Giving Thanks and Always Giving

“Thanksgiving Day is a good day to recommit our energies to giving thanks and just giving.” –Amy Grant

“Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.” — George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1789

We tend to look at life’s scenes with an attitude of receiving or taking something from life. We live in a time of ‘take, take, take’, and spend a lot of time and energy getting something for nothing; buy one get one free.

We think we need to get something, but the truth is we don’t need anything; we already have what we need. We think we have to keep what we receive, but whatever comes is not for keeping, it is for giving.

The truth of the matter is simply by giving we will receive all that we need. Even every positive emotion we give, increases inside us at the same time.

“The love I give away is the only love I keep. The more love I give the more love I receive in return.” — Dadi Janki

And when you give, you get. Giving is receiving. We all know this eternal truth; it’s one of those cast iron laws of the universe. But we are conditioned to think the opposite. Make an effort to “be” and discover when you pause and observe, life helps and will bring whatever is needed, at the right moment in the right way.  We forget ‘being’ comes before ‘doing’, and requires us to be still and at peace, our most fundamental nature. 

The method of becoming a giver, and not someone who is asking for love and respect from others, is to start filling oneself with spiritual knowledge and reflecting on it. I have to remember my true form of being a spiritual light. 

This body is temporary and not mine. I the living soul am bodiless, and God too, is incorporeal. In the awareness of being light, detached from the body and loving God in complete peace and purity, I become filled with unlimited peace, love and happiness.

Hold this awareness as long as you’re able, and you will experience being loved by God.      

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” –Meister Eckhart.

This is the true Thanksgiving.

(Yvonne Risely, of Owego, can be reached via email to bkchirya@gmail.com or chirya.risely@peacevillageretreat.org. Call (518) 589-5000 for mediation classes.)