self-love and divine-love compatible?? if positive self-love...?

Question

We're often told that we need to love ourselves first in order to be able to love others.
By loving ourselves we acknowledge our faults and virtues, then we are able to recognize them in others and acceptance is easier and some sort of divine love is more possible in this way.
Now, divine love is understood as the perfect love, the one that understands and accepts unconditionally, that forgives everything and expects nothing...the highest limit of love.
Some people say that the "rule" of -love your brother as yourself- can be taken to love others unconditionally as we usually love ourselves; to understand others as you understand yourself, to give the best to others as you give the best to yourself...is this the way we can match these 2 opposite concepts????? until now, this is the only one it makes sense to me....

I hope you can share your thoughts and experiences in order to achieve (if possible) a more congruent idea about this apparently opposite concepts...

In summary, I'm totally CONFUSED!!!

Answer 1

Love your brother as yourself- does not mean to love others unconditionally as we usually love ourselves.



As yourself, means as a part of your self, as a part of what you are. It is a reference to the oneness that Jesus and the other great masters often spoke of.



A long time ago I thought that love was something that you reserved for some special set of people that you had judged worthy of it.



After a while I got to thinking about what Jesus had said about turning the other cheek and loving our neighbor I put the two together and realized that he had made no exceptions in these statements. It became obvious to me that he intended that we exclude no one from the love that we are supposed to be giving. I started thinking about my idea of love and suddenly realized that I had not been loving anyone at all. I had simply been judging everyone and every thing.



Judging someone worthy of love is not love, it is only judgment. I actually started to cry when I realized this. I saw just how much of my life I had wasted being judgmental, thinking of myself as a Christian, when I was actually doing just the opposite of what Jesus had asked us to do.



I thought about the verse judge not lest ye be judged, and I understood it for the first time.



I realized that I have a lot of catching up to do. So many opportunities were wasted. I now try to apply the love that I have for the world in a universal way like Jesus asks us to do.



If I start to feel afraid and think that I see someone that I should not love because of something I have thought or heard I try to catch my mistake as soon as possible. I tell myself that I have forgot the truth and have fallen for the same old trick that had cost me so many opportunities to be loving in the past. The horror of this realization is often all that is necessary to bring me back to my senses and make me drop the judgmental nonsense I was thinking.



I still have a lot to learn about love, but at least I’m making progress.



Love and blessings



Your brother

Don

Answer 2

Yes.



Scarcity thinking vs Abundance thinking



It is not about who we love BUT our capacity and ability to love. It is a state of mind independent of the presence or absence of the persons being loved.



Love is not rationed. A scarcity thinker would hold back so they end up putting their guard up and slowly mentally rot from the inside. But they don't know what is missing, so they seek something external (anything!) they THINK would make them happy. Only to have squandered their life and time away.



I put love on a scale of 1 - 10.



The lowest: Hating to the point of taking a life.

The highest: Loving to the point of Self-sacrifice (the readiness to do so)...there is an unfathomable power and clarity at this point.



We should all be at #9 with others, loving them as we love ourselves. But, #10 is reserved ONLY for that ONE greater Ideal we stand for (doing the right thing and standing up for something permanent and greater. Hypocrisy is the #1 killer of self-confidence; how can anyone trust themselves to do anything or believe things will be fine when they can't even trust themselves to do what they say they are all about?).

Answer 3

Some simple concepts that work for me:



Soul exists because God loves it. You are Soul. I am Soul. I see self love as loving the Divine within myself, loving myself as Soul. I see Divine Love as loving the Divine in you, and indeed in all the universe. Same thing, really.



Giving Divine Love does NOT mean allowing others to walk all over my rights. I can set my own personal boundaries of what I will accept, loving myself as Soul, while at the same time, communicating those boundaries with goodwill, respecting you as Soul.



There are two kinds of love, goodwill (charity, or what Christians call agape) and warm love, a more personal love. I'm careful to use discrimination in giving my warm love only to those who will not abuse that love. I give goodwill to all.



A book that really helps to clarify it for me is "Love, the Keystone of Life" by Harold Klemp. Here's a quote from it, p 2 "There is a respect that we must give each other as Soul, recognizing the uniqueness of the other as a spark of God."

Answer 4

without divine love of the creator, we cannot learn to love ourselves fully. without self love (which IS divine) we cannot fully love others. it's a snowball rolling downhill thing. Love God first, then ourselves (because we are his beautiful creation) then others. you cannot truly, fully love someone else when you harbor negative feelings about yourself. and in harboring negative feelings about yourself, you are condemning God's creation.



when you love yourself, you dont need someone else to make you whole, which gives you the freedom to love completely and unconditionally. without fear. all that is not love is FEAR.



love is a mystery. the more we give, the more we have, the more we love God, the more we love ourselves and then the more we love others. it is the only force which does not have an equal and opposite reaction, it only builds more of itself. that is way cool

Answer 5

Good news, Cancer and Pisces! As Sun Signs go… you and your lover share in the same basic core Element. This traditionally beneficial placement means the two of you share in many of the same styles of thinking, communicating, relating, and feeling. Sharing the same Element will help out a lot in the two of you truly having a mutual empathy and mutual understanding of the other person's needs. Of course, having this same element doesn't guarantee smooth sailing all the time - because it also means the two of you understand each other well enough to effectively "push each other's buttons." Resist the temptation whenever possible.

Answer 6

I cannot see a contradiction here - your two ideas seem to me to be saying the same thing in slightly different ways. We love ourselves by seeing and accepting who we are with our good and bad points.

Divine love accepts us as we are with our good and bad points. To try to be worthy of this we should therefore love others with their good and bad points, and this is made easier by recognising similar ones in ourselves. This is one of the main themes of the Gospels.

Answer 7

All love has reference to God.

What the all Good and Loving God created is ipso facto good and loving as it was intended to exist.



St Augustine solved your problem by his discussion of the ordering of love. The only evil is to have your loves disordered.

Augustine says the "order of love" (ordo amoris) is the "brief and true definition of virtue.

St Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it. Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought.

Answer 8

Identical Look in your mirror occasionally to view perfection HE/HER created

Answer 9

Love of Self is Divine Love. Love of self or ego is not what is meant........