GIVING BACK CREATES MOTION

The pearls in a necklace are all connected, all touching. They share a common fate. To touch one is to touch all.

The carriages of a train are all connected, all touching. When one carriage moves, they all must move. They are part of one whole. It would be silly for one carriage to think it could split off from the train and have an independent life.

And so it is with you and your brothers, whether you realize it or not. To touch one is to touch all. You share a common fate. It would be silly for one brother to think he could split off from the rest and have an independent life.

Thus does all giving become giving back. You cannot give to one of your brothers without receiving the blessing yourself, no more than you can touch a pearl without affecting the others on the string. You are all connected.

All giving is giving back

In the estimation of the world, to give something is to lose it. When you give it away, you have it no more. But when you give with love to another, you cannot lose by the giving. Giving creates motion. Both you and the recipient are part of the same circle, interconnected with others. Giving creates flow in the circle. This forward movement uplifts all, is magnified, increases, and comes back to you. It is not possible to give without receiving, since we are all connected.

If you want to receive peace, give as much peace as possible. You are giving it to yourself. To create peace, you have to be peace. Exude it. Channel it. Become it. Gandhi was right. “Be the change you want to see in the world.” This is the only way. You cannot expect the world to provide what you cannot find within.

What you give, you exactly receive

THOUGHTS CAN BE CHOSEN

A pure thought appears at first as naked as a Christmas tree, waiting for ornaments. A thought can be consciously chosen by you, or unconsciously picked up.

Once it is in your mind, it starts collecting to itself experiences, perceptions, assumptions and other thoughts. It wants to be well-clothed, this thought. It wants to be so well-clothed that you will fail to see it as a random thought. It wants to become part of the wallpaper, as invisible as a belief.

Once you accept a thought, evidence of it pops up everywhere. It is omnipresent because you believe it; you believe it because it is omnipresent. It must be right because it is everywhere; it is everywhere because it is right. Thus does it confirm itself.

How do you want your thoughts to come to you?

Do you want your thoughts to come by chance, picked up from family, others, popular culture, media? As random thoughts that surely were never created or consciously chosen by you?

“I suffer from anxiety.” “My parents messed me up.” “Revenge is right.” “Some people are less worthy than others.” “Compromise is weakness.” “It’s their fault.”

What if

Would you rather have pleasing, lovely thoughts from your real Self?

“I always know what to say.” “I am ready to change for the better.” “Everything arrives on schedule.” “Let me have no other desire than to do good.” “This can change at any time.” “Increase my peace.”

May you always choose your thoughts

THE RIGHT TOOLS

You want to bake a cake. There is no electric mixer. No problem. You’ll do it by hand. People used to do it that way; it will just take longer and be a bit more work.

There is no eggbeater either, so it takes extra long to get the eggs incorporated. The recipe calls for one cup of white sugar, but all you have is a bit of brown and some powdered sugar. You use it anyway, hoping it won’t affect the cake’s texture adversely.

When it is time to put it into the oven, you have no cake pans, so improvise with a casserole dish. There is no non-stick spray, so you use a bit of oil, although it never works as well.

One who is serious about a job has the right tools

How much more pleasant it is to cook in a well-stocked kitchen! How much more easily everything goes with the right tools! Everything is done properly, expeditiously, right the first time. There is no hit and miss.

With the right tools the job is done once, perfectly

Open the tool box

MEDICINE NO ONE WILL TAKE

What do we have to take the stupid medicine FOR?

There was pandemonium at the pre-school. It was medicine day. The babies were running around with fear written all over their tear-stained faces.

I’m never going to take the medicine

One girl was more composed. “I’m never going to take the medicine,” she explained. “No one expects me to. My mother never did it either, or anyone else in my family. So there.” And she went on coloring happily.

A boy in footed pajamas and a red, angry face kicked the wall. “What do we have to take the stupid medicine for, anyway? How will it help us in our lives? What good is it?” A giant kick. The anger he was building would keep him from the medicine for a long time, perhaps until he was an old man and died.

A round-faced, earnest girl was lost in thought, going over the steps in her mind one last time. The tongue and the spoon, the tongue and the spoon. She had practiced hard and faithfully, and felt cautiously optimistic. But with her the result was always the same. When it was her turn to take the medicine she blanked out, was thrown off. There was a trick question. Was it the spoon first? Or the tongue? And back she’d go to her studies, redoubling useless efforts.

Photo credit: Glenn Carstens Peters

Some of the children made a ritual out of the preparation. They set intentions, made resolutions, crossed items off lists and generally did all they could to fill their minds with business. This kept them eternally at square one, but with a sense of purpose.

The teachers tried to help. “Look, we know this is hard for you. But remember, a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Practice makes perfect. It doesn’t matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop. We’ll break this down into a hundred tiny steps and practice each one until you can do it in your sleep.”

Everything sounded good when they said it, but who had time to practice that much? Besides, what if you did and it still didn’t work? You’d have wasted all that time and then, where would you be, with even less hope?

Photo credit: Henrikke Due

Yes, there had been success stories, but so few and far between they took on the quality of myth. Occasionally, a new, unknowing child would step up to the line with no sense of apprehension, put out his tongue, and take the medicine. Those children were like the Japanese prisoners of war who didn’t know the war was over until years over, or like Rip Van Winkle waking up after a sleep of twenty years. But who could knowingly cultivate such oblivion? It belonged to some original condition that you could never access with eyes clouded by fear. You could forget about asking them how they did it either; after they took the medicine they slipped silently away, dolphins sliding into a different sea.

So round and round the babies went, fretting, fussing and fearing, throwing themselves to the light like so many moths at a flame. Ninety-nine out of a hundred fell each time, to drag themselves back up exhausted, to try again. Their efforts seemed useless, but to stop was to give up.

* * * * * *

You are on a stage in a great auditorium with a sea of smiling, well-wishing but anxious faces in front of you. Here you are to receive a great prize, recognition of your efforts in propagating peace and joy in the world. You walk onto the stage to a thunderous ovation, which slowly turns to intense quiet as the crowd strains to hear what you are about to tell them. How can you help them? They are desperate to know. How can you lift them up? You step forward to the microphone to speak.

You open your mouth. You put out your tongue. You take the medicine.

THE THOUGHT OF CHANGE

Photo credit: Ana Cernivec

A bullock trudged along a dusty path, which harbored the occasional sharp stone just where he least suspected it. The stiff wooden yoke was positioned just so that he could not look easily from side to side, and though he must necessarily look then to the front, the cruel engineering of the yoke decreed that he could not raise his line of sight enough to see the path ahead. Added to that, his burden weighed heavily, occasionally shifting uncomfortably. The bullock had no control over any of this, and there seemed nothing to look forward to.

From where did his next thought come? Surely not from the recesses of his previous thought patterns, which, like a factory, could churn out only more of the same. It alit suddenly, like a butterfly from a far off place. Who knows whence it came? Perhaps it was wished on him from some long-dead person’s prayer, or was the winged remnant of some past good deed, now finding form.

A brown and orange butterfly perched on a bright orange flower

Photo credit: Yuichi Kageyama

The thought: there is another way. It did no more than fly into his thought patterns and let itself be recognized. There is another way. It occupied his thought pattern for an entire heartbeat. It was enough.

I throw off all restrictions now

There was then seen a glimpse of green off to one side. As he allowed his eyes to stray there, he no more noticed the yoke. It let go its hold like releasing hands; without missing a beat his footsteps swerved straightly towards the green. Then his burden fell off, melted away, and was no more, as before him a vista opened itself.

Below the path and spreading out into a far infinity of soaring mountains, there lay a green and grassy meadow. There was a stream, a pool, and a fountain of sparkling fresh water. Grass grew sweet and long.

Everything I want is here, he realized. I can stay here forever. The air smelled of flowers, animals, and earth. Trees gave shade.

He ate and drank unhurriedly. There would always be plenty and abundance; what need to hurry? He lay down under a tree. He sank into thankfulness and peace.

The thought of change is change

REALITY WORTH CHOOSING

What is reality? Is it this day to day world that you live in, that you call life? Waking up to vague anxieties, raging fears, or black sadness, limping through the day with this heavy crow of misery on your shoulder? Look at the faces you pass in the street; are they happy faces? They are pinched in despair. Is this reality? Do you want it?

A grandmother and her three young granddaughters, carrying bunches of bananas on their backs. The colors are grey and muted; the faces are hesitant, open yet unsmiling.

Photo credit: Zeyn Afuang

Many of you go to work you did not choose, working long hours with no choice of your own as to how you spend your days. Is this life? Is this why you were born here? Fear, despair, pain and suffering; they seem to be universal. Is this what you want?

Photo credit: bantersnaps

Is reality only what can be apprehended by the five physical senses? Is reality only what you can see, hear, smell, taste and touch? Why do you give so much validity to the physical body, as though it should always know more validly than the other part of you? The other part of yourselves is everything you feel to exist, but which is not physical. That would be your minds, your psyches, and your souls.

Why have you set the body’s little knowledge higher than the knowledge that the soul has? This is truly backwards. It must be the work of the ego. The body says, “Trust me that only the evidence of your senses is real.” Who is the body speaking for but itself?

Photo credit: Richard Jaimes

But the body always follows the mind, friends. The mind is stronger than the body. Therefore, we should define reality as what can be perceived by the soul alone. That would be love, hope, compassion, peace and joy. This is a reality worth choosing.

Reality chosen by the soul

Photo credit: Gus Howie

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