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THE
IMPORTANCE OF ONESELF
Psychointegration
Session:
21/Aug/2007
By Jorge
Raul Olguin.
On one
hand we say that we all are equal before the Creator. On the other hand, we say
that we are not equal. Some of us are more advanced than others, I do not speak
about economic issues, I’m not talking about race or skin color, I’m not saying
if we are tall or short, fat or thin... I speak about
attitudes.
All
right, I would go for the second option, we are not equal. However, it’s true
that we all are created by a supreme Being. And it is true that we are unique.
Unique because there are not two beings similar to each other. Not even if we
were hypothetically cloned, because we would be a simple copy and that clone
would have a different soul, then we would not be the
same.
Why the
importance of being oneself? The importance of being oneself exists because we
are truly unique, for better or worse. We can have our engrams, hypnotic
implants that deprecate us. We can have roles of ego that make us believe that
we are absolutely better or insignificant or fearful to love others. The roles
of ego that obviously manipulate us if we are prey to them, we can feel quite
well and later on we can feel totally dejected. The ego is absolutely
manipulative and people can become manipulative because of the
ego.
The same
happens to the engrams, sometimes we have engramic implants that incapacitate us
to achieve goals. We are conditioned and we are tied up to accomplish things.
However, we must pay attention to our importance, because we all are important
.
I repeat
for the third or fourth time what I said a while ago... When Jesus said: "Love
your neighbor as yourself" it has a double meaning. Not a double-talk because
two opposite things are not unified, but a double sense for what comes
next: Let’s analize the sentence: "Love
your neighbor as yourself." The second part of the sentence is "as yourself ."
So you will have to love yourself first and then you can love your neighbor. So,
Jesus himself is saying "Love yourself , because otherwise you cannot love your
neighbor."
Not many
people understand this sentence. Most of the people who listen: "Love your
neighbor as yourself" are thinking about their neighbors and it’s fine, it's
perfect, because it has to be like that. This is the first step to service, to
give your love to others.
But our
fuel to do that, our impulse is to love ourselves first. And this has nothing to
do with self-centeredness, it has to do with selfishness, which is a very
misunderstood word. Egocentric is the one who has everything revolving around
him. He is the center, ‘ego-centric.’ Selfish is someone who loves himself, who
is proud of himself, obviously without being pedantic or being narcissistic. And
we are talking about acceptance, self-worth. The only way to value the other is
first to value oneself. Then, selfish is the one who loves himself without
losing sight of the others, without losing sight of the surrounding environment.
That is difference with the egocentric, to whom all others are like satellites
that revolve around him as a planet.
Loving
your neighbor as yourself means that you have to love yourself first and then
you can provide love to others.
If we
don’t love ourselves, if we despise ourselves, if we don’t value the importance
we truly have as human beings, it’s impossible that Love can be born in us so
that we love others. However, something dangerous can happen, we can be imbued
with personal egotistical love, which is a negative love that was approached in
a previous session, where we don’t value ourselves giving an extra value to the
other person and we subdue ourselves. When we subdue ourselves it means that we
are comfortable in a position of submission, believing that with this attitude
of submission we have the other person’s love. This is a huge
mistake.
Feeling
pity for ourselves saying: ‘poor me’ and feeling diminished provokes the
opposite effect on the other person. Because love means admiration, personal
love is admiration. One cannot love someone who is not admired in any way with a
certain attribute. We cannot love someone who only inspires pity, we may have
mercy, compassion, but not love. Because love means respect, love is admiration,
love is also dialogue, personal love is also attraction. Why not ? It’s not bad.
But everything has to do with one first.
I can’t
love someone if I feel pity for myself because every feeling that I have is
transmitted itself, consciously or unconsciously it is transmitted, and the
other person will have pity. And as I said several times, if I have a one liter
bottle... there will be no more space for other liquid, it will have only one
liter of capacity. If in that bottle there is a liter of pity, we cannot add any
love.
On the
other hand, and this is very important, with love does not happen the same
thing. Because Love has no measurement, Love has no limits. We can have a bottle
of Love and it’s like a bottomless container, because we can add more, and more
and more Love.
With
Love we can have a relationship with a lifetime partner, parents, children,
friends... because Love has no limits. They are different types of love, we are
talking about personal love, right? They are different types of love, but in the
end, this love has no limits as well.
Then if
I love myself without narcissism, without arrogance, not believing that I am
superior, but feeling a humble Love, a tender Love, I can awaken Love in others.
And if I truly understand the importance of my own person, I can make that other
people accept my personality, my way of thinking, my way of feeling, my way of
seeing things. It does not mean that they blindly share everything I say,
because it would be the opposite role, the others would become slaves of my way
of thinking and it must not be like that at all.
What is
sought is that everyone has his own independent judgment; that's what matters.
And even disagreeing with the other person I mention the phrase: “I disapprove
of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” because
that is called respect and that’s what Voltaire allegedly said. Then, I don’t
have to force the other to think like me, I can debate, debating is beautiful,
but I will defend my importance. It does not mean that I have to be first as an
individual, but Love has to come from me.
I'm the
starting point. The goal lies in the others, the goal lies in my projects, the
goal is my thought, the goal is what I want to accomplish. However, as a matter
of fact, the goal is not important, what is important as I said it many times
since 1997, is to enjoy the quest, enjoy the meanwhile. Because the goal is a
moment, besides, the goal should not be an incentive; that's the biggest mistake
of the people, because if the goal were the incentive, once we reached that goal
there would not be more incentive. The incentive must be the quest. This means
that once we have reached a certain goal... we must keep on finding another goal
to go back and enjoy the quest.
It's
like the person who goes on a bus looking at the watch, thinking about the
arrival without enjoying the landscape. Looking at the window or not, the
arrival time will be the same, it will depend on the driver. Then I have to
enjoy the meanwhile, without paying attention to my nerves waiting for
expectations, because in the meantime I deprive myself to enjoy the
moment.
If I
have to travel tomorrow and I'm with the expectation of the journey for better
or worse, I don’t enjoy today. And I must enjoy today; that's giving importance
to myself as a human being. Giving the importance to myself means that I have
the capacity to love and I also I have the capacity to be loved. I have the
ability to accept, and I have the ability to be
accepted.
I will
not discriminate, although I will reject hostile acts. I will reject what I
think is irrelevant to my judgment, to my humble judgment. However I will not
discriminate, but I'll understand, I will try to put myself in the other's mind.
To see what happens at that time, why he is acting like that in that moment. It
does not mean that I have to share the roles of ego of the other person, but
surely if I understand, I will be more tolerant. And also, as I said many times,
not tolerant from pedantry...:"well, look! this time I will let it go " . Not
that tolerance, which is an egotistical tolerance, but tolerance from love,
tolerance from understanding.
However,
since I spoke about love, and spoke about importance, in order to tolerate the
other I must also tolerate myself, my mistakes, my fallible states, my moments
of doubt. And to tolerate my moments of
doubt, my fallible moments, I must start by taking a look inside myself and
understand myself as a human being. The only way to love myself is being
tolerant with my mistakes, and understanding my moments of zero tolerance. But
for that to happen I have to accept myself as I
am.
Watch
out! Accepting myself does not mean: "Well I'm like that, I'm not going to
change." No, no, no. That would be to
inhabit in a comfortable state of indifference, of sufficiency and
sufficiency... is the cousin of the ego. It has to do with: “Ok , I agree, I'm
like that, but I promise to change myself, I will not promise to others, the
commitment would be to myself, I am committed to correct the mistakes I see or
the mistakes that others make me see.” Because I want to grow up, because I
consider myself important, important related to service, important to give a
helping hand.
However
I should not be ashamed if others give me a helping hand, and I do not take it.
Of course I can take a helping hand, because I am also fallible. Fallible? And
how can I take that importance since I am fallible? Because I'm unique, in my
humility, in my insufficiency sometimes I'm unique.
However that
does not reduce importance to myself, the real importance lies in: Loving
myself, accepting myself, being tolerant with myself, understanding myself...
for all that I can make it to others. Otherwise, it makes no sense, it has no
value. We are going to do it based on the others, but we are going to do it with
ourselves first.
We
can’t, and that was said by my own spirit, we can’t help others if we are fallen
on the ground. We need to be on our feet, being strong , and then we can give a
helping hand to others. That's the way, a humble but very nice way to do it with
great joy.
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