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Love Begins with Accepting Yourself: The Journey of Discovering Love, Deepening Relationships, and Being One with All That Is
"Unless you know who you are, you cannot accept yourself.
Unless you accept yourself, you cannot love yourself.
Unless you love yourself, you cannot love the other.
When you love the other, there is a relationship.
And life is relationship."
- Sri Bhagavan
Relationship is the essential aspect of life. The quality of our lives is closely related to the quality of our relationships with our parents, partner, children, colleagues, and friends. The joy we experience, our achievements, our spiritual development, and our connection with the Divine, all depend on our relationships.
The way we treat others actually reflects the way we treat ourselves. We can't establish good relationships with others unless we have a good relationship with ourselves. We can't feel comfortable with others unless we feel comfortable with ourselves. The key to improving our relationship with ourselves is to accept every aspect of who we are.
Inside every one of us, there is fear, anxiety, guilt, jealousy, grief, and anger. These emotions make us unconsciously hurt others, and they also alienate us from each other. We want to change our dark, negative nature and become more positive. However, this can only cause conflict within us, making us unhappy and filled with pain. Sri Bhagavan teaches that when we accept ourselves, and see and experience the pain inside us, our conflicts will dissolve and we will feel comfortable with ourselves. After accepting ourselves, our relationships will become harmonious, and we will be able to restore our connections with animals, plants, Mother Earth, and the Divine.
Unless you accept yourself, you cannot love yourself.
Unless you love yourself, you cannot love the other.
When you love the other, there is a relationship.
And life is relationship."
- Sri Bhagavan
Relationship is the essential aspect of life. The quality of our lives is closely related to the quality of our relationships with our parents, partner, children, colleagues, and friends. The joy we experience, our achievements, our spiritual development, and our connection with the Divine, all depend on our relationships.
The way we treat others actually reflects the way we treat ourselves. We can't establish good relationships with others unless we have a good relationship with ourselves. We can't feel comfortable with others unless we feel comfortable with ourselves. The key to improving our relationship with ourselves is to accept every aspect of who we are.
Inside every one of us, there is fear, anxiety, guilt, jealousy, grief, and anger. These emotions make us unconsciously hurt others, and they also alienate us from each other. We want to change our dark, negative nature and become more positive. However, this can only cause conflict within us, making us unhappy and filled with pain. Sri Bhagavan teaches that when we accept ourselves, and see and experience the pain inside us, our conflicts will dissolve and we will feel comfortable with ourselves. After accepting ourselves, our relationships will become harmonious, and we will be able to restore our connections with animals, plants, Mother Earth, and the Divine.
186 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 15, 2017
17 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 1, 2019
I found this book when I was naively (and desperately) looking for a clue about self love (obviously my keyword in Amazon was "love yourself". The past months were ones of the roughest in my life, when I stumbled upon so many life challenges and it seemed like me attracting the problems because I hated myself and I had a void in my heart I tried to fill with people and things.
As mentioned in the title, the book is a collection of the teachings of Sri Bhagavan (I never heard of him until this book) and rewritten by one of his students. Sri Bhagavan seems to be someone who's done with himself, he really knows what he's talking about, so the teaching really hits me big time, I could relate to so many of his statements about the state of a hurt and empty heart, and how it became so, and got enlightened big time. I highlighted at least 20% of the book (massive!) especially the first chapters.
The fact that both the teacher and the editor are not native English speakers, made the book translated to English in simple language and sentences which is super straightforward and easy to read and grasp. They also do repetition thus easier to digest.
One of the teaching is so weird and does not make sense (you just need to acknowledge and accept, you don't need to change - what?). But I try to practice saying "yeah, I'm jealous", "I judge people physically and full of hatred", or "I want to hurt him" etc without explaining why or rationalizing, but apparently it works. The negative feelings and will to do bad things just cease... You should read this book and practice!
I start to not looking for love but accepting that my heart is bitter, empty, and has no love. Then slowly I feel love to myself, and people around me feel that I'm more cheerful, peaceful, and loving. I also feel more grace.
The topics covered is love to self, dealing with pain, relationship with significant other, parents, children, and God. Yes God, but in a good and neutral way.
I love this book oh so much. Nothing beats this book forever. Gonna re-read this book in a month. I made some notes, to-do list, and remembering some of the teachings in my days and people around me see the difference the book makes. Me personally, I love myself more and
I have recommended this book to at least 5 friends and they are highly interested and I'm buying more copies for them. I'm now having a difficulty in starting to read other spiritual book. Looking forward to the sequelae of the book.
As mentioned in the title, the book is a collection of the teachings of Sri Bhagavan (I never heard of him until this book) and rewritten by one of his students. Sri Bhagavan seems to be someone who's done with himself, he really knows what he's talking about, so the teaching really hits me big time, I could relate to so many of his statements about the state of a hurt and empty heart, and how it became so, and got enlightened big time. I highlighted at least 20% of the book (massive!) especially the first chapters.
The fact that both the teacher and the editor are not native English speakers, made the book translated to English in simple language and sentences which is super straightforward and easy to read and grasp. They also do repetition thus easier to digest.
One of the teaching is so weird and does not make sense (you just need to acknowledge and accept, you don't need to change - what?). But I try to practice saying "yeah, I'm jealous", "I judge people physically and full of hatred", or "I want to hurt him" etc without explaining why or rationalizing, but apparently it works. The negative feelings and will to do bad things just cease... You should read this book and practice!
I start to not looking for love but accepting that my heart is bitter, empty, and has no love. Then slowly I feel love to myself, and people around me feel that I'm more cheerful, peaceful, and loving. I also feel more grace.
The topics covered is love to self, dealing with pain, relationship with significant other, parents, children, and God. Yes God, but in a good and neutral way.
I love this book oh so much. Nothing beats this book forever. Gonna re-read this book in a month. I made some notes, to-do list, and remembering some of the teachings in my days and people around me see the difference the book makes. Me personally, I love myself more and
I have recommended this book to at least 5 friends and they are highly interested and I'm buying more copies for them. I'm now having a difficulty in starting to read other spiritual book. Looking forward to the sequelae of the book.
Displaying 1 of 1 review