How many of you have ever found yourself in need and despair at one time or another? You might have asked for assistance in form of prayer, money, shelter, food, and an ear to listen, any act of kindness.
Giving back does not always take the form of donations and financial support. It sometimes is easier to give money without ever having to face the individual that needs the help on the other end. There is no actual connection to the cause in that way. True giving comes from the heart and can take the shape of a smile, your skills, a prayer, and emotional support.
How many times have I found myself in desperate need for shelter, food, emotional support? More than once I must admit. I have to say that I feel so fortunate to live in Canada where assistance is easy and very generous. We sometimes even give to that not in actual need but who feel they don’t really want to go out and work for a living. Even though our welfare system is not perfect it still exists and appreciated by those who urgently need the assistance for a limited time and not as a lifestyle.
If we feel a need to judge others and as to how they got where they have in the first place than we limit ourselves in our own evolution. No one chooses dysfunction and pain. It is always a result of a pattern in childhood and a program that is often repeated until we can become more conscious and not need to suffer any more pain. Not too long ago I found myself on a train heading back to Toronto from the Maritimes completely broke when woman and her daughter fed me, laughed with me, and gave me so much joy and hope. When my parents first immigrated to Canada we were poor to the point of not having heat in our Montreal apartment. It took my family years to change their social status but we always had enough to eat.
In my own lifetime I have used the welfare system, unemployment, a woman’s shelter, the Goodwill, soup kitchens, people’s couches. I have slept in my car, tents, and shacks for a lack of a better word. I have felt hungry, lonely, and scared many times. How I got there is irrelevant but each drama and painful experience led me to a window of great opportunity for enlighten and transformation. When you face deep loss of any kind than you start becoming fearless and life becomes your playground into creating a new reality. Eventually you know that nothing can ever kill you not even death itself. With that realization fear of the unknown is dissolved.
How do you give? We all know the stories about donations to charities that never make it to the ones in need,the bag of rice that never made it to Africa but instead filled the pockets of the greedy. If you give out of the need to blow your own horn and to let others know how generous you are a means to an end and creating publicity of yourself than your hands and heart are empty. I can tell you that many times I have worked in very luxurious environments only to find myself being exploited by the rich and abused emotionally as well. If you’re wealthy and you enter an establishment with the attitude that you are entitled by design and you bring an attitude of toxicity you will leave scars behind long after you are gone and no amount of donations on your part will ever be enjoyed. You build a school in South Africa it makes you feel important and when your back home you abuse the waitress at your local coffee shop with your arrogance? The truth is that everything that you do in life is left behind like a finger print into the matrix of the Universe. Who you are in truth will always be revealed and there is no place to hide. Giving in a state of hypocrisy is like being rich financially but poor in spirit.
Last year I was in a grocery store in Toronto. The lady in front of me was a senior citizen. She had bought 200.00 dollars of groceries and had no money to pay for it. Lucky for her the woman in front of her paid her bill and she disappeared. My friend Ty who is now deceased gave a gay couple fifty thousand dollars of her saving to open a restaurant. When the couple died of HIV they couldn’t return her gift her life savings and this left her in a state of poverty in her old age. Ty was a true giver and she gave all the time. I met her when I was a server in a Mexican restaurant and she use to buy me clothes for work, books from her childhood, and a number of gifts and the light of her stories and presence. It was also a woman named Helen who helped me leave my abusive ex-husband. Helen was also a self-less person. She gave her 400.00 dollar winter jacket to a homeless person and went home with a turtle neck on in order to help what we would call a bum out.
If you have never experienced poverty and loss of any kind in your life but I am sure most of you who are ready this have, will not know that we need to support each other and that sometimes going to the welfare office is a hard process for anyone in desperate need. My family who live in Spain are now faced with the difficulties of a system that created massive hunger for more than half of the citizens. Garbage dumpsters are being locked up so that people do not spread illness through eating garbage. This can happen to any country. We have seen what natural disasters can do to a place and create massive destruction that takes years to resolve. No one is immured to poverty or a natural disaster, death, or limitation through illness or divorce.
We are all connected to each other in the realm of spirit and to judge others on their state of being or lack diminishes your own evolution. If you cannot give now you will not be giving when you’re rich either. Giving is not a financial sate. It is more a state of consciousness and love and an ability to feel empathy for the suffering of others. No amount of money can give you that. Be grateful for the food and shelter that you enjoy now because it may change form tomorrow. Nothing in this world is ever lasting. We have to face our own dissolution and death at one point or another. When you find yourself in lack surrender to it and know that your soul will never be destroyed.
I challenge all of you today no matter how bad life looks right now to go out and make someone anyone a stranger feel good, smile, buy them a coffee today or a tea. Give your skill away for free, call a friend and tell them you love them. Empty out your closet as winter is here soon and people will need your winter clothes if they are poor. Is there a senior you know who wants you to read to them? soup kitchen that needs your help? There are millions of opportunities to give every day of your life and gratitude for what you have now is a way to create a richness in your life because abundance is who we are.
I would like to thank everyone this week that have helped me help my friend Juno and her daughter Kaya from suffering homelessness, by giving them donations, love, and kindness. Your prayers have been heard and your generosity will never be forgotten. Please remember that Massage Planet News also needs your donations to bring more light and consciousness into the planet. I appreciate your ongoing support your money helps me with production costs and give to people in need. Thank you in advance.
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
Poem by Mother Teresa
~
Poema de la madre Teresa
La gente a menudo esirracional, ilógica y egoísta;
Perdónalos de todosmodos.
Si eresamable, la gentetepuedeacusar de egoísta, y decirqueocultassentimientos;
Séamable de todosmodos.
Si tieneséxito, teganarásfalsos amigos y algunosverdaderosenemigos;
Ten éxito de todosmodos.
Si ereshonesto y franco, la gentepuedeengañarte;
Se honesto y franco de todosmodos.
Lo quetellevaañosconstruir, alguienpodríadestruirlo en unanoche;
Constrúyelo de todosmodos.
Si encuentrasserenidad y felicidad, podríasdespertarcelos;
Séfeliz de todosmodos.
El bienquehagas hoy, la genteposiblemente lo olvidarámañana;
Haz el bien de todosmodos.
Da al mundo lo mejorquetienes, y puedequenunca sea suficiente;
Da al mundo lo mejorquetienes de todosmodos.
Lo ves, en el análisis final, es entre tú y tu Dios;
Nuncafue entre tú y ellos de todosmodos.
Madre Teresa
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