Loving oneself

Bismillah.

Some people think loving oneself is an undesirable trait. They say "most people are in love, in love with themselves". And they mean it in a negative way. I disagree, and will admit that I love myself. Because without me, I will never know my Creator, as simple as that. He has created me so that He is known.

"I" am a receptacle of His manifestations. He breathed His spirit into me. He created me with His own two hands. He the Most Beautiful, fashioned me as He wished. It is He who creates my actions. Therefore "I" am special. Why then should we be apologetic about loving ourselves?

Without "me" I will never know the existence of the Prophet (pbuh). It's paradoxical but it's the beauty of my existence that enables the recognition of the beautiful beings exterior to me. I must first love me before I can begin to love my Creator and His Beloved until it becomes apparent that loving me means loving my Creator. And the fact that "I" [we] are counted as the ummah of Rasulullah salallah alaihi wasalam is something we rejoice in. So I think we need to broaden our perspective a little bit. We must stop thinking of the "I" as the limited-I. Consider what Sayyidina Umar [r.a] said: "I see not something without seeing God before it."

Once we are able to recognize the Creator through the "I", and then we learn to disregard the ananiyah -- the I-ness. That much we understood from shuyukh who are ahlul tasawuf over the years. And one of them whom I regard as the most open and vocal in speaking about the subject is the honorable Shaykh Yusuf Bakhour al-Hassani, may Allah elevate him further. May Allah increase us in knowledge and gnosis. Ameen.

Allahu a'lam.