Love yourself and Watch

Love Yourself and Watch - The Dhammapada To love yourself is the first step to developing spiritually. We have been told to love others but not to love ourselves. This is a very harmful piece of advice and we will get into trouble if we attempt to follow it. We have been told that if we love ourselves we will develop a big ego, become a narcissist and so forth. However the exact opposite is true. Watch the do-gooders, the people who serve society, the politicians, the missionaries, and the social workers. You will observe that they have the biggest egos of all. They will tell themselves that they do not love themselves but love humanity. Their egos will be nourished and they will develop big egos. In fact unless these servants of humanity love themselves their love for humanity will only be an ego trip and they will do harm instead of good. Osho Rajneesh says that it is only the person who loves himself who can love others. Just as you respect yourself you will find yourself respecting others. Just as you meet your own needs you will find yourself understanding the needs of others. Osho compares loving yourself with a pebble being thrown into a lake. The ripples caused by the pebble will at first arise close to the pebble. It is only later that the ripples spread out and reach the shores of the lake. If you prevent the ripples from arising close to the pebble naturally they will also not reach to the shore. In a similar manner unless you love yourself you will not be able to love others. Another benefit to loving yourself is that you will be able to meditate. You will be able to be alone with yourself only if you love yourself. A person who hates himself will seek all manner of distractions because he will not be able to stand his own company. He will seek out friends to socialize with, go to a movie, or switch on the tube