THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE...........

PAUSE A MOMENT

THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE.....

Good morning. Welcome now to Pause a Moment. This morning we're going to revel in the best Things in Life. When you wish someone “All the best!”, what do you mean? What is “the best” in your book?

[The Best Things In Life Are Free – Melbourne Ska Orchestra]

Quote:- “Everything that's really worthwhile in life comes to us free – our minds (both of them), our souls, our bodies, our hopes, our dreams, our passions, our intelligence and our loves. All of these priceless possessions are absolutely free!" How true is this beautiful quote from Earl Nightingale!
Think about it. You can lose all of your money and start over. If your house burns down, you can rebuild it. It’s the things in life that cost you nothing that, if you lose them, you can never replace.

We are, and live within, a permanent state of flux. We live in a living, flowing universe, that is continually ebbing and surging, expanding and contracting, creating and destroying, exploding and imploding, rising and falling, giving and receiving........... naturally. And in nature there are no clear divisions between the states of expanding and contracting, or creating and destroying. Anyone who has lived through a bushfire or a volcanic eruption has experienced first-hand that the state of creating is inherent already in the act of destroying, and vice versa. A plummeting fall is gathering energy for the object to zoom through bottom of the parabola and rise again. The universe is expanding and contracting, relationships are coming together and moving away, everything that is gives and receives. Anything that is alive is in constant counter-motion: a flatline is death. That is the nature of it.

But, simply because he can, mankind wants to interfere with Nature – his own and other people's. Once upon a time when you and I were very young, we lived our lives as we breathed – continually ebbing flowing from one moment into the next, rather like an infinity symbol. Then we began to exert control: our breathing stopped flowing and began pumping – in and out like a piston engine, with breaks at each end as we withheld our natural nature. Pushing, then pulling replaced ebbing and flowing.... We forgot ---
The whole of nature receives from the earth, and its universal environment all that it needs to be what it is – food, air, sunshine, a place to hang out..... and nature, in turn, gives of itself freely and unconditionally. 

 

Give and take - Enough and Sufficient is the universal rule. No money changes hands; no limits or conditions are imposed by anyone or anything, except man. Outside of the condition of being human, everything is free. Everything abundantly. Each tree gives its shelter, each flower gives its perfume and colour unconditionally and without prejudice or favour. (A tree doesn't look at a passer-by and say to itself "I'm not going to give my shelter to HIM!")

And, just in case you hadn't noticed, this natural system works, and worked very nicely for a long time before we showed up.

[Life Is Worth Living – Archie Roach]

We all know there are many distractions along the road of life that we allow to pull us away from our natural being. Sometimes we are forced to make difficult choices. But it may help to consider this possibility – that the best things in life are not “things” at all; that things we desire may be outward symbols of some basic “no-thing” that you really yearn for: that might be a feeling, a state of being, a value, an ideal, a principle. A good rule of thumb is that when you have to sacrifice one of your principles, ideals or values – that is, those “freebie” bits of your self that you have gleaned from life, in favour of getting some “thing”…you’ve probably made a bad choice. In fact, I think you can bet on it. The good news is that deals with the Devil can be cancelled – at any time.

Here's a huge got-it that I still get every day. It sounds trite to say it, but when you get it, it's life-changing and puts everything very calmly into perspective

“The purpose of living is Life itself.”
—Barrie the Barkla

That's it. Nothing more – nothing less. Simple. So, if the purpose of life is Life itself, where does this thing called “I” come into it?

We all have certain things, qualities, traits, feelings and thoughts, ideas and beliefs more or less in common, and there are other things we differ upon. Because we have more practice at it, let's look firstly at our differences. What is it that makes you unique? What, do you think, are your greatest gifts? How can you best play them and pay them forward to humankind? These are questions for which you are challenged to create answers if you want to find a purpose in life that works for you.

Now here six questions for which You ARE the answer --

[The Rising of Jih – Life of Nungen]

Hold under>>>>

What am I?
What am I meant to do here?
What am I doing with my life?

How do I explain the differences between the answers to the last two questions?

What can I possibly do now to change that?

What's stopping me?

It's important, when you ask yourself these questions, that you take what you get. Censor nothing. Stand in the questions long enough for answers to come to you in experience. Leave each question open for at least 21 days. Whenever something unusual happens to you, remember the question you're standing in. You may not see the connection immediately; don't worry about that. Just assume that there is a connection, and move on. It will become evident in time.

Who am I? What am I meant to do here? What am I trying to do with my life? These are powerful questions that can be difficult to answer, possibly because we expect the answers to be complicated. Those questions sometimes surface during major life transitions such as family strife, job loss, spiritual awakenings, or the death of a loved one. But they are always there, bubbling away just below the surface, powering your life and imparting purpose to it.

I'd like to suggest to you right now that, if the answers you've come up with so far are too complex to get in one simple sentence, keep searching. Complexity is a symptom of the existence of fraud, pretence and deceit. As a general rule of thumb, the simpler your answers become, the closer you're getting to the heart and pure truth of the matter. If it ain't simple, it ain't truth! The Truth, whatever that is for you, is simple.

[The Road to Gundagai – James Morrison]

Every person is a unique being. There is only one of you in the universe. You have many obvious gifts and other gifts still waiting to be discovered. But what are you doing with your uniqueness other than sitting on it – like the Dog on the Tuckerbox?

It's my contention that under-used and misused gifts will turn to poison if kept in your own hands. If this is true, one of the most important questions you can ask yourself in your journey to find meaning for yourself is, “How can I invest myself with others?”

Without getting judgmental, there are meanings that vibrate at a slow, low frequency, and others that vibrate at faster, higher rates. Conflict, for example, is a force that gives our lives meaning, otherwise we probably wouldn't bother with it. But conflict has a fairly low rate of vibration, along with the addictive level of gross emotional arousal that can go with it. 

By way of contrast, service to others gives us meanings at a somewhat higher and finer vibrational level.

Albert Schweitzer said it well: “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”

[I'd Do Anything – Debbie Byrne]

Which brings me to the vexed question of “service”. I have a bumper-sticker philosophy that says bluntly “Service Sucks”, which rightly hints that I have reservations about the concept.

There's a lot of altruism wrapped around the concept of Service, so what I'm about to say is bound to get up some nostrils. Service is touted as the most noble of all endeavours, and as a highway to heaven. Well, I beg to disagree. In my book, Service  is (usually) just another phoney façade. My father taught me Service and Sacrifice (notice how often those two are grouped together); my mother taught me Sharing. There's a world of difference between the two. Service & Sacrifice drip with duty and obligation; sharing overflows with generosity of spirit. Different dynamics, different feel, very different results.

My objection to service lies not in the altruistic act itself, but in the motivation for it – the place the server comes from while engaged in the practice of serving. It seems that people who Serve are in it for some reward; they want something in return..... a sale, a ticket to heaven, a convert, friendship, agreement. When these latter-day Pharisees don't get what they want in return, resentment surfaces, a resentment that always existed, but was cloaked inside holy vestments of Service. Their serving is synthetic; it is public "give", with unwritten, unspoken private expectations of "take" in return. This kind of Service is either coated with sticky adhesive (like flypaper), or loaded with barbed hooks (like an Italian mother). (I offered you an olive branch) Bed of roses; it looked and smelled nice, but the thorns dug into me. This kind of "service" has no internal warmth. It is an act of pure selfishness, pretending to be something else. You might just as well, drop the charade, hold a gun to the poor beggar's head and take what you want. At least that's honest pillaging....

[Why? – Charles Murdoch]

Let's go back to my old acting formula – What + Why = How.

What? - I really don't think it matters much what you do in service to others – to contribute to another's wellbeing – as long as it fills an existing need out there, and as long as it allows you to express who and what you truly are and your gratitude for the opportunity. I sit here and scatter bon-bons of condensed experience, others deliver meals to the housebound, others do brain surgery; yet others clean dunnies. If it's what you do well, if it's something you can't help doing and it really doesn't matter if you get compensation or not, and if it gives you satisfaction and enables and empowers others to do their thing – do it.

Why? – Where I come unglued with the whole Service thing is in the “Why” of it. Reward (here/now or in some “after” life), control, power, influence, status, guilt for past sins, camouflage for resentment we won't admit to, and self-aggrandisement all come into play as possible motivations for “serving”. These are low-level payoffs for which “serving” is often manipulated to cover for. How do you tell?

If you want to know the worth of a tree, forget the leaves and the blossoms – taste the fruit. Does it drop off the tree before it's ripe? Is it sweet? Does it nourish and refresh the passing traveler? Or is it locked away for private consumption only?

Another way of telling phony service is to look at How it is employed. Is the service being offered devalued by the manner in which it is delivered? Are the recipients empowered to fend for themselves – or de-powered by the way in which they're “helped”. A blatant example of phony service is that offered to our own indigenous people by politicians and public servants. In far too many cases, the more “help” they're plastered with, the worse their plight becomes.

It takes a rare, high degree of self-awareness for anyone to be clear about his/her own motives; a degree of ruthless honesty that very few people ever attain.

[Concerto for Didgeridoo: Water – Sean O'Boyle & Queensland. Orchestra]

A habit of Sharing opens up an ebbing and flowing of the best things in life, which turn out to be not “things” at all. Sharing is a making available the uncensored qualities of our deepest self, without reserve and without any expectation of receipt in return. The act of Sharing has its own, intrinsic, deep multi-way value.

As you look more closely into the act of sharing, it becomes quite impossible to differentiate between "givers" and "receivers"; it is one process.
Sharing involves personal commitment and communion. There is no resentment, no contraction, no conditioning, no crossing of boundaries; everybody wins and grows.
The difference between serving and sharing is one of attitude, how you see it, and where you come from while you're doing the altruistic thing. The results differ, too.
Serving can be likened to sowing genetically modified seed – the crop may be edible, but you can't grow another crop from its seeds, and God knows what other side effects lurk inside. Sharing, on the other hand, is creative and natural; it is our nature. And when something is genuinely shared out of what you truly are, more shows up in place of what you gave away.
Open sharing is genuine, both selfish and unselfish.

To genuinely Share you must first know, respect and have a tolerant affection for yourself; you cannot share what you don't have. If needs be, hold off on sharing until you can do it willingly, and give only what you can afford to not-have. When you give away something you cannot afford, you are "sacrificing", when you give away something with hidden strings and hooks attached, you are “fishing”– two of the grubbiest control games on the planet.

[Tsar Sultan: Flight of the Bumble Bee – QSO]

I use a number of analogies for open Sharing -----

Consider a honey-bee. The bee takes proffered nectar and, in so doing, spreads life-generating pollen. Neither the bee nor the flower think about this, or negotiate a deal; it just happens – naturally while the bee is being a bee (pun intended), and the flower is being itself.

I use another analogy - that of a raincloud which becomes so heavy with moisture that it gives naturally of its life-giving water so that it may be en-lightened.

Here's another analogy that works for me – a fruit tree in season becomes so burdened with its fruit that it is bowed down. It is grateful when someone comes to pick its fruit so that its limbs can rise again to the sunshine and bear more fruit.

Neither the honeybee, the flower, the raincloud nor the fruit tree seek any reward --
They are glad of the enlightenment and the opportunity to express it's Self. By the same token, no human receiver ought to feel obligated, for in taking what was freely and unconditionally on offer, the receiver is giving back to the giver. No hooks, no obligations, no tit-for-tat, no unfinished business.

If you feel any sense of obligation in a proposed transaction, walk away and maybe look at your contribution to that situation.
Service sucks.
Sharing is the dignity of freely being – in action.

The best things in life are not things at all.

The best no-things in life are Freeing....

[When Our Voices Join Together – Voices of Birralee]