Love Thy Neighbour

Right now the world is very emotionally charged at two extremes. There is a lot of love and giving and sense of humanity, which is amazing and heart-filling to witness. There is the other extreme of anger, selfishness and tunnel vision. Politically around the world, there seems to be a lot of bipartisanship, blind loyalty and people seeing things only in black and white, ignoring areas of grey. It is so easy to get caught up in the hype of people around you, so much so that we lose sight of who we are and how we would react if we had a bit of distance from these situations.

“Love thy neighbour as thyself” is a universal instruction which many people rightly preach, but to what extent do we understand it? What if it is written “Love thyself as thy do thy neighbour”? My personal understanding of that is more than just having love for a fellow human-being . I see it as empathising with others and making an effort to understand what they’re going through, internalise that and take care of them as you would yourself in those circumstances. It’s not just paying lip service to the word love. It’s about respect, forgiveness, understanding, caring and many more things along those lines. Often this common biblical quote has been interpreted as "do unto others as you would have done unto you". This means treat others as you would like to be treated. It’s also put into the negative: “Don’t do unto others as you would not have done unto you”. Don’t treat people in a way that you would not like to be treated. But loving thy neighbour is more than just a verb of love. It’s feeling and understanding from the other person’s perspective, rising above a situation instead of just reacting to it from the little you understand of it. When we truly see each other and when we truly see ourselves, our relationships with each other would be different. We don’t know what’s happening in the lives of others. You see angry people and later learn that they were going through a difficult relationship, are in tough financial circumstances or have had to fight discrimination of some sort.

Consider this:

· How do you love yourself?

· If you treat others better than yourself – why is there that imbalance?

· If you treat yourself better than others – why is there that imbalance?

· Do you have insecurities that make you tough with others or do your insecurities allow others to be tough with you?

We are all human with human problems but we all originate from the same source.We are a universal family. If your family hurts, you hurt and vice versa. The same is true for love. If you love your neighbour you, in turn, are loved. This change though, must start with you. Love your neighbour with an understanding from their perspective and treat them as you would like to be treated were you to be in those circumstances.