I have been practicing about the idea of giving for the last couple of days, and I just wanted to share some of my thoughts about the topic.
I have this sense that if I really took off all the inner inhibitors I have around giving, all trace of reluctance, my life would be qualitatively different. I would live in a different state. The Course speaks in exalted terms about the power of giving to transform our state of mind and lift us into the real world. It has a massive emphasis on the idea that “giving and receiving are the same” (that exact phrase is repeated six times) and more than once mentions three things: how often this idea is emphasized, how central it is to the Course’s thought system, and how radical and difficult it is for our minds. This is probably surprising, given how little focus this topic has in writings about the Course and in the discussions of Course students.
You may know that psychological research is confirming that giving is pleasurable. We seem to be physiologically hardwired to be given pleasure by giving.
Based on all this, I have this dream of myself of one day being someone who just constantly exudes generosity. Perhaps we all have this dream of ourselves. Yet this dream is more than counterbalanced by what feels like a river in me, a river of conventional self-interest. This river, night or day, flows seemingly of its own accord towards forms of getting, constantly whispering “That is where you will find some modicum of happiness. Go there.”
The dream and the river, then, are going in absolutely opposite directions. One says, “Overflow with constant giving and you will be happier than you can imagine.” The other says, “Carve out your little islands of getting, and those nuggets of pleasure will make life bearable.” It is rather frustrating and unsettling to have these two opposite forces contending within me.
The more time goes on, the more I am suspecting that the first one is true and the second one is a lie. I suspect this because that is what my experience tells me. I find myself more truly fulfilled by giving. It is a different kind of pleasure, in some ways more subtle, but also more deep and truly satisfying. And I find myself left empty by the getting. In the end, it is more hollow. One is deep and long-lasting; the other is like candy—quick and easy, but fleeting.
The strange thing is, however, that the allure of getting is stubbornly persistent. I feel a bit like an addict whose addiction has repeatedly proven itself to be his destruction, yet he can’t break the internal equation of the addiction and his salvation. No matter how starkly his experience has proven otherwise, the unshakable feeling, the inner certitude, is still there that this is his salvation.
It’s a very odd situation I find myself in. But I do feel I am slowly getting out of it. The whole focus on miracles that came out my study of Helen’s notebooks this past summer is really helping. So I feel I am experiencing movement within this odd dilemma, but I am a long way from being out of it.
