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