I love myself when I stop thinking about myself. When I’m emptied out and spacious. Love is self-forgetting. In the biblical sense, I love myself when I deny myself. When selfless love hits the headlines, it’s called heroism.
To my ear, the phrase “Lest we forget” has a chiding, slightly ominous ring to it, echoing George Santayana’s platitude that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. In fact, the opposite is true. Those who remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Look at the oldest cultures on the planet, how they fight with themselves and each other. And with such ferocity! In the spiritual sense, we renew ourselves by forgetting ourselves. This happens every night in the state of deep sleep. If it didn’t, we’d go mad. And we do it consciously via meditation, wordless prayer, or total surrender to what is. We even do it just before we take a bath. By ridding ourselves of convention. By getting naked.
When what I want is at the centre of the picture—when I am selfish—I suffer.
Common to most mental disorders is an excess of I-ness, of self-concern.
Selfishness is a wasting disease. It eats its host.
I am what I think about.
Men's Work 