The Giver

Doh! I get it... Slowly the realisation dawned on me. 's been happening for a few days, actually. Or a lifetime. Or a few..

Adi Da's name means The Giver. Or, to be exact, the Source of Giving. He gives and gives and gives and gives..

I am terrified of giving. Giving scares me. I am an only child. 'nuff said, but I will go on.

I grew up in a family of aunts and uncles and mothers and fathers and grandparents, who always gave. To me. (Not that I'm spoiled, it by no means was always material.) I guess I never really learned how to give back. I am so crap at buying gifts for people, as an example but it goes further than that. I'm also crap at giving time and energy to friends, and bad at being generous in all kinds of ways. I think partly because as an ego, I feel I have nothing to give. Add that to a childhood with out much money or 'stuff', and my fear around getting what I need for myself, and you have a mess. A scared, shameful, angry resentful mess.

I did a thing this week that broke that. I gave a gift, freely and spontaneously, for no reason except happiness, and gratitude for somebody who gives a lot of laughs. And in this case, a profound lesson in happiness too.

Tonight in meditation, (which I broke to come here and blog before it left my mind), it struck me how it's an esoteric practice which amongst all the other stuff of spiritual life gets vastly overlooked, despite the obviousness of it. Or at least, in my spiritual life.

There is a tradition of 'crazy wisdom' adepts who gave. Gave their things away, gave families, possessions, everything, to whoever wanted it. I understand why now.

To give is to open oneself utterly, with no fear or self-concern, and hold nothing back. It's the very opposite of what Adi Da so aptly calls the 'self-contraction'. It's an act of UN-contracting. I am HERE to un-contract, to open up and share whatever the world needs me to share. That was my agreement with God/dess this time around.

So, let me know what I can give. I'll do my best.