Giving Thanks..... Is Getting

This week, many of us will be getting together for Thanksgiving to celebrate our friends and family, and all the other good things in our lives. Some of us may even be involved in some kind of community outreach project, sharing a meal with those less fortunate. Whatever we are doing on this day is great, but let’s remember that it is possible to connect to this elevated consciousness of appreciation every day of the year.

There are some among us who might look at a magnificent painting and think, “What a beautiful work of art. What a blessing it is, this beautiful painting!” At the same time, we might also think, “Thank God, I have the eyes to see it!” It is human nature to take the real blessings of the Creator for granted. It is easy to be grateful when something good happens or when we achieve our goals. But really, the greatest gifts we have are those that go unnoticed in our daily life, and it takes effort and awareness to recognize them.

If we are honest with ourselves, we know that in addition to being asleep at night, we can also be asleep during the day. It is very easy to go through our days being good people and doing what we are “supposed” to do. But to really live life requires a much greater desire—a desire for genuine fulfillment that we constantly need to ask for and to build.

To really live is to wake up and inject new energy into each day. In practice, this means recognizing what our individual gifts are, using them, and sharing them with the world. But we cannot accomplish this unless we first are able to cultivate appreciation—to consciously work to see the good in ourselves and in others.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not always easy to do this. Sadness can be one of the greatest roadblocks to our transformation. But when we fall into despair, we become disconnected from the Light and lose our clarity. We cannot access the information that is there for us. We cannot read the signs; we do not get the messages. They are everywhere—these messages and these signs—but oftentimes, we are unable to see them because we are so caught up in ourselves.

When we look back on our life, we don’t want to regret that we didn’t do more because we are always capable of doing more with the gifts and talents we have been given. The time will come when I will look back and ask: Did I do enough? Did I share my gifts? Was there a place where I could have done more?

The point is always to appreciate but never to be satisfied. We are here to do the work of our soul, and there is always a higher level we can strive for in our spiritual transformation.

Wishing you a beautiful holiday filled with love, light, and laughter.

Karen

Its not easy

Written by Mitch Ditkoff
Friday, 27 May 2011 06:32


Being of the Jewish persuasion, I'm not exactly the kind of person given to confession, but allow me the ecumenical luxury of confessing at least one thing in this first paragraph of what may well turn out to be the Mahabharata of blog postings:

Writing about Maharaji and the gift that he offers is not easy.

It's not easy for a few reasons.

First off, what I want to say existed long before words — long before nouns and verbs and the leaky vessels we construct to float our shaky boats of babble.

Secondly, words are approximations of the real thing at best. Like menus, they indicate something's cooking in the kitchen, but they are not the food itself.

And thirdly, the dog ate my homework.

I don't know how it works. There are decades of my life I can barely remember, but seconds with Maharaji that remain a vast eternity, indelibly impressed on my heart like some kind of rock 'n roll Rosetta stone.

I never laugh so hard or cry so long as when I'm in his company. I never feel so good.

The first time I heard about Maharaji, I was both ecstatic and afraid — ecstatic at the thought I might finally experience what I'd been born for — afraid that somehow, grand impostor that I was, I would be the only person on the face of the Earth not to get it.

Forget it. I got it.

Yes, that moment happened — the moment of ooooooh — the moment of aaaaaah — the moment of finally coming into my own after years of imagining my own was someplace far away — in a forest, cave or future lifetime.

What has he taught me? How to wake up — and stay awake. How to appreciate. How to feel.

What Maharaji offers is not so much a teaching as it is transportation to the place we've either been seeking our entire life or have given up on long ago — the place of no judgment, the place of no doubt, the place of no worry, no fear, no problem.

Here! The place of remembering. And what we remember here is love — plain and simple.

For love is the name of the game, no matter how we play it.

Illustration by Sara Shaffer.