TRUE SELF LOVE

True self love is a love of self whereby we will and seek our own true good, both spiritual and temporal? It is a love guided by right reason and divine faith.

In practice, to love ourselves means above all to combat our natural egoism which tends to impoverish our nature, and which seeks self-satisfaction through every kind of pleasure accomplished by any kind of means. It is a life lived with no guiding principle except the fulfillment of the desire of the moment.

We must love ourselves before we can reach out in love to others.

We must love others before we can "climb the steps" to perfect love of God.

But we must love God first if we are to truly love ourselves.

Spiritual Love is pure and unveiled. It is always present, regardless of whether or not we are in a relationship. It is in our own heart. We must find this love in the self and see that beauty is created by love.

In the Buddhist tradition, which has produced countless outstandingly generous and selfless individuals, there is an emphasis on developing love for our self as an indispensable prerequisite for loving others. Buddhists believe that if one does not love himself, then it is hard, if not impossible, to love other people.

In the Christian tradition the injunction is also to “love others as we love our self,” implying that we ought to love not just others but ourselves as well. In fact the assumption in saying that we should love others as ourselves is that we already do love ourselves and that we need to extend that love to others.

Buddha’s teaching on love states, just as blood nourishes the heart which keeps it flowing, so love nourishes spiritual freedom and is, in turn, kept flowing by it. The connection is so strong that Buddhism, often known as a Path of Freedom, could equally be called a religion of love. Perhaps this is what he had in mind when the Dalai Lama said his religion is kindness. For the Buddha, love is one of the paths to full spiritual liberation.

If we call Buddhism a path of love we need to be clear what we mean by love, or more precisely, what forms of love we are including.

Freedom is the guide, the measure, and the ultimate goal of all things. Buddhist love includes those forms of love that are characterized by freedom.

Love that involves clinging, lust, confusion, neediness, fear, or grasping to self would, in Buddhist terms, be seen as expressions of bondage and limitation.

Loving, kindness, compassion, joy, and a particular form of calmness and peace are the four kinds of love taught and encouraged in classic Buddhist teachings. None of these are uniquely Buddhist; they are four qualities that reside within the heart everyone, at least as potentials.

Teachings about the four forms of love existed in India prior to the Buddha; they were elements common to the Indian spiritual world which Buddha included within his system of practice.

While Buddhism cannot exist without love, it may be helpful to realize that love can exist happily apart from Buddhism.

Learning the ways of these four loves does not require one to become a Buddhist. It only requires a willingness to develop innate capacities.

In their most developed forms, the four types of love can each become a boundless radiance glowing from us. As such, love may flow from us equally toward all beings or it can glow freely without needing to be directed to anyone. When we feel boundless love without any particular object in mind, this is a form of great liberation.

People have experienced great love while in meditation, only to have it disappear quickly outside of meditation. It can be easy to love all beings in the abstract, but it can be a great challenge to do so when we have to live with them. It is one thing to love and another to express that love in daily life.

One of the most rewarding spiritual practices is to cultivate the ability to bring love into all aspects of our life and to all people we encounter. This entails learning how to express love while we speak with others, are in conflict with others, and are living with others. While this can be a daunting task, it begins with having the intention to do so.

Let us awaken the love in us and share it as a great blessing with all.