Are the most unselfish deeds the most selfish ones? If you want to make yourself feel good, then do something good for someone else. I don't mean for your kids or your mother, that is necessary and expected. I mean a random act. Tell a stranger they look great. Give away something that means something to you. Of course, give away your extra stuff, but I don't think that counts on the healing feel good meter. Give away your lunch to someone really hungry when you can't get to food for a while.
Without sacrifice, there is no sacrifice. God, I sound like a refrigerator magnet. Sorry. The idea is to gain merit within your own heart. So you get a boost. Most of our morality about generosity is getting rid of our excess. OK, it feels good to clean out your cellar or your attic, but it doesn't overcome the lower side of self-interest.
For those of us who are on the top half of the one percent of the people on the planet economically, educationally, physically, we have a bit of a challenge to get to the bonus karma of sacrifice. I felt good giving a man and kid who had run out of gas all my change the other day. Then I realized I had been annoyed at the weight of the change in my purse. (I got rid of a problem) and the only sacrifice I made was taking the time to hand it to them. Big whip. If I had bought him a tank of gas and a can of oil and some lunch, I would have had to reconsider going out to dinner that night. Even that is a piddling sacrifice.
Mother Theresa, at the beginning of her service in India, would not accept money from people who admired her work. She felt that the donors would only understand the work and get the spiritual benefit from it if they came and worked with her. It was easy for those people to write a check, but Mother Theresa was trying to save the souls of the givers as well as the givees. (new word)
Is this idea a part of the idea that to change the world you have to first change yourself. And part of the current mantra that if you are in distress, you need to work on self care? Is self care really different from going and having a few massages and treating yourself to a movie night? Was it self care for me to live with Emir? How much did my kids sacrifice so I could do what I wanted? Or were my actions simply sharing my quirky character and doing the best I could?
And does doing good really do good? The Dalai Lama blogged the other day that we could pretty much change the world if we greet everyone we encounter with perfect love. I would guess that one of the most universal human needs is to be seen for the wonderful person we are, for our golden heart instead of the strange packaging around it.
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