I hate myself

[Trailblazer]

Nothing I was saying was being "all cheerful and full of glee". I was not saying "be happy". I was saying, "You are loved, and you need to find how to accept that you are loved and love yourself." That is what you do in fact tell a depressed person who feels isolated and despondent. they need to hear that, and eventually, even if on faith at that moment, that they can learn to love themselves. That's good news! That offers hope.

I know that was not what YOU were saying. It was just something I wanted to say, which is related to this subject at hand, since the poster of the OP did mention depression early on in this thread.

I do not mean to sound contentious, but how do you know that “you are loved” is what you do in fact tell a depressed person who feels isolated and despondent? How do you know they need to hear that? Many years ago, for many years, I was in counseling for depression and nobody ever told me that.

I will tell you right out the door that I do not agree that we need to love ourselves. I think we need to accept ourselves as a creation of God, but I do not think we should love ourselves in the psychological sense of loving, having self-esteem, etc. We should not hate ourselves either, but we should realize that we are a mere nothing and humble ourselves before God and we should love others more than ourselves, Imo.

Nowhere in any religious scriptures do I see anything about how we are to love ourselves, although any Bible scriptures can be twisted to mean just about anything. The Baha’i Writings are however much more explicit and easy to understand.

I'm not sure why you interpreted being "all cheerful and full of glee" with what I was saying about loving yourself. They are not the same thing at all. I can in fact feel quite unhappy at a time in my life, even for weeks, months, or even years, and still learn to love myself the whole time. The right thing to tell some like this is to look to love. Hold themselves with that gentleness, respect, and Grace that God does them. Right?

I did not interpret being "all cheerful and full of glee" with what you were saying about loving yourself. I just went off on a tangent, as I sometimes do. Perhaps at this juncture I should ask what you mean by “loving yourself” rather than just assuming I know and digging my hole deeper.

You really think that's what my post was doing? I'll suggest you made a bad assumption about me.

So you were not trying to help or say how we should love ourselves or how much God loves us? Maybe it was not your intention to sound like or be a lecture, but whenever someone starts telling me what I should do (love myself or love God) or whenever someone tells me how much God loves me it feels like a lecture or a sermon.

I actually said that in this thread to Axe Elf, in response to what he said that God can hate people. I was not saying that to the OP about his self-hatred. I wouldn't do that. But for Axe Elf who imagined God is actually capable of hatred, then if he had ever experience God, that wouldn't even be a thought of any imagination. There is no darkness in God. There cannot be.

I agree, God does not hate anyone. God can have wrath, but that is according to God’s justice, which is really love, since that wrath is deserved and for our own good.

I agree telling people everything will be fixed in the afterlife is not the right thing to do, for anyone. I of course would never say this to anyone. But to tell someone that they should learn to love themselves, that I would say. Because that is here and now, and if they believe in God, then at least hold in their mind's that God loves them, even when they can't figure out how to for themselves.

Again, I am not sure exactly what you mean by love themselves and how that might actually play out in one’s life.

While we're at me correcting your incorrect assumptions about me, let me throw this into this conversation. I've had to deal with depression myself.

I was not making assumptions about YOU; I was just responding to what I thought you were saying. I suppose many people have dealt with depression during their lifetimes but most people so not have it as their constant companion. Statistics bear that out.

Again, this stuff addressed to me asking me questions to ask myself about "Why does a loving God allow for that," I do not think of God in these terms as the Parent with a Plan, stuff. I don't think of God in anthropomorphic terms. I don't see God as some entity in space somewhere looking down on mankind in its foibles. Rather, to me God is All That Is, and is Infinite in Power, Infinite in Love, is in all, and through all, and is all. Who I am is an expression of That which is Eternal. And who I am, is not, and cannot, ever, at at time, even in my darkest moments of depression, be other to that, outside of that Love. It is utterly impossible.

God is what God is and that is separate from what we think or feel about God, because what we think or feel could be wrong. All I was saying is that a God that is Infinite in Power and Infinite in Love is logically inconsistent with what we see in the world. The only way to reconcile a God like that to logic is to say that God is a deist God, but then how can that God love us? What we see is a purportedly loving and omnipotent God who allows suffering and does nothing about it. Moreover, to top it off, that God created a world in which He being omniscient knew there would be suffering of untold proportions. I just do not understand how you can reconcile that with a Loving God. Moreover, if your experience of God is all you are basing this upon, that is not enough to constitute proof. If I do not even believe Jesus or Baha’u’llah, why would I believe you? No offense intended, because no doubt you base your beliefs on more than just personal experience.

It may feel like that, because in our imagination, the darkness of our thoughts we close in ourselves, blocking our own sight of that Eternal Love that is never apart from us, and that leads to depression, indeed. But it is good to remember at such times, that within us there is that hope, that life-sustaining Love that is at all times fully ours, if we simply open our hands and welcome it. I say this as much to myself as anyone. And you don't have to even believe in God, as such. It's a matter of just accepting Life, as it is. That all is Light, when we are able to open ourselves, and all that that takes to come to that place. No one is claiming this is easy.

I guess I have been talking to so many nonbelievers for so long that I tend to see their side of things more than the believer side. It seems to me that believers just believe what they want to believe rather than what is really there. But I can understand why if a believer has experiences what they call God’s Love they are going to believe in it. I just cannot believe in something I cannot accommodate with my logical mind and on top of that I have not experienced it. To say that is somehow my fault because I am not open to it is to say it is my fault because it is certainly not as if I am blocking God’s Love. Admittedly though it could be the ever-present depression, but there is no magic formula that is going to waft that away. Sometimes life just sucks owing to circumstances beyond our control and not everyone can rise above those and be joyful.

If this is true as you say, then why did you join the Baha'i's? You claim you've never experienced this, yet something must have been meaningful enough for you to do what you're doing to find it, right?

I absolutely did not join the Baha’is for God’s Love. If I had, I would have dropped out by now, after 47 years. God’s Love seems to be a Christian theme, from what I hear on Christian radio which I listen to about three hours a day while I am riding my bike to and from work. I joined the Baha’i Faith because of the spiritual and social teachings of Baha’u’llah and their usefulness for individual spiritual growth and for the betterment of society and humanity as a whole, not because of God.

NO! Emphatically, NO. God is Love. Even when we don't love God, God is never anywhere but fully there, and IS that Love already fully there in you. It is unconditional, NOT conditional as in your example. That is not divine love, that is egoic desires for the self, that someone is projecting onto God because that is what they themselves do.

The reason you are supposed to Love God first, is because when you do, you access that Love that is already inside you! That's how you get to it! You open to it. And that opening can take many forms, and all be understood as "loving God". Seek the Source of that Eternal Love, and in so doing you open yourself to it. It fills you, and then flows forth from you to the world, like all of Creation springs forth from the Love that is God. You literally become God in the world, expressing that Source of Love through you.

Us loving or not loving God is really more a matter of opening or closing the spigot on a full Water pot. The Water is always there ready to pour. You just have to turn the valve. It's not a matter of the Water deciding whether or not it's going to pour because you've not been a good person, or something like that.

I can agree with all of that in principle, and that is what is meant by those Hidden Words. The problem is when one cannot turn on the water faucet because they are so depressed that they cannot even get to the faucet and too weak to turn it on.

 

[Axe Elf]

In India they use Prema "Divine Love". That's very clear to me. You have a Greek word for that also?

Yeah, agape.

 

[idav]

You're still stuck in the common definition of "hate" and not the Biblical sense of "loving less" that I was going for.

I wasn't saying anything about hate but I am rather considering the self love involved in empathy which is what I think the bible was going for.

 

[allfoak]

Yes. Every post and thread I write here is really nothing but whoring around for attention. It would be ridiculous to type at all if you only wish to be ignored.

It seems to be time for me to go..

 

[Shushersbedamned]

It seems to be time for me to go..

Since you drew all our attention to that fact, you might be right, but idc

 

[Shushersbedamned]

I wasn't saying anything about hate but I am rather considering the self love involved in empathy which is what I think the bible was going for.

Self love in empathy?

 

[Shushersbedamned]

This post is a joke. Had it been serious, the response from the poster would have been more engaging

My life is a joke. If it was not I would engage in it better Or, it could be something else

 

[oldbadger]

I don't have any obvious answers

So you hate yourself but you haven't got the foggiest idea why?

I've reach page two so far and this is all you've given us. OK, let's see how you communicate from here.....

 

[idav]

Self love in empathy?

Empathy is feeling others pain and hardship and the only reason it would even matter is because of how people feel themselves. That is putting yourself in others shoes and saying "how would I feel if ...". There is a certain selfishness to it I think but it's realizing that others can feel as bad as we can inside so it's also love. Love thy neighbor as you love thy self, thats the second commandment in Mark and Matthew. Do unto others as you have them do to you. That is the golden rule also very much base on how things affect us personally.

 

[Shushersbedamned]

So you hate yourself but you haven't got the foggiest idea why?

I've reach page two so far and this is all you've given us. OK, let's see how you communicate from here.....

I thought I already gave a foggy idea since you read it all. But no thanks.

 

[Shushersbedamned]

Empathy is feeling others pain and hardship and the only reason it would even matter is because of how people feel themselves. That is putting yourself in others shoes and saying "how would I feel if ...". There is a certain selfishness to it I think but it's realizing that others can feel as bad as we can inside so it's also love. Love thy neighbor as you love thy self, thats the second commandment in Mark and Matthew. Do unto others as you have them do to you. That is the golden rule also very much base on how things affect us personally.

But that is tied up to emotional intelligence. Some people are less emotionally intelligent than others, does that mean they are less capable of love?

 

[oldbadger]

Bc I'm incapable of the simplest of things and greedy. And incapable of not being so. I suck at things that to most people are nothing. Thou I'm not stupid, but they say I'm depressed.

Ah ha! That response looks as if you suffer a degree of depression. Trust me when I tell you that my whole life has been filled with so many total self-stupidities that I positively burn at the memories, too many to gather. And you're way ahead of me because you're not stupid, but I surely have been..... a long list of daftness going way back.

Tell me, do you have 'highs' as well as 'lows'? Is there any activity which helps you to feel some happiness, or to forget about your 'badnesses'?

 

[idav]

But that is tied up to emotional intelligence. Some people are less emotionally intelligent than others, does that mean they are less capable of love?

No I was just referencing the Bible due to the conversation. The way Jesus is portrayed as feeling the weight of the world so much that he cried blood due to what he felt and saw of humanity. That is the epitome of empathy. It’s love just willing to consider others but it’s in relation to self. It isn’t hating the self it’s loving others as the self.

 

[stvdv]

Yeah, agape.

Oke, thanks. That's nice to see Christianity (Agape) and Hinduism (Prema) meet.
[Prema: Ecstatic love of God; divine love of the most intense kind]

 

[osgart]

There are certain people i love more than i love myself.

I suppose if one hates themself, they should reckon it and overcome that through self forgiveness.

I think it is true that if one wants to change for the better they often can.

I mean if somebody hates themself their heart has already changed. I would worry more if that person was going along doing spiteful things and not at all caring about it.

 

[Jumi]

We had a dog when I was a child... It was misbehaving and we couldn't treat it so as someone should have maybe. Or maybe it was not a dog optimal to a large family with children. In any case, though nothing extreme happened and most part of the dogs life was good, I always think of it back with shame. Though I was the youngest and had hardly understanding enough or power over others to do anything about it.

You were a little kid, so you can't be blamed. This scare dogs "owner" probably spent most of his time in jail he was rarely around and he likely beat his wife, dog and kids every time he came home. The dog wasn't around for long.

 

[Windwalker]

Now you're just arguing with scripture, not with me.

I have no problem arguing with scripture when it doesn't match reality. Do you accept Noah's Ark was real? Do you accept that God really manipulated Pharaoh and destroyed him to prove a point about himself as being the true God? Do you believe all these mythologies as facts of science and history? If not, then why shouldn't you question such anthropomorphic presumptions about God that God is a petty, jealousy, spiteful, vengeful, angry volcano-type deity? Do you accept everything scriptures says as having no cultural understandings of God littering its pages right along with all the good bits, like the Psalms or Proverbs?

Of course I question that. Why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't you? As I recall, your approach to faith is a rational one, not a fundamentalist, mythic-literal one, right?

Yes, the Biblical sense of "hate" that I was going for means "to love less."

Which isn't actually hatred at all. It's a hyperbole, at best. It is in essence saying that one should place the pursuit of the knowledge of God above all else, including all those things you find important to yourself. It's like the Buddha who said you should seek enlightenment like someone whose hair is on fire seeks the river.

It does not mean do not love yourself. It does not mean do not respect yourself. It does not mean engage in self-loathing. It does not mean be self-deprecating. All of these things are hating God's creation, chiefly, yourself.

What this "hating" your own life really is meant to convey, again is not a literal hatred, but it's about not clinging to the ego as the source of your happiness and fulfillment. This is taught in Hinduism and Buddhism as well. I've heard some Buddhist teachers say you must "get rid of the ego". And while that is "true" in a sense, it is not true in another. That's like saying you have to get rid of your body. Can anyone do that? Of course not, if they wish to remain alive as a human in this world. What it means is that we have to transcend the ego as the center of our own universe. It means go beyond. Love God more than you love your own ego. The ego cannot save you, in other words. I agree with that.

But to say we should "hate" the ego, is absolutely not the right path to take. All that does is feed the ego more by giving it a supreme focus of our attention. What really needs to be done is to put the ego on a diet, more or less ignoring its cravings, rather than indulging it with all manner of fast foods to satisfy its need for attention. Not neglect either, but a balance of a healthy maintenance.

And relating it to depression here, I suppose depression could be seen as a certain eating disorder of sorts, where the image of the body or the personality is disowned and dissociated from, and it either starved or abused in some manner. In other words, it's a dysfunction that one who suffers with it needs help with. It is not a path to awakening, in the least.

Do keep in mind, however, that hatred is not the opposite of love--as we see in scripture, even God hates. The opposite of love is selfishness. It is our selfish human nature that fundamentally separates us from God and His nature of love.

I'll challenge you on this one. First of all, the opposite of love is not hate as you say, but it's opposite is also not selfishness. It's true opposite is fear.

"Selfishness" is actually a normal and healthy part of our development emerging in early childhood. Egocentrism is a necessary, and healthy stage of ego development. All children at early ages are totally egocentric. They are yet incapable of seeing the world through the eyes of another, much less knowing empathy. As we develop and mature, the circle of self centeredness opens up to allow an ever-widening circle of others to be including as part of that "me" or "ego" that is developing.

There is no way that a child who is totally narcissistic, which is natural, normal, and healthy for them at that stage of development, is the opposite of love. Not at all. Not in the least. In fact, they are full of love, being less encumbered by the distractions and concerns of their lives as children living as adults in the world. There is a degree of freedom they have which adults lose in their growth into adulthood.

Where egocentrism, or selfishness is a problem is when you are supposed to be mindful of others as a more mature individual, in the stages of early development and into adulthood. We are parts of a society and simply taking what you want from others because you want it is not acceptable. Generally, that shows a developmental problem, not some fundamental "sin".

Now where I say fear is the opposite of love, is because love is open and accepting, welcoming and trusting, and full of joy and release. Fear, as the opposite of that closes oneself off to all of that. It contracts, its shuts down, it blocks and defends, it hides itself under the covers, it withdraws, and... it lashes out in hatred in order to defend and protect itself. All of this is the exact opposite of Love. It is the cork that blocks that flow of Love from God to the world, through you. We don't allow it, because we cling to our fear, we cling to our suffering, isolating ourselves in darkness.

This is where you're getting stuck about loving yourself as opposed to hating yourself, too--you're not thinking of hating yourself in terms of "loving yourself less"; you're thinking of really despising yourself--and that's not what I'm talking about.

You need to understand that the words that we use mean something to us. To say to yourself, "I hate myself" even when trying to say by comparison to loving God, that matters. It has a negative affect. Much better to say, "I'm not going to indulge in feeding the appetite of my ego because God offers truer nourishment for my soul," is infinitely more healthy because nowhere in a healthy spiritual path is self-hatred beneficial. Self-hatred is a dissociation, and to use words like that does in fact have a very well known negative effect on our psyches. It can lead to, or reinforce our depression.

Hopefully, this begins to make more sense to you now.

Likewise.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

I keep emphasizing that I have been talking about the Biblical sense of hate, which is "to love less," but y'all still want to try to argue the point using a different definition of the word "hate."

Probably just shouldn't use the word like The Bible uses it. It is just a wee bit out-dated on that front.

 

[Trackdayguy]

Emotions are not based on logic

Incorrect.

 

[Shushersbedamned]

Incorrect.

^incorrect