There is no hell if God is love and love is unconditional. And love must be unconditional or it is not truly love. If your love comes with conditions, then what you are expressing is not love.
To love unconditionally, we must accept others as they are, for who they are. And not just some others, all others. If we limit who we love, we are placing a condition on our love. That is not love. Unconditional love is boundless.
Hafez captured this idea beautifully:
And still after all this time. The sun never says to the earth, “You owe
me.” Look what happens with a love like that, it lights the whole sky.
But to be able to accept others as they are, for who they are, we must accept ourselves, as we are, for who we are. And how many of us are really comfortable with that? How much time do we spend shaping an image or persona that we present to the world? And how many different ones are we trying to simultaneously maintain?
Not always easy answers to our questions. Must life be this complex? Love is unconditional. It is a simple statement. And it is a concept that I know and feel, at the core of my being, to be true.
Is it easy? Probably not. But the beauty of life is every moment presents us with a chance to begin again.
The better question is does this idea resonate deep inside of me and if I begin the practice of loving unconditionally, will I come closer to knowing the divine spirit that lies deep within?
For me, there is only one answer to that question. So now the practice begins.
Be well, live well.
Namaste
sandylikebeach 
I still find that my love has many conditions. But I also find that I can love smaller conditions. It’s a start.
It’s a beautiful start. I am still refining that ability to love unconditionally, thus the need for practice. And like you, I find that once I become aware of the conditions I’m attaching to my love, it becomes easier to let go of whatever my attachment to that condition is.
In truth, a lot of my “conditions” stems from my need to always be right.
Next step, understanding why you feel that you must have that need. And do it with reason and logic not emotion. That leaving emotion part out of the equation is difficult for me. But emotion brings attachment and attachments can hold us back.
To love the unlovable does not make sense to me, I’m afraid. Love requires a commitment of time and effort, both of which are better spent on those deserving of it – whose need for it is no less than that of the despicable.
If there are terms, conditions, limits or some other criteria attached to it, then it is not love. It may be affection or attachment or jealousy, but it is not love. Love, by its very nature, is unconditional.
Of course, what makes life so interesting on this planet is that everyone views the world a little differently.
Indeed they do – and those taking the view from a purely rational perspective find that unconditional love cannot exist unless the one expressing their love is prepared to love utterly revolting aspects in the subject. If they do that, then they themselves become revolting. If they love the subject but not those aspects, then it is not unconditional. Thus the concept, no matter how uplifting it may seem, is flawed.
May your Christmas be merry and bright!
Thanks, Karen! I hope yours was a very merry one, too. May the coming year treat you well!