Love Thy Neighbor as thyself

Love is the essence of all religious and spiritual practices.One must purify the mind of all mental defilements such as anger, greed, lust, pride attachment and egotism and be selfless before the mind can have love for God.We need to love God first before we can love others.That is why Jesus says Love God is the first most important commandment followed by loving our neighbor.The real self is the soul, not the individual ego or personality.As long as there is pride and egotism, we cannot experience our true nature which is Christ consciousness or the Buddha nature.The moment one has experienced God, he will realize that his neighbors have the same Christ Consciousness as him.It is only after the realization that everyone has the same Christ consciousness can we love everyone and everything.
Many religious people speak more of the fear of God than His love and they worship Him out of fear and punishment either in this world or in hell-or they hope for a reward in some heavenly realm after death.This is irrational and incomprehensible when Jesus ask us to forgive those who persecute us and to forgive our enemies seventy times seventy.He also said if a man slaps you on the right cheek give him the left cheek also.When he was on the cross Jesus said 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do'.So how can Jesus send nonbelievers to hell to suffer fire and damnation for eternity.This is what Christians believe in.As a result, many Christians think that as long as they accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour, he will be saved and will go to heaven when he dies.This is called instant salvation.People are attracted to instant wealth, instant coffee,and instant happiness as well as instant salvation.