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Today's
Meditation:
Generosity
has a flip side that few of us tend to notice--it's the
side of us that accepts gifts and caring and other
people's generosity with graciousness and
appreciation. It doesn't reject what others wish to
give us out of a false sense of modesty or a desire to
seem humble to others; it allows others to give to us, and
thus feel the great feeling that comes from doing
something for us.
Somehow
we've come to believe that it's okay to refuse gifts or
help from other people. We have to do things on our
own, completely alone, and it may even be a sign of
weakness to accept someone else's help. But ask
yourself this: how does it make you feel to help
someone else out? It makes you feel pretty good,
doesn't it? Well, if you don't accept help from
others, aren't you robbing them of the chance to have this
great feeling for themselves? Aren't you depriving
them of the chance to learn what it means to give
selflessly and to help another human being?
When
we see a movie in which some character looks at a gift
from someone else and criticizes it, we cringe and we
start to despise that character, for we can see how
damaging the behavior is. We know just how great it
would be for that other person to have the gift accepted
gracefully and gratefully. We see how selfish it is
to think only of their own attitude towards the gift, and
not the attitude of the gift-giver.
Inadvertently,
perhaps, we all do the same thing when we turn down help,
when we turn down gifts, when we disregard advice.
As Shakti says, though, we can't exhale if we never
inhale; our giving will be weak if we never learn to
take. One of the most generous things we can do for
others is to learn how to accept their generosity towards
us.
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