On Being a Santa

It’s two days before Christmas, and this is the season which also about giving and sharing. Thought I would share a quick post on this topic of giving.

A couple of weeks back I was at a meditation retreat and some of my companions at the retreat had questions about able to do to good to others. Basically how can we be good fellow humans etc give back etc. As humans we all aspire to be good, and that’s super. But goodness can also become an egoic gesture. Do not get me wrong, if some one needs help of money and if you can , you must offer it. If some one needs a warm coat give it. 

But it is also important to be aware of these acts. More often than not these acts start coming from the space of ‘I am performing a good  act ‘and it also stems from the belief that ‘I am  the doer’. As if the world would stop running if we were not here. But usually this is the space of goodness we all function from.

Swami Vivekananda in a lot of his discourses speaks about how one should be grateful to the beggar for taking alms from you, for his act is actually helping you and not him. I have a four legged friend who lives in the basement of my apartment building. Often I feel I am providing for him and I am rescuing him and saving him. Then one day when I gave him food, the bugger didn’t eat. I was upset, and it suddenly dawned on me, when he eats, he does me a service. Not the other way around. So I pleaded and bowed down to the soul in him and said, thank for allowing me this service. You will not believe it Mr. dog then did a cat walk and ate. There are days my ego still gets the better of me, but I do have this thought that I have nurtured within so incase my ego were to ever go out of bounds I remind myself, I need this more than him.

Now going back to the retreat. In the Gita, it says the highest gift anyone can give anyone is the gift of spirituality. In the retreat, I remember my teacher telling us if you are able to pass on the light while you are meditating to everyone, the entire cosmos, that brings about true change and can be gift without the ego and actually transform. When you no longer believe there are many but there is the only the one and then you bring in the light that can be very powerful.

Merry Christmas, lovely people,  I pray that the divine spirit shines brighter each day in all of us till we no longer are bound by our small identities.