Many people ask me how to resolve a problem they have with someone. “Try to focus first on yourself rather than worrying about your relationship with others,” I advise them. “And love yourself more. Your
relationships with others will get better when you truly understand yourself.”
If you look closely and honestly, you’ll see that your
relationships with others reflect your relationship with yourself. You can love others only as much as you love yourself, and you can understand and tolerate others only to the extent that you understand and tolerate yourself. If you hate yourself, you will hate other people, too.
How can you sincerely love others when you can’t love yourself? If you take a good look at what’s really going on, you’ll see that even when people talk about sharing unconditional love, often they expect something from the other person—affection from others to fill the emptiness inside themselves. In fact, your level of attachment to others can be measured by the longing you feel: the needier you feel, the greater your attachment to the attention of others.
Can you say that you truly know others if you don’t know your true self first? And how can you make judgments, negative or positive, about the love of other people? If your connection with yourself isn’t good, how can your connections with others be free of problems? If you can’t accept yourself completely, how can you tolerate others, embracing them for who they are? The fundamental problem is your relationship with yourself. It’s a question of
how closely connected you are with yourself.
When you’re able to love yourself, with your own shortcomings, you will be able to understand and tolerate the shortcomings of others, too.
Restoring your relationship with yourself determines how much your relationships with others can improve.
However, people have a tendency to focus solely on their relationships with others, neglecting their connection with themselves. Sooner or later, fundamental problems emerge. You can be led about by other people, doing as they want to make them happy and receive their praise. But, when you don’t get the hoped-for reaction, you will blame everything on the other person.
If you are well connected with yourself, you can achieve balance in your relationships because you have a solid center—even if the other person hurts your feelings.
More important than any relationship we have with someone else is the
relationship we have with ourselves.
When we look deeply into most of the problems that worry us, we realize that their causes and solutions are found in our connection to ourselves. If you are connected with your true self, you have nothing to fear in this world. With all the delusions surrounding you laid bare, you can feel yourself existing entirely between heaven and earth. That self isn’t the self you used to know, but in your deep inner consciousness, it is the self you’ve always dreamed of and hoped for. You need to encounter that self. You need to connect with that self.
If you find yourself in a troubling or chaotic situation right now, don’t blame your circumstances. Crisis, it has been said, is an opportunity. You may have the best opportunity to meet yourself. Growing distant from yourself, you suffer from confusion—which is bound to produce a fervent, do-or-die desire to escape from that distress. At such times, turn your eyes inward instead of finding fault in your abilities, your environment, or other people.
The more you understand the importance of connecting with your true self, the more you draw near to hope. “Yes, the problem was my disconnection from myself,” you realize. Then, it’s obvious what you should do next: reconnect with yourself! “Connecting with myself is more important than anything else!” If this is how you feel, you’re already starting to commune with yourself. Consider that attitude precious. And go within yourself; everything begins with you. No other life will be more meaningful, fulfilling, or moving, for you will be living as none other than your authentic true self.
You can learn more about Pineal Gland Meditation in my new book
Connect: How to Find Clarity and Expand Your Consciousness with Pineal Gland Meditation.