Meditation is an act of self-love

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the book Eat, Love and Pray, posted the following on Instagram a few days ago:

Love the one in you who is sad.

Love the one in you who is scared.

Love the one in you who is angry.

Love the one in you who is lonely.

Love the one in you who hates herself.

Love all the ones who you are,

And then you will know how to love the world.

Do you want to love the world? Many of us have made a commitment to do so. After all, it is the teaching of many of the world’s religions. Yet, most people find it difficult to love the world. How do we start? Elizabeth Gilbert’s recommendation is a very good one. We start by loving the multitude in us who is sad, scared, angry, lonely, hateful, etc. In other words, we have to start by loving those parts of ourselves which are not particularly likable. This is part of what Carl Jung called “shadow work.”

Most people have very little understanding of self-love. In his book, The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm devoted ten pages to the discussion of self-love, partly because of its importance and partly because it is so misunderstood. The most common fallacy is to equate self-love with narcissism. Fromm observed that in Western thought…