Self Love

Sometimes there are certain issues that go so deep that we can't even begin to fathom the depths of them without the feeling that we are drowning. Self Love is one of these issues, actually, it's probably the issue amongst Lightworkers.

We want to be loved, to feel that we are loved, that we are worthy of being loved. Yet we cannot allow ourselves to feel loved, because deep down inside we don't feel worthy. We cannot receive the love that is offered to us.

We look for love from every source outside of us, except where this problem really lies, inside of us. That we do not love ourselves, cannot love ourselves, do not know how to love ourselves. This causes a deep rift in our psyche that seems impossible to bridge.

I remember a time many years ago when I was still living in Germany, and was confronting this issue of worthiness and self love. I felt so torn, there was such a pressure in my chest, I felt like I was going crazy...

At that time, I was a member /teacher of the Sufi Order of the West (now called the Sufi Order International - founded by Hazrat Inayat Khan and headed back then by Pir Vilayat Khan -his son and succesor). My first husband - Dietrich and I led sufi meditation classes, I taught The Dances of Universal Peace (more commonly known back then as Sufi Dance) and were fully immersed in the teachings of the Sufi path of Hazrat Inayat Khan and Pir Vilayat.

One of the main Universal Sufi teachings is that God is Love, the One who Loves, and the One that is Loved, Love, Lover, and Beloved all in one. So there I was, in the throes of this Dark night of the Soul episode, when a healer friend in the Order said to me "How can you claim to love God if you do not love yourself?". "If I believed that God is everywhere, and in everything, then God is also in me. And if I do not love myself, then I am denying God in me, hence I do not love God."

Wow! That was like a lightening bolt that went through me! I immediately burst out in tears and couldn't stop crying for the longest time. Because the deepest longing from my earliest spiritual awareness was the wish / desire to be One with God! I live and breathe and have my being in God - as best I can...

If I did not love myself, then I was living a lie in claiming that I love God. This realization not only gave me permission to love myself, but made it a prerequisite to loving God! This Satori-like moment has stayed with me ever since. I offer this up to share with you dear reader and pray that this may also be a tool for you on your path.

Love & Blessings Li Lan

The story of how I came to Hazrat Inayat Khan's teaching and the sufi path, my time there, and how I left, I will save for another time...I will say that my time with my sufi teachers (in Body or not - Hazrat Inayat Khan, Pir Vilayat Khan, Murshid Samuel Lewis, Reshad Feild) & their teachings, provided a strong spiritual foundation which still carries me forward today.(I was in the Sufi Order International from the age of 22 til I was 36/37 years old.)