How to Give Selflessly

by user_dd | Oct 17, 2019 | Community Conversations

There is so much beauty in the world to inspire and delight you. Amazingly, there is enough beauty to balance out all that seeks to disrupt your sense of calm, joy, and presence. If you find yourself getting distracted by all the traumas and dramas of the news media, I encourage you to read on to see how you can focus in on what you find beautiful in your life. 

Maybe it’s a garden, a park or a plant. Maybe it’s a human being, a child, or a parent. Maybe you find the highest expression of beauty in a piece of music or art. What happens when you look for beauty?

When you take the time to experience beauty, you might notice that you also feel inspired to connect or deepen your experience. Do you feel that urge?

You may find you seek to share or expand this feeling. Landmark Education uses the term to ‘be given’ by this experience. It inspires you to be more than who you were before. 

That’s why when you give away the ultimate power in the universe, the power of Love, there is always more. Love is a force that is bigger than you. This sense of wanting to deepen the experience or share it is what it means to ‘be given’ by something.

Watch Out for Negative Ego

We must use our discernment. It’s easy for a desire to give to turn into something selfish, about us and not for some greater good. To turn the action into something for personal gain rather than about sharing with others. There’s nothing wrong in doing something for yourself, but if you say it’s for others and really it’s for you, the energy is all wrong. Ultimately, when you give for yourself and not others, your gift is only as big as you.

For example, sometimes we give in order to make ourselves seem bigger, more generous, more ‘put together’ than we were before. This is your negative ego getting in the way. Or sometimes when we see someone give of themselves we experience resentment rather than inspiration from their action. This is another way the negative ego gets in our way.

Be Big Through your Gift

The truth is that you can be so much bigger by giving in service of something that is bigger than yourself. When you give in service to a grander mission or a larger purpose, you become as big as that service. It is no longer limited by you!

Think about the last time you volunteered your time. Whatever you were doing must have been important for you in order for you to take the time out of your day—time away from work, friends or family, in order to give of yourself. This moved you beyond your normal activities. This is what it means to ‘be given’ by the mission of the org that you are serving.

By giving of your time in this way, it’s not you giving, it is the mission giving. You made the giving possible by participating, but the mission is larger than yourself. You couldn’t possibly have given the mission by yourself, it’s too big. You were given by the mission, and thus you became as large as the mission you served.

So the easiest way to receive more opportunities, energy, passion, and love in your life is to find a big mission, something way bigger than yourself, and to SERVE THAT MISSION! Allow yourself to be given by the mission in your service.

In this way, you will accelerate your growth towards knowing yourself as God/Goddess, a divine being.