What Can I Give? Stressing About Valentines?
We are now in-between the two primary times of the year when people give gifts, and expect gifts in return: the Winter Holiday Season and Valentines Day. How many of you are still left with dashed expectations from this Holiday Season because the gifts you gave were not well received and the gifts you got did not measure up to your expectations? How many of you are starting to worry about what to give your loved one on Valentine’s Day, and speculating about what surprises will await you on this special day of expressing love?
When we take a more mindful and spiritual look at gift giving we can learn to give with an open heart, without expectations, and not go through the stress of gift giving, finding that sharing is the true expression of Love from within.
Dana or gifting (giving) is the gateway to our Core of existence.
What is worldliness? It is not just being materialistic. It is simply clinging to the notion that we are born here only to receive, to get, to possess, to hoard, to cling to everything with an expectation
“To GET” = “to be happy!”
What is spirituality in essence? It is knowing the reality that we are here to give, to share, as agents of recycling, and be filled with pure joy in the very act of giving, sharing, without expecting anything in return.
Expectation is contamination that is worldliness, which only brings miseries to life. The more we learn the simplicity and humility of living, the more we become a conduit of love and compassion which allows us to give for no reason.
Thus Dana or gifting is considered in all religions as a core value that brings the kingdom of God to earth.
Contemplate on the fact; do you give to receive in return? Or do you give only to be more humbled and efface your ego? This is a wonderful tool of Swadhyaa, self-study! It is not to be self critical or judgmental but to open your heart to a higher level of existence that is within you, and it only opens when you realize this humane act of giving and sharing.
Giving or Dana is man’s biggest sadhana or spiritual practice. Imagine how much happier you are when you share your happiness. Man needs this practice the most today, as the expectations of receiving from the other have created the mess in the world. As long as we keep expecting the other to reciprocate, our gifts we are caught in the cycle of poverty of the soul. A flower never expects, nothing in nature expects, but nature shares infinitely and the nature is in constant celebration!
As such if we practice giving (love, compassion, forgiveness, joy, smiles, laugher, happiness) then we don’t have to ever live with the expectation of a time in the future when we will finally be happy, for Dana itself is self-fulfilling, and Divine.
Most people, particularly people who are wealthy, believe that the value of the offering or gift lies in the quantity or the amount given.
It is not the quantity but the intention and devotion with which it is offered or given, that are important. God does not care about what we bring to the altar, but about the love and devotion with which our offering or gift is given.
A gift should be free of the attachment of ego. Once given the recipient should be under no obligation to use the gift. The giver should not feel offended whether the gift is used, unused, or given away. The moment the act of giving and receiving is complete, the gift is no longer your property. Release it with joy. This is the ideal.
Generally most offerings cannot be considered acts of worship because they are motivated by the ego. The ego wants its reward. The true giver offers the gift unconditionally and is deeply satisfied when it is accepted. What is done with the articles or the money is of no concern to the true benefactor. Such detached offering brings a manifold return and elevates the giver to a higher plane of consciousness.
Ask yourself always “What can I give?” May this be the song of your heart. May you live to give and be given whatever the Divine Wills. May your life be filled with the glory of giving and giving selflessly so that your heart can expand and embrace all of existence. Give not with the expectation of receiving, but expanding to a state where you become the Existence itself.
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