Flower and Fragrance — The Art of Giving

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Be like the flower and speak through your fragrance of good character and deeds.

 

Give without any prejudice and doer-ship notion… 

…Like the flower gives fragrance to all without prejudice, utterly unconscious of its giving.

 

…Like the air, that gives breeze and oxygen to all without prejudice, utterly unconscious of its giving.

 

…Like the sun, that gives light and heat to all without prejudice, utterly unconscious of its giving.

 

…Like the tree, that gives leaves, flowers, fruits, shade and wood to all without prejudice, utterly unconscious of its giving.

 

Be like gold, the more it is heated the more it shines and gets purified, becoming ornaments to decorate all without prejudice.

 

Be like tulasi (holy basil) leaves, it perfumes the very fingers that crush it.

 

Be like the sandalwood, which perfumes the very stone on which it is ground to paste and keeps giving its fragrance till its last particle.

 

Be like sugarcane, which, even though, gets crushed and squeezed, yet gives only sweet juice till the last drop, without any trace of bitterness.

 

The one who follows these rules is the one who is really engaged in selfless service without doer-ship notion.

 

We need to think about what we have and how we can support those who haven’t had as much good fortune.

 

“God gives and forgives while man gets and forgets.” Swami Chinmayananda

 

“Always give without remembering and always receive without forgetting.” Brian Tracy

 

“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.” John Bunyan

 

While generosity is its own reward, The Cleveland Clinic reports that donating to charity or volunteering has measurable physical and mental health benefits.

Studies show that those who give of themselves can have lower blood pressure and stress levels, fewer incidences of depression, higher self-esteem and even a longer life.

Emotionally supporting one another can even help people recover from cardiac events. Since giving can release happy brain chemicals like dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin, it also makes us feel good both in the moment and longer-term.

 

Be like lotus, which, though emerges out of muddy water, yet it doesn’t allow even a single drop of that muddy water to stick to it. Similarly, we are born in this world and live in the muddy waters of samsaara (worldly life); like the lotus we can also live by being untouched by the muddy waters of samsaara and without being affected by it.

 

Be so in life as well as in death and thereafter…

 

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2 thoughts on “Flower and Fragrance — The Art of Giving

  1. Chhaya Mukherjee

    Loved the message. I should remember it every day and try to follow it as much as possible.
    Thanks Swami-ji for the post.

  2. Maria Eliane Castro Smith

    When I need the most you are there with those amazing examples how we should see and live our lives. Thanks

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