GIVING

Many years ago, I was visiting a friend in Mumbai, India, in the evening we went out for stroll along the main street, where so many stall appear on footpaths, selling all kind of household and personal wear goods. My friend to buy couple of pots; next to the utensils stall, there was stall selling shoes. There was young girl of 12 or 13, trying white shoes, and looking at the shoes on her feet and imaging how smart she felt in them. Next to her was the mother with worrying look on her face, and very quietly telling the daughter, daring we can’t afford these shoes.

Realizing the situation I quietly asked the stall keeper, how much were the shoes, and offered to pay for the young lady. The stall-keeper being an honest man, wanted to ask the mother if it was okay to accept my gift for her daughter.

Mother turned to me and asked how could she accept this gift (from a stranger)? Since was approaching Christmas and it was a Christian neighborhood, I said, ma’m, the gift was for the young lady, her Christmas present. The young lady ran to me with her new shoes and gave a heartfelt hug and said, “thank you uncle for making my Christmas.” I wished here well and I knew I had to leave the scene immediately without waiting for any further thanks from the mother.

The delight I saw in young lady’s eyes on receiving the gift and warmth of her innocent hug was biggest delight of my trip to Mumbai. Thinking about it still warms my heart after years.

The delight in those innocent eyes and thinking that my little gesture may have established her faith in the generosity of life/Spirit.

Nagual John Michael once said that, we must do such gesture in the name of the spirit of the man. This is the best way to say our thanks to the generosity of life/Spirit giving us the means and opportunity for such gestures.

RECEIVING

Year ago, I was traveling in Europe and one evening I was stuck in border town between France and Spain, while traveling from Marseille to Barcelona. On the border post, I asked the French Policeman, if you direct me to nearest town, where I cold find a hotel for the night. This polite policeman, looked at me and asked me to wait few minutes, he was coming off his duty and offered me to take me in his car to nearest town/village.

I appreciated his gesture, and thanked him for it in my very limited Spanish. In this border village, where one side of the street was in France and one in Spain. He shared a coffee with me and left me there in this busy restaurant bar.

While I was asking the counter staff for a hotel in the village, a couple came to me said, that they spoke English and would be happy to help me. It was God sent offer, since did not speak any French, more than merci beaucoup.

This couple, Geoff and Sally invited me to their table and introduced themselves. Geoff was Welsh and his partner Sally was Australian, they both were teacher in Australia and had a little cottage about 3 miles of the French side of the border. They offered me a glass of wine and asked who I was.

I told them I needed a hotel for the night, they offered me a place on couch in their living room, since they had a tiny one bedroom cottage. I accept their offer gratefully. When we arrived in this dark little French village where their cottage was, I discovered this was like a little heaven in itself; with small waterfall in front of the cottage and couple of acres of cherry trees.

It was a small cottage no doubt but Geoff and Sally’s heart was big, that is what mattered. In their tiny kitchen Sally showed me a pile of Indian spices and told me that Geoff was fond of Indian cooking and he would make an India meal.

After cooking, that I also helped, we sat down on the table, I had a feeling that this all was too good to be real, I wanted to touch/hug Geoff and Sally to feel that they were real; I was not dreaming all of it. Geoff got up and said, let’s make it real dream. He picked a cassette of Hindi film songs and played on the machine. Yes now one could not tell where it was a dream or reality.

In my bed, that night I could not sleep for longtime wondering how generous the Spirit was with me. When I woke up went out of the cottage, morning was absolutely bright. I had my sketch book with me and did a quick sketch of the cottage and left it for my hosts to discover after I had gone.

After breakfast Geoff and sally took me to the bus-stop, where I could continue my journey. Only way I accept their generosity and express my gratitude was to share the warmth of heart with a hug, and extending my invitation to visit me when life gave them the chance.

SHARING

Above were the examples of giving and receiving, when the giver makes a gesture in the name of the spirit of the man, and receiver receives it with dignity and gratitude. But the giver walks away with a delight of giving and warmth of the human feelings those come with the sincere gratitude from the receiver.

Sharing takes place between two or more people, who are brought together under the auspicious of the Spirit to share as a continuous process what life has given to them. It is very different from one off giving and receiving.

One off giving is like opening your window for a little while to give and window is closed, where the sharing requires the door is open both ways.

For this process to work on a long term basis, both sides needs to:

• come together to share with an abandon what each had got, without calculating what each would receive in return;
• sharing is done for the delight of sharing, not an act of bartering;
• both parties are open and honest to the other;
• One is ready to share without asking from the other, and one feels that other will benefit from your sharing.
• One doesn’t take receives the gift from the other with respect and gratitude. The gratitude is offered from the heart.

GRAITUDE

No doubt what we share with the others is gift from life that you have received and you are sharing it with the other, still our gratitude is due to the person that Spirit chooses as a means to deliver this gift to you. Our gratitude is expressed to the Spirit and the person who acted as a conduit for the delivery of the gift. There was definite reason why Spirit chooses to deliver the gift through this person; otherwise the Spirit could have delivered the gift directly to you.

Spirit knows that those people receive the gifts directly from the Spirit become arrogant, believing that they are only chosen ones to receive these gifts or many times they forget that it was the Spirit’s generosity at the first place. As every person comes to this world empty handed, even when one is born in a family with abundance of material wealth.

When Spirit chooses to use another person to deliver a gift, it is also teaching you to be humble, and grateful.

It is gesture you do to express your thanks to the other that acted as a conduit for the gifts to flow through, not only to make the other person feel good, but more importantly to acknowledge the gift. A of energy, a material object or money becomes sanctified and more meaningful when a sincere gratitude is expressed in clear words and whole heatedly.

When we do not get the chance to say our thanks to the giver, we are hesitant to use the gift. One can even feel like if you have taken something from a supermarket without paying at the counter. Gratitude another kind of currency that can be used to pay for the gifts we receive often on way. As we are aware if we do not pay for the services of doctor/healer, we do not receive the full benefit of the treatment. Sincere gratitude also generates a positive energy that brings more gives on our way of life.

EXPRESSING A GRATITUDE

Each gift is form of energy we receive, and the gratitude is warmth from our heart, that we always have even when we have lost everything (all the material objects, money and even the close ones) else in life. Warmth of heart is also another form of energy as valuable as the gifts we receive. This warmth more we share it more is generated within us.

Mode of expressing our gratitude or sharing our warmth in return, depends upon our social/cultural traditions and on our own experiences.

As in many cold countries people express their delight rubbing their noses/hands with others that is where one needs the warmth physically and it has developed over time a means of expressing delight. But a warm hug is most common expression used in most cultures. This way you are not only sharing your warm feeling with the other, but transmit energy of a higher frequency that is generated by excelrated heartbeat, our body produces from the excitement we feel when meeting some one special.

NEXT TIME YOU WANTS TO SAY THANK YOU, GIVE A WARM HUG, IT WOULD MAKE FEEL SPECIAL.

Avtarjeet Dhanjal