Hi Folks:

Well, as written in the beginning post for this week, I awoke this morning with a message from my Self to understand the true nature of a gift.  I’ve invested much of the day thinking about what exactly that means.  With some of my blog posts I ask more questions than I answer, and this may well be one of them.  We shall see!

Although this subject will have some (different) meaning to everyone who considers it, the message I received this morning was of course from me to me.  It ties in directly with some concepts and ideas I’ve been exploring lately in my own writings.  Those writings aren’t in a digital format and will remain as they are, but I may borrow from them as I go.  In our opening post we mentioned a recent post by Seth Godin about what gifts really are.  He mentioned ‘The Gift of the Magi’ in his post, and it also got me thinking about the movie ‘Pay it Forward’.  All three cover the idea of gifting in their own way, and to all of them a gift is something more than simply the transfer of an object.

Seth Godin defines a a gift as:

“The way I understand gifts is that the giver must make a sacrifice, create an uneven exchange, bring himself closer to the recipient, create change and do it all with the right spirit. To do anything less might be smart commerce, but it doesn’t rise to the magical level of the gift.“

In ‘The Gift of the Magi’, the heart of the story is about sacrifice.  Each party gives up what they most value in order to provide the other with something of value for Christmas.  And in ‘Pay it Forward’, young Trevor’s idea to change the world is to provide something for three other people – something big, something they can’t do for themselves.  Each of those three people would then ‘pay it forward’ by providing three gifts to three people, and so on.  It’s a general principle I’ve tried to embody for most of my life, and there have been times when I’ve been the recipient of such gifts as well.

This I know, and so I knew when I received that message this morning that what I was being asked to look at was something else entirely.  Much of my own writing lately has been about transformation and what constitutes a transformative experience.  I don’t write about these things in a bland, esoteric way, but specifically as a means to understand the changes that have been and continue to occur in my understandings of what-is, how the universe is formed, what life truly means.

A butterfly is an excellent example of transformation: starting out as a caterpillar, spinning itself into a chrysalis and then emerging as an adult butterfly.  Many insects undergo similar transformations from larva to adult, but few do it as beautifully or as colourfully (at least to our eyes) as the butterfly.  The really interesting thing, to me, is that the experience literally is transformative.  The caterpillar hatches from an egg and goes on a feeding frenzy.  That’s its job.  It then creates a silken thread from its own body and uses this thread to create the chrysalis – the sack in which it contains itself.  The caterpillar doesn’t bring anything into the chrysalis but itself.  Once inside it literally liquefies itself, following specific coding to restructure its body and rearrange itself into something that bears little to no resemblance to the caterpillar that began this process.  As it emerges from the chrysalis and pumps up its wings, the butterfly leaves nothing behind but the shell itself.

So, where’s the connection to gifts, you ask?  Is the butterfly the caterpillar’s gift to itself?  Perhaps.  It certainly fits the criteria of sacrifice, of giving up something important, but that’s not the point I’m going for here.  The butterfly and the caterpillar appear quite different, but the caterpillar becomes the butterfly.  Genetically, physically, they’re composed of the same essential components, reconfigured into different forms.  If we could build a caterpillar out of Lego blocks and then disassemble it into its constituent parts, we could build a butterfly from the same blocks.  The processes involved in metamorphosis are largely chemical, not mechanical, but the idea is the same.

In that same vein, I continue to undergo my own transformation.  No, I’m not changing my form – other than becoming a little more sedentary and a little grayer around the muzzle.  My transformation is one of understanding, of awareness, a transformation from seeing myself as a physical being inhabiting a physical space to truly understanding myself as a fully-aware multidimensional spiritual being.  In some ways it’s more of an awakening than a transformation.  I’m not becoming anything new, but I am coming to better understand myself and my own capabilities.  Still, I can feel the metamorphosis just the same.  The shift from thinking as a physical being to thinking as a multidimensional being involves some great leaps, and it’s those that I’ve been playing with in my own writings.  Part of my writings have dealt with long-hidden beliefs, uncovered like some skeleton revealed by the shifting sand.  Part of the writings consider adaptations that come from these new understandings, and part of the writings concern questions that I’ve never before considered.  Sacrifice is a good example.  In the article, story and movie mentioned above, sacrifice is an integral part of each gift.  In order for it to be a gift, one must give something that is of value, not only to the recipient, but also to the giver.  That’s a generally-accepted statement, but is it true?

Sacrifice implies that there is limitation, a finite amount of whatever object or resource is being considered.  Much of our understandings of society and our reality are based on this premise.  But what if there isn’t a finite amount?  What if, as quantum physicists are continuing to discover, there are infinite amounts of energy available? From Einstein, E=MC²: Energy=Matter x Constant (the speed of light, or 3M metres/sec)².  Matter then is energy that has a much slower rate of vibration.  What sacrifice can there be if there is an infinite amount of everything?  If we are all truly All That Is, individually and collectively, how can we believe that separation exists?  If we remove the previous ideas of what defines a gift, what replaces it?

We come to have a very different idea as to the true nature of a gift.

I find myself relying more and more on my own understandings rather than on the words of others, but that doesn’t negate the value of what others have to say.  From the Conscious Creation Channeling Sessions ((c) 1996, Becky Burke and Kristen Fox, www.consciouscreation.com):

“Outer Reality as a Reflection of the Inner, CONSCIOUS Creation, Creating Money, Discernment and Judgment, Decisions, Responsibility, and Absolute Freedom

… The question of responsibility must first be clarified so as to determine the application and definition of the idea. You are responsible for your experience. This is not a question; this is a simple statement of fact. How you feel about this fact is another matter entirely. Whether or not you accept it, and what you do about it, are also separate and distinct issues. But your feelings, your acceptance or rejection, and your actions do not change the nature of responsibility. You could say, “Responsibility is” just as “life is”. Now as to your definition: “able to respond.” This is based on outer perspective discernment of reality. The inner perception would say “able to know, able to choose, able to create.” The outer perception definitions make a wrong presumption that you will respond to a physical time and space experience generated from outside yourself. The inner perception would say “you respond to your own creation based on your choices, your desires, your beliefs, your goals or chosen outcomes, and your comprehension about the nature of reality.” In other words, responding to an outer generated experience, seen as an adversity is a completely different context and knowing than responding to an innerly generated experience for which you know you made the choices. When you know you created it, you ask very different questions of yourself. Questions you do not have to ask if you assume it was created outside yourself.

Further, when you know you have created it, you know you can uncreate it (if that’s your choice) and create something else. Think of it this way: There is a man standing under a shower. When he turns the knob he experiences the water pouring full force down on his head. Now this man believes he cannot breathe water and is fearful of drowning. If he forgets that he turned on the water the issue is simply to get out of the water, hoping it never happens again. If he knows that he is in control of the faucet, then he might ask himself “What is it about this fear I want to understand?” or even “Am I ready to deal with this fear?” or he might decide he is not interested in experiencing the fear and simply turn the water off and do something else. Notice that the man who knows of his control of the faucet has more creative options, while the man who does not has more limiting consequences. For example: The shower will eventually overflow if the drain is not open. Or perhaps the water will run out. These consequences are seen as things that need to be dealt with, but from a place of powerlessness. This is quite an impossible situation. And yet this is exactly how so many of you define the world you live in every day. No wonder you are depressed. No wonder the highest cause of disease is stress…”

and

“Synchronicities and Limitation, Fears Associated with Becoming Conscious Creators, Trusting Yourself

Minor demonstrations which you give names such as synchronicity, coincidence etc., allow you to see how creation operates in your system. However, if you examine these events and demonstrations and the beliefs and lives of the people who experience them you will see that they largely fall into certain accepted areas of their experience. This is again a demonstration of the outer perspective’s influence. You will notice that this area is very narrow and that the vast majority of acceptable experience falls under the direct control of the rational mind. You have locked yourself into a square box and you have given the rational mind the task of endlessly measuring and re-measuring its dimensions, and this is done without ever recognizing that the entire experience: the box, the measuring tools, the measurements themselves, are your creation. And so the task has been: How to help you dismantle the box. We would suggest that it was a task worthy of the effort. Worthy of the fear. Worthy of yourselves. And you have faithfully identified many of the structures, and recognize them as you set them aside. Fear of non-conformity, fear of irresponsibility, fear of lunacy, fear of your own trustworthiness, fear that your own discernment was not up to the task, fear of self-delusion, fear of consequences. There are more. Fear that you were wrong and that you are not divine. Fear that perhaps after all you really were not worthy. And the one tool that has moved you beyond all these fears is trust. And this trust is not in some outside deity, but in yourselves, in the nature of what is, and in creation. Because you understood that trust outside of yourself could not take you, the only answer was to trust yourself. And finally you came to a place where trusting yourself separated you from the very beings you had looked to when you started down the path. And in that moment you became free. (Scratches forehead and smiles) There was never a requirement that you make judgements, for or against. There was only a requirement that you use your own power of discernment to know the truth about yourselves. The beauty of this truth is that it sets free everyone in your experience. By knowing freedom yourselves, by trusting yourselves, you release all of creation. There is no middle road. And you knew this when you began. Now apply this knowing to every single one of your questions about what IS and what WILL BE and you will have no more questions. Indeed the questions themselves will become your markers for old forms of thoughts. And as they arise, you will laugh and set them aside. And in these moments the new creation will surge into your being and everything you are creating will be revealed in perfection. Now perhaps you understand the gift we have given you. The gift you have given yourselves today. Those who have guided you can no longer take you. For now you will take them. And the brilliance of your path will amaze and astound them.”

Well, at the top of this diatribe of mine I mentioned that sometimes my posts provide more questions than answers.  This is one of them.  Still, I can’t leave you entirely without an answer (although you’re more than welcome to derive your own) as to the nature of a gift.  Therefore I’m going to close with one more quote from the consciouscreation.com site that I believe sums it up very well:

“Ease, Receiving, Earning, Problem Solving and Solutions, the Creative Flow and Absolute Freedom

When you are in perfect ease there is nothing unnatural in receiving wonderful gifts. There is no earning – this is not a glorified reward structure. This is the natural flow of creative being. As you contemplate this, consider how widely divergent and unnatural the outer perspective really is. It is also interesting that the solutions generated by the belief systems of the outer perspective compound the problem instead of solving it. When you understand this completely, you know there is nothing to DO about ANYTHING. The only true path to solutions is to move to the inner perspective and follow your impulses. The more you can do this, the more solutions will fall into your lap. It is not a question of problem solving; it is all about reconnecting to your own creative stream. The reconnection itself will carry you to what you are seeking in ways that appear to be wholly magical. As to your own processes, you have alighted on the road where the “walking through it” IS the adventure. There is no need to seek; there is only trust. Just as today’s events arrived in their perfect moments, so all the other perfect moments will arrive. You are weaning yourselves from a lifetime of habitual linear thinking. Remember now, Creation IS. Creation requires no prerequisites. Creation can alter your entire experience in an instant because creation is based on and springs from Absolute Freedom. Unless you become confused here, let us be clear. Creation is not a random event. It is not made up of coincidences and it has nothing to do with chance. Creation is the bedrock, without which experience would be impossible. It is also a muscle that is largely used unconsciously in your culture. This is because using it consciously with any degree of effectiveness requires total reorientation.”

Love,
Mike.

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