Learning about love~

Love is said to be the feeling-tone of the universe. It is also called bliss or bliss consciousness. It is our goal, as yogis, to expand our sense of Self to include all beings, all of existence. Union, the meaning of yoga, is this, a visceral recognition of the quantum oneness of all that is.
Our culture doesn't equip us for this. We learn that love is something that is conditional, tempermental and exclusive. We are allowed to love our family members, our pets and our "one true love", and to an extent our friends. There is no allowance to be in love with others, or to care too deeply about our neighbors, strangers, or animals that are considered "useful" for food or other "uses".
This leaves the one Self shattered into bits and pieces. Why can't we love and respect the life of others. Why can't we be extremely generous with neighbors, strangers, or other species without being considered wrong or inappropriate? Why can't we fall in love with everyone we meet, without wanting anything from them? The one Self that is the entire universe, the one Cosmic Consciousness, also called God by many people, is in ALL equally. Omniscient, omnipresent, invisible and everywhere simultaneously, equally in trees, people and animals of all shapes and kinds, rocks, the earth herself.

Our society encourages a disconnected pity more then sympathy. What about empathy? If we take a moment to imagine ourselves in the same situation as the people, animals, or planet, I mean really think for a minute, we can feel a little of what they may feel. How would we change our reactions? Would we stop supporting the exploitation of children for cheap labor in coffee and coccoa fields by supporting fair trade chocolate? Would we purchase only fair trade teas to end the exploitation of women in the tea lands? Would we think again about paying for someone else to slit an animals throat (or worse) for us to eat it? Or change our minds about how acceptable we think wool is when we know that the world's major suppliers rip large areas of flesh off of the sheep without anesthetic?
Part of the course of enlightenment is is shining the light of consciousness to all the dark places within us, making peace with what we find. We also have to shine that light on all of the dark corners of our lives externally, learning the truth behind what we purchase, therefore vote for. We need to know where it came from and where it will go. In this truthfulness and open search for justice, we find an integrity developing. And from there, unconditional love arises, because we can see what others may see and relate to what they feel. We can empathize, see ourselves in them, and them in ourselves.
Some say that unconditional love arises in response to a recognition of the divine in another. We love that holy essence, the universal being. We can be in love with anyone and everyone, for me that means feeling strong, unconditional love for them. But ultimately we recognize that the love is not coming from them or because of them, but in reaction to finding our Self there, the love comes from within us, the other is a mirror of the Divine source and essential substrate of the entire universe: one ecstatic, fluid ocean of pure conscious love-bliss, of which we are all a drop.