MORE THOUGHTS ON "LOVING WHAT IS" WITH BYRON KATIE

In thinking about some of the thoughts presented by Katie during her lecture, I was struck with her comments on love and loving another. She believes that love is our natural condition, our purpose, if you will, as divined by the Universe.

If asked the question, "What is it the people are really looking for?", I feel many would answer it is to love and to be loved.

So...if this is what the Divine Creator wants for us, has sent us here to experience, and...if it is what we want for ourselves...why does it seem to be so difficult?

If love is our purpose, it should bring joy, feel good, complete us. How many times do we hear that "love hurts", that someone is "heartbroken", that love "sucks"? Why can love make us sad?

Expectation. It is our expectation of what we should receive that creates the problem.

If I love you, my feeling for you can create an expectation...a need...you must feel the same way about me. I am "giving" you my love, but I am expecting to "get" something back from you. If this doesn't come to me, or doesn't come wrapped in a package that I am expecting or can recognize, then I start "staying in your your business": does he love me? why doesn't he call me? if he loved me like I love him, he would want to spend more time with me? why doesn't he love me? what's wrong with him? what's wrong with me? is it over? No one will love me.

Now my gift of love is conditional...I will love you, but only if you behave in a certain way that I can recognize as love. And if you don't, I am hurt. Sadness rolls over me. I question myself. I question love. I experience "heartache".

However, if I give you the gift of my love simply because that is my natural state, that is the way I feel about you, it brings me joy to give my love to you...AND I EXPECT NOTHING IN RETURN...I am loving unconditionally.

No sadness can be the result of my loving you because my gift is one without strings attached. I expect nothing from you. I need nothing from you. I want nothing from you. So there can be no disappointment, no hurt, no "love sucks" moment. My love for you brings me joy because it feels good to be able to feel like that for another person. It means I am alive and living in my natural state. It means I am fulfilling my divine purpose. It means that I am loving purely for the bliss it brings to me.

Of course, I want to be with you, share things with you, make love with you. If these things don't occur, it doesn't negate my love for you or the joy I receive from loving you. I am filled with it and there is nothing you can do about it!

When this as the mind-set of love, everything changes.

You have a choice...to love me or not...to love me in a different way than I love you...to love me as you wish.

I am loving. Period.