As most of us, I have been taught to love others, serve others, give selflessly, tirelessly, almost without question. So to suggest that I, and you, should love ourselves, feels kind of wrong. But, that's exactly the problem. It seems that to even suggest that we love ourselves is selfish, evil and just kind of wrong.
Yet, the urgency of the times is calling for free thinking, authentically loving and empowered people who can break through the barriers which have kept us in the sheepfold by a tyrannical master, masquerading as our Lord, but who is anything but Him. Today, True Love is calling all that old teaching into question, lifting the veils on that old, fear-based, robotic, idiot-creating, zombie-making ideology, which we thought was good religion, when in fact, it is the very worst. I, personally think that is where western civilization got stuck. And, I think, we all might agree, that western civilization is stuck.
I realize that I am cutting through a lot of old, unhealthy, dysfunctional programming by which I, and probably most of us, have been brainwashed making us perfect victims, designed to martyr ourselves on the altar to the false Christ, to whom we unwittingly surrender control and allow to use for its own narcissistic needs.
In fact, strange as it may seem, we were taught by our current world view to be psychic fuel for the "dark side," rather than strong, courageous, hearty beings who could discern between those with real need and those who actually are empty, void, of true love, who stalk the landscape of our good souls, stealing our energy, love and goodwill, even lives if you've been giving for a lifetime. So, I will be very careful to be clear so your real SELF can hear me and not feel triggered by the false one, whom we must, oust.
First, who is that "self" whom we must love? I think that's where the distinction has to be made. We may have been taught to surrender our control, our autonomy, our self determination at such a young age that we may not really know our REAL self. If this is the case for you, you may have found yourself in a serving role or career all of your life and have been giving almost by rote all your adult life. Check the joy level on your inner barometer. Do you feel joy in your work? Do you, really?
The ancient wisdom traditions clearly assert that we must know ourselves first and foremost. When we are clear who we are and then love who we know we are, even guard and honor that inner REAL self, then we have the inner power dynamic, the "well" within us, from which to draw love, the real stuff - not that self-seeking, self-gratifying romantic lust-based/driven stuff, that our culture teaches us to seek after, which is actually an illusion of the real thing. And, as long as we seek after the illusion, we are not seeking after the genuine article. While we have been deluded to think it was the real deal, we have been wasting our valuable lives, succumbing to the control of a world gone haywire, steeped so long in a fog of unreality, that we almost don't or can't believe the truth anymore.
Today's Jungian psychologists are calling us back to our real selves, based on the teachings of a man who studied deeply Gnosticism's wisdom. He argued clearly and correctly that we are not to love our false self, the ego, that aspect of our being that controls us with fear, even ridicules, judges, makes us slaves to that illusive "other" who demands the loudest, begs most fervently, even tugging at our heart strings. Its abusive and insidious nature implants within our young souls guilt and shame, those evil twins which rear their nasty, serpentine heads to remind us, in a gasp of firey breath that we are unworthy sinners, deserving only to be abused, claiming, that "If life abuses you, then "good" you deserved it." On it's ideological schematic, we were born bad, are essentially bad, and deserve to be punished.
That inner tyrant, (which some might also call the ego) seeded in us by unhealthy religion, or alcoholic parents, an abusive educational system, a Dickens' mindset that prevailed until .... perhaps still prevails in some school systems and communities, taught us that we were to give selflessly, thinking of others before ourselves and for our allegiance to them, we would be rewarded someday... when, exactly? Oh, when we die? And, then it points, mistakenly, to the Cross suggesting that our Lord would ask this of us. That twisted thinking, sisters and brothers, is what duped us all, making us slaves to the system. Basically, we were too young and innocent to take back the reigns of our young minds, and became perfect victims.
And, perhaps, on some level, in some other universe of thought, that may be true but without true love for ourselves, we cannot give. We were all being taught to give what we did not yet have. We had nothing to give and no pool known to us, within us, from which to draw the love that "loving your neighbor" requires. So, we became duty-bound, rather than freely love-giving, and as such, slaves to those who ruled us the harshest.
Unfortunately, eventually some of us - in a stroke of sincere well-meaning contrition - may have become like them. In our complicity with our parents, teachers, we endorsed and supported an entire cultural system based on a crime and punishment worldview, rather than an unconditionally loving, accepting, allowing, evolving through nurture, patience and peace worldview.
Today, we MUST shift out of the old regime into a new one. The Spirit is calling us back to Ourselves, our TRUE self, where, and only where, the Spirit can whisper and soothe, comfort our world-weary, wounded souls. The Spirit will comfort us, and teach us its wisdom and the combination will breathe a new life into us and restore us to our original design, renew our REAL SELF. Then, we will be able to say that we know ourself and love ourself, and with that firm foundation, that clear knowing and loving at the core of our being, then we can love without needing, wanting or even considering any kind of pay back.
Sadly, there are many wolves among us, those who would compel us to do things in the name of Christ, give until it hurts, do this or that for the poor, marginalized, oppressed, etc. and take our money, our time, our love, our very lives, while masquerading as Real, when in fact, they are only narcisstic parasites, disguised as "saviors" to trick out of us the psychic fuel for their ego, their false self, by being acknowledged, admired for selflessly giving when in truth, they have a secret agenda. Since they cannot love themselves, because they do not know the Holy Spirt, they live off the love they receive in our admiration, accolades and/or applause. They are stealing from our real pools of love, and if we are not wise, my friends, we will and too often do, fall for their tricks, believing we are good to give to them, when we are really more like those poor cattle in the factory farms, being slaughtered daily.
So, as you seek to love yourself and truly want to love your neighbor, seek first the Holy Spirit, the still small voice deep within you, to whom you can call for help, for wisdom, for guidance, for love. Be patient, you have a lot of layers of false programming to cut through yourself - as I did and still do - but I promise you, the Holy Spirit never fails you. Listen to its urgings, run if you must, leave where you are, if you sense something isn't right in your giving. Be brave, young warriors of the Spirit, as those of us who must carry the sword of the Spirit to beat into plowshares our world now rampant with false saviors who are leading us to destruction.
No comments:
Post a Comment