Unless you love yourself you cannot love anybody, it is impossible, because a man who is not in love with himself cannot be in love with anybody. If you are in love with yourself, only then can your overflowing love reach somebody.
A man who has not loved himself will hate himself, and if you yourself hate yourself, how can you love anybody? You will hate others also. You can only pretend. And when you cannot love yourself, how do you expect others to love you? Everyone is condemned in his own eyes. The whole moralistic teaching gives you only one thing: techniques of self condemnation -- how to condemn yourself, how you are bad, a criminal, guilty, a sinner.
Christianity says that your being a sinner is not a question of what you do/ you are born a sinner. It is not a question of whether you do some sin or not; no, you are a born sinner. Man is born in sin. Adam, the first man, committed the sin, and you are descendants. The sin has been committed, nothing can be done. Now it cannot be undone, and you are born into sin -- Adam's sin.
If you are born in sin, how can you love yourself? If your very being is guilt, how can you love yourself? And if you cannot love yourself, you cannot love anybody. The love must happen at home first -- you are the home -- and only when it overflows can it reach to others. And when it overflows, it overflows into your acts, into whatsoever you do. Whether you paint or make a shoe or anything -- just cleaning the street -- whatsoever you do, if you are in deep love, if you are in deep love with yourself, it flows into everything you do. It flows even when you are not doing anything. It goes on flowing, it becomes your very existence, and then nothing is boring.
No comments:
Post a Comment