Question:  How can we love ourselves more, and how can we help other people to love themselves more too?

Gururaj:  You start with loving yourself.  One of the greatest problem in this world is people hating or disliking themselves.  Why do they hate or dislike themselves?  Because they cannot face themselves.

They are so guilt-ridden by all the actions that they have performed that they start hating themselves.

Rid yourself of guilt

Instead of being guilt-ridden, one has to get rid of guilt, and that is achieved through proper understanding and spiritual practices where you take away the darkness by switching on the light that you will draw from within.  Meditation is the perfect tool to achieve this. In addition, no one needs to feel guilty about one’s actions at all.  It is the past.

Repentance the easy way!

Furthermore, if you make up your mind that, “I will not perform those actions again which are detrimental to myself and to others,” then that in itself is repentance.

If it is a firm resolve that you take, then the guilt will go away, and as the guilt goes away, you will start loving yourself more and more.  You will start looking at the positive side of your life.  In addition, when you do that it boomerangs, it extends to others, and that is how you love others more and more too.

It is a simple procedure: “did I do something wrong?”, and if I find that I have done something wrong, perhaps during an impulsive moment, then this wakes me up. I will improve upon it.  I immediately make the resolve “no more!”  That is repentance.   In addition, that would make you love yourself and get rid of guilt – then you also accept the responsibility for the reaction of the action.

You can be free from guilt

If you have made up your mind, if you have resolved to yourself that I shall not perform this action again, then the reaction begins to become so much easier and acceptable because you are no longer dominated by guilt.  You are free, free to accept the responsibility, because in bondage we cannot accept responsibility as easily as when we are free.  That is how it works.

……..Gururaj Ananda Yogi

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