Generosity
Last week I was in Munich for a five-day seminar, which is always a joy. It is well attended and participants really go for it. It was deep and profound with many insights including one about generosity.
Generosity is a measure of our giving and in A Course in Miracles there is a line about giving that goes something like, ‘if a brother asks you for something how much should you give?’ The answer is, ‘twice as much as they ask for’. This is generosity in action; but many of us have given up on generosity and we have become mean. We are mean with our time, with our blessings and with ourselves in many areas of our lives.
If we take a simple glance around our lives asking ourselves where have we given twice as much as was asked for, even with our close friends and family, what do we find? Our meanness goes back to our feelings of scarcity and our beliefs in our limitations. Looking at ourselves it is all too easy to see our limitations and how that is reflected in our lives by all the things we can’t do because of some inadequacy or other. This then becomes a cycle of descent into feeling unable or without resources that drives the meanness and then, when we are in that level of consciousness, the meanness takes us back to our feelings of how limited we are.
The choice for generosity begins to change all this. If, even in the face of our apparent lack, we still choose to give and give then as the meanness disappears so will the limitations and this cycle starts to carry us higher and higher until, because of our willingness to give so much, we begin to totally transcend all our limitations and now there is the chance to see our true nature. Time and space slows until our perception changes from the horizontal to the vertical and the Holy Instant become available and we get to know and experience ourselves as spirit.
Generosity is the key and I will be doing all I can to weave it into the fabric of my life because it is these simple steps that will bring about everything we wish for. Take some time, remembering to be generous to yourself, and step-by-step reverse all the places in your life where you are being mean and choose generosity instead.
Love, Jeff