Sharing is a very powerful spiritual practice because it not only benefits the receiver, but the giver too. Have you ever noticed a warm glow inside when you give without expectation of receiving something in return? Why is that? Why, in a human world swamped with materialism and consumerism, does it feel good to share or give to one another?
Not all sharing has spiritual value though. For example, sharing reluctantly or giving for the sake of being seen to give is a psycho-emotional response and doesn’t carry the same energy. There is also a form of egoic giving designed to self-validate (showing off) and another carried out in order to expand a sense of control or superiority. Giving from the ego is done with hindsight and expectation, with predetermined outcomes and gains.
And yet, perhaps the greatest rewards you receive in life take place when you give wholeheartedly without expectation and unconditionally, for then you are giving from your core; spiritually and authentically. When you give or share in this way, you touch the oneness of universal consciousness and feel the love, peace and freedom you really are.
If you share honestly, organically, authentically, unconditionally and without imagining any future outcome, you gain spiritually. You do it because it’s natural to do so.
Of course there are many forms of sharing, but the greatest gift anyone can give is not money, gifts or emotional compliments, but yourself. For it is in sharing your time with others, that you start to deeply sense the meaning of who you really are. When you give your time without expectation of return, you begin to really feel the lovingness of life and the joy of being.
If you remain open and aware you will notice that sharing happens every day with family, friends, strangers, animals and all forms of nature. Even a flower is conscious of you when you are sharing time with it, smelling its perfume or admiring its beauty. Even now the air is sharing the breath of life with you.
Most of the time (though not always!) it’s easier to love those closest to us, but loving those who have offended or upset us, that’s the real challenge. The ego thrives on separation, dissing or blaming others, seeing the past as solid and real. Of course it’s not because it’s no longer here. Reality is only ever here and now, the past gone, the future not arrived.
So the way to approach old rifts, negative mental commentaries or low frequency feelings is to choose to shift your awareness to the higher vibrations of love, acceptance and forgiveness. Just let your old shadow talk go. You can if you want to. Say no to old memories and patterns that are of no benefit to anyone. Remind yourself that ‘they’ who annoy or offend you (whoever they might be) are in essence just like ‘you’.
For if you continually resuscitate the past to validate your story, it will deteriorate the quality of your life, so please, let it go. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. As you do, in time you will discover that love and sharing arise from our essence, our true nature. Only you can choose to change, to shift to the deeper connective awareness in which you recognise we are all the same.
Likewise, compassion is interrelated with sharing and love. In a way these three spiritual practices or natural manifestations can be described as the three fundamental qualities of Being.
When we meet someone new, we may begin to use a fixed set of mental and emotional patterns and put them in a box for our own self-validation. Using their looks, clothes, language, tone, accents and sense perceptions we often return to old programmed responses and prejudge that person before much has been said. However, when you see that person as another human being, another form of the same life, you begin to sense they simply yearn for the same things as you and that freedom, that openness creates the possibility for a deep sharing of who you both are.
Giving others time and space, and treating them without prejudgement, is a great practice and a form of unconditional love. You are far more likely to make lasting friendships, resolve old rifts, or meet the love of your life and more if you approach and treat people in the way you would like to be treated yourself.
Sharing, love and compassion are the highest spiritual practices because they are primary qualities of consciousness. These universal qualities manifest in the realisation of who and what we really are. For there is a state of Self-awareness in each of us which reveals that life is One. Essence is One. Existence is One. It’s not an idea or a preference but reality. It is possible and quite natural to realise this universal consciousness, and should you do so, you will find these same qualities arising effortlessly as you flow in the oneness of life itself.
Authentic sharing, love and compassion by their very nature cannot be forced or reproduced, for they are natural consequences of Being, just like breathing. When you are true to who you are, they arise naturally in you, as you, the embodiment of your truest self. Then you are sharing your whole self, a Self which is inseparable from all other forms of life.
Article by Jonathan Harrison
