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All great philosophies and religions have the same core moral basis - they all say:
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• Don't do to others what you wouldn't like to be done to you.
Or:
• Love your friend as much as you love yourself.
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The reason we mention this has nothing to do with any religion, rather it is a reminder of an ancient universal truth that is carried in many traditions and cultures.
It all starts with you.
You must love and respect yourself as the starting place.
It is not until you treat yourself with love and respect that you can truly treat others with love and respect - that's the way it goes.
Loving and accepting yourself is a sacred act of enormous meaning.
It is not about being selfish, egotistic or self-centered, not at all. Rather it is about acknowledging that if you don't love and respect yourself, the world becomes a very sad place!
You are the world.
There's a universe out there - a universe so vast that it is beyond our capacity to fathom its size and magnitude - yet it exists only inside of you.
Without you, there's absolutely nothing out there.
It is quite simple and absolutely true: your experience is the only true reality and it is a reality that you are responsible for.
All great philosophies, religions and traditions assert the same thing:
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• Love others as much as you love yourself. |
This is the moral essence of all the teachings, and it simply means that you have to love and have compassion for yourself.
Love and have compassion for yourself, no matter who you are - a powerhouse executive, a hard-working laborer, a farmer, a housewife or househusband, an independent professional, a purposeless bum, or anybody else.
The human experience is very similar - to a great degree we're all very much the same regardless of culture, sex or race. We're born and we have a few years to share life with family and friends; we seek security, love and acceptance; we become involved in different activities; we try to leave our impression, to learn, to evolve, trying in our own idiosyncratic way to make the world a better place, and then we move on.
'The last shirt has no pockets.'
Essentially we came into the world alone with empty pockets, and that's exactly how we leave - alone and with empty pockets. | |
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