Thursday, September 3, 2015

A Higher Power and Ever Ready to Help

Virtues must be cultivated in each home; each member sharing in the joy with the rest, each one seeking for opportunities for helping others. This attitude must be stuck to, so that it may stay as character. How can a vessel kept with a closed lid be filled with water? It must be open to receive good impulses! In all your efforts, trust in a Higher Power which is ever ready to help you. Then your work is made easy. This comes out of devotion, and reliance on the Lord who is the source of all Power. When you travel by train, you only have to purchase the ticket, board the proper train and take a seat, you can leave the rest to the engine. Do you carry your luggage on your head? So too, trust in the Lord and march to the best of your ability. Have faith and earn the Lord's grace by using the intelligence and the conscience He has endowed you with.

This is a beautiful thought for the day to share. 
In our study circle we first we read the text and afterwards everybody tells what he thinks about it and by that our emotions and thoughts get purified, we don't even notice it, but it feels great and like Darshan afterwards and if we do it right, we realize that it is his divine presence in it and we even get aware of the divine omnipresence.  

What are the questions coming up in my mind? 
A question would be for example how we can keep the virtues in our home, if there are too many disturbances, it will not work. But if there are no virtues, there will be also no joy. So what to do about it? What virtues do we need to make it joy and how to help others?     

Virtues must be cultivated in each home; each member sharing in the joy with the rest, each one seeking for opportunities for helping others.  

If we don't help each other there will be no joy, but there is another side to it.
People somehow used to that have the expectation of others that they should be helped and in that sense it is no joy and not help, but just taking advantage of it. 
It is a reason why some just silently disappear after singing to not be bothered by that what can in fact disturb the good feeling we just had by singing. 

Not long ago I was talking to a couple. I had never talked to them before and we walked together to the door, we went down the elevator and we were already on the way to our cars, when she asked me to fill the silence with words, she probably didn't know anything else to say and wanted to be nice like that, she asked if I needed a ride. That was the type of courtesy I didn't like at all and it spoiled the good experience. I thought - not again, just leave me alone. I wished I would not have talked to her and I had to answer, thanks but I have my own car. 
There was a time I also left quickly without talking to anybody just because of that reason, I couldn't take it. I didn't want to listen to her way of telling me that she was good and helpful, ready to give a ride when it is not necessary, but not ready to help when it would be necessary. 
I felt disturbed by it. And some months ago when we moved and it was a huge task and we would have needed all help we could get, nobody asked if they could be of help, but nobody and that is just hypocrisy and nothing else. 

I don't want to look at person when we meet for singing and think that I will have to give her a ride afterwards home, if it feels like obliged to it and there is no joy in that, but nothing but disturbance, and that is how I just stopped doing it. 

In fact, as we notice, there is no joy in it. It is something else and even disturbing and the level of disturbance in my feeling is telling me that it was not okay, that it was not truthful and right and that we better don't think about such help but when real help would be needed, there is nobody asking, 'do you need help?'
If there is joy it is okay, but most of time there is actually no joy, but just the disturbing feeling of ... get away and leave me alone, not that again ...
If there is no no joy, it is something else and we have actually to listen to our feeling. 
And just going by it will not build up good character. 
It has to be joy at the end and kind of spontaneous and innocent. 

As I felt like, that again, pleas not that again,  it means I know it by now and it is always the same and not honest. She was actually disturbing the good experience I had before and I didn't want to be disturbed just because I walked with her to my car. So next time I will go out of the door and see that I walk there again alone and undisturbed or only if we had a study circle and our mind is set already purified and changed and then we will just hear, it was a great experience, but nobody knows why and what has actually happened. 

This attitude must be stuck to, so that it may stay as character.  How can a vessel kept with a closed lid be filled with water?  

My first reaction was that I wondered how can we fill a vessel with a closed lid? We cannot fill it. It means we have to open up first and allow it to happen, but we did it and if it is like that it didn't end well and we close the lid again.  

I didn't say anything last January it was just too much strain that moving business and I forgot about it again, I don't expect anything from them really. 
There are lots of resentments in the background and nobody seems to really know what we are doing, because they are not really listening to his words and if we don't we cannot get aware of it, everybody knew that we moved and nobody asked if they could be of any help, probably they were not organized enough to help and they knew exactly that help could be needed, but they talk constantly about it. 

It must be open to receive good impulses! In all your efforts, trust in a Higher Power which is ever ready to help you.  

How do we trust the higher power? If we look at it a simple way it is clear how we can open up and help, but seeing what happens after years with the same people it is not anymore the same and we know in the meantime that some only take advantage of it and why they are leaving without a word to not be disturbed. If it is about joy, we have to be truthful and if it is not joy, it is not joy but something else.  

Then your work is made easy. This comes out of devotion, and reliance on the Lord who is the source of all Power. 
When you travel by train, you only have to purchase the ticket, board the proper train 
and take a seat, you can leave the rest to the engine. Do you carry your luggage on your head? 

There was someone I had been in the ashram with a long time ago and she was one of those, when she was present, I knew she wanted a ride back home and with time I felt that disturbed when I saw her that I had to ask her if she she wanted to go back home with me with the car, I told her that I don't want that anymore. That I am only existing for her to give her a ride back by car and that she is not my Seva. I just had enough to feel that disturbance in the air and her expectations and in time I didn't want to go anymore, because I didn't want to have to face that. So finally I told her that it didn't feel good to me that every time when she came for singing I had to take her home with me, I didn't want that anymore. She expected me to do it that is how she understood Baba and in his words is the reason for it, but he also is telling us that we move in the light and that we should follow the shadow. The shadow is that what is disturbing us and if we don't know how to get aware that it is only a shadow, we cannot change it. We have also the intelligence and conscience to be able to discriminate, if there is no joy, it will not become joyful as much as we try and it shows us that something is wrong. We try to make the best out of it and that we are just taken advantage of is actually one of the worst experiences ever.   

So too, trust in the Lord and march to the best of your ability. Have faith and earn the Lord's grace by using the intelligence and the conscience He has endowed you with. 

If we feel the feeling we get aware of the problem and if there is no joy actually and we cannot accept that there is no joy, we should know what do to or not to do. 
If there is no joy, there will be no joy no matter what and if someone just takes advantage of it there will be no joy and nothing is more disturbing than getting aware of it that we tried to do out best and the other took only advantage of it. 
If we listen to the feeling, we notice it when it is not right action, but maybe too late, we notice it only when the other took already advantage of it.
If there is joy, there is also love and if there is no joy, there is something else and we have to use discrimination and to listen to our feelings, otherwise, it is not joy and he talks about joy and not something else. It is like with love, it is only 'pure love' and not every love just because he talks about love.  

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