Enlightened Beings ~ Giving to Get Versus Giving to Give
GLR Jafree Ozwald | March 21 2012
“Love is the only thing you get more of by giving it away” ~ T. Wilson
There are two types of people in this world. Those who are ego driven and those who live beyond their ego. The ego-based person is stuck in a fear based survival thinking pattern created from societal conditioning and previous emotional wounding. This causes them to believe they are separate from the God Source. The second type of person is a soul based individual who knows they are an infinite being who is deeply loved, cherished, and divinely connected to the most sacred intelligent Source of Life in the Universe.
The biggest distinction between these two groups is the relationship each has with their own mind. The ego-based person has not taken the time to stop their mind-chatter long enough to look inside, relax deeply, trust completely and bathe in the divine essence within. The soul based individual has stopped long enough to feel their wounding, drop out of their head, beneath their angry/victim story and into the heart of their feelings where peace and humility abide. The soul based individual is at peace with life, and shares daily the exquisite experience of unconditional love that radiates naturally from their core.
When you take time to stop and quiet the mind you will eventually feel this unconditional all-loving presence inside you. Only then do you have something truly valuable to give. Otherwise, your energy and attitude is much like a beggar who has little to offer because the ego’s main agenda and scheme is all about, “What’s in it for me”. This ego based mentality lives a desperate life, secretly hoping for a morsels of appreciation by the end of the day. The ego is continuously out to get something because it doesn’t see, feel or believe that its already connected to an infinite abundant loving God-Source. The ego-mind is the “begging bowl” always on the prowl to get, obtain and receive that next thing from the outer world that will make it happy.
“Love is not a quantity, it is a quality, and a quality of a certain category that grows by giving, and dies if you hold it. If you are miserly about it, it dies. So be really a spendthrift! Don’t bother to whom.” ~Osho
The practice of giving freely to others without expectation of anything in return is a very enlightened state to reach. When you don’t expect a gift, compliment, a thank you, or even a simple acknowledgment from the other, you’re liberating yourself from the limiting prison of the ego. The dangerous part only arises in this enlightened giving approach when you get caught in the fear of being taken advantage of. This again is the ego in a deep disguise. We are all taking advantage of the Sun, yet it doesn’t mind, its just doing its service. It doesn’t need anything in return. Be like the Sun. Be an infinite giving source of lightness for all to enjoy! The Sun is the most “en-light-ened” source of light in our physical world.
Anytime your mind gets wrapped up in feeling needy or demanding, it simply means you’ve stopped realizing that you have an infinite source of love inside you. The truth is that the Sun never stops shining, only clouds get in the way of its light. The ego is like a big shadow that is constantly afraid you won’t get what you want. It’s always demanding that life is different than what it is. The ego is never happy, constantly complaining, and simply never ever satisfied. It doesn’t know how relax and content with what is. If you receive one morsel of appreciation, a few minutes later the ego’s begging bowl is empty again, seeking the next nugget of love to appease its empty burning existence.
My invitation for you is radical. It is to live a life that is truly free from suffering. I want you to experience what its like to be a gigantic ball of love and lightness for you (and the world) to enjoy! I want you to celebrate your life each moment that you are here, in a way that inspires every being in your presence to do the same. The pure joy of selfless giving yields only ecstatic results in your life. There’s no fear, no expectations, and no attachments. Your ego listens to you, its master, and this is a very powerful way to live your life.
I invite you to take this opportunity right now to practice refining your giving habit with your friends and family. Become super conscious that every message you give others is one that comes from the infinite Sun within you! Give up all identification with your shadow side and merge with your enlightened true nature. Be radiant, warm, generous and full of lightness. The Sun gives life to all beings around the world from the warmth it creates inside which it gives unconditionally away. Feel this lightness in yourself AS you’re giving it away to others. In a few days you’ll either be floating on Cloud 9 or over bubbling with tremendous giddiness inside.
Each moment of life is an opportunity to know yourself as the infinite source of love that you already are! The best way to experience it is to behave like the Sun and give your light away! Each day you’re given thousands of opportunities to practice. Today you will most likely give someone your attention, or offer them a smile. Try having no attachment to what comes back in return and see how freeing that feels. Then give someone else a positive message, a hug, a gentle listening ear, a generous gesture, a look of acceptance, or simply gentle eyes that say everything is OK. Practice giving for the experience of being radiant, unconditional, having no expectations like the infinite Sun.
“You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don’t. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.” ~Rumi
Remember you are physically here for a short time and have some amazing experiences ahead of you. The best one by far is being the source of unconditional love, which you get to instantly experience by giving it away! You see, you can only give yourself away in two unique ways. As if you were the Infinite Source, or the Ego-shadow. The more aware you are of how you’re giving and what hidden expectations you have, the easier it becomes to let go and radiate unconditional love to all human beings.
The big question to ask yourself is what do you feel you’re missing inside yourself that the other needs to give you? Look deeply, and you might be able to see what your core wounding is all about so it can heal. The act of enlightened giving is profoundly healing and deeply satisfying. Do it enough and the ego has to relax its desperate search. By giving love, gifts, compliments, kind gestures, and any form of generosity without any hidden assumption that you’ll receive anything back in return, the ego has to let go and surrender. It must find peace within its own home and trust that it will be taken care of in the future ahead.
In truth, the ego has nothing to worry about. As the law of attraction states, “like attracts like”, with every action there’s an equal reaction. Since this law is always in effect, chances are 100% that you will receive something in equal or even greater value for what you give away. The only issue is when there’s an expectation or assumption attached to your gift. Giving to get something is a form of control and manipulation and comes from poverty consciousness. Only through the enlightened practice of giving from the heart in a non-attached manner will you discover the enlightened path beneath your very feet.
Imagine if every person, corporation and small business in the world followed the higher path of giving. Can you imagine how liberated human beings would be? What if your whole community acted this way… what would life be like then? What if you made this into your personal life mission? Does that excite you? How would you feel by the end of your life? The secret to spreading this gift is that you apply it daily in your own life, and practice it with everyone! It’s highly contagious and you’ll continue doing it as you noticing how you feel by the end of the day.
Start your day with looking at HOW you want to give love to others at work, home, and every moment in between. Do you expect to get back anything from these people? What about those you bend over backwards for, what do you expect to get back from them? What did you believe you deserve to get back from your kids, parents, friends and intimate relationships? These expectations are where you live in a prison. They are assumptions based in the idea that you’re not connected to the infinite source of love already. Don’t miss out on the freedom love and joy of what its like to be an infinite unbounded soul who is truly alive!
In most societies you’ll find there’s a collective assumed expectation that you should receive money, energy, love or something back from a person when you give them something. People will agree with you because everyone is afraid of being a doormat. Yet what most don’t realize is they are defeating themselves by living as a small limited needy ego-trip. The fear of being a doormat causes one to feel tiny and react from fear. When the God-Source is an alive presence in your life, you are fearless and need nothing. You are the Sun and the Sunshine itself. All the love and warmth you need is already within you, provided for you all the time. The ego of course will not trust in this, yet what does the ego trust 100% in?
When this experience of selfless giving is repeated daily, you will eventually become reborn. You’ll get into the habit of it and liberate yourself completely from the needy demanding ego. Purely giving your self, your love, and your life everyday will completely free you from any attachment to your past and future, and this my friend, creates the experience of the enlightened state. Enlightenment is like a seed that needs a breeding ground to develop, and the vibrant fields of selfless giving are the richest soil you can find.
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. ~Robert Louis Stevenson
Giving for the pure pleasure, experience, and joy of giving is the highest path you can walk. It’s not an easy one at first as you must constantly take leaps of faith into the unknown. When you give without expectation, only then do you carry the ability to help others find real love, joy and happiness. You can light up a child’s face for hours, and this experience is priceless! When we live in unbounded generosity, we’re enjoying the experience of seeing other people happy, and thus become even happier ourselves. We release all patterns of being jealous, controlling and needy, and experience the pure joy of feeling abundant, rich with life and free! We are lifting everyone up naturally through living a life that we truly love.
Giving for the experience of giving also creates true abundance consciousness in your life. This practice is what expands your emotional net worth. When you give from true abundance consciousness you increase the value of you. When you do not request anything in return you are trusting the Universe, knowing it will always provide more. You embody the state of unlimited wealth because you’re honoring the law of infinite supply. This means that the more love you give away today, the more love you’ll have to give tomorrow.
It’s good to know that everything in this life is temporary. You temporarily have use of this body, mind and the opportunity to experience life through it. Every second of your existence is precious and is here to be enjoyed. When you can share something that you temporarily have, with another person who temporarily does not have that thing, this gesture generates feelings of abundance. You then become the divine overflow. You suddenly open to become a channel of the Infinite Supply, and it pours on through!
The giving sensation and “pay it forward’ feeling is powerful and contagious. The more you give, the more you want to give, and the more you have to give. Eventually you forget about your ego with its lack, fears, worries, doubts and concerns that had plagued you your entire life. In this enlightening giving experience, the ego doesn’t get a chance to take the stage, it gets unnoticed. All your previous frustrations and disappointments take the back burner, and in time all your worries, problems and issues simply fade away.
“The highest reward for an act of kindness is not what you get by doing it, but what you become by doing it.” ~Unknown
The challenge here is to be patient on this journey, for the ego is very impatient and will try to rush you. It will try to manipulate you to think the other MUST give something back. The fearful ego is always in the back row secretly in gear, trying desperately to avoid the experience of being hurt, taken advantage of, stepped on, or live in poverty. The ego does not want to lose control on any level. It does not know the joy of surrendering to the Divine. The greatest lesson here is to acknowledge that YOU are already abundant. The kingdom of love is within! Your soul is eternal, you are already divine, you simply haven’t practiced FEELING it.
Give as much as you can, without feeling depleted. Make your life a grand adventure in becoming serene and selfless. As long as you’re aware of the infinite supply of love inside you, by the end of each day you will never feel depleted. Think of yourself as a billionaire of love, and you’re making a new billion love vibes every minute to happily give away! You’ll know you’re doing it right when you FEEL the joy as you practice giving it. You will truly feel fulfilled, and won’t be lost in some past/future desire, wishing you had more of xyz. With practice you’ll find this enlightening giving practice totally transforms how you feel about yourself, this world and everyone in it.
Remember, this life is not about cutting out those people who you didn’t get along with. Those who have upset you, negated you, judged you and belittled you are those who know themselves only as the ego-shadow. They give away negative qualities because that’s all they see inside. If you want to help them, start with giving them the gift of gratitude. Thanking them for making you aware of where you were still in pain, in ego, and easily triggered by life. Appreciate them in a way that is sincere and loving.
This life is about becoming more sensitive, trusting and authentic. Be sensitive to the point that you realize you are the highest consciousness itself. Know that you are potentially a living Buddha or Christ. Other people’s unconscious reactions and negative attitudes will help you see that negativity inside you which still needs to be released. Everything and everyone is here so you can wake up, enlighten yourself and experience even higher states of lightness and happiness. You are here to let go and become ONE with the Divine.
By implementing this enlightened giving practice everyday, the most enlightened state will eventually find you. It will grow naturally within you, and this is by far the greatest gift you could ever give yourself. This is not an exercise in pumping up your ego’s muscles. It’s not about creating feelings of superiority or the need to feel special. It’s much easier than that. This life is a big let go. It’s about finding the most enjoyable, easiest, enlightened approach. Which ultimately is about abiding in that which is beyond the mind.
Your thoughts and feelings are the super highways to take you home, yet they can also cause a traffic jam if you don’t know who’s driving. The light of pure awareness itself is that which shines forever lighting your path everyday. It is the fuel behind each and every experience. Don’t pay attention to the mind. It is your servant here to serve you! If you always have to work at getting rid of thoughts which are negative, burdensome, tiresome and heavy that’ll wear you out! Just rest in the source of pure awareness.
“The illiterate of the 21st century are not those who cannot read nor write,
but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” ~Alvin Toffler
Naturally your innermost nature is already awake, bright and free. You are already enlightened. This enlightened nature becomes more evident the more you practice giving it away. Higher consciousness begets more consciousness, and increases the tendency to generate more love, generosity and kindness. You’ll soon find that everyone starts giving everything they can to give you. The more we enjoy giving freely to others, the more others freely desire to us something back from the same liberating place. It is the path of enlightened reciprocation.
As long as you’re still alive on this planet, you have an infinite supply of love to give away. You might as well give it and enjoy the kickbacks! Let yourself relish in the feeling of letting go and letting the love flow. Do what makes you feel good inside at the core. Make it your mission to do one random conscious act of kindness everyday. This one thing will create many miracles in your life. If your mind should get stuck and keep thinking all night about what you should be getting back in return, just acknowledge the mind, give it a morsel of love and know who is truly in charge… ego or love? Let the ego know it is taken care of by the Universe so it can relax, let go and trust in the future. This one enlightened message will provide more long term joy than you can imagine.
