How Do I Love Myself?

Love is not a selfish emotion. Love is unbiased.  If I want to truly love anyone, I must love impartially, beginning with loving myself!

How do I love myself?

I love myself by being neither selfish nor self-centered. I cannot love myself by restricting every living act that I perform to myself alone. In this way I will stifle the life within myself.

I love myself by becoming the center of my existence, though not the circumference. I become conscious of the fact that my existence is a derivative of the Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient God – Love.  The Supreme Power that does not create any negative entity or energy has created me and everyone else. So, when I remain conscious at all times of this identity of myself and continuously hold this view of myself as emanated by the Immaculate One - I love myself.

As I am a part of the pure and divine energy that is, I am incapable of being impure at any time. So, the negative emotions like anger, fear, doubt, jealousy, sin, sickness and death are not any part of my true identity and being. Whenever I find myself drenched with these negative feelings, I love myself by asserting that these are not a part of me. I correct my thoughts, thus my actions get corrected. This correction of thought is, loving myself.

As I continue to love myself, I move closer to my origin - the Divine Source. I am refined and metamorphosed to become transparent. I reflect my creator- Love, to the extent that I holistically become one with the ONE.

Hence, I love myself by consciously viewing myself as a reflection of Love-God and losing my false ego or mortal-self in the process. I become the center, the hub of Love, loving myself so much that the love overflows to everyone who comes into contact with me. In the end in this love-story, only LOVE remains and the false pretentious I, perishes.

LOVE- OUR TRUE IDENTITY

What is our TRUE IDENTITY? This question has perturbed many a moment of peace and bliss in my life! And I am sure it must have often plagued your thoughts as well.

Is my identity defined by my name? Is my identity the aggregate of my physical and mental being - as the others perceive me? Is my identity defined by the many roles I play? Is my identity that of a daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother, writer, entrepreneur, or all these taken together? So, was my identity incomplete when I was not a sister, a wife or a mother? Strangely, I never felt incomplete or lacking in any which way when I was not playing any or all of these roles! So what is my 'True Identity'?

My true identity is that of a seed that has within itself the tree – pure and complete.

 My true identity is the same and reflects that from whom I originate. All creation - living and non-living (so called) - originates from GOD. So, my true identity is Godlike – wholly spiritual. My true identity naturally and continuously follows the God's law of progress. Love a synonym for God, enables me to progress at all times. It keeps at bay the negative emotions of fear, anger, anxiety, depression and even sickness. The presence of Love allows me to grow and fulfill the purpose of my life. Thus, Love is my 'true identity'. Dwelling in unconditional Love that is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, I am the image of my Creator - perfect, pure, pristine and potent. 

Love is the only substance that fulfills the scientific law that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Hence, I continue to receive love (which each of us reflects as His image and likeness) from my dear ones even when they are separated from me, through time and space. I still feel the love of my grandparents enveloping me, even when they have passed on. I still feel the love of my parents surrounding me, although they live physically away from me.

So, the litmus paper test for me to know whether I am able to understand and manifest my true identity of Love is to check my state of living. I am separated from my true identity when I experience anger, fear, hatred or anxiety or any of the non-godlike emotions.  I can then and there, overcome these errors by focusing on Love thereby dwelling in my true and natural identity and live the life of bliss.

 Charity begins at home, so before I project Love to those around me, I have to manifest Love for myself. I have to remember at all times that despite being a drop in the ocean, I carry the ocean within me. As each drop in the ocean projects the traits of the ocean, likewise, we all as His creation, reflect His quality of LOVE – our 'True Identity'.

(P.S.- Next time we shall talk about How to love ourselves?)

Progress- A Perspective on Living Life

When I say, ‘Life is a Work in Progress’ then which Progress or what kind of Progress am I talking about?

I choose to define Progress as natural, as the Law of God. So as a person my natural state is of progress and not stagnation. Since it is natural, progress is present and thriving in every moment. So in every second of my life I am progressing and I cannot stall my progress to a later time. I would then try to commit something unnatural and impossible for anyone to accomplish.

Progress consists of moving closer to being our true self. Progress is the constant effort to dust away the unnatural and man-made rules of living, from our Soul. It is the process of being ONE with our true identity and manifesting it in all the spheres of our life. Only when our life sings with unalloyed and fearless joy of our union with our higher self, are we progressing. Progress occurs when we embrace ourselves truly and completely, do not offer excuses for being ourselves and do not even attempt a patch-up job on ourselves to conform to the standards of others.

A bigger house, a heavier pay-packet, a luxurious life-style and so on, are not the marks of true progress. These things definitely make our life comfortable. But there first has to be LIFE in my life to make a living for it!

Continuing with my analogy from the previous blog- it is natural for a seed to grow into a sapling, then into a plant and finally into a tree. A seed does not stop progressing in the wake of procuring for itself a particular kind of soil, a particular kind of water, a particular kind of sunlight. The seed just grows, following the natural law! The peripherals like soil, water and sunlight become naturally accessible for it.

Similarly, if we follow the Law of God – Progress – towards embracing and living our true identity, the peripherals will accrue to us. Making a living is just that SIMPLE!

(P.S. – We talk about Our True Identity.)

LIFE-A Work in Progress

Life is a journey, a continuous sum total of actions-physical, mental and spiritual.  I feel that the misery in our lives starts manifesting when we begin to view Life as a ‘destination’ instead of a ‘journey’. Life is a flowing river and it has to move-move from one moment to another. In our adamance to pin down Life to a particular moment, we invite disappointment and frustration into our experience of living. Because the particular moment that we want to freeze in our lives has already happened and has led to the next one. So, if we are able to live with fluidity, naturally progressing along the course of our lives, we shall be able to steer clear of disappointments.

 I also feel that the strong urge to continue to live in ‘a particular moment’ and not ‘the present moment’, arises out of our fear for the future. The future is undoubtedly uncertain but not inclement. What may seem like hard labour now, may in retrospect be the steep ascent to a peak unveiling a spellbinding view. So, if we are able to hold on to this feeling of innate good that is constantly unfolding in our lives, life will no longer be a struggle. This is the Truth - life is not a struggle, it is the natural progression from a seed to a sapling to a plant and to the tree.

Another thing that has come to my mind is our habit of postponement of actual living of our life to some uncertain date and time. We feel that we can actually begin to live our life after we have attained a set of materialistic accomplishments. It is as unreal as saying that, ‘I will then start growing towards a height of 5’6” when I reach 5’6” in height.’ So even if we are not anxious about our future but hopeful of a better future, we are still not relishing the roller coaster of our life and also putting ourselves in another spot of a probable uncertainty and disappointment.

So let go of the need to anticipate and control and start living life in the ‘now’ of it and be a witness to each moment of this blissful journey- A Work in Progress.

(P.S.- Next time we shall talk about Progress.)