Gloria to God:
Dear God, sometimes I can't grasp the difference between loving myself and selfishness.
God:
When anyone is selfish, you can be sure he does not love himself.
You know that by unselfish, we don't mean self-sacrificing. Sacrifice is opposed to truth. Sacrifice has an enormous hook.
People who are in a phase of selfishness have desperate egos hungry for amassing tokens of love from Me. They must grab them. They must use others to toss them a few peanuts.
Selfish is using others. It is controlling others. It is truth displaced.
Loving yourself is knowing your worth which is knowing your truth. Truth does not use anyone.
The sex act can be an example. Love can be exchanged, and both gain because they both give. Or it can be an act of gratification where one or the other has misled the other and takes. If the two wish intercourse for the sake of sex alone, and they are truthful and do not mislead themselves or another, then it is equal exchange and mutually honest.
When one does not love himself, regard himself as worthy, or worth as much as the other, he may be the user or the used.
Many "givers" in life may be selfish because they are giving to take, perhaps praise or something passing for love.
The real thing isn't the question of selfishness. The real question is self-worth. Self-worth is knowing the greatness of My creation of which you are a part. It is honoring Truth.
Gloria:
Dear God, I had a telephone conversation the other night with someone, and I felt that all their "sweetness and light" was not true, that beneath it all was, well, callousness.
God:
Instead of thinking of selfish people, think self-gratifiers. In this case, that person was gratifying her contrary needs to be virtuous and pathetic when, in fact, she was perpetuating her myths, and that is control.
When you are in doubt of whether you are being selfish or not, ask yourself, Am I being truthful? If you are truthful, you will not use anyone, be used, or be self-gratifying. You will be truthful. That is your choice. And the other person also has their choice.
What people ordinarily consider selfish may not be at all.
Gloria:
God, there also seems to me to be a fine line between giving love and being a jerk.
God:
Not if you are in your truth. I wonder if "being a jerk" makes you feel more worthy than the other person, or why would you be that?
Love doesn't count and measure. It is. Love is no fool. Love is not dispersed. It just is. Love yourself enough to not be a fool. Love yourself enough to give your love when you are at the same place as your love — not stretching, trying to be other than you are, or more than you are, or less than you are.
Giving and receiving are one. If they are not, if you give and in the process do not receive joy, then you are not giving. Love is not duty.
The mother who takes care of her baby does not do it from duty. Duty is not love. The mother may not want to wake up at that moment, but she does want to nurse her baby, for the baby's sake and for her own fulfillment.
Another example, you could not do this writing on a daily basis from duty. You give this time, and you feel well-rewarded in the act itself.
There really is nothing to learn about being selfish or loving yourself. Focus on the feeling of wanting to give. If you want to withhold and you still give, then that is not giving because it is not truthful.
Forced giving is not giving. Giving is easy when it is truth. The truth may be you want to give, but you are not there quite yet.
When there is a hook to your giving, it bears qualities of selfishness, which is another way of saying you do not believe in your worth.
Now Let Mother Divine add a few words.
Mother Divine:
What is, is. Pretense doesn't change it. When you are honest with yourself, there is no denial, subterfuge, hidden elements, expectations, demands. What you say is your truth. What you do is your truth.
Truth is neither selfish nor unselfish. Truth has no qualities but itself.
The Sun shines for itself. It is the Sun's nature to shine. He gives enormously to the world. The Sun knows who he is, and he does his thing. Selfish and unselfish have nothing to do with it.
Better not to be asking, Is this selfish, Is this unselfish? Ask, Is this truth?
You are all little suns that shine. A sun does not concern itself with taking advantage or being taken advantage of.
The Sun doesn't have rules. Its own nature is its regulation; the rule is being what it is.
Ultimately, when you know there is no other, when all is One, there is no giving or taking. There is love. The giving is the return, and all you do is give to yourself generously.