By J. Bailey Molineux

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all-thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." "This is the first and great commandment." "And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Matthew 22:37-39.

So spoke Jesus when He was asked which is the great commandment. And so He summarized what is the central message of Christianity: love for God, others and self. Many mystics - those rare and fortunate men and women who have experienced God - seem to report the same thing: the guiding principle of the universe is love. No matter how vast the universe, no matter how relatively insignificant we seem to be, there is purpose and meaning in the cosmos.

The mystical experience is one in which the person achieves a sense of oneness with God. The distinction between subject and object, knower and known, person and God, disappears, leaving a great sense of joy and peace. With this mystical sense of union comes the realization that one is immortal and that there is no death. The fear of death disappears.

These mystics tell us that we are one with God. We are part of God and He is part of us. We will always be with Him, and He will always be with us, even after death. We never have been, and never will be, separate from Him because we are one with Him. God is within us, and God is without, and the two are the same. The Upanishads, the Hindu holy scriptures, tell us: "What is within us is also without. What is without is also within ... Brahman (God) alone is - nothing else is."

In other words, the only reality in the universe is God. Only He exists. We exist because we are part of Him.

Ask a fish to describe his environment and probably the last thing he will mention - if he mentions it at all - is the water that sustains him. He takes it for granted and so doesn't really notice it. And yet that water is his "ground of being," to borrow a phrase from the theologian, Paul Tillich. It is all around him as well as within him. Similarly, God is all around us and within us, yet like our friend the fish, we are not fully aware of Him.

Now those of you with theological interests will recognize that I am here taking the position that God is immanent - that He is, or abides in, the entire universe, including ourselves. If this is so, then to love ourselves is to love God within us. And to love our neighbors is to love ourselves and God because we are all One. And to love flowers, rain, clouds, bees, stars, sunsets - to love all of nature - is to love God for He is there also.

But even if you disagree with my view, even if you believe that God is transcendental – outside or up there - and that He created us in His image, then you must admit that to love ourselves is to love that which God has created.

Remember that Jesus said that the second great commandment is to "love thy neighbor as thyself," implying that love of self is the greatest human love, and that if we can learn to love our neighbors as much as we should love our­selves, we will be doing God's will.

Self-love is the most important trait of the mentally healthy person, one that is essential for his emotional well-being. It is also necessary for caring relations with other people. How can we love others if we don't love ourselves? How can we have enough love to give to others if we don't have enough for our­selves? And how can we see the beauty, the joy and the wonder in the universe that is God, or which He created, and of which. we are a part, without self-love?

By J. Bailey Molineux

The young couple were unhappily married. She was depressed, while he was miserable. They were on the brink of a divorce.

Nothing seemed to help them, except they became interested in religion. They decided to join. A church and gradually began to solve their problems. Today, their marriage is doing well. Clinical and religious literature abounds with cases of depressed, unhappy people who make a sincere spiritual commitment and experience a complete turnabout in their emotions and attitudes. Their depression becomes joy, their anxieties the certainty that everything is O.K. and their problems an opportunity to grow.

Therapists are sometimes regarded with suspicion or apprehension by religious people as being atheistic or agnostic, but not always with justification. Whatever their own beliefs, however, mental health professionals would be foolish not to respect the healing, comforting power of religion and try to understand its effects.

When a person makes a spiritual commitment he turns everything - all his fears, worries, problems and hopes - over to God. He surrenders his life completely to Him. God's will becomes his will.

Having done so, the convert becomes a vessel that is empty of self through which God can flow unhampered and unimpeded. He is transformed into a being through which God moves and acts. Like St. Francis, he asks only that God make him an instrument of His peace, and like St. Paul, he exclaims, "It is not I that lives, but Christ within me."

In such a state, the convert's life is no longer his own, but he need never worry about the future or the results of his actions. Because he no longer acts alone, he can be sure his behavior is correct and appropriate. With no purpose of his own except to serve God, he is assured his purpose is a worthy one. Whatever he does, whatever he experiences, whatever happens to him, is according to God's plan. But his God is a loving God so that whatever happens will be good or for his ­ benefit.

The convert is sure he belongs in the universe. He has found his place in the universal scheme of things. No longer is he a stranger, alone and afraid, in a vast and inhospitable cosmos. The convert is also convinced that he is loved by an eternal and unconditional he could possibly experience. Such a fellowship enables him to love himself and other people. The convert is at peace with himself because he has given up his sense of self. Having abandoned self and its petty desires to God, he finds lasting contentment no matter what his lot in life. He is calm and composed because he harbors no thoughts or desires that can disturb him.

The convert also feels that he is immersed in the Presence of God where nothing can disturb or harm him.- He experiences joy and peace because he is concentrating only on God and entertains no distressing, worrisome thoughts; Unpleasantries that may surround him pale in comparison to the magnificence of God, and these he ignores because of his complete absorption in that Presence love. To feel that he is deeply loved by God is obviously the greatest sense of love. In effect, fully immersed in God, the convert is distracted from his worries and concerns. Having given up his sense of self to God, he feels completely free from danger or harm.

Finally, the convert experiences less fear of death because he is convinced it is an illusion. Secure in God's love, he believes death to be only a passage from one state to a far better state.

An unknown author best summarized the benefits of the conversion experience this way: "The first underlying cause of all sickness, weakness or depression is the human sense of separateness from that Divine Energy which we call God. The soul which can feel and affirm in serene but jubilant confidence, as did the Nazarene, 'I and my Father are one,' has no further need of healer or of healing."