The two great commandments -- that we should love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves -- are the necessary germinating forces that ultimately give flower to the potential for a human soul to not just reflect what the Divine has made, but to actually participate in the process.
But do any of us know what it means to love thy neighbor as thyself? We don't. It is the most difficult thing in the world. But it is also the most beautiful thing in the world because it produces within us the beauty of the seed of the soul germinating.
Although a seed is a physical expression on this planet, the principle of the seed belongs to a world that is far subtler and more ethereal. There wouldn't be the quadrillions of different kinds of seeds on earth if there weren't the idea of a seed and what that idea represents in terms of the potential of one form to change into another. This bigger picture is the idea of a heavenly seed -- not a seed of a particular type, but the seed idea that is within us.
We contain both the individual form of the seed that is our unique expression, and the seed idea in heaven. Without understanding this, we may observe all the "seeds" as expressed in other people and judge them by saying, "What's wrong with her?" or "He's ugly." What we don't understand is that all human beings are individually wrapped in a certain order of essential ingredients relative to a host of conditions. All these individual seeds are like the reflection of the moon in fifty million ponds. Each seed represents a facet of that which gave rise to what we call our soul -- a reflection that is lesser than and yet no different from the greatness out of which it came.
So the issue before us is how does that seed idea within us actually germinate? What is the dynamic that changes the seed within us into a true awareness of itself that we consciously partake in? What is required of this little part of us that wishes to become our true self so that we can do the good we want to do rather than the evil we don't want to do? What has to happen to this tiny love that sits within us that doesn't want to hurt others -- that knows that being aggressive and ambitious and taking advantage of people never works in the long run -- and that sees that the world is the way it is because we've been selfish our whole lives? What is it in us that can recognize what we don't want to be any longer and that can make our wish for a better self grow?
To understand what it means to love thy neighbor as thyself begins first of all with recognizing how unbearable it is for us to look at another's suffering, let alone our own pain. We see ourselves alternatingly as either the greatest or worst person that's ever lived. With that in mind, then what does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself? And what does loving your neighbor as yourself have to do with the germination of your soul, the birth of a higher conscience in you? And what does that birth in you have to do with your salvation?
Have you ever figured out how to love somebody as yourself? Maybe you've thought, "I'm going to give somebody a lot of presents because I love presents." Then you give them the presents, and they say, "I don't like that." Do you love them then? Do you love people who don't appreciate you? We must answer these questions honestly. We don't love people who don't appreciate us. Have you ever been kind to somebody who then betrayed you? How do you feel towards people who have betrayed you? You can't forgive them because you don't know what it means to love your neighbor as yourself.
Some things are so simple that we can't understand them. To love thy neighbor as thyself means that you see yourself as your neighbor. Presently when we look at somebody, we see them as either being on our side, or being in the way of what we want. But to love thy neighbor as thyself means that we don't look out and judge according to what we want. We look out with new eyes so that when we meet someone, we ask, "What are you going through?"
How far we have fallen today. We can't understand that the germination, the fulfillment of our life is going to come to us through loving our neighbor as ourselves. And the way we love our neighbor as ourselves is that we never meet anyone, anywhere, any time (including ourselves) without having go before us that which is capable of realizing what that individual is going through.
It never occurs to us (now) that somebody is going through something, because we're too busy going somewhere ourselves! When we talk to others, we have no idea what their heart is like. We have no knowledge of their psychological state and what it's doing to them, and conversely, what our unconscious reaction to that state is doing to us. It's all a state of sleep.
We can't love our neighbor as ourselves because we're not in relationship with our neighbor. There is only one way to be in relationship with our neighbor as represented by the particular person we meet. We must realize that we're talking to a seed, and that seed contains all the possibility that particular form of a person represents, whether we're talking to other people or we're alone with ourselves, because it's the exact same thing!
We don't know what it means to love ourselves. Loving ourselves is not saying, "I love myself." Loving ourselves is not being grateful for receiving praise from other people. Loving ourselves begins with loving God. If we don't have first the love of God, then we don't have first a relationship with the neighbor inside of ourselves. We are not aware of what we are so that in that awareness change can take place because of that awareness -- so that the seed within us is gradually given light, force, energy, and nourishment.
It's a serious business to love thy neighbor as thyself, because there's a constant cost to it. For one thing, it requires just slowing down long enough to be even semi-conscious that we're actually talking to somebody who is in a disturbed or pained state! So love thy neighbor as thyself begins with being willing to slow down and bring ourselves into the present moment.
What is the most common reaction people have to each other? It is mostly resistance, isn't it? What we don't realize is that what we're resisting isn't really the person before us. What we're resisting is the consciousness we have of ourselves because of the person before us. If we walk past that consciousness, if we walk past that "poor" person, then we have essentially denied the possibility of love acting in our life. No greater love hath a man than he who lays down his life for his brother. And who is our brother or sister? It is this seed. It is this part of us that is reflected in everyone and everything around us.
In the end, what is this seed other than God's life? What does it mean to love thy neighbor as thyself other than in any given moment to come completely awake to ourselves so that we're aware of our brother, of his poverty, and then there is compassion. Love binds the wounds. It carries the wounded.
The true issue before us is this: Can I begin to do something different, moment to moment, even though I forget to do it all the time because my mind is usurped by an inner burden I live from that drives me past everyone and everything? Can I lay the burden down long enough to understand that I'm given the possibility in this life of fulfilling myself through learning what it means to love? And in learning what it means to love the people in my life and those formerly hidden parts of myself, and God Himself, that possibility is fulfilled at once because I have begun to understand what it means to be awake and relate -- to be watchful, which is to be thoughtful -- and then bear within myself what I discover so that I can be a different kind of human being.
When we give our attention to another human being, what is taking place in that moment is that our own being and the other person's being are brought together through a nature that is neither our nature nor their nature, but that is both of ours -- and yet neither of ours presently because both of us are asleep. This is called love -- not love in the sentimental or emotional sense, but in the sense of a binding energy, a reconciling force that exists in all places, at all times.
Be awake and relate,
because being watchful is being thoughtful.
