SELF AS A FLIRT

"THE MOST DIFFICULT PERSON FOR YOU TO KNOW IS YOU"

The toughest person to meet and completely understand in your life is you. The most difficult thing to do in life is to stand away from one "self" and have a clear, full view of its shades and contours. It has the nature of a parallel line which runs closest to you and never goes away but nor comes closer. Like a true flirt, it is always tantalisingly near and yet safely away - never close enough for you to touch. And no one possesses the power to allure you through deception more than this wily coquet has. It feeds you with all the reasons to justify its actions, never allowing you to look at it as it is, except through the prejudiced eye of subjectivity. It is there in the way when you want to fall completely in love with anyone other than this flirt. And yet, if you tear its veil apart, you will find this flirt suddenly transformed into the only source from where all your love flows. That is why no love is possible without self love. But guard against greed posing as self love. Self love and selfishness are two different things -- often two extreme opposites. Self lends itself to transfromation into an enobling surrender to something outside. Even selflessness is a form of self love, which selfishness is not. The ability to meet these two and distinguish the fake from the real is given to saints -- and one can be a saint without being religious.