Hi

"We find the love we seek by looking within and first loving ourselves. Completely ... "
I stand in unequivocal agreement. This is the only foundation upon which a family or a civilization can endure.

There is a thing called righteousness which not well understood. In the spiritual sense Strong's Concordance defines the word as "The ability to cleanse one's self of false charges." This is pure form. To have another assume guilt or charge or responsibility is a plea bargain under law and the bargain will always be a debt owed. A very clever trap.

Self-righteousness is generally looked upon with distaste or suspicion or even as ungodly by most religious and spiritual communities and yet the very definition in religious context is the ability to cleanse...one's self...of false charges.

The application righteousness is a standing above law. It has nothing to do with feelings or justifications. It is an inherent and natural position of Authority exercised, opinions of the world not withstanding.

Law is the offspring of contention. If contention did not exist then law would not exist. Law exists only to accuse and for no other reason. Defense of accusation and charge under law is that the individual was never developed or born but was birthed as a false persona acting in the individuals stead without full knowledge or consent of the individual. The individual cannot be charged with actions of false persona.

The processes of righteousness begins when the individual starts to become aware of the difference between self and false persona. As the process progresses the individual can begin to assess and differentiate charges as rightly against either false persona or self and dismiss all charges accrued by false persona and falsely attributed by law to true self. As false persona fades and true self develops personal responsibility increases until one is entirely responsible for ones self. Quite a lot of people do not like this because it is so much easier and safer to enter plea bargain, over and over again. Self-righteousness is a one way ticket. Those who seek to go back may as well have never started. The oyster will close to protect the pearl of false persona.

The point that I'm trying to make with all of this rambling is that it is not possible to assign highest value unless one has standing above law through awareness of real self as separate from false persona. The ever so popular plea bargain is to kneel under law and be subject to terms and conditions of external salvage, and it seldom comes to actual self salvage. Assignment of value of the individual to self is only and strictly what the salvaging party allows with failure to perform terms and conditions resulting in revocation of value that the individual enjoyed under bargain. The self-righted individual is free to assign absolute highest value to self and therefore assign value, up to absolute highest value, to others and to a god if the individual keeps one.

As you said, "...first loving ourselves. Completely ..."

To love because one is commanded to do so is not love, it is obedience to condition of contract and nothing more. There is no spiritual life in that obedience.

All of this seems like the long, hard way around, and it is. This why we need to be so careful with the children. They don't need this. They need a clean start that they can build on without wasting time.

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: Hi Mike... Bet you didn't know I could clone your nickname :-)
: .. Not to worry, I only do it for good reasons.

: Speaking of good reasons, I didn't see the sentence that asked
: for me to bring it (the thread) over here until this
: morning.. So, I did. Hopefully we can get some dialog on
: this most interesting subject.

: A long time ago, I heard a song with and interesting chorus
: that stayed with me through the years. The chorus was,
: "Love is not a feeling it's an act of your will."
: .. While love as you said, has many faucets and meanings,
: real spiritual love is something more.

: When you 'fall in love' with someone or love them because they
: make your emotions happy or make your body parts tingle..
: that's just chemistry trying to get you to reproduce.. It's
: infatuation. It’s fun, but it’s not love. It feels
: wonderful but when 'the thrill is gone,' do you still
: 'love' that person.. ??

: Love is not starting wars or bombing innocents.. However, love
: is not entirely passive either. It can rightly defend its
: family or country when someone else attacks it.

: We find the love we seek by looking within and first loving
: ourselves. Completely ...

: imho