What is Unconditional love?

So, basically unconditional love is when you accept someone as he/she is. There are no conditions to it. Only thing that exist is love. You don't demand anything. You give it all without any expectation. Now ask yourself a question has it happened with you ever? Is there someone you love unconditionally or someone who loves you like that? Even we judge ourselves many a times and see what we have achieved as compared to others.

Be honest with yourself, only you know the truth. There is no wrong or right answer. Its just an observation. The answer could be your dog/cat or any other relationship who doesn't expect anything from you and you also love them the same way. I truly believe that parents are only people who want good for you every time. Though they have expectations, I believe that is quite fair. They need our support during old age a person becomes dependent on physical and emotional level to some extent.   

What I have noticed is that we as humans tend to judge every person in our life. We label them despite being unaware about their beliefs and mindset. If we do some good or help anyone, we expect something in return. Its called transactional love. If someone help us then we look forward to pay back their favor. This is human nature. There is other side of this phenomenon. 

We often hear these things from our friends and relatives, " I have done so much for this person, but he didn't value that. He is mean and has forgotten everything." When you sacrifice anything, you do a transaction and it becomes Conditional love. Sacrifice is done out of ego. But when you just give without anything in return, its called Unconditional love. You don't expect anything in return, you do something out of pure love. It gives you inner peace and fulfilment.

A few days ago, I read this in Bhagwat Gita where Shri Krishna states that every relation is a mere business in this world. Parents nurture their child and expect them to have bright future, fulfill their dreams and take care of them. And I realized this is so relatable. Every relationship is full of expectations. Love is just an ingredient of recipe. There are many other things that matter. This truth is realized during hard times. When circumstances are not in favor and nothing seems to work out, and person suddenly feels lonely, only then one feels that all this time, he/she was being used.  

Personally saying, I definitely expect my friends to stand by me during my hard times. And I feel that is how the system works. There is nothing wrong about it. However, deep inside I believe that there should be at least single relationship where you don't expect but just give unconditional love. And this is possible if you love yourself unconditionally. When you accept yourself, its easy to accept others as they are. 

Its quite normal to have expectations because we are all brought up in this way. And we all believe that people will use us in one or other way if we'll keep on giving. But its about our choice. The world will not change a bit, we just need to figure out about our actions and reactions. What others do is there Karma.

Don't mistake this concept with toxic relationships. Your partner is abusing you every now and then or only you are making efforts to carry on, then you must distance yourself at the earliest. Unconditional love never means you take on shit from others. Although one must try to communicate and sort out things, there is a limit to that. This concept simply states that you must not be afraid of giving love without any condition.

And all this starts with self-love. If we won't learn to love ourselves for no reason, how can we give it to others?