Mystery Of Giving
Every cell in your body is seeking fulfillment through joy, beauty, love and appreciation.
If you ask people why they give, the readiest answers offer clues to the mystery. God wants me to. I feel better about myself. Others need, and I have. I want to share. It’s only right.
When giving results in an experience of love, joy, peace, community, charity, caring, and self-worth, the process of expansion has begun. Some visionaries foresee an economy based entirely on giving. That would be the ideal way to heal the excesses of unfettered capitalism (and many other woes), but the basis for universal giving can only be expansion beyond our present sense of self. Merely turning the tables, expecting to be rewarded for how lavishly you give, won’t work. Expansion of the self brings a direct experience of love, joy, and the other things mentioned. You get a glimpse of ecstasy, the state of standing outside yourself in the infinite field of Being. Stand there, and all the money in the world wouldn’t buy a ticket back. You would wish to be there forever. Which is why Jesus offered those pungent words about storing up riches in heaven rather than treasure on earth.
The mystery of giving is revealed only when you crave the ecstasy that has been glimpsed. Then a realization hits you with full force. Without realizing it, you have been trying to do that all your life. In giving away yourself, you open a conduit for the kind of happiness that no one can ever steal from you. Someone once said that permanent joy results when you can give away your last penny. Actually, the penny is only a symbol. Permanent happiness results when you no longer have a personal stake in the world. When you see through the constant needs of I, me, and mine, no more needs will remain. There is only Being, and then every breath is bliss giving itself to bliss. That’s the rhythm of life. When you’ve felt it, it came over you the last time you truly gave yourself away. You joined reality once more. You entered the space where holiness resides.
