December 20, 2011

• The difference between getting and receiving gifts

• Sharing beliefs about guides and these messages best done in small groups

• Your gift to others is who you are

God, the Gift and the Giver, penetrates your lives and illuminates your spirits.

At this time, there are so many who are drawn by the tradition of the season to try to give what is loving to others. For countless individuals, what is loving gets translated to what can be purchased and given as gifts that can be packaged and presented in a physical manner to another. It is at this time of year that such attention to gifts should more appropriately be directed toward how you can give who you are to another.

Each of you knows how it feels when through sacrifice you do something which creates a strong and penetrating joy to another, for you see it in their eyes. You do not need words. The eyes are the window of the spirit, and when you look to the eyes, you know. Words are merely an adornment to a representation of others. What is important is how you become open to what the needs of another are, and your response.

The Christmas season may be a season of giving, but more importantly it is a season of understanding the true meaning of what it means to receive. We are not suggesting that Christmas is about getting. It is about giving, but more importantly being aware of what it means when another is receptive. You give, of course, because true giving is a reflection of love, but you give in faith that there is a receiving, that there is a recognition of being valued, of being loved, of being affirmed. You give spiritually to another. You may not know what that impact is, but the fact is you do not give to emptiness. You give to another. Remember, it is to another. There is a receiver of your gifts of love. Giving without an acknowledgment of the receiver is merely an exercise, but giving with an understanding that there is a receiver becomes a true act of faith.

When you pray to God, you pray as a way of listening and giving, but you pray in the faith that there is a God that receives your prayer. Conversely, you have faith that God gives to you—gives you strength, gives you balance, gives you courage, gives you comfort—but in believing that God provides this for you, you are also providing value to yourselves as being receivers of those gifts of love.

This time of the year is a celebration of giving and receiving. It is not so much the celebration of giving and getting. There is a difference between getting and receiving. Getting is all about the “me,” the “I.” Receiving is really an acknowledgement of a giver, and it is this approach that we wish you to understand.

When you express love toward another, another receives that love, and part of that reception is an acknowledgment, even nonverbally. When you pray for another, be open to evidence that that prayer has been answered. Be open to the reality that there is a recipient for your gift of prayer. When you feel strengthened by others, you are seeing yourselves as a recipient of the gifts of love and care offered by another. You don’t get healthy. You don’t get balance. You receive health, you receive balance, you receive love, you receive compassion. Getting often implies a sense of being entitled to something. You get paid. You don’t often consider that you receive payment. Receiving payment acknowledges the giver. Getting acknowledges mostly the person who is at the receiving end of something that is transferred.

At this time of the year, therefore, it is important to consider the blessing of giving and the blessing of receiving. Remove the concept of getting from your lives, for such approach is of no benefit, least of all for your own spiritual growth. But receiving acknowledges another, and it is in that acknowledgment that you grow, for you are acknowledging the presence of another and the loving expression of that presence.

Your guides provide you with an environment of love, with an environment of peace, with an environment that is totally nonjudgmental. Each of you in your way finds opportunity to receive what we offer. You don’t get what we offer, for in the receiving, you acknowledge the giver. You acknowledge our place as guides at the table of your own daily lives.

This concept of guides and the spiritual receiving that takes place is difficult to share with those who have no perspective of such a relationship. You spoke this evening of concerns about how to widen the existence of spiritual recognition and acknowledgment of the ongoing nature of spiritual enlightenment. This is done best in small groups rather than large collections, for in a small group there is more freedom to express viewpoints and differing perspectives. But such an exercise of sharing is always appropriate. It is not proselytizing. It is not trying to change people to your own perspective, but rather is an effort to expand others’ awareness of their perspectives.

You come to this environment with an openness, you come with inquisitiveness, but you don’t come with answers. The first stage to spiritual growth is an openness, and for many the greatest gift you can give to others is an example of openness. They develop through this openness. They develop that openness through their receiving your gifts. Each of you knows through your own experience there is no gain by the insistence that your views on spiritual life are the most appropriate. The normal reaction is to draw away. No one wishes to move through life feeling that their beliefs are being imposed. There is much effort to impose beliefs, but generally human beings feel that they believe because that’s what they believe, not because that is what they have been told. If you can give the gift of openness, then the environment is rich to expand the beliefs.

Spiritual growth is all about openness. It is all about listening. It is all about observing. It is all about nonjudgmental love. The distance that must be traversed for many from their own perspective to a broader perspective can be enormous. Indeed, for some in their current human life-form, it is insurmountable. But there is no requirement that that distance must be traversed within a given frame of time. God does not say you must learn this during a single human life.

All life is a process. All life has a direction to it. As we have often said and we reiterate again, life is not a race. There are no winners. Everyone finishes. Everyone reaches the goal. For some, it is in a single life. For others, it is in multiple human lives. For yet others, it is a combination of human lives and life-forms that you do not see and cannot hear, but that growth indeed persists and is unfailingly successful.

You will always encounter in your lives individuals who confront your reality with disbelief, and that is okay, for your gift to others is not the product of what you say to them. Your gift is who you are. It is how you live your lives as a reflection of your beliefs. That is the gift, and others will recognize that gift as they can. The broader viewpoint, the broader perspective that is achieved is what has been received, not what has been gotten. No one should shy away from an opportunity to share, but it is important in your sharing to recognize what it is you share, what it is you really give.

This season of the year is a reminder of the ultimate gift, the gift of love, the gift of being loving. That is the gift. That is what you celebrate. There are of course biblical stories of gifts, physical gifts, being presented, but those physical gifts are allegorical in nature. There are no truly physical gifts. They are gifts that represent what it means to offer love to another. This celebration that many have throughout the world should be a reminder of the gifts you really are celebrating, but that celebration cannot be limited to a few weeks in the calendar. That celebration should be an example of what it means to give always, and what it means to truly receive.

We have spoken often about the necessity to be vulnerable, the necessity to place yourself in a position in which you can receive the gifts of others. This vulnerability, which is an openness, is what is required to receive and not to get. Getting requires no vulnerability, no openness. Receiving requires it in abundance.

Each of you must concentrate on what it is you wish to give. You know it is love, but each of you has ways that are unique to you as to how that gift of love is transmitted to a receiver of that love. That’s what you seek. That’s what you seek at all times. For many, a list is made of what must be purchased for person one, person two, person three on the list. Make a list that each of you considers, and that list should include, “How do I give love to this person? How do I offer love to the next person? How do I offer love to yet another?” In doing so, you are strengthening the power of God. You are deepening the commitment of your spirit to the support of another. You are directing your lives, guided by love.

At the same time, make a list of how you can become more vulnerable. How can you become better receivers, more sensitive receivers? How can you become more aware of the gifts of others, the true gifts? In doing so, you transcend any religious and social traditions of giving physical gifts, and you join in very clear ways what we, your guides, give to each of you and what God gives to all of creation. You give and you receive. The bond that joins becomes strengthened and emits a light that illuminates all.

May that light be with each of you, now and always.

Amen.