Refining Our Motivation

What motivates us to do what we do? Is it a desire for money, or fame or for reward in this life or in the hereafter? How about the idea of doing good from the motive of pure love of God? Background Music: "Ascension" by Narek Mirzaei of Music of Wisdom

Transcript

Dear friends,

Thank you for logging into this meditation where we're going to reflect today on the idea of refining our motivation.

We begin by seeing if we can bring ourselves really into this present moment.

One way of doing this,

We often do it,

Is by becoming aware of the breath.

Another way is by carrying out a simple body awareness exercise and today we're going to try that.

So first of all,

Notice where you are sitting right now.

Some of us may be indoors,

Some outdoors as we listen to this meditation.

But the thing is to become aware of our presence in this time and in this place,

Wherever it may be.

We won't run through a full body scan but we will look at some of our taken for granted benefits that come to us through our bodies.

Begin by noticing how do you feel just now.

What can you see?

What can you hear?

Notice your feet as they make contact with the floor.

You might be supported by a chair,

You might be lying on a bed,

You might be kneeling on a cushion.

Notice your chest rising and falling as you breathe in and out.

If you place your hands on your chest,

You become aware of your heartbeat.

This wonderful heartbeat that has sustained us from the very beginning.

So for the next minute,

Just 60 seconds,

Let's be thankful for our bodies.

All our wonderful working parts.

There's so much going for us,

In spite of any minor illnesses or breakages along the way.

Here we are,

Alive,

Well enough to be here.

So for now,

A one minute gesture of thanks.

Welcome back.

The idea for today's reflection came to me from the words of a prayer that I heard many years ago.

It talked about performing all our actions from the motive of pure love of God.

The prayer went like this.

Grant us a lively faith,

Animated by charity,

Which will enable us to perform all our actions from the motive of pure love of you,

And ever to see you and serve you in our neighbour.

A faith firm and immovable as a rock,

Through which we shall rest tranquil and steadfast amid the crosses,

Toils and disappointments of life.

This is quite an ideal.

Performing all our actions from the motive of pure love of God.

Now I'm sure this is not an easy thing to achieve,

Having that purity of intention and living in that state of awareness.

But that's all the more reason why we might ask if we could give this a try.

Maybe not full time,

That would be quite an ask.

Why not part time?

I imagine it must be worth a try.

Many people listening to this meditation will be too young to remember Dag Hammarskjold.

Dag Hammarskjold was a Swedish economist,

A diplomat who served as Secretary General of the United Nations.

He was appointed to that post in 1953.

He was only the second Secretary General in the UN's history.

It had only been formed a few years earlier.

Hammarskjold's second term was cut short when he died in a plane crash while en route to ceasefire negotiations during the Congo crisis.

He was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

His book,

Markings,

Was published in 1963.

Markings is a collection of his dirty notes and reflections.

The notes begin in 1925,

He was only 20 years old then,

And they end in 1961,

Just a month before his death.

After his death,

The diary was found in his house in New York,

Along with an undated letter which gave permission for its publication if it was thought to be worth publishing,

And it certainly was.

The late theologian Henry P.

Van Dusen describes Dag Hammarskjold's diary notes as,

The noblest self-disclosure of spiritual struggle and triumph,

Perhaps the greatest testament of personal faith written,

In the heat of professional life,

And amidst the most exacting responsibilities for world peace and order.

These notes show someone in a position of great responsibility privately working at trying to be the best he could be.

I'm working to do this with an unselfish motive,

This idea of working from the motive of the pure love of God.

Very often in these writings you see Dag Hammarskjold working to try to achieve this purity of intention,

Asking,

Why am I doing what I'm doing?

The very thing that we are considering in this meditation.

Here are just some of his quotes.

The longest journey is the journey inward.

In our age,

The road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.

The life of simplicity is simple,

But it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.

And just two more.

You have not done enough,

You have never done enough,

So long as it's still possible that you have something to contribute.

And finally this.

I don't know who or what put the question.

I don't even know when it was put.

I don't even remember answering.

But at some moment I did answer yes to someone or something.

And from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that therefore my life in self surrender had a goal.

Words of Dag Hammarskjold.

This man's purity of intention is really worthy of celebration.

And book markings is really one that's worthy of our study.

Let's have another one minute pause to give thanks for him and to give thanks for people like him working for peace and justice.

Welcome back.

Now in examining this high ideal of trying to do things from the motive of a pure love of God,

We must be careful not to allow ourselves to be tripped up by scruples.

We know we can never be perfect.

But if we only undertake tasks that we can do perfectly well,

We will leave an awful lot undone.

So we have to remember always that doing our reasonable best is quite sufficient.

Doing our reasonable best adds up to quite a lot and it helps us avoid burnout.

At the same time,

It is inspiring to keep in mind these ideal motives,

Even if we know that we'll only achieve the ideal every now and again.

If we keep ourselves on track,

It's a good idea to ask ourselves from time to time,

Why am I doing what I'm doing?

In 2007,

Wesley Autry was standing on a subway platform in New York when a young man nearby had a seizure and fell onto the track.

Wesley heard an approaching train and instantly he jumped down to try to save the young man.

Then he realised that the train was approaching too fast,

So he jumped on top of the young man's body and pushed him down into a drainage ditch between the tracks.

The train operator saw them but he wasn't able to stop.

Five carriages of the train passed over the two men.

But amazingly,

Both of them were uninjured.

Afterwards Wesley was asked by a New York Times reporter why had he jumped in to save the man.

The answer,

I just saw someone who needed help.

I did what I felt was right.

So naturally we have to ask ourselves why do we do good deeds?

Do we do it for money?

Do we do it for fame so that people will think well of us?

Do we do a good deed in the hope of securing a reward or a payback from the person we help or some reward in the life to come?

But none of these can have been the motive of Wesley Autry in that subway station when he was faced with such a sudden choice.

Why do we expose ourselves to danger to help someone else?

And what is this thing we call altruism?

Some examples.

Doing something to help someone else and not expecting any reward.

Going without something because of the cost it involves to other people.

Think of child labour.

Think of maybe the environmental impact of producing the thing we are tempted to buy.

Helping someone else even though it involves a risk or a cost to ourselves.

Sharing something in a time when that thing is scarce.

And who are we helping when we practice altruism?

Are we helping a close family member responding to the call of our DNA?

Are we helping someone because they are likely to help us in return?

A type of I scratch your back if you scratch mine situation.

There's also the help that we give to people who are part of the group that we belong to or that we identify with.

Now we can all easily understand these forms of altruism.

They're all based on a mutuality of interest.

People we know,

People we care about,

People in our tribe as it were.

But how do we explain the higher form of altruism that we see in situations that call for heroism?

Self-sacrifice.

This jumping in to save someone is surely not based on any idea of gain or return.

The opposite,

Your life is in danger.

Hacks such as we saw in the story about the man saving someone's life in that subway station.

What is at play here?

So next we ask ourselves what is the basis for this tendency to help other people without the incentive of any reward?

Experts tell us that doing good feels good.

The feel good factor.

We've all experienced that.

And it could be that over centuries of time and evolution that groups who practiced kindness and cooperation among themselves were more successful than groups where each one was interested only in his or her self.

It's also been suggested that we don't feel comfortable at the sight of somebody else in trouble and therefore our automatic tendency is to ease the trouble of the other person and for ourselves by helping the person in trouble.

Is it that very often these acts are simply based on moral values and if so where do we pick up these values?

Let's give ourselves another pause for reflection,

Another 60 seconds.

Let's give ourselves another pause.

Welcome back.

But whatever about the basis for it we know that altruism is a good thing.

It has its benefits.

Research has shown that if we look out for other people and volunteer to help other people this improves our own physical and mental health.

We each know this from our own experience.

Helping other people makes us feel good about ourselves and feeling good we're more inclined to help even more.

This adds to our happiness and it sets us on an upward spiral of positivity.

Being kind and compassionate can also lead to a better relationship with our spouses and our partners and it fosters harmony in our families.

It has to be a better life if we pull together with the people around us.

And it's clear too that societies operate much better and with much more social cohesion where people practice altruism.

Altruism and compassion can be encouraged even among those of us who by our nature might tend to be a little more self-centered.

It's encouraged in us every time we hear of brave and caring acts.

It can be encouraged also every time we're asked to place ourselves in the shoes of the other person.

How would you feel to be homeless,

Friendless or out of work?

How would you feel if you were discriminated against by reason of your race or gender or your sexual orientation?

If we remember to ask ourselves these questions then we'll be more inclined to be supportive of people who find themselves discriminated against.

Sometimes altruism might just happen but at other times it might need to be caused.

Just like generosity we might need to give ourselves a prompt such as a daily reminder in our calendar to encourage us today to perform some act of unexpected generosity.

To perform it today or this week or whenever.

The opportunities may not just present themselves so if we are determined to practice altruism we have to go out to create opportunities rather than waiting for them to come to us.

We must remember also the web of existence of which we are each a part.

If we can recognise this fundamental unity it makes it easier for us to identify with other people,

To notice their needs and sense their suffering and respond to them in kindness.

Our unity can be compared to the unity of the human body.

If we have a sore toe the whole body is affected.

If we have a toothache the whole body feels pain,

Not just the mouth.

We can sense the suffering of other people because in a sense we and they are one.

None of us can be said to have an existence independent of everyone else and independent of the world around us.

Many of us will be familiar with the poem by John Donne.

No man is an island entire of itself.

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manner of thy friends are of thine own were.

Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls.

It tolls for thee.

The 19th century German philosopher Schopenhauer,

My own true inner being actually exists in every living creature.

This is the ground of compassion upon which all true,

That is to say unselfish virtue rests and whose expression is in every good deed.

The COVID-19 crisis and the environmental crisis are both reminders to us that we are all in this together.

We are all part,

Each and every one of us is part of an interdependent web.

What affects one of us affects all of us.

So we should celebrate altruism and compassion as a means of transcending any mistaken notion that we are separate and independent from each other.

We are not.

Our tendency to altruism is operational proof of our connectedness.

Which brings us back to that opening prayer which might keep in mind when performing our own good deeds.

Grant us a lively faith animated by charity which will enable us to perform all our actions on the motor with pure love of you and ever to see you and serve you in our neighbour.

A final prayer to conclude this meditation.

Each day as the sun rises may hope rise up in me.

As the birds sing let love flow out from me.

As the light floods into this new day may joy shine out through me.

May I carry something of hope,

Love and joy into the world today.

Namaste.

Reviews

So inspiring and such an uplifting meditation. The music is perfect. I love your 60 second pauses that gives me time to take in everything you've said. You're such a blessing.

Beautiful thoughts and prayers

Just wonderful!

Namaste. 🌺👏🏻

What a beautiful meditation.

Thank you Tony. Your reflection is a great blessing. Peace, Mary

Outstanding!

Great meditation, the time flew by. I liked the music, but it competed with the guidance at times due to its volume.

Beautiful and truthful words to remind us we are all one. Ty! Namaste 🙏

Thank you for this wonderful meditation you always have wonderful words and contemplations and quotes. I love the music and the pace that you create with these meditations

Helping others strengthens connections and gives life meaning. Thank you for this beautiful meditation Tony 🙏🏻🌺

I’m 75 and I appreciate your truth!

Another amazing and inspiring meditation from Tony.