89. The Other In Yourself

When we think of the “other” we tend to think of something beyond our own body. Most often we think of other people, in contrast to the self, which is our own person. But the other is very much alive in us too.

Not everything we are is included in our image of the self. The leftovers are the parts of us that we refuse to identify with. They might be traits we wish we did not have, actions we regret taking, or past failures we want to forget. All of these are us, but we want to deny them. If they must exist, we want them to exist somewhere outside of who we really are. We want to be seen only as our best qualities and actions, as everything that aligns with our most cherished values.

All of the parts we banish from our self-identity are forced to be other. But our attempt to fence off these parts does not succeed without harm. For the othered parts are truly us, and denying them necessarily produces painful internal conflicts and the suffering that goes with them.

To love yourself is to love the other in yourself. It is to bring the outcast parts back into the self, and to accept the whole of your existence. By accepting these othered parts, you take responsibility for your entire life, and by doing so you also start to come to terms with who you are.

But to do this fully and truthfully, we must accept far more of than just the parts of our own person that we do not like. As our awareness expands, we begin to see that everything that exists is also part of the self. The self is nothing but a mirror of the world, and as such, it is much bigger than it seems. The other remains distinct but also forms a continuous unity with the self. There is a difference and also no difference.

To love the whole of the self is really to love the whole of the world. It is to love both the self and the other fully and without limit. In the end, to love yourself is nothing other than to act with boundless love for everything that exists.