My definition of unconditional love = unconditional forgiveness + unconditional compassion.
I think this is how parents love their babies; unconditionally. I see no reason to dilute it for my neighbours.
Someone somewhere said: "Try not to confuse attachment with love. Attachment is about fear and dependency, and has more to do with love of self than love of another. Love without attachment is the purest of love, because it isn't about what others can give you because you're empty. It is about what you can give others because you're full."
I can only speak for myself. I always craved love from others; I even valued myself by how much I perceived others loved me. It was akin to determining my value as a person against Facebook likes or followers but with a far more abstract measuring system.
Since then I have come into contact with unconditional Love, that is unconditional forgiveness and compassion. I was feeling extreme anger and fear one particular day and I was angry at a particular group of people. I wanted revenge, I wanted genocide. I had my own final solution - Hitler style. I wanted war in order to foster peace in the world. I became the enemy of all life. I had the desire but I didn't have the opportunity or ability to bring about the death to my perceived enemies. In legal terms I had the mens rea.
Mens rea may be defined as the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing that constitutes part of a crime, as opposed to the action or conduct of the accused.
So I was an act away from becoming a certified mass murderer. It became clear to me that I was was in all honesty capable of and willing to be Guilty and that I was inspired by fear and anger. I was terrified of who I had become and I desired to be Innocent.
I remembered everything; I suddenly had access to all my earliest feelings of fear, anger and hate. I could see how my whole life had been guided by fear, starting with the fear of death.
In the presence of Love, I sought and accepted the unconditional forgiveness and compassion available to me. All the fear ceased, all of it. All the fears I had accumulated in my life were up for grabs. Through fear of being unloved, I kept secrets from everybody, indiscriminately, because I feared being unloved. Secrets of sexual deviance; misogyny, bigotry (of all kinds), involvement with drugs; feuds, jealousy, anger; selfishness, factionalism, envy; alcoholism, polyamory and things like these... not to mention, of course, the whole mens rea for genocide.
In the presence of Love all the fear dissipated. I came clean to Love and myself. Love forgave me and I forgave myself. There was unconditional compassion for me and I felt it for myself too. Once I had these things, they were available for everyone through me. I stopped being afraid of falling out of favour with the world because I have Love in my life.
