Do you truly cherish yourself? Do you love yourself?
You may understand what it means to love another person, to feel someone is dear to you. But when asked whether you love yourself, perhaps you hesitate—what does it really mean to love oneself? Many think, Of course I care about myself, isn’t it natural to value one’s own life? Yet caring for your life and truly loving yourself are not the same.
To love yourself, you must first recognize the self that has suffered. Without acknowledging the self that has suffered, you cannot love another. Perhaps it is precisely because you do not know that suffering self that you go on seeking love from others. But if you cannot feel sincere tenderness for yourself, you cannot truly love.
In the false world, false love abounds. It floods society, yet it always fades away. False love never endures—it inevitably fractures. As you come to know yourself, you realize that love is not something to be sought. Even without seeking, kindness and warmth well up from within, endlessly. The heart that loves and cherishes itself is the very heart that heals and loves others.
To love oneself is to know, and forgive, the foolish self that has suffered. The more you face that self, the more your capacity for true love and tenderness awakens. It was always within you, waiting to be revived.
Knowing yourself means looking deeply, beyond the surface. Many think they already know themselves, but in truth they only know the false self, not the real one.
Try this: list some of your traits—cheerful, shy, stubborn, jealous, quick to anger, unable to be sincere. Do not stop there. Look more closely at your present state of heart. Even cheerfulness may have shadows. Why can you not be sincere? Do you, in truth, wish to be? What angers you, and why?
Rather than dismissing traits as mere personality, look at the deeper feelings beneath them. Perhaps behind your cheer is pretense. Perhaps behind your anger lies fear. In doing this, you may feel as if you are meeting versions of yourself both familiar and unfamiliar, yet undeniably your own.
You may even feel as though you contain many selves and wonder which is real. But know this: all of these false selves can be observed without fear. Feel them all, and through them, recognize the tremendous energy you have stored in your heart. That energy bursts forth in moments as thoughts, impulses, emotions. By facing them, you come to know yourself.
But often, we dislike those parts of ourselves. We despise the traits we cannot accept. To hate oneself is not to love oneself. We turn away from the dark within us, pretending it is not there. Yet real love begins when we stop turning away.
Do not try to cover your darkness with diversions or disguises. Instead, face it. Redirect your heart inward. Love is not to be sought outwardly, nor to be given from without. Love is discovered when you embrace yourself with acceptance and forgiveness. The more you love yourself, the more kindness flows from within you. With that kindness and warmth, you meet others. You do not need to ask for love, for you are already filled with it.
False love cannot last, but true love is always present.
“Love is not to be sought outside.
Love is not something bestowed from outside.
And yet love exists.
We are love itself. We are one.”
Even if you are drenched in selfishness, even if you feel soiled and unworthy, the real self remains within, and that self already knows true love. Realizing the true self allows true love to flow. If you only know the false self, you will only express false love.
To love is to love yourself. Truly loving yourself releases real love, and that love heals and embraces others. This is the real power—the power we have longed for all along.
So let us love ourselves, deeply and fully, and awaken within us the power that is real.