Serenity has a wonderful post, On Being, discussing keeping our four dimenions of Being in balance: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

Being able to keep multi-dimensional balance is essential for walking deeper and deeper down the path of inner understanding and awareness. While often challenging, and sometimes painful, I have always found it productive to do the work of improving myself in each of these areas, including learning to balance them relative to each other and toward my purpose and goals.

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Can we hurt a Giver? Of course, but we tend to not even think about that. In the presence of a Divine Giver, we are usually all about taking, so deep is our need, hunger and selfishness. But a Giver is human, something that we tend to forget as long as we are getting something.

We are all ‘for’ the Giver giving when it is coming our direction, which is our twisted version of being ‘for’giving - which is really all about being ‘for’ getting - and we wonder why we are so forgetful. We are very quick to tell a Giver that they must give ‘no matter what’, and very slow to be concerned over their heart, their health and their needs.

The following is from a recent post comment, and is from one of my teacher’s students. The insights shared here, while talking specifically about our teacher, are applicable and true of any Divine Giver.

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Because I have worked with Sensei as well, I can shed a little light on the issue “I was going to ask if you had further thoughts on being careful with a giver. Can somebody take more than is given and hurt the giver?” I have seen it first hand, in fact I do it regularly.

Sensei gives 24/7 and his students, including me, take from him regularly without giving back. That is somewhat to be expected when you start out because you are clueless. But the more towards center you move, the more responsibility you have. Now you KNOW, and you can’t act like you don’t.

When you do act like you don’t (know), you are hurting your giver. It is extremely painful when the giver gets slapped in the face with their giving. When you see the truth and know in your heart of hearts it is the truth, and you turn your back on it, you hurt the giver. So (the giver has) to dig even deeper to find another way to show the truth so it is better accepted. It is exhausting to the giver, yet they do it anyway because their purpose is giving.

Can you take more than is given? I know you can take and take and take until the giver’s energy is sapped. Then they need down time to recharge. But they do recharge and just start giving again. However, if you don’t advance, they may elect to focus their giving on a more worthy acceptor - someone who gives a little back, someone who will run that circuit that has been discussed [in previous posts] and bring back something of higher value than what they started with. Even if it is a smidge, it is [or may be] enough to recharge that giver.

As Mark has indicated, Sensei can be very direct - very direct. But he is also ecstatic when you get even the smallest improvement and showers you with praise - it is worth the discomfort of the directness. I don’t mean to speak for Sensei, but this is what I have observed.

- Gretchen Coleman at Erronia

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I often wonder about the potential of blogging centered in purpose.

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Update: Sunday, 29 Oct 2006 - I have been very busy over the weekend, and apologize for the delay. I hope to get with my teacher in the next day or so, and I am looking forward to the next post on Giving. Thanks for you patience.
Background:

Below are some questions being assembled from the previous post. These questions are, in part, the result of my teacher (Sensei) actively participating in my blog for the first time. So this may be a unique opportunity to ask a teacher some questions.

The questions below have evolved out of a series of recent posts on the Art of Giving. The Art of Giving is comprised of four principles that create a sequential circuit which, if you run it correctly, results in a constantly building or increasing value. Now, out of correct application and running of this ‘formula’ can emerge superconductive Giving - something I am wanting to learn more about.

Newcomers may want to read through those posts and comments to get some background. Sensei entered the discussion as a result of the first post, Giving:

Giving

Why Blogs Don’t Work

Giving Back to the Source

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Here are some questions gleaned from comments to the last post - some are over my head to answer, and I intend to present them to my teacher. Thank you so much for your great questions. Hopefully, this can turn into something fun, challenging and stimulating, and hopefully you will find value and benefit.

Questions:

1. - Is it really that complicated to give back to our source? Do I need to be told how and in what order? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?
2. - What are Sensei’s principles for giving back to the Source?
3. - I was going to ask if you had further thoughts on being careful with a giver. Can somebody take more than is given and hurt the giver?
4. - The write up on static principles versus their part in a dynamic process to connect deserves comment, but I don’t know if I can grasp it enough to ask one. Maybe try to explain the dynamic process and when a specific static principle is used in description, link to an old blog on that principle. Are these processes steady state? Or is it more biological with things happening at varying rates? Feel like I’m shooting in the dark here.
5. - I will add: Why is the order so important, and what is the nature of the overall sequence that creates superconductivity?

Feel free to add further questions or comments. Also, feel free to change or modify via comments (I will adjust the post accordingly).

Additional questions and comments:

1. - Clarity on some terms would be welcomed and differentiating between them would also be helpful. I too am interested in the order and why that is important in creating superconductivity. Further, I always think clarity is heightened when an example is provided, if possible.
2. - What is the potential of a fully functioning superconductive circuit?
3. - Can we create superconductive Giving through our blogs, and do it in the sense that we and others are inside an actual deeper experience and connection versus only mental or intellectual understandings?
4. - You’ve made some really important points, which are very useful for where I am at the moment. Sensei’s distinction between the ‘principles’ and the ‘machine’, in particular. As an aside, many years ago a long time student of these matters pointed out to me - in the casual, almost ‘throwaway’ manner of someone who has been with a real teacher - the importance of ‘priming the pump’. This is a different point, but it is connected with the art of giving, and I think with Sensei’s point of offering something back. The issue here is that if one wants to receive, one needs first to put the machine in motion by giving. My own master makes another point, related to this, which is that in order to make more money, we need to spend more. In fact this is really about all giving and receiving - if we want to channel more energy or to have more wisdom, we have to allow the ‘flow’ to become greater. Once again, a New Testament parable comes to mind - that of the ‘talents’. Keeping our money in the bank, not sharing our energy or applying our knowledge effectively inhibits the operation of the ‘pump’, and nothing flows.

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Oops… that last post? My teacher came back to my blog today, called me and told me I had gotten off track with his comments. For the record, the main topic wasn’t about blogs; the blog topic was only a momentary aside. And what is interesting, and reflective of something I believe we all do, is that the main thing he was showing me yesterday? …well, I pretty much ignored it.

Read on and check it out. After a few introductory comments, you can read what he actually said to me today.

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Sensei was talking yesterday about the Art of Giving, and how these principles are in a certain order, and that inherent in the running of these principles, or (as we call it) ‘the loop’, there are elements that often get overlooked: including the order, that it is a sequential, dynamic loop, and that we should always give a portion of the proceeds or benefits back to the source. Not understanding these things, we end up practicing and living the individual principles of the Art of Giving, but never get the machine, so to speak, up and running.

What does that mean, giving back to the source? According to Sensei, this is an essential ingredient. It is something we may be doing in many parts of our lives and applications, but it is likely to be something we do not understand when viewed within the context of the formula for the Art of Giving. He reminded me that we keep missing that point.

One way to look at it is as a tithe - as we respect a value, and then appreciate it, we take part of that appreciation, and in gratitude for that increased value, we return some of it to the source of our understanding, bringing it, so to speak, into the temple of understanding, and placing it on the altar, that place which is the source of our understanding, guidance or improvement.

The ‘altar’ should be the thing or person in our lives who best represents that – within the context of our own individual applications. If it is a person, it isn’t necessarily the person delivering the message… since they may only be the messenger. Also, use of the word ‘altar’ is unimportant, as it is only being used to convey the idea of what is going on.

Anyway, after reading his insight about the principles being listed in an incorrect order - i.e., my last post - I didn’t think to ask (nor did anyone else) something like “Hmm, why would that be important?” We didn’t individually or collectively wonder why my teacher would say something like that. And he views that behavior as a problem. I have been studying with him long enough that I agree with his assessment, but I forget, slip, get distracted, etc. He doesn’t forget; that’s why he’s Sensei (teacher).

So, another perspective of giving back to the source is by asking a question, but not just a question for question’s sake - rather, a question that has emerged because we stopped and put a value on what was being said, found something there to respect, appreciated it and then took at least some of that increased value (resulting from the act of appreciation) and returned it to the source, in this case a question directed toward my teacher. This is only an example, but it makes the point.

Sensei told me today, “The principles of being a Giver allow you to continually improve your connection to the Divine, as giving becomes your reason for Being, and sharing that becomes your way of Being.”

Here is some more of what I captured, quoted directly (any errors are mine):

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I can see when people are giving [referring to some of us bloggers, and people in general] that it appears they are looking to give and share in ways that are significantly impacting. I definitely see that and respect that, and don’t take anything away from that.

But what I am trying to explain to you is in order to make this effort superconductive, there is a set of principles to do this by, and they have to be done in a certain order to make that happen. Superconductivity is something that improves as we improve our relationship to the source, or the current of a particular application. People don’t understand that, and don’t understand typically how to improve their coordination in that.

So the application to the Path of Understanding through the Art of Giving - where we are looking to improve our connection to the Divine, as a way of being, moment by moment, so that our lives become more conductive to what we are wanting them to be about - requires a particular form of principled application where we are looking to produce more of the value that will support that ideal, by cultivating a relationship with that ideal because we practice toward it, and then give a portion of our produced value and understanding back to the source or the current or to our connection to higher understanding.

We do this so that we can continue to grow that higher understanding in a more and more apparent way. This apparent growth takes something that is normally transparent and invisible, and brings it to become apparent and visible. As it becomes more apparent it is because it is using the creative force more conductively, and that’s what produces offspring. [He gave a nice big laugh here.]

I see this occurring, but the system only goes so far, because while the right principles are being used, the order and the formula for getting them in motion is not there. You are looking at principles as stand alone, versus a motor, a machine. This is a dynamic process involving a set of principles.

What people are doing is finding value in particular principles, and that is good, but they are losing sight of the dynamic process that these principles are a component of, and it is the process and your ability to have facility with that which allows you to become more purposeful and to improve your connection with the Divine, the current, the living thing.

This is the difference between static study and dynamic study. Both are important, but the static is only important in how it supports our understanding of the dynamic.

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Sensei came to my blog today. He read a recent post that included the following words:

Found in these few words are the essential principles of the Art of Giving: Respect, Appreciation, Gratitude and Value. Move sequentially, from one to the other. Find value, and learn to find it in anything. Then, respect that value, even if the respect is only a smidge. Once respected, be grateful, somehow, for the value and then appreciate it, finding a way to increase its value, no matter how small. Then, do that again. And again. Forever. This is the art of the Divine Giver.

Here is part of his lesson to me:

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“You are doing very good with these principles, but if you can open you mind for a few minutes, you are at a point where you can hear me say something, and you have an opportunity to make a very good adjustment.”

“The order that you have placed them in, while it works, is not actually creating a duplex [fully functioning] circuit. You have a circuit, but it is going to ground. What you should be striving for, if this is what you want to do, is building a duplex circuit, something that not only creates flow, but keeps returning each time it runs with a greater value toward source.”

My mind quickly flashed back many years to when I first began studying the Art of Giving. I was soundly rooted in selfishness, and yet, like many people, had no concept of that. I felt like I was a good guy - and I was a good guy, but also someone who didn’t have a clear concept of selfishness. Studying and practicing the Art of Giving had not only changed me, but had eventually turned me into a believer.

He went on with the lesson. He pointed out I had reversed the order of gratitude and appreciation when I said, “Once respected, be grateful, somehow, for the value and then appreciate it.”

I’ll post more about that later, but he also said something that speaks to all of us here. “This subtle change I am showing you is what’s causing blogs to not really work right. I have been studying and observing this. What happens is, someone puts up a post, a comment is made in response, and then perhaps a thank you and a comment back - and then, that’s it. It’s over.”

“Yes, that is exactly right,” I said; and, I thought, one of the reasons I had dropped out of blogging.

What’s the point of blogging? He was right, the circuit just stops. Nothing ever really ‘builds’. Oh sure, we can see there is value and benefit… no doubt. But what are we actually out to create and build?

“There is a way to correct this,” he said, and continued with the lesson, clearly demonstrating how proper firing of the circuit called the Art of Giving could completely change blogging.

While these things take study, it isn’t always rocket science, but you do have to study. How to do that? Look for a source; it’s all about Giving and about returning value to the Source.

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This message continues to speak to me, something I penned a few years ago, haiku style. Written from a place of deep pain and soulful yearning, and duplicated from an old post, I view it today through a different set of lenses.

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The sky reminds me
of a place that’s far away –
buried deep… inside

So near, yet so far
that it’s really hard to see –
yet… you know it’s there

A constant presence
sensed even through denial –
beckoning… inward

Neither right nor left
just centered… deeper… deeper
to home… in the sky

19 Jan 2003

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Intuition, those flashes of insight or feeling that seem to warn and inform us. ‘Woman’s intutition’ is also man’s, but he is often too busy slaying dragons or following sports to pay attention. Intuition is our first hint of ‘the still, small voice within,’ and for many of us it remains just that - still, small or only a hint.

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As we open up our hearts and allow the eternal to begin to penetrate into our awareness, the inner voice has a chance to grow. In time the voice becomes stronger, clearer and more frequent and we find ourselves more ‘in to it’ - because that is its direction… in.

Then something happens - the inner voice can get to a point that something disconcerting occurs: it starts becoming our acutal voice, our actual thoughts, our actual writing and expression - impossible to distinguish from who we ‘were’ and who we now ‘are.’

Seamless inner expression is unexpected - we expect such voices to be surrounded by a burning bush, or to be wearing a turban and talking in a far-away tone, eyes rolling. To encounter a person who resides in and conducts deeper awareness, using their nomal sounding voice in this situation can rock you, because by all appearances they will likely come across as so everyday-ish. Wonder why the great inner teachers can stay so easily hidden? This is one reason.

For this reason, and many more, I was confused by my teacher; he would move back and forth between inner and suface voice with no change in tone, rhythm or phrasing. His eyes were the only possible give away - you could see them residing in a deeper place when he was speaking from deeply within. But then that ceased too, as he gave himself over to his true home, taking up a 24/7 residency. In that new neighborhood, I could see a deeper place by looking into his eyes, hearing his words, seeing his actions and feeling his heart.

Improving our inner discernment helps us recognize fellow travelers who have become more deeply aligned. Developed discernment also helps us measure the ring and truth of their authenticity, but most importantly helps us to properly calibrate and tune our self, giving us a precision tool with which to measure the direction and depth of our own deepest inner voice.

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How hard it has often been for me to accept help. Male ego and layers of resistance mixed with pride, denial of need and stubborness, have all conspired to keep me from accepting help. Then, when the Giver emerged and gave, I often decried and devalued that person. I was the unwitting and selfish Fool.

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I have met two great Givers in my life. Both of them shared something in common that was intensely, amazingly and humbly great: their Heart. In each circumstance, they ran, RAN to give from the heart, to give and to give ceaselessly.

You will find, in the presence of a true Giver, a light, love, illumination, wisdom and warmth that is so strong, so invigorating, so right that you will want to bask in the light of it, bathing in its essence. But use caution and respect, because the true Giver never stops, and you can deeply hurt and harm them with your selfishness and greed.

In the case of one of the great Givers I have encountered, I often received without being adequately able to be appreciative and grateful… yet the giving continued. I basked in the Giving, but out of need and injury. In the other case, I had traveled much further down the path of life, and had come to deeply value the Art of Giving. In these more recent circumstances, as I received, I instantly gave back and appreciated. And a circuit began to form.

Older and wiser I had learned the Art of Giving, and now, standing in the light of a true Giver, something new emerged. In the extended moment of this principle I discovered a new dynamic: the Divine interplay of two Givers. In that moment, and the many more that followed, I found something so deep and so profound that my life was forever changed, for in the moment of ceaseless giving there comes a point where the appreciated value of the giving transcends time and space, and a new dimension is entered. A bridge is built, and laying on one side is earth and everyday life, and on the other side is the eternal and its unending stillness, power and harmony. Ceaseless giving brings you to this spot. Balanced between these two great dimensions, stands the Giver. Transformation occurs, because something powerful emerges: the realization of the Eternal Giver.

All of us are Eternal Givers. We simply haven’t all realized that. More certain than the laws of the physcial universe, Giving is our destiny.

Found in these few words are the essential principles of the Art of Giving: Respect, Appreciation, Gratitude and Value. Move sequentially, from one to the other. Find value, and learn to find it in anything. Then, respect that value, even if the respect is only a smidge. Once respected, be grateful, somehow, for the value and then appreciate it, finding a way to increase its value, no matter how small. Then, do that again. And again. Forever. This is the art of the Divine Giver.

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Fear, that great disabler, withers beneath harmony. Moving inward toward harmony, fear stands as a great spiked boulder ready to puncture any who dare cross its dreadful path. Step into fear without hestitation, lunging as Neo into Agent Smith. Enter the center of fear, for in the center is something fear cannot deny.

Harmony’s Embrace

Yearn for and feel the call of harmony - her voice beckoning with soothing chant.

Calm and fluid, she clasps your fear, casting it away like mist.

Feel and hear her, pulling from a deeper place - urging you, calling you, beckoning you to embrace.

Immersed and bathing, swimming in harmony, all is calm. Hearts slow, breath stops.

Home is discovered. Home.

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