexpected; whether it be familiar or unfamiliar; whether it feels nourishing or threatening to our survival – all can be accepted, with equanimity. To live this way is to live unconditionally.

This can only come to be if we have gone beyond the fear of death. For whilst we are afraid to die, we will be placing conditions upon life. To go beyond the fear of death is not easy, for the fear of death is, at its root, a fear of the ending of the ego, of the separate self, or the sense of the separate self. So, to reach this space of unconditional living, we must at some level have accepted the non-existence or the death of the ego. However this comes about, reaching finally to this space, where death is no longer feared or resisted, then naturally an unconditional approach to life follows.

In this great acceptance of all that is, we can relax and enjoy the effortless way of being. We can become choiceless in our actions. The actions themselves can come from a space without motive, for motive is another form of conditionality. If our actions are coming from a motive, then we feel somehow a failure or rejected if our required outcome, or consequence, does not follow form our actions. In the relaxed, enlightened state, our actions are spontaneous responses to the moment, without any heed for particular results. We have become motiveless. We have become unconditional.