“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
These seven words formed the core message of the revolutionary spiritual teacher called Jesus, recognized by millions of people as the savior of the world. Unfortunately, it seems far fewer recognize that it is not belief in the man, but universal application of the simple message he left behind encapsulated in these seven words that will ultimately save the world.
This message on the surface may not sound radical, but in the world we live in, it most certainly is. Teaching the true application of these seven words has gotten many people killed over the years, for it threatens religious institutions, governments, corporate and political power, military empires, the wealth of the rich, and the entire status quo of society. Allow me to explain.
We must first must understand, what does it mean to love one neighbor as oneself? This precept is easily summed up in what is known by many as the Golden Rule, some form of which is found in every major religion: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.” It’s quite simple, really, with the ‘positive’ aspect of helping others and the ‘negative’ aspect of not hurting others.
Within the Bible, a perfect example of the practical application of this being explained is by John the Baptist, who told his followers that anyone who had two coats should give to those people who had none, and they should do the same with excess food. That is the doing side of this. The not doing side is seen in his command to the soldiers: “Do violence to no man,” which is essentially a summary of what is nowadays known as the non-aggression principle, which states that people have no right to initiate violence against others.
What would the world look like if people began to apply this principle to their lives? I believe this is the key to ending human suffering on this planet, and solving all of the major problems we have created for ourselves.
As Ron Paul often points out, if nations applied the Golden Rule to their conduct, there could be no war, at least not the endless wars of aggression and conquest waged by the US for the past two decades, along with most of the major wars fought in the past. If nations treated neighboring nations as they want and expect other nations to treat them, they wouldn’t invade them to pillage their resources, and topple their governments to consolidate their own geopolitical power, as the US and Israel continue to do time and time again.
If we truly loved our neighbors as ourselves, we wouldn’t drop bombs on foreign nations, because we don’t want them to drop bombs on us. Empires and interventionist foreign policies would cease to exist, and peace would begin to prevail.
If governments were held to the same standard individuals are, and were expected to treat their citizenry as the citizenry is expected to treat them and themselves, then there could be no government tyranny, corruption or abuse of power anywhere.
If cops loved their neighbors as they loved themselves, they wouldn’t harass them and give them tickets for petty traffic violations that have not done them or anyone else harm. If cops treated people the way they want and expect to be treated, they would never draw their guns or tasers and threaten unarmed humans for ‘noncooperation’; they would never ‘shoot first and ask questions later’; they wouldn’t arrest people for ‘crimes’ they themselves get away with committing, or for any ‘crime’ that hasn’t harmed another or their property; and they would most certainly not beat down, torture or rape anyone for any reason, as has become common practice for police nowadays.
We live in a society where the CEO’s of some corporations make more money every single minute than the entire annual income of their employees, while these employees struggle to make ends meet and take care of the basic needs of their families. Something is terribly wrong with this picture, and from my perspective what is wrong is a complete lack of true love and compassion for one another being replaced by hatred and greed, which has spread throughout all of society like a virus. The greed- and fear-based mentality driving such detrimental selfishness is like a cancer infecting all of society.
If people truly loved their neighbors as themselves, there couldn’t be some who have three or four or five homes while others have no home. There wouldn’t be families with multi-million dollar homes with ten rooms, while there are families with no rooms, not even a roof over their head. There wouldn’t be celebrities who have extravagant vacation homes they only use one week or one month a year - second, third or fourth homes - while others are homeless on the street without even a shack for shelter.
We live in a society where it is normal for people to live in a nice house and have a nice camper or motor home which they use only once or twice a year, while many homeless people would be happy to have such a camper as their home! Some of these campers are nicer than most apartments, and it has become the accepted norm for a family to drop $20,000-40,000+ on one of these (practically speaking, a functional small home), and use them to go camping once or twice a year, while the rest of the year they just sit in the driveway or at the storage unit. Imagine if everybody who had such a camper gave it to a homeless family or a person living on the street - that alone would probably eradicate homelessness in a second, and the only thing people would have to give up is their luxury camping trips!
If people truly loved their neighbors as themselves, anybody who had two homes would share the extra home with a homeless person or a poor family struggling to get by. They wouldn’t even have to give away their second home, just allow people to live in it rent-free.
If people truly loved their neighbors as themselves, doctors wouldn’t charge extravagant rates to save lives and treat the sick, and they wouldn’t prescribe dangerous pharmaceutical drugs that only treat the symptom and not the root problem - all for the kickbacks they get for doing so. Jesus didn’t make a profitable profession out of healing; he healed the sick at no cost; and yet it is widely accepted in Christianity to charge money to treat the wounded and heal the sick as a doctor, rather than doing so out of love for one’s neighbor at little to no cost. And doctors acting as the drug dealers of the corrupt and deadly pharmaceutical industry, that’s just reprehensible for someone claiming to be in the industry of healing others! Yet it is sadly all too common in this pharmaceutical- and greed-driven society.
If people truly loved their neighbors as themselves, there could be no multi-billionaires or multi-millionaires or even simple millionaires while people are unemployed and starving, and the majority of people, the working class, struggle just to pay rent and put food on the table.
Jesus addressed this very issue when he was approached by the rich people of his day, who were surrounded by the impoverished suffering masses, and on one occasion the principle of love for neighbor in relation to the rich is laid out in a very clear manner, in a story recorded in the original Hebrew gospel of Matthew that didn’t make its way into the version handed down to us that we have today. This story highlights how the practical application of true love for neighbor really is the solution to most human suffering:
The second rich youth said to him, “Rabbi, what good thing can I do and live?” Jesus replied, “Fulfill the law and the prophets.” “I have,” was the response. Jesus said, “Go, sell all that you have and distribute to the poor; and come, follow me.” The youth began to scratch his head, for it did not please him.
And the Lord said, “How can you say, I have fulfilled the law and the prophets, when it is written in the law: You shall love your neighbor as yourself, and many of your brothers, sons of Abraham, are covered with filth, dying of hunger, and your house is full of many good things, and nothing goes out from it to them?”
And he turned and said to Simon, his disciple, who was sitting by Him, “Simon, son of Jonah, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Origen, Commentary on Matthew 15:14)
Sadly, most churches preach love of neighbor, but are not truly practicing it, and are certainly not advocating such radical changes in people’s lives or in society in this direction. The church-members with multiple homes are not being admonished to share their extra home(s) with a needy family at no cost, but rather it is accepted that they should rent it out just like everyone else with two or three homes does. The rich are not being scolded for hoarding wealth and material goods while their neighbors are in need.
Most of the churches go so far as to collect money from their members every single week to pay their own salaries and build and upkeep nice church buildings, when such money could instead be spent to help the needy in their neighborhood, or even in their own congregation.
It should be much easier to see now, how such a simple teaching as loving one another, is seen as such a big threat to so many - to governments, religious establishments, and politicians, to the rich and the powerful everywhere they are found, to corporate executives, Big Pharma, Big Oil, imperial war machines and the Military Industrial Complex, to the Big Food industry and factory farming, and to anyone who stands to gain from the suffering and oppression of others.
We live in a society where we are taught from a young age that the goal in life is to ‘get ahead,’ but few take the time to stop and realize that this implies leaving everyone else behind, or else they do and just don’t care. We live in a society where we are taught from a young age that the goal in life is to ‘work our way to the top’ of society, but how many of us take the time to stop and think about the fact that, by working our way up this corporate ladder, there are many others left at the bottom?
This way of thinking and of living life as a competition, has led directly to the greed-and consumerist-fueled corporate society where billionaires existing alongside those with nothing is considered normal. This is a societal disease, and love is the only medicine which can heal this inequality and oppression of the majority by the corporate minority.
Tupac understood this, and pointed out the problem with this sad reality decades ago before he was murdered.
“Can you imagine someone having 32 million dollars, and this person has nothing, and you can sleep, and go to the movies? And these are the type of people that get humanitarian rewards! Millionaires! How can they be humanitarians, by the fact that they’re millionaires and there’s so many poor people, shows how inhumane they really are.” - Tupac Shakur, speaking on Donald Trump and Greed:
There were people who came preaching this simple but revolutionary message to humanity long before the time of Jesus, and many more after him. Many religious folk continue to wait for the coming of their savior to save the world and make these wrongs right. For Christians, it is the return of Jesus Christ, for Muslims it is Christ alongside the Mahdi, for Buddhists it is Maitraye, while the Jews are awaiting the coming of their Messiah.
But the key to saving the world lies hidden within all religions, and all of these religions already saw their savior come and leave this key behind. “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” In Judaism, Moses taught this message; in Christianity it was Jesus, who taught his disciples to selflessly love both their neighbors and their enemies; in Buddhism it was Gautama Buddha who taught universal love and compassion; in Hinduism it was Krishna; and Islam has Mohammed teaching love of both neighbor and enemy as well.
And yet so many people are still waiting for a future Messiah-figure to come or return and save the world, while each of us already holds the power to save the world within ourselves. When enough of us realize this, and begin to truly love each other as we love ourselves, heaven on earth will very quickly become a reality.
As the great spiritual teacher Paramahansa Yoganada once said:
“A thousand Christs sent to earth would not redeem its people unless they themselves become Christlike by purifying and expanding their individual consciousness,” who would in doing so begin to truly love their neighbors as themselves, bringing about a heavenly state to this currently broken world of suffering.
Considering how simple it is, it is amazing humanity still hasn’t figured out the simple solution to all of her suffering. “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
