The reason that I have chosen the number five is because trying to delineate the myriad reasons for giving would be like trying to fit the entire ocean into a single bag. Being selective about the reasons allows one to focus on basic principles behind the give away. With a bit of looking, we can find ways of dividing things up that are salient. These will allow us to get on to discussion about other important topics, rather than tying up many hours that it would take, trying to describe what lies beyond the scope of our ability to understand. One list of five would be:
Instant Karma:
Short-term Karma:
Medium-term Karma:
Long-term Karma:
Infinite-term Karma:
These harmonize and combine in exquisite ways when they are in play within our awareness. When practiced, in, around and about us, resonating through us. The frequencies of the "Big Bang"(if you want to call it that) are as alive today as at the creation of the universe. We choose to fall in step with Universal creative forces, or remain out of step with them, it is our choice.The womb of creation that virtually every native culture reflects and understands is the same empty pot that the rune Perth describes. Holding on, to both ideas and possessions is something that we forget takes us away from cosmic energies and ultimately ignores physics. We bear as baggage, what we hold onto like so many talisman, however, the objects and ideas hold no power, they merely remind us that power exists. Whether we feel the need to carry more or less "gear" through life, directly determines our ability to accept our gifts with grace and to create change through profound giving.
Living in the present (pre-sent) allows us to diminish the role of ego within and amongst us. I remember a series of events that happened a long time ago, a friend gave me my first Tarot deck. I remember, like it was yesterday, although it was forty years ago, the suspicion and dread that I felt as a young person trying to understand the nature of this tool. I thought that the "spirits" that the cards must contain could be a useful divinatory tool and yet, the suspicion that I had for any spiritual device sold as an amusement or "game". For decades, even as I learned to read the Tarot, I felt that it was silly or somehow offensive to my sensibilities, to use a mass-produced deck to do such intimate work. It was like trying to stuff a whole cow into a sausage skin. My mind could not wrap my head around the fact that the memes or messages that were available were as individual as the moments that I chose to do readings, the responses of the cards were as varied as the individuals who were "read". I had amazing insights and excellent results, but there was a nagging part of me that wanted to see what would happen if I made my own deck. Stepping out from under the burden of this self-imposed questioning has allowed me to transform my own abilities beyond limitations that I did not even realize I was creating.
Sometimes the giving can begin with giving up, other times it can be giving away, giving over, giving unconditionally, or giving out. (Ironic that there are five of these as well.)
Over the years, I have started designing several Tarot decks, perhaps, one day I will finish one, or more but the liberation (that I felt when I realized that the world around me holds all that I need) has allowed me to read much more effectively and without struggle. I gave up my attachment to what I thought would be "best" and things began to flow. The give away is not always about things, often our ideas are what need to be given away.
I have written before about the psychological difficulty associated with "doing good works". If we are seeking to look good, even to our selves, the effect of our good works are undermined by egoic energies. A perfect example of this is one holiday season, when my young family was living on far less than poverty income. A local advertizing agency "adopted us" for the holiday. Our social worker acted as an intermediary and had us draw up a list of things that we "needed" in the way of gifts. This was truly a struggle because our needs were so simple. As best we could figure, we needed a pizza cutter, a bigger cutting board and a cheese grater. The gifts came in a giant basket and included a doll baby or something similar for our young toddler daughter. I'm sure that the donors were feeling pretty good about the fact that they got all three of the things on our list, but the first pizza that we cut, we got about halfway through the first cut and the cutting wheel fell off, the cutting board warped horribly and broke in half within a moon or two and the handle of the cheese grater broke off, making it useless.
Stepping back just one order of magnitude, don't we all enjoy seeing ourselves as benevolent? What is that part of us is it that enjoys being seen as a good person? Does that part of us serve or enslave us? When we see it objectively, it is ego plain and sure. Getting beyond that layer in our being, transcending those limits, is where the art of giving lies. Obscured behind who we think we are lies total abundance. Think Giving Tree (Shel Silverstein) but on infinite levels. We are agents of the Universe. The creation that we represent is of infinite scale, science has proved it, beyond a shadow of a doubt. All that is known is that, at some far off date, the Sun will supernova and we will be subsumed in it's corona. We can go to the light now, or later, it is our choice. According to my current beliefs, we are entering the Lettucine Epoch, characterized by wilt. Compost what you can for maximum effectiveness. If this means plowing under an entire crop of mistrust, deceit or rancor in homage to the next crop, by all means do it!
Try this basic practice as often as you dare. Give something away, perhaps as simply as giving a compliment, not to look good, but to truly put yourself out of the picture. It can be hard. The reasons become more defined, or refined in that we see a physical, mental, emotional, psychic and spiritual aspects to the gift. Each intentional act that we can completely step out of, gains strength by being self-less. The Universe didn't create itself to prove anything, it just was, inevitable, like our own consciousness. I strive to give as much of my own energy, for the enrichment of others. How I choose to live my life is determined by how I perceive service and what I am capable of seeing as beneficial to as many people as possible. Ideally, I would not know the depth or extent of my ability to serve. That is part of the draw for me of working backstage in the theater. If I do my job to perfection, no one will know that I have done it, yet they will be enriched by the experience just the same. If we can be but a gift, we fulfill the promise of a day. Understanding this multilevel give away requires deeper understanding of the storyteller. There are rules about these sorts of things. The entire story exists for the reader. I am (as storyteller) here to conduct your ride, with luck along a path along which you define all of the elements. The story exists only as a vehicle that attempts to get to certain shared places, or perhaps create new spaces, that you, the listener have to fill in. The entire experience is yours. Our interaction with others is telling a story about the now. The process of creating our stories determines reality, why not alter things for the better?
We inhabit our stories, we tell ourselves what we want to hear, but who we listen to is HUGE! I reject out of hand the admonition, "Give until it hurts." I believe that the most profound gifts do not cause pain to either the giver or the receiver. When we give of ourselves, let it be for the enrichment of all, for it is only then that everyone could have the possibility of having enough. I think that too often we run the numbers wrong. We have far more than enough, what we need is a better distribution network. If we make the slightest effort for our sole benefit, it can but by nature tear at the fabric of reality. While it is true that without our own health and welfare, we will have little to give, but opulence in any realm chokes the vitality of flowing energy that is the way of nature. Over the next moon or two, I will try to elaborate on each aspect of experience, Physical, Mental, Emotional, Psychic & Spiritual. I have an inkling that the five types of karma can be reflected in each realm of manifestation. Our physical bodies can experience an instant karma event like throwing up bad food or too much drink, we can eat gluten for years before all of the cilia in our gut have been either sheared or strangled off, or we could experience long-term karma after breathing teratogenic fumes or being exposed to toxins during pregnancy.
On a mental level we might have an instant karma event in which we catch ourselves being hypocritical or a sea change, infinite-term event like an alcoholic quitting alcohol. Of course, many experiences like this have multiple effects on varied levels. It is nearly formulaic that when we have a major life change or crisis in one aspect of our lives, it seems that all aspects are affected. Fortunately, I have had nearly infinite support from my wife, which allows me to stretch the boundaries of experience that many have. In addition to helping to feed me better, she puts mental and emotional poultices on my many wounds, helps me heal psychically and occasionally challenges my assumptions about my own spirituality, which keeps me humble. She even accepts the eternal student within me that hears the "news" about the two Tesla Motorcars that caught fire from hitting road debris and goes looking on the internet to find out how many other cars catch fire and why they are not in the news. Our entire culture sustains a psychic scar when we accept the "gift" that our newscasters have for us. This creates an infinite-term Karma event because the real truth, the reality that we should be confronting, is that 287,000 vehicle fires occur each year, two were in Tesla Motorcars whose manufacturer has offered to voluntarily add shielding over the vulnerable components, but Ford, GM and Chrysler ignore the inevitability of their devices to kill and maim.
The giving company, the one with our collective best interest in mind is penalized by untruthful implications that it is an increased hazard over "tried and true" motorcars, but also burdened by associating the technology of the future seem less attainable because of "fatal flaws" even though the drivers of both burned Teslas were able to evacuate before being consumed in flames. In over 200 cases each year, other people, driving fossil fuel burning cars are no so lucky. When we give, unconditionally, we change the nature of the world around us. It may seem odd, like I changed stream in the middle of a boat, but let the ideas weave within you, like a night in the forest, let the words heal the parts of you that have remained unseen, neglected or abused for far too long. We, the many, are on the rise and it is with great effort that some of us will turn away from the old and corrupt ways of dominance and submission, power and control and other abuses of our planet, her people and the creatures that used to abound in the biosphere. Just as two eyes are needed to perceive depth, so too sharing our stories give a quality to perception that is akin to depth as well.
Instant Karma:
Short-term Karma:
Medium-term Karma:
Long-term Karma:
Infinite-term Karma:
These harmonize and combine in exquisite ways when they are in play within our awareness. When practiced, in, around and about us, resonating through us. The frequencies of the "Big Bang"(if you want to call it that) are as alive today as at the creation of the universe. We choose to fall in step with Universal creative forces, or remain out of step with them, it is our choice.The womb of creation that virtually every native culture reflects and understands is the same empty pot that the rune Perth describes. Holding on, to both ideas and possessions is something that we forget takes us away from cosmic energies and ultimately ignores physics. We bear as baggage, what we hold onto like so many talisman, however, the objects and ideas hold no power, they merely remind us that power exists. Whether we feel the need to carry more or less "gear" through life, directly determines our ability to accept our gifts with grace and to create change through profound giving.
Living in the present (pre-sent) allows us to diminish the role of ego within and amongst us. I remember a series of events that happened a long time ago, a friend gave me my first Tarot deck. I remember, like it was yesterday, although it was forty years ago, the suspicion and dread that I felt as a young person trying to understand the nature of this tool. I thought that the "spirits" that the cards must contain could be a useful divinatory tool and yet, the suspicion that I had for any spiritual device sold as an amusement or "game". For decades, even as I learned to read the Tarot, I felt that it was silly or somehow offensive to my sensibilities, to use a mass-produced deck to do such intimate work. It was like trying to stuff a whole cow into a sausage skin. My mind could not wrap my head around the fact that the memes or messages that were available were as individual as the moments that I chose to do readings, the responses of the cards were as varied as the individuals who were "read". I had amazing insights and excellent results, but there was a nagging part of me that wanted to see what would happen if I made my own deck. Stepping out from under the burden of this self-imposed questioning has allowed me to transform my own abilities beyond limitations that I did not even realize I was creating.
Sometimes the giving can begin with giving up, other times it can be giving away, giving over, giving unconditionally, or giving out. (Ironic that there are five of these as well.)
Over the years, I have started designing several Tarot decks, perhaps, one day I will finish one, or more but the liberation (that I felt when I realized that the world around me holds all that I need) has allowed me to read much more effectively and without struggle. I gave up my attachment to what I thought would be "best" and things began to flow. The give away is not always about things, often our ideas are what need to be given away.
I have written before about the psychological difficulty associated with "doing good works". If we are seeking to look good, even to our selves, the effect of our good works are undermined by egoic energies. A perfect example of this is one holiday season, when my young family was living on far less than poverty income. A local advertizing agency "adopted us" for the holiday. Our social worker acted as an intermediary and had us draw up a list of things that we "needed" in the way of gifts. This was truly a struggle because our needs were so simple. As best we could figure, we needed a pizza cutter, a bigger cutting board and a cheese grater. The gifts came in a giant basket and included a doll baby or something similar for our young toddler daughter. I'm sure that the donors were feeling pretty good about the fact that they got all three of the things on our list, but the first pizza that we cut, we got about halfway through the first cut and the cutting wheel fell off, the cutting board warped horribly and broke in half within a moon or two and the handle of the cheese grater broke off, making it useless.
Stepping back just one order of magnitude, don't we all enjoy seeing ourselves as benevolent? What is that part of us is it that enjoys being seen as a good person? Does that part of us serve or enslave us? When we see it objectively, it is ego plain and sure. Getting beyond that layer in our being, transcending those limits, is where the art of giving lies. Obscured behind who we think we are lies total abundance. Think Giving Tree (Shel Silverstein) but on infinite levels. We are agents of the Universe. The creation that we represent is of infinite scale, science has proved it, beyond a shadow of a doubt. All that is known is that, at some far off date, the Sun will supernova and we will be subsumed in it's corona. We can go to the light now, or later, it is our choice. According to my current beliefs, we are entering the Lettucine Epoch, characterized by wilt. Compost what you can for maximum effectiveness. If this means plowing under an entire crop of mistrust, deceit or rancor in homage to the next crop, by all means do it!
Try this basic practice as often as you dare. Give something away, perhaps as simply as giving a compliment, not to look good, but to truly put yourself out of the picture. It can be hard. The reasons become more defined, or refined in that we see a physical, mental, emotional, psychic and spiritual aspects to the gift. Each intentional act that we can completely step out of, gains strength by being self-less. The Universe didn't create itself to prove anything, it just was, inevitable, like our own consciousness. I strive to give as much of my own energy, for the enrichment of others. How I choose to live my life is determined by how I perceive service and what I am capable of seeing as beneficial to as many people as possible. Ideally, I would not know the depth or extent of my ability to serve. That is part of the draw for me of working backstage in the theater. If I do my job to perfection, no one will know that I have done it, yet they will be enriched by the experience just the same. If we can be but a gift, we fulfill the promise of a day. Understanding this multilevel give away requires deeper understanding of the storyteller. There are rules about these sorts of things. The entire story exists for the reader. I am (as storyteller) here to conduct your ride, with luck along a path along which you define all of the elements. The story exists only as a vehicle that attempts to get to certain shared places, or perhaps create new spaces, that you, the listener have to fill in. The entire experience is yours. Our interaction with others is telling a story about the now. The process of creating our stories determines reality, why not alter things for the better?
We inhabit our stories, we tell ourselves what we want to hear, but who we listen to is HUGE! I reject out of hand the admonition, "Give until it hurts." I believe that the most profound gifts do not cause pain to either the giver or the receiver. When we give of ourselves, let it be for the enrichment of all, for it is only then that everyone could have the possibility of having enough. I think that too often we run the numbers wrong. We have far more than enough, what we need is a better distribution network. If we make the slightest effort for our sole benefit, it can but by nature tear at the fabric of reality. While it is true that without our own health and welfare, we will have little to give, but opulence in any realm chokes the vitality of flowing energy that is the way of nature. Over the next moon or two, I will try to elaborate on each aspect of experience, Physical, Mental, Emotional, Psychic & Spiritual. I have an inkling that the five types of karma can be reflected in each realm of manifestation. Our physical bodies can experience an instant karma event like throwing up bad food or too much drink, we can eat gluten for years before all of the cilia in our gut have been either sheared or strangled off, or we could experience long-term karma after breathing teratogenic fumes or being exposed to toxins during pregnancy.
On a mental level we might have an instant karma event in which we catch ourselves being hypocritical or a sea change, infinite-term event like an alcoholic quitting alcohol. Of course, many experiences like this have multiple effects on varied levels. It is nearly formulaic that when we have a major life change or crisis in one aspect of our lives, it seems that all aspects are affected. Fortunately, I have had nearly infinite support from my wife, which allows me to stretch the boundaries of experience that many have. In addition to helping to feed me better, she puts mental and emotional poultices on my many wounds, helps me heal psychically and occasionally challenges my assumptions about my own spirituality, which keeps me humble. She even accepts the eternal student within me that hears the "news" about the two Tesla Motorcars that caught fire from hitting road debris and goes looking on the internet to find out how many other cars catch fire and why they are not in the news. Our entire culture sustains a psychic scar when we accept the "gift" that our newscasters have for us. This creates an infinite-term Karma event because the real truth, the reality that we should be confronting, is that 287,000 vehicle fires occur each year, two were in Tesla Motorcars whose manufacturer has offered to voluntarily add shielding over the vulnerable components, but Ford, GM and Chrysler ignore the inevitability of their devices to kill and maim.
The giving company, the one with our collective best interest in mind is penalized by untruthful implications that it is an increased hazard over "tried and true" motorcars, but also burdened by associating the technology of the future seem less attainable because of "fatal flaws" even though the drivers of both burned Teslas were able to evacuate before being consumed in flames. In over 200 cases each year, other people, driving fossil fuel burning cars are no so lucky. When we give, unconditionally, we change the nature of the world around us. It may seem odd, like I changed stream in the middle of a boat, but let the ideas weave within you, like a night in the forest, let the words heal the parts of you that have remained unseen, neglected or abused for far too long. We, the many, are on the rise and it is with great effort that some of us will turn away from the old and corrupt ways of dominance and submission, power and control and other abuses of our planet, her people and the creatures that used to abound in the biosphere. Just as two eyes are needed to perceive depth, so too sharing our stories give a quality to perception that is akin to depth as well.
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