Should we love ourselves or hate ourselves?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
Question, can we love ourselves? In many self-help books, it is said that we should love ourselves, then we will have a positive attitude and then we will be able to act effectively in life. Now, in devotee circle, we often hear that we should be humble and we hear songs of devotee Acharya, Vaishnavacharyas, who are condemning themselves. So, should we love ourselves or hate ourselves? Answer, we are meant to be God conscious, filled with love for Krishna.
Our goal ultimately is to, our heart’s deepest longing is love. We want to love and be loved. And the nature of love is by its very nature to not be self-conscious, to be conscious of one’s loved one.
And that loved one ultimately is Krishna. So, now if we look at the self-love and self-hatred, both of them are actually two sides of the same coin of self-consciousness. So, where we think very positively about ourselves, thinking or where we think very negatively about ourselves, either way, we are thinking about ourselves primarily.
And that self-consciousness is going to keep us entrapped because we are finite beings and we need love and love requires an object outside of oneself. So, in that sense, self-consciousness is itself undesirable and self-hatred and self-love are two sides of the same coin of self-consciousness. So, now having said that, there is further, deeper exploration of the subject.
The Vaishnav humility where devotees make, that I am a constant, my life is filled with sin, there is not a trace of piety in it, I am constantly lusting, I am so fallen, I am so sinful. When saying these things, we have to understand them that they are from a transcendental perspective. We cannot apply them when we are ourselves not having that transcendental perspective.
It will be, it will just not be realistic on our part. So, quite often, certainly that is not self-hatred. That is, in the light of that, when devotees understand how great Krishna is and how much Krishna loves me, at that time, one feels that whatever I may do to reciprocate Krishna’s love, that is such a pitiful thing, comparatively speaking.
And that’s why I will not let myself be caught in such things. I will stay focused on Krishna. And as compared to Krishna’s greatness, when one’s smallness becomes evident, then that expresses itself as humility.
So, when we don’t have access to an understanding of Krishna’s greatness, really through experience, through realization, that will require purification. That takes time. So, we cannot even understand our own smallness in a tangible way.
So, what we can understand, at our level, humility would mean that we don’t think of ourselves as the center of the universe. But we try to cultivate a service attitude. So, now, that self- condemnation that devotees will sometimes feel, that is very different from the self-hatred that sometimes people have, especially when they are afflicted too much by Tamoguna.
So, self-hatred comes in people when they repeatedly fall short of the expectation that society has set for them. So, for example, a student has tremendous fear pressure, parental pressure, social pressure to get topper. And a student instead of coming first in the class, comes up the 20th or 30th in the class.
And that happens repeatedly. The student is saying, I am worthless, I am worthless, I am worthless, I am useless, I am good for nothing. And that creates deep emotional scars within oneself.
And because one has not been able to live up to the expectations set by others, sometimes one may rebel against those expectations and reject the people only who are often conditioned in love. In other situations, one becomes imprisoned by their expectations and not being able to live up to those expectations, one starts feeling self-loathing and self-hatred. And that is a very unhealthy emotion.
We, as we grow up, one aspect of growing up is also to recognize who we are, not just in terms of that I am soul, but also in terms of what is our psychophysical nature materially. And to mould our definitions of success and our expectations of ourselves according to that mature understanding of who we are. So, that self-hatred springs from a mode of ignorance and that is definitely unfavourable to bhakti because of that self-hatred, a person is not able to do anything constructively.
One is just beating oneself down mentally and disempowering oneself, disheartening oneself, discouraging oneself. That is definitely of no use. Now, self- love is the opposite side of the same coin when it is in material consciousness.
That means, one thinks, instead of thinking how useless I am, one starts thinking how glorious I am. See, I have done this, I have done that, I look so smart, I speak so, I speak so great and I am this and I am that. There is the paradigm of, paradigm not necessarily in a positive sense, but in a negative sense, the paradigm of self-love is a Greco-Roman character Narcissus.
So, it was said that he considered himself so beautiful that, so handsome that he would sit in front of a lake, next to a lake and look into his reflection in the lake and keep gazing at it for hours and hours admiring oneself. So, that is narcissism and from that the word has come narcissistic. Narcissistic means a person who is self-obsessed and that sort of self-love is definitely unhealthy.
That is again very self-centered and that people become very insensitive to others, become very arrogant, become very egoistic and egotistic. Egotistic means talking about oneself constantly. Egotistic means always thinking oneself to be far greater than others and both ways it is undesirable.
So, now there is, as when we come to a spiritual understanding, even if we have not realized it, where we have at least intellectually understood it, then we understand that we are parts of Krishna and if we hate ourselves, then we are hating the part of Krishna and that is definitely undesirable. This says we should not hate other parts of Krishna, we should not even hate this part of Krishna. So, self-hatred from both the middle perspective it is damaging and from the spiritual perspective also it is unhealthy.
Now, what about self-love? Everything can be doped in Krishna’s service if we can see it in connection with Krishna. So, if we see ourselves as parts of Krishna, then self-love is actually in the sense love for Krishna. Of course, we should not love only this self, we should ultimately love the Supreme Self and we should love the other selves also.
But if we understand that we are parts of Krishna, that the bodies and mind that we have they are also ultimately given to us by Krishna, then we take care of our soul and we take care of our body and mind and that is also an expression of our love for Krishna. So, taking care of our soul means we do activities that nourish our soul and we don’t let ourselves get distracted by other things. And taking care of our body and mind also means that we do whatever is required to keep ourselves healthy, to keep ourselves nourished physically and mentally.
So, if self-love manifests as self-care, not in terms of what people talk as items of personal care where they talk randomly about cosmetics, not in that sense, but in the sense of truly taking care of our needs, spiritual, psychological and physical, then that kind of self-care can also be done in the mood of service to Krishna. So, if we have certain talents, then it is said that Krishna says, know that all opulent, beautiful and glorious things spring from but a spark of my splendor. Krishna says that everything beautiful, everything attractive comes from me.
So, when we understand there are some talents which we have, they are also coming from Krishna. So, we don’t love those talents as the proofs of our own greatness, but we love those talents as gifts of Krishna and we take care of those talents. So, for example, if somebody is a singer and that person can sing devotional songs, that person needs to do whatever it takes to take care of one’s voice.
And that is not self-love. That is love of the gift that Krishna has given to us and the gift that we are trying to use in His service according to our capacity. So, self-love in the sense of truly understanding the Self and understanding the Supreme Self and loving the Supreme Self and loving the Self in relationship with the Supreme Self is an integral part of Bhakti.
And at a material level, both self-love and self-hatred are the two sides of the same coin of self-consciousness and devotee avoids both. Thank you. Great.