Thought for Today: Thursday August 14
What is the opposite of love? In my view, it is not hate. The opposite of love is selfishness. When a husband and wife are concerned only about their own individual desires, the stage is set for conflict. But the Bible gives us another way – the way of our Moshiach. True love, it says, is self-giving and not self-seeking. True love puts the needs of others first. This is what our Moshiach did when He left heaven’s glory and came down to earth for us.
Henk Wouters
let's talk about selfishness.
ego.
i once was present when a highly respected leader and author of a large enough movement gave a talk around the problem of things being mainly centred around the ego.
while he was talking something bothered me, and by the time audience participation came round, i'd worked on what that was.
see, thing is, it is a good thing to be interested in well-being.
problem is, in pursuit of well-being we walk over other's well-beings to further our own. conflict therefore.
let's talk about union.
becoming one.
so, because this man and i knew each other well enough, i spoke my thoughts.
and i said the problem is not ego, for that brings an interest in well-being, the problem lies in our definition of ego.
the boundaries thereof.
now usually we set the boundary of ego as what is of interest to the self. what we identify with, ourselves.
but it's more fluid than that.
for when matters of interest to our family nucleus come up, we shift the boundary, and come up for the interests of our family, which we identify with.
and we continue shifting boundaries, when the interests of friends, sports teams, towns, counties, politics, countries, ideologies, religions etc come up. with ensuing conflict.
ergo, ego at last comes to its rightful expression when we can shift the boundary of it to include and identify with simply everybody.
union.
now, when i say i am, and i look after my interest, i am not happy until every part of me is happy.
that will make me happy.
and, as those other parts of me are now including other people, i need to pursue their happiness to find my own.
and this is why union requires giving. love.
(so this man then gave me a compliment, he took this idea and expanded upon it in his next book.)
Father and Son give us both physical and eternal life, and we just need to understand what giving really is,
giving IS life.
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