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Choosing Love Over Conditioning
From Choosing
Love: A Guide to Spiritual Relationship by Gina Lake
Your
judgments are not about others. They are about you and your
conditioning. No one has "the right" conditioning. We all have our own,
and no one has exactly the same conditioning, which helps explain why
getting along is so challenging. To make things worse, we all think our
conditioning is the right conditioning, or at least better than someone
else's, or we wouldn't judge others and try to change them. This is our
stance because we are programmed to have this stance.
Like a fish in water, we don't see or examine certain programmed
assumptions we have as human beings. One of the deepest and most
unconscious assumptions we have is that what we think is true. We live
by the unquestioned assumption that if we think it, it must be true. We
do not question our beliefs because they are what we think. Since
everyone has different ideas (conditioning), this causes a lot of
problems in relationships. Much energy is expended trying to convince
others of what we believe or defend our ideas when it could be much
better spent.
Ideas are just ideas. They are not that important, but we are
programmed to think they are because ideas create our identity-they
create the you that you think you are. Without your ideas, beliefs,
opinions, dreams, and memories, who would you be? Who is this you that
you think you are if not a composite of your ideas—your
conditioning? You can test this out in moments when thinking isn't
happening: Where is this you with all of its stories, history, and
beliefs? For a moment it stops existing, but do you still exist?
Something still exists even when you stop identifying yourself as this
you with all its ideas and history. This something that exists beyond
thought is the real you—essence. It is present when you are
thinking too, but you don't notice it because you are lost in thought
(how true that expression is!). And what are ideas? Without your belief
in them, they are nothing. In and of themselves they have no power, and
the truth they contain is only relative truth, not ultimate truth.
Your judgments relate to beliefs you personally hold as true. They are
true to you, but not ultimately true. The beliefs you hold as
personally true are very different from the ones others hold as true,
and no one's are ultimately true, although the ego feels its are. The
best thing we can say about a belief is that it has more truth than
another, but that also often depends on one's
perspective—one's
conditioning.
Although some conditioned ideas and beliefs appear to be truer and more
helpful than others, it is not your business to try to change the
conditioning of others unless they ask you to. Even if you are a
spouse, lover, parent, sibling, or close friend, it is still not your
business. Not only is it not your business to change others, but it is
harmful to relationships to try to do this. Ideas are just not worth
the price paid in love lost. Love is more important than any
conditioned idea or belief, but if you take your conditioning more
seriously than love, you will lose love. The other will withhold love
from you because it will be too painful for him or her to love you.
Conditioning takes this toll time and time again in relationships, and
we think the problem is a lack of love. What causes relationships to
break down or never leave the ground is often not a lack of love but
valuing ideas over love. When we are identified with the ego, we do
choose ideas over love because being right is more important than
loving. In the egoic state of consciousness, others' differences
frighten us, and to feel safe, we feel we need to change them. So,
doing this seems very important.
In reality, love is always the safest choice, but the ego doesn't see
this. Only essence does, and you must drop into essence yourself to
realize this. This isn't always easy to do in relationships because
differences are so apparent and conditioning is triggered so
frequently. Conditioning triggers judgment, and that triggers the
desire to change someone, which causes conflict and pain and,
consequently, withdrawal from relationship.
The easiest place to stop this cycle is at the beginning, when the
judgment first appears, because the judgment has the least momentum at
that point. You can't keep judgments from arising because that is not
under your control or anybody else's, but you can decide to do nothing
about your judgment. And that is the best choice you can make if you
want love and relationship.
Many would say that if someone doesn't conform to what they want, they
don't want to be in a relationship with him or her anyway. That is
their choice and the reason most relationships dissolve or never get
started. Those who make this choice are not likely to find love or
lasting and meaningful relationship with anyone because no one will
ever meet their stiff and very personal requirements. Those who make
this choice don't believe that, so they keep looking and keep rejecting
others.
They explain their lack of relationship by saying the person was too
this or too that, but the question is, Too this or that for whom? Who
is it that has these requirements and preferences? It is the
conditioned self—the ego—and it will never be
pleased. As
long as you let the ego choose your partners, you won't have one. The
ego is in the business of rejecting others, not accepting and loving
them.
For love, you need to turn to the real you because that is the one who
knows how to love. When essence is evoked in relationships, you find
yourself saying yes to love and no to your ideas about how others
should be. You choose love instead of your conditioned preferences.
Love feels too good to walk away from just because of some differences.
But the ego doesn't allow you to feel love. It cuts love off with
judgments before you even have a chance to experience it. Those who are
entrenched in the ego do not feel much love. Fortunately, love is less
than a breath away, if only we turn our attention away from our
judgments and onto the moment, which is full of exactly what we are
looking for: love that is perfect just the way it is.
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