It can be like prison - clanging cell bars, mundane routines, endless years spent in isolation. The sun rises, the sun sets. Life is a shadowy blur, indistinct, without purpose.

When problems are piling up on us, and stress and depression are strangling our energy, we can easily cave in to the consequences of feeling overwhelmed. Floundering, perhaps lost in hopelessness or cynicism, we can become physically ill. Not only does our body become out of balance, but so can our emotions, our thinking and even our spirit. Our voice can take on the ring of defeat, even mocking our own ideals. Alone in a crowd, we drift in a state of solitary confinement, each prisoner peering through their own bars at the next.

Withdrawing into a cell may not necessarily be a bad thing; our private worlds may be helping us learn a greater lesson. But in this state we can be uninspiring to ourselves, and quite possibly to others. And our behaviors, however isolated, can create their own causes and effects. For those effects, on ourselves and others, we are responsible.

There was once a young cook who helped prepare meals for the military garrison in his town. One day, after a great deal of thought, he decided to visit the local monastery. Upon arriving, he requested an audience with the bishop and declared his desire to become a monk. Several interviews with his potential superiors were arranged, which gave the young man’s family and friends time to assess his motivations. It was determined by both family and clerics that he was not being foolhardy, but was thoughtful and deliberate. Strictly voluntary, this particular monastery was known for its practices of isolation, contemplation and mediation. Once the cook was accepted into the order, his life became one of withdrawal. When not attending to the monastery’s gardening needs and chores, he spent most of his time in his cell. In later years, he withdrew from the monastery and found a cave, where he spent the rest of his life.

It can be similar when we withdraw into depression, fear, anxiety and stress. Like the young monk, we are making a ‘free will choice’ to enter these cells. Sometimes these journeys are contemplative, but there are times where we sentence ourselves to jail.

It is not unusual to feel smothered in the dark grip of these solitary, inner chambers. We don’t remember that we are masters of intention and creation. We overlook that when the cell door closes behind us each night, it is never locked. There are no prison guards or wardens. We are able to leave our self-imposed exile at anytime, just like the monk.

Sometimes, after many years, the monks, much like prisoners, can become reluctant to leave the security that the routine of a cloistered and guarded life offers. Withdrawal can become deeply ingrained, a way of living, a security blanket of perceived protection, cutting off integration from the greater world by making integration something to be feared. This can make it difficult to see the fruits and rewards of certain types of withdrawal. It can also make it difficult to stand up and let the inner light shine through – we have become too used to our familiar friend, the dark.

Pacing the floors of our cells of despair, we ignore the ringing sound of the prison door keys, rattling and jangling at our waist. Whether tossing and turning on the hard bench of self incrimination, or squatting and pounding on the cold stone floor of surrender and self-pity, we forget who it is that is making the choice.

But outside, the sun rises and sets every day. Perched forever in a higher perspective, the sun sees who is living in shadowed withdrawal, and who is living more openly, nakedly exposed on treeless plains. Neither approach has an effect on the sun; it just sees choices being made. And for all who live in its kingdom, the sun shines and glows without bias, forever giving its light and life.

A solitary sunflower stands in a field, straining through the earth and beginning to grow. Surrounded and infused by sunlight, it grows tall because it finds its purpose and peace by being nothing more or less than what it is – a sunflower. And it grows and provides life-giving seeds in the simplest of ways - by letting the sun shine in.

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This post is an expanded version of a comment I made on Serenity’s blog, on a post called Reverence. It is an addition to the Art of Giving series on this blog.

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Hopefully we can each look in our lives and find examples of reverence, some deeper and others less profound. How do we develop deeper reverence? How does our deepest reverence manifest? In what way(s) should we be living deeper reverence?

Years ago my teacher said to a group of us (and he has continued to say this over the years, but fairly infrequently because most people dislike hearing it and find ways within themselves to be offended by it), “If you want to develop a deeper relationship to the Source, you need to have a practical way of doing that.” This makes sense and is not the part that is offensive.

He went on to explain that the way we do this is by looking for the thing or person in our life who is most representative of Source, and we learn to serve that thing or person. This is the area that people start becoming offended by. We act concerned that we are giving away our power, etc.

Unacknowledged selfishness lies at the root of our attitude: we don’t want to give, we want to get. People who consider themselves to not be selfish, which is all of us, are very much about “what’s in it for me. It is through the act of service, and through learning how to unconditionally serve, that our reverence grows, and more importantly, our relationship to Source grows.

One way to develop reverence is by respectful thinking, mentally and emotionally positioning ourselves to be more considerate. But that doesn’t mean much unless we put it into action. Unfortunately we are so selfish that we are unwilling to give ourselves in a way that our life becomes focused on unconditional service. We prefer receiving over giving… gimme, gimme, gimme.

To develop the deepest reverence and the ability to be unconditional givers, we need to have someone give to us unconditionally first. It is only after endless repetitions of receiving that we begin to allow a crack in our facade of selfishness, a crack that allows us to begin at least some modest giving of our own.

The best place to learn deepest reverence and Giving is from an unconditional Giver. We can see this in spiritual traditions where we love the Giver because the Giver first loved us. But we become squeamish with this, because an unconditional Giver exposes our selfishness. At every opportunity, we quickly line up before God with our hands out and our long wish lists hidden behind our backs. “I’m not selfish!” we exclaim with superiority, as we transfer our list to the other hand.

Look into your life at what it is that is giving you the deepest, most unconditional giving, and learn to serve that. Sensei says, “If you want to serve the Ideal, you must first learn to serve the Ideal.”

This does not mean giving up our individuality or unthinkingly following someone or something. What it does mean, however, is that as we learn from a deeper source of Giving how to give, we begin to give up our deeply rooted selfishness so that true and deeper Giving can come through.

Deeper reverence is the action of putting respect and value on something greater than we are, on something that deserves our consideration. It is bowing before that, but more importantly, reverence is the act of learning to put our respect into action, learning to serve the Ideal in the way the Ideal serves us: unconditionally.

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Once there were two brothers. The older brother had inherited his father’s estate. He was wealthy and entertained generously. Food and drink were in abundance, and as food was passed around the table sometimes a chunk of meat or ladle of rice would fall on the floor, to be quickly devoured by the dogs. The older brother gave lavishly to his church and commanded respect in his community.

The younger brother had long ago fallen on hard times. Clothing, even food, was sparse. A ladle of rice was valuable, and each night he led his family in a humble prayer of thanks. Each spoonful of food was viewed with satisfaction, and each bite was savored. His family, though modest in worldly wealth, was gentle and kind, always appreciative of the smallest kindness.

One brother commanded respect and bought reverence, and the other brother gave respect and served reverence.

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Take a jump over to Transforming Communication where James Souttar applies the concepts and principles of The Art of Giving to the process of communication, discussed in his post Communication and Giving.

We have been discussing these principles here for the last month or so. The best way to learn deeper principles is to both study them and to also apply them to our everyday life situations. The principles discussed on this site are universal principles that have enormous power to transform lives and life. The more ways we find to apply and integrate principles, the quicker we learn and the deeper and more comprehensively we can become aligned to their power. Application is the key.

The Art of Giving Series

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James Souttar is a communications consultant and designer based in Great Britain. For over twenty years he has worked with organisations ranging from government departments to entrepreneurial start-ups, banks to charities, universities to trades unions, integrating new thinking from the sciences as well as ideas from traditional psychologies.

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Following my last post. I had a series of lessons with my teacher. There are several things I have harvested out of those lessons, including:

- when we return a portion of the appreciated value to the source, the loop keeps running, but more importantly it has an opportunity to grow in value;

- it is wise to find and give back to a source that can return compound value, because an accelerated effect can occur;

- having someone truly appreciate your value, and do that over and over and over, can become very uncomfortable, because we are not used to unconditional giving; unconditional giving eventually forces us to confront our selfishness, biases and insecurities;

- there is an aspect of going back to the source that can give us a feeling of admonishment when we approach and interact with the source, but that is because of our biases and our position of not being centered in the moment.

This post began as a draft post, which I asked my teacher to review. Following his review, there were several other lessons that took place before I finally felt ready to make a final pass at the post.

Note: This is a publicly posted lesson between student and teacher, a continuation of lessons on a series called The Art of Giving.

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About a week ago, Gretchen and I were with Sensei for a few hours. We had just left a community meeting, in which a lot of negativity was being thrown about. Negativity has powerful effects on our thinking, on how we interact with each other and with our problems, and on our personal growth. It can also distort and affect the messages and instructions from a teacher, because it grounds out the circuit of conductivity by introducing a greater amount of resistance due to the prominence we give to our personal biases. We can see this in our lives very easily, for example, when one negative person can often ground out an entire group of people.

During the lesson, we were talking about how using the Principles of Giving in that negative meeting had brought about improved results. As our lesson continued, Sensei kept building the source value so that I could better understand how gratitude should be working. There were many other elements to that lesson, and I came out of it with a determination to write a post. This time, however, after I wrote my draft post I asked my teacher to review it.

When his written comments came back, there were some things I saw as valuable, there were also some inner reactions I had, and there were some other things that weren’t apparent. Those unapparent things came out in further discussions and also when a few nights later we discussed the same concepts with a group of Great River Jiu Jitsu students following an evening marital arts class. The more often we met or talked, the deeper the insights I received into how to effectively return a portion of the appreciated value back to the source.

This brings out an important point: we tend to read or hear deeper lessons and go, “Okay, I get it.” I do this too often. But the fact is we don’t get it, because we are typically in too big a hurry to show that we are ‘getting it’, or we are too caught up in our biases to realize there is something beyond our biases.

In the first instance, we like to demonstrate all we know, or we enjoy talking about our understandings on the topic, instead of shutting up and listening. Even when we shut up and listen, and actually harvest a piece of deeper value, we sometimes make that piece the quintessential point. That can often be a good thing, but many times we walk away with our new piece of information, never realizing that the teacher had a far deeper point for us to obtain. Fortunately, I have a teacher who understands this, and he graciously keeps plugging away, giving students ample opportunities to learn.

In the case of our biases, we can get the whole ‘deer in the headlights’ look when we are brought to a certain tripping point. We can too easily get stuck in our conditioned behavior, sometimes to the point where everyone else can see an obvious thing about us, but viewed through the constant lenses of our biases nothing appears abnormal whatsoever. But that is not always the case. There are times when we are able to ovecome our biases and transcend our normal lives as we center and immerse ourselves inside the field of superconductivity. That’s when things can really sizzle. Read the rest of this entry »

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Here is something I often do haphazardly, and that the lesson in the link below is teaching how to overome:
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“All too often, we are so busy expressing ourselves, we hardly take notice of the incoming value.

“The principles which I am describing are principles that can help us build a stronger connection to source value. This occurs as we act in ways that help the source value, and our relationship to it, grow.”

Sensei, Giving and its Principles

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“If we are to become more consciously aware of our reason for living, through the process of breathing, we have to have some way of recognizing what the incoming value is and compare it to the outgoing. In other words, our in-breath has a reason and purpose behind it, which is something we have to know and realize if we expect to extend that purpose and reason through ourselves and into our world as we breathe out. We are the factor that distorts or enhances that reason as it moves through us to enter into our world. Our giving, in the sense of our study, is about becoming more aware of this process. In order to become more aware, we have to become more cognizant of what lies upstream and compare it to what we are breathing out.”

- Sensei, Giving and its Principles

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Running ‘the loop’

As I begin to re-read Sensei’s lesson, Giving and its Principles, I cannot go further than this point above, found in the opening 4th and 5th paragraphs: I don’t have sufficient clarity on what lies upstream.

There is a Value being stated here. One Value I find is in the actual question being asked: what is the reason and purpose behind my in breaths? If I can better understand that, and better understand what lies upstream of my in breath, then it is apparent I will have a better understanding of what is powering my body and my reason for being here.

So, I am going to stop and Respect that I don’t have sufficient clarity about that Value. I also recognize and respect that what comes out of me, exemplified by my out breath (and my life), has a lot of distortion when it comes to living and communicating deep Divine clarity and eternal awareness.

Having done that, I move to the next principle: Appreciation. How can I appreciate this; how can I find a way to increase the Value that I am respecting? First, by being even more honest: there is no question that I don’t have a good understanding of what is powering my body and my reason for being here. It would be easy to blow by these few sentences of my teacher, justifying that I do have some understanding. But justification is not going to improve me, and certainly not going to take me to toward an improved understanding and application of these principles.

Therefore, as a measure of my Appreciation, I am going to say that I not only want to have a good understanding of what is powering my body and my reason for being here, but I want to have an excellent understanding. Why? For a variety of reasons, but foremost is that I want to minimize the amount of distortion occurring between my in and my out breath. Why? Because I want to live and be a Divine Giver, and in the process of doing that I want to do everything I can to ensure that what is coming through me has a minimum of bias and a maximum of clarity.

I have now Appreciated a Value that I have Respected.

So, how do I show my Gratitude? One way is by stating that I am happy to be reminded that simply stopping and running this ‘loop’ of principles, that comprise the Art of Giving, that act is already beginning to give me a more centered and informed point of focus.

How do I return at least a portion of that Gratitude to source, which is in this case my teacher? One way is by saying, “Wow, take a look at how effective this formula is! Take a look at how just a few words into this article, appreciated value is already being formed.”

Just stopping for a few moments on a couple of lines, that I’d normally speed bump right over, is already giving me better clarity. Not only that, I know from past experience that I am now better aligning myself to the next thing my teacher is going to say.

Note: the four principles of the Art of Giving are capitalized for clarity.

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Background

Following is a lesson from my teacher, based on questions I submitted from a series of posts on the Art of Giving. Normally, this is a private dialogue between teacher and student, however I am making his lesson to me transparent on my blog.

In his response, Sensei is not answering any questions that have to do with blogging itself. Rather, he is laying some groundwork and focusing on what some would consider to be a subtle nuance: the order in which I listed, and was applying, the four principles of Giving. He is also addressing the issue of giving back to the source.

I have been studying these principles with him for years, and upon seeing that I had reversed the order of two of them, he said, “This is a problem because source is not being honored. This mis-order causes many things in life to malfunction.”

You may find, I as do, that his teaching has a certain flow to it that makes it very easy and natural to read and follow. Do not be lulled into complacency by this; there is a depth occurring that can be quite difficult to understand. This one lesson has years of study available in it.

If you find auditing this lesson to be interesting or valuable, I recommend you spend some time, as I shall, studying. Perhaps you will end up coming up with a good question or two.

Introduction

As an introduction, I have selected the following quote from my teacher. Once you click on the (…more) button, you are reading his direct word-for-word teaching (not my notes). His lesson is called “Giving and its Principles”.

“Most people who tithe are giving out of duty or kindness. But they are not realizing an improved connection to source each time they give. The same thing happens to most musicians - when they play and have a moment of connection, they don’t know how to build it into a further one, where it just keeps getting better and better. It is the master musician who knows how to do that, and it is the master in life who knows how to do that. Mastering life should be certainly about doing that, otherwise we’re not even in tune with our reason for being. How can we master something, including our reason for being, if we are not even in tune with it. It is almost unbelievably embarrassing.”

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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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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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