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The meaning of selfishness we will explain in spiritual terms from a New Age Christian perspective. Mainstream Christianity defines selfishness always in a negative, sin-based tendency that must be overcome by all if we are to be in God’s will. If we all had the tendency for vanity, arrogance and to violate other’s boundaries and demean others that would be true. However, that shows a complete lack of understanding of the human condition of most of us. For many of us, once including me, just the opposite condition exists. For whatever reason, some of us suffer from low self esteem, depression and spiritual emptiness caused by lack of understanding our significance and our personhood, and our role in Humankind. What that means therapeutically is we need to learn to be more aware of our significance as God made us, not less. We already know we are a mistake and a failure; for healing we need to learn just the opposite of what mainstream Christianity wishes us to learn.
If that is your case, we have good news for you about your selfishness and how you should see yourself. When God made man, He said, “Let us make man in our own image” and He did. There can be many theological interpretations of why he said that and what his intention was for doing so, and this is what our New Age view sees. When God made other living things, He pretty much made them as an organism living in an environment to fend for itself as best it can. Germs, plants, fish, birds, and so forth. When it comes to higher order mammals we were created with a deeper connection to and within our environment. For humans and that is you, even though you may not feel like one sometimes, it becomes even more complex and beautiful. Tropical birds and fish do not need to know they are beautiful, we humans do.
When you were created, and since this is about understanding selfishness, we will talk about your selfishness specifically, God made you far more than just you a person. God made you, the life path you were to live out, in a specific place, time, family, and more. On the outside He made you enter this world in a family tailor made with blessings to grow you. There were unmet needs to teach you the importance of those needs, and a whole bunch of other circumstances. They were to teach you spiritual lessons only your soul must learn to make itself complete. None of your emotional needs were because you did not deserve better, they were to teach you how to meet them for yourself later as an adult.
With extreme emotional need we can incorrectly gain the perspective that we are a shadow, a non-person. We can feel our only purpose for existence is to be an audience for others and for life in general and nothing more. That is where I lived for several decades. We talked about the outside stuff in your world, and yes, it is your specific world we are talking about here. Now let us talk about some of the inside stuff that will plug into some of the outside stuff to make you a complete person, so you can live out your life path fully. The first thing is your sense of self, or your sense of selfishness. Contrary to most religious teaching, spiritual teaching is that your selfishness is good, and never bad or sinful to be selfish. Because without having a sense of self, and your personhood, you cannot know who you truly are and what your role is in life.
Your sense of self, and your personhood identity are why you were born here on earth in the first place. Without that you cannot fully exist. To find this unique quality that is you, the sense of your value must be recognized by you. Normally that is what mothers and fathers bring out in their children in their raising. If you lacked love in your childhood, then you can find it in adulthood later, with the lesson learned by you of its importance, and your own importance as well. Birds cannot exist without knowing they are a bird, fish cannot exist fully without knowing there are a fish. With them that comes easily because it is imprinted in their instinct. Humans are far more complex because we are not only alike, but we are also more different than alike. Our differentness is our value. Not only that, but it is also our connection God, who created us, to ourselves, and to Humankind and its destiny.
Selfishness does not mean you hate other people, it means you understand yourself as a gift to Humankind. The window through which you understand and love yourself is the same window through which you connect to God, and love others. Selfishness is embracing your difference and living in it. If you love the military, then being in the military is your worship of God. If you love dancing, then in dancing is your worship of God. If you love working as a welder, teacher, or a cook, then it is through those activities that you will be selfish. Life, Humankind and God all need you to be selfish by being your happiest in doing it. Selfishness is the path God wants you to walk to best benefit Humankind because you are a special gift to Life. See yourself as such.
Just for the record, this is an emotional and spiritual encouragement ministry. We are selling nothing here and are not at the present time even set up to take donations, and probably never will. Your healed life is our reward enough, and we are very pleased with that. If you want to, please share your strength with others in your future so our nurturing can live on.