If you do not know how to become an abode of divine grace,
There are other simpler ways of getting there.
One simple way is to make your life into a giving.
When I say giving,
I am not talking about… it is not to be understood as an act because giving as an act is a deception because what can you give?
Everything that we have,
Including this body,
We have taken from this planet.
What we can give is only a paltry part of what we have taken.
Giving as an act could be very deceptive and could turn ugly,
But if your giving is your way of being,
If your way of being is giving and your actions are only a manifestation of your way of being,
There is no way to avoid that.
If you establish your way of giving,
When you open your heart to give,
The grace of the divine invariably seeps in.
That's inevitable.
It is not what you give which makes the difference.
It is just that for some reason you opened yourself up,
That's what makes the difference.
If you do not know how to simply sit here and become a doorway to the divine,
Giving is a simple way of making yourself porous enough so that the grace of the divine inevitably enters you.
It is in setting boundaries that we have denied ourselves the possibility of the divine.
Every time we hold back,
We set boundaries and when we set boundaries,
We deny ourselves the ultimate possibility.
If you become a constant state of giving,
When I say a constant state of giving,
If your every step and every breath is a process of giving,
That is you have made your life into a contribution,
You will naturally arrive at a state of union which will set the necessary foundations for a cosmic possibility.
It has been my fortune and privilege that at a very early age,
I became a witness to a certain state of giving,
A certain transaction which is… which was beyond anybody's understanding who was there,
Including mine.
I have told you,
Probably many of you,
A few times about my great-grandmother who lived up to be one-one-three,
Hundred-and-thirteen years of age.
Because she would never die,
People thought she is a devil of a woman.
She buried her husband,
She buried all her children,
A few of her grandchildren and I think even a couple of her great-grandchildren.
But she wouldn't die one-hundred-and-thirteen years of age.
I have seen her in various kinds of states,
But it is her sense of giving which needs to be looked at.
In the mornings if she was given breakfast,
She would always go about giving away at least two-thirds of it to the ants and the birds and the squirrels,
Particularly to the ants.
And there would be unsolicited advisors around who would say,
She is throwing all her food around,
This old woman will die without eating.
They all died.
She didn't.
There are many days I have seen her,
This little breakfast that was left in her plate,
She would just hold in her hand and simply sit there watching the ants eating.
Tears would be streaking down her cheeks and when somebody asked,
Won't you eat,
She would say,
I am full.
I am already full.
I thought she has some kind of an emotional love affair with ants.
I was only three,
Four,
Five years of age.
She was well over hundred.
It is many,
Many years later I realized there is another way to transact with the world.
She was… if the ants ate,
She was being nourished.
A logical mind would never understand this.
This would look like rubbish to a thinking mind,
But she was nourished like this.
It is this nourishment which gave her an extraordinary longevity.
Life happens in many ways.
The nourishment is not just through the food that you eat.
Even now,
Only twenty-five to thirty percent of the nourishment comes from the food that you eat.
The rest of it is the air that you breathe,
The water that you drink and the sunlight.
Without these things you will dissipate.
So giving is… Just you… I want you to understand you have come with nothing,
So you cannot give.
We are just trying to deceive the creator.
We are giving.
There is nothing to give.
We just act it out.
He also kind of plays along.
So it's okay.
We are playing a game.
We are smart.
You be trying to deceive him,
Tch,
But he is intelligent,
So he plays along.
He is wise,
So he plays along.
There is nothing here to give.
Everything is that we have picked up from here.
We take a lot and give little and that's the only way you can live.
No matter how much you give,
What you have taken is bigger than what you have given always.
That's the only way life can be.
So don't make too much out of giving.
It's just a trick.
This possibility,
It's a simpler possibility than if you do not know anything.
If you do not know any other mode of opening yourself up to the creation,
This is a simple possibility.
Just making every act,
Every breath into your process of giving,
Seeing how you can contribute to everything around you,
No matter what you are doing.
You will see in twenty-four hours' time,
You will be so rich,
The experience of life,
The beauty of life will set a glow on your face just like that,
Simply because that's how you are,
Because that's the only way life functions.
Life,
The process of life is a giving.
It's a transaction.
In every giving,
There is a taking.
It is just that you ignore the taking.
That's all.
Not that there is no taking.
There is taking.
We are taking more than we are giving.
But in your mind,
You just ignore the taking.
You just keep the giving,
Because you don't have to take,
It will be pushed into you.
Thank you.
