Desire
_I: I went to bed thinking about unconditionality, and whether I'm really unconditional or not. In a way, I think it is very difficult for a human to be unconditional, because we are born and nurtured from a totally conditioned environment. Basically, we are the result of conditions, and no matter how hard we try, our being will always have the need for something, which will be conditioned.
_AM: The main condition of all is not emotional... It is to seek balance to spend the least amount of energy possible. Yesterday you learned something about it... In your molecular biology class.
_I: Ah, yes, basically all of life is organized with the objective of sparing the greatest amount of energy: resting. That is, this happens at the atomic level, where an atom arranges its particles, both neutrons, protons and electrons, in a harmonious way in which it does not need much force to move, and when it joins another atom forming a bond, the atom with a greater negative charge, that is, with a greater number of electrons, it will take or share the electrons of the other atom, and this is how the molecules are arranged, trying to occupy all the spaces. The most comfortable form that uses the least energy is the Tetrahedron structure. That is why the bases of life, such as Water and Carbon, are arranged in this way, so they have greater rest.
_AM: So not only do you seek comfort, but even each of your atoms in your body and around you do so.
_I: Yes, in a way, in order to find that order and settle comfortably, atoms share electrons, forming molecular structures. Thus, if one has 7 electrons and feels unbalanced, another atom with 3 electrons will give him the extra one, thus leaving two atoms with 8 and 2 electrons respectively. Balance.
_AM: Give and Receive. This fundamental exchange of nature is conditioned.
_I: To what?
_AM: To the lack of something or the surplus of something. It is conditioned to the search for balance. Even atoms know that to find balance, one has to give something to the other or be open to receiving something from the other. The imbalance is found when this exchange is forced, breaking atoms and leaving loose protons lying around with nothing... Alone.
I ah! Yes, that's what I learned. An atom needs at least one proton and one electron, the proton with a positive charge and the electron with a negative charge. The latter rotates around the proton like a planet around the Sun. Hydrogen, for example, has a proton and an electron, and it is normal for it to be joined to other atoms since it only has a single thing to give. But if the other atom, instead of sharing, rips it off, the proton is left alone...
_AM: And what would happen?
_I: Well, the greater the amount of lost protons, the more acidic the compound becomes. And the more acidic it becomes, the more harmful it is to life, causing death. Tina explained to me that this is what is called the “pH” of a compound, food or cell.
_AM: Now then... Think that the Hydrogen atom and the Carbon atom are people, and we will call them María and José. María has a beautiful sensitive heart, and an attribute that is her voice, she has a beautiful voice and perfect eloquence when communicating (1 electron). When José heard her speak, he immediately fell in love with her. Because José does not have a powerful voice, but he does have other attributes, which attract María. José is intelligent, strong, protective, enterprising, studious and a good reader (6 electrons), but he has a very conflictive heart, because he does not find what he really wants in life. María sees in José someone who can protect her sensitive heart, and who gives interesting content to her ability to communicate. And José sees in María that ability to share eloquently, something that he needs, since everything he knows is hidden behind his complexes, shyness and disorganization. Thus, separately, they feel lost, desperate in a stressful search. Until, suddenly, the spark occurs, and they fall in love, they feel the attraction of their attributes, and the potentials and needs of each one come together to create Life. From their union, a project or a child will emerge, the basis of organic life, and they will encourage everyone else to also fall in love, creating an enormous life-creating society. This story is the same, both for two humans and for two atoms. They both have something to give and something they need, and when those needs are found, they come together. Now... This is not always the case. It may happen that, instead of José falling in love with María and seeking to join her, he simply chooses to take advantage of her ability and use it for her benefit. Thus taking her ability to communicate, making it his own Ego, and abandoning the sensitive heart of María, who, devastated, sees herself alone and without a voice, entering into a deep depression that leads her to live a toxic life.
_I: So when we talk about toxic couples or relationships, it is the same as talking about atoms that steal capacities, electrons stealing potentials from each other, using others, destroying them to the point that the “pH” goes through the roof, acidifying the relationship, the environment.
_AM: People are just an agglomeration of atoms… Why would they act differently? By becoming more complex, we have converted the energy of electrons into emotion, we have converted the positive and negative charges of particles into potentials and art, we have converted the exchange of electrons between molecules into social economy and romanticism. We have converted the concept of the molecular chain into society, we have transformed atomic balance into ethics and morality, we have converted the search for electrons into the search for happiness and stability, and we have converted the atomic charge into needs and wills. Thus, we call the union between atoms love.
_I: Wow… It's as incredible as it is frivolous to see it like that…
_AM: It is not frivolous, at all, that is an emotional and romantic vision from the paternalistic or matriarchal human perspective. In reality, it is beautiful, it is the beauty that unites the logic of the micro and macro cosmos. What I am going for with this explanation is that from the basis of life, in the atoms and their particles, the conditions exist. It is not a human invention, it is a process of nature. We all look for something in others that we don't have, and we all have something that others need. Here, the unconscious will seek to appropriate what it seeks and that is in others, while the conscious will seek to share in balance, respecting that what the other gives me is a loan, not property. Beings, when falling in love, seek to appropriate the other, because they consider that the potential that the other possesses is what completes them: “without the other I am nothing”, do you remember how we talked about that?
_I: Yes…
_AM: And if the lack of the other implies a void in me, then when he or she disappears I will look for things that fill that void he or she has left. And there are several ways. The normal thing is to look for other Hydrogen atoms…
_I: What would that be like?
_AM: Have you not noticed that when a person leaves a relationship with someone, they usually look for people very similar to the previous one to relate to?
_I: Ah yes, the typical thing of repeating the same story, over and over again with the same characters...
_AM: Well, here you have a simpler answer for how “karma” works. The answer is that you are an atom with 6 negative charges (attributes), united with 4 hydrogen atoms (4 very dear individuals in your life), who give you 4 more attributes, but one of them leaves, and that void makes you search for someone similar to take his place. This is a constant chain in life.
_I: But... Seen this way, we all depend on each other, we are all conditioned to others.
_AM: And would you want?
_I: I don't know... To be myself... To be free...
_AM: Of what?
_I: Of the condition... Of depending on others...
_AM: And why do you depend?
_I: Because of what you just said... I mean... The need of the other, what makes me love the other, is it just a matter of filling spaces? What good is then all that we talk and learn about being ourselves, about finding inner potential...?
_AM: Tell me... Can a carbon atom that is alone create Life?
_I: No…
_AM: So... You being alone, do you think you'll get anywhere?
_I: No… I need all the potentials of life…
_AM: Because there's something you must understand and discern here. I ask, is the freedom you seek and the potential for your development based on whose theories? Is your vision of spirituality perhaps based on the freedom ideals of the French Revolution? Or are they more akin to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave"? Or maybe they are related to Adam Smith and his capitalist economic freedom? Are you anthropocentric like Ptolemy or heliocentric like Copernicus?
_I: Phew, what questions... I don't know. I mean, now that you put it that way, of course, we tend to base spirituality on human perspectives, on views of historical events. When we talk about being free or discovering inner power, we inevitably still think of ourselves as individuals... But...
_AM: ...But you are and you aren't at the same time. Tell me... When you see water, do you see each of its atoms? Do you count the hydrogens and oxygens? Or do you simply say: Water?
_I: Water...
_AM: Just as when you see the Earth, you say "Humanity," and you don't start mentioning the 8 billion people, right? Because you recognize that humans are a single being, and individuals are its atoms, with their needs, with their connections to each other, functioning harmoniously and organically, all seeking to find balance between what they have and what they need. You will then understand that the great aspirations of humanity come from seeing themselves as separate, from believing themselves to be separate individuals. In reality, it's not like that. For each atom to have what another needs doesn't make them live separate lives, but it does recognize that no matter where they are in the world, those other parts are within the whole, even if they're not with me, they are part of me. When we talk about recognizing potential, we're not talking about every human having all the potential to do everything by themselves, recognizing potential is understanding and accepting what I have and what I lack, and knowing that another, that is, another part of my great being, has what I need. And if I share the potential of what I am, sooner or later that other atom will come to me, but if I hide in not recognizing what I am capable of, those other parts will never see me.
_I: So, not thinking that each individual is all-powerful, but seeing ourselves as a collective organism where each one has something to contribute, therein lies our potential, that's leveraging who I am. And if I do that, I discover the ability to create as a collective, as what we all are in unity.
_AM: That's the concept of the interconnectedness of the I Am. It's not the individual, it's the potential of each individual united to the whole. Hence, there are conditions, because nothing or no one can do this alone. You yourself couldn't do this alone; you need as many people as possible to achieve it, because each of the people who listens to you and feels you, has their own particular history and potential, which is activated by joining yours.
_I: And what about those who feel that emptiness?
_AM: Another way of dealing with that void that you often have in humanity is trying to fill it with objects instead of people, and this happens when your being interprets itself as incapable of giving or receiving anything, when it loses the capacity for connectivity, which we call "Love" and becomes lack of self-love. The devaluation of potentials, electrons, leads your atom to join inorganic chains, as in the case of a Hydrogen desperately seeking to fill that void in Carbon by joining an Oxygen atom, thus creating an endless chain of inorganic matter called: Alcohol. How many people turn to alcohol during a love crisis? Doesn't this response seem very atomic to you? Basic. Addictions in general are caused by a lack of interconnectedness, by believing that they are not capable of giving more of themselves to others or receiving, so they add a new tool to the equation, which destroys life. Addiction to drugs, to food, to shopping, all of this seeks to fill a void. Instead of exalting what is possessed, the focus is on what is lacking. If you shine in what little you have, what you need will come to you. Law of Attraction. It's not about wishing, it's about Being.
_I: That lack of love is what damages our Being, which in our body, is the Plexus, that is, the Pancreas.
_AM: Of course... Any illness in the Pancreas refers to a lack of love, or of the ability to nourish oneself, of giving value to one's own, of being unable to connect with others. Pancreatitis, Pancreatic Cancer, Diabetes. All of them, in their variants, speak of needs and deficiencies. Because it's the Pancreas that generates glucose, the fundamental basis of the body's nutrition, of making it feel complete, vital, with resources to act and be oneself.
_I: I remember being told once that people with depression or lack of love tend to seek eating a lot of chocolate, very sweet things, because they lack "sweetness" in their lives, love.
_AM: Like your grandfather...
_I: Yes, the lack of love from his family led him to emptiness from childhood, making him diabetic. Something hereditary, when it comes to a family that has experienced lack of love generation after generation.
_AM: And how do you deal with it?
_I: Well... Lots of chocolate, really... Hehe. Last night when I was thinking about the void, I realized that to that person I love so much, I love them because they really had something that no one else managed to, fill that empty part in me. In my heart, that force that made me feel complete. Like two atoms, of hydrogen and carbon, that can create life. But when that other atom passed by and snatched it away, the absence of its electron left in me that void, which is the only one I still can't fill.
_AM: You don't have to fill it.
_I: But... Isn't it the chain?
_AM: Wanting is the problem.
_I: In what sense?
_AM: When you feel love and feel complete, everything is in balance, like atoms, particles relax spending the least amount of energy possible. That resonant stability is called Harmony. And when you lose a part, dissonance is created, therefore, Chaos. Thus, fullness becomes need, and Love becomes Want. "I want to feel what I felt," "I want him/her." "I want to fulfill my mission/purpose." "I want to be free"... Etc. And wanting leads us to accept anything that comes our way to fill the void, so wanting becomes an addiction. The search to cover the void doesn't let us see what's around it. Our potentials. All beings have a void inside, the mistake is wanting to fill it. The void is shared, not filled. The void is what reminds us that we are part of a whole, it's what connects us with our capacities, it's what allows us to feel Love. If our being were full, complete, we could never know more, discover more, walk the path, discovery. Do you understand why he showed you the greatest fullness and the greatest void? Not for you to fill it with a narcissistic love we call "love yourself" in his absence, but for you to discover that you can do much more, feel much more, expand, grow, expand and love much more than you think. Self-love is discovered in the awareness of what I am capable of from my void. We are all connected, no one leaves or disappears, they just move somewhere else, and by looking for them, you find more of yourself capabilities. Just as the absence of your father in your life was the gift that connected you to the Universe and the Freedom of Being, the absence of this Love of your life is the greatest gift to find Love in Everything.
_I: ...I'm speechless...
_AM: Finally... A little silence is good.
_I: ...
_AM: ...
_I: ...So... What is Unconditionality?
_AM: Do you know this feeling when you search for information on a topic on the internet and suddenly there are 150,372 articles and pages, of which you read 7 or 8 and you're already saturated with information?
_I: Yes, the malady of this time, over-information...
_AM: When you see that there are millions of perspectives on a single topic, you realize that there's no one truth, but millions of different views. So, you stop looking for the truth, and you start nourishing yourself with everyone's perspectives to create that truth. Instead of looking for the love of your life, you find love in several throughout your life. Instead of buying an encyclopedia, you go to the library to read different books. Instead of studying a university career, you travel taking courses around the world. You stop looking for a Truth because you recognize that no one is right, but everyone can nourish that truth, and enrich our vision of it.
_I: I stop expecting one person to fill my voids, and I nourish myself with what others have to offer me and what I have to give them...
_AM: ...At that moment, you free yourself from the concept of condition, and you become unconditional. Not when you eliminate conditions, but when you accept all without being chained to any. Therefore, the void that many feel is the key to Unconditionality, because without void, you wouldn't be free in the search for more perspectives.
_I: And they all help me find myself... To discover the potential I have to share... Not for me alone, but for the I Am that I am in the Everything.
_AM: That, my friend, is the Unconditional Love of the I Am.
_I: Thank you for this...
_AM: Thank you for being. Enjoy the void, and don't fear to Love. Remember, chocolate isn't for every day...
_I: Yes... I know...
_AM: Keep loving what you love, simply let go of wanting it.
_I: I love it, and thus, I love myself. In freedom... I don't need love, because I Am Love...