When I truly go out of myself in meeting another person, when in that encounter I can let go of my small, fearful, grasping self, then in meeting the other I simultaneously meet my own highest, truest self.... In opening myself to another's essential nature I am at the same time opening myself to my own.
The biblical commandment to 'love thy neighbor as thyself' is in this light tranformed from a moral rule to a profound statement about the nature of relationship. I can love another only as I love myself. Conversely, I can love myself ony as I love another.
Love's exit is its entrance. We see others as strangers only when we are estranged from ourselves. We can fear in others only what we fear in ourselves. And when we meet a loved one, we are meeting ourselves as the beloved.
Philip Simmons
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