Imagine Loving Thy Neighbor as Thyself

This is the time of year when many remember One who loved his neighbors as himself and died for them. I thought that the following piece that will shortly appear in my new book, Gazing at the Lighthouse: Reflections on the Loving Life might be of interest, and I offer it with love.

We are urged to love our neighbors as ourselves, and it is a disaster for the neighbors. In fact, most of us hardly know our neighbors and probably don’t like them, never mind love them. No big surprise, because many of us are also unfamiliar with ourselves. Loving ourselves is something that we have been lead to believe is weak or self-indulgent or narcissistic, regardless of the fact that Narcissus killed himself because he discovered that he was unable to love himself.

What if we really loved ourselves and then acted in the same manner towards those around us! Imagine waking up and saying to ourselves, “Good morning! How glad I am to see you!” Imagine being our own best friend, someone we can trust to whom we can take our concerns and worries without fear of judgment. Imagine being comfortable with solitude yet relishing connectedness!

Loving ourselves is giving voice to our feminine Soul nature. In our increasingly masculine world, the feminine within men is often unfamiliar. If as men we love ourselves or love other men, then we imagine we must be gay, regardless of the fact that sexual preference has little or nothing to do with love.

If we love ourselves, we might believe this to be a statement that we prefer self-love to a sexual relationship with another, regardless of the fact that masturbation and sexual relationships may have nothing to do with love: they may be more akin to scratching an itch than being expressions of love. If we feel love towards a woman other than our wife, that love is often seen as off limits because coveting our neighbor’s wife is taboo, and it must mean that we want sex, regardless of the fact that we can love ourselves and others without sexual activity. So men are often lonely and out of touch with their feminine nature. They may only allow themselves sports talk, backslapping, and a variety of addictions and protective habits with men and flirtatious but not deeply penetrating exchanges with women.

For women and for men, loving ourselves is the best preparation for unconditionally loving others. Many women who have little love for themselves dedicate their lives to filling the feminine void in men. Filling the emptiness of another is impossible, as broken marriages and other relationships tell us, and neither the woman nor the man is satisfied once the bloom of sex is diminished.

So let’s imagine loving ourselves. We will need to practice forgiveness; we will need to practice letting go of the doubts, judgments, and limitless ways in which we torture ourselves for not being someone else. Let’s look in the mirror and love what we see. Let’s meditate lovingly on ourselves, and when we feel fulfilled, the love will spill over and nourish others.

Michael Murphy