To the readers of The Creator’s Compass,
I spent some time in nature yesterday and wrote in my journal. I took what I wrote and did my best to make it coherent for all of you.
Always feel free to offer your ideas on what I write by hitting the comment button. I love hearing from readers! And warm welcome to all new subscribers. I’m so glad you are here.
Should we share our gifts?
I’m on the edge of the forest where our yard touches the wild. The trees surround me like sentinels protecting Ultimate Truth, holding the whispers of God. I can sense it no less than sensing my husband’s loving gaze when he thinks I’m not aware. Just as I’m always compelled to lift my eyes to my husband in those timeless moments, I lift my awareness to the trees and listen. Today they are reminding me about wholeness. Here, I feel there is no need to seek anything new, or accomplish anything at all. Everything is perfect as it is, right here, right now.
Yet, minds run around like puppies, and my mind is quickly disrobing this moment of non-striving. My hand crawls over the page to etch words on paper, words that bubble up from mind’s creative, endless well.
I ponder why I even share my ideas in writing. Why do I spend hours creating articles for The Creator’s Compass? Why do I edit my novels until my eyes hurt from staring at a screen? Why do I about kill myself gathering illustration skills, like a chipmunk stuffing acorns into her mouth, to bring to life my children's stories? I can choose to keep all my little creations to myself, thus assuring I protect my relatively solitary life.
I like my contained existence, living barefoot to the earth and surrounded by these trees, the birds overhead, and the critters chattering on all sides. Privacy, away from what I call the interweb and fame, is precious. So then why do I share my ideas and stories and meditations on the interweb, threatening this sweet box of containment, cradling my little nook in the world? In essence, I suppose I’m asking, is it important to share?
I ask myself this question most every day. The question always arises along side whispers inside to offer whatever meager gifts with which I find myself. But whispers? Are those important? I’m certain my teacher from years ago would say, “Yes, listen to those whispers.”
The teacher to whom I refer was my piano teacher during my high school years. She was a concert pianist with a heavy French accent and always a wealth of insight and wisdom. In her efforts to convince me to play piano and sing in recitals, she would say that if we don’t share our gifts, we waste them. She insisted it was our responsibility to God to offer what we have, whether that is food, shelter, or artistic creations. Often through the years, her words come back to me, and I find myself exploring if her wisdom holds up with my personal studies of philosophy, a word that literally translates as the love of wisdom.
“Become as a hollow flute, so Brahma can create beautiful music through you.”
I came across a book a few years ago, exploring some of the sacred texts of India. One concept struck me, probably because of the imagery it evoked. The idea presented was that only when one empties oneself of false views and actions not aligned with Brahma (the Creator) can Brahma move through one unhindered. From my memory, the translation of the sacred text was: Become as a hollow flute, so Brahma can create beautiful music through you.
It seems one interpretation of this beautiful sentence may be that we when we are fully awakened to Ultimate Reality, our thoughts, words, and actions are in complete unity with the Creator, our lives now instruments of the Creator, and we live in joy.
My piano teacher was communicating a similar idea to the one of a relationship with Brahma. As she is Catholic, I assume she might view becoming as a hollow flute so Brahma can create beautiful music through you as nurturing our gifts bestowed to us by God so we can share with others God’s glory and simultaneously give purpose, joy and peace to our lives.
(As a side note, within the varied philosophies we collectively label for convenience as Hinduism, there are complex and deeply philosophical ideas, which at times differentiate between the Creator called Brahma and the Ground of All, often referred to as Brahman.)
Sharing our gifts is compassion in action
Maybe it is our responsibility to offer what we have. But, perhaps not sharing what we have is less of a waste and is more akin to something that is not fully bloomed, like picking a fruit before it’s ripe.
Offering our gifts just might be the full bloom of our gifts, or the full ripening of them. So, it seems my piano teacher’s lesson on sharing hold up to my current philosophical understandings, and I see sharing our gifts as compassion in action. But the sharing doesn’t always need to be with other humans.
If I were to sing a song in the forest alone right now, would not the trees and birds and hidden animals receive my offering? What about singing solely to myself? Can not I receive my offering? Of course anyone, or anything can receive, but the ego plays tricks on us, and I need to be mindful that I share from the ground of compassion and not the aggrandizement of the self. If I, or you, remain rooted in compassionate action, sharing to self, others, or to nature, Brahma plays beautiful music through me, through you.
Keepers of Gifts
I am pulled to view that we each are keepers of God’s, or Brahma’s or Source’s gifts. Because of this, it moves me to declare that sharing is a natural progression of our gifts. If we find that the teachings of the Buddha hold true, (the teachings that the ground of reality is compassion and wisdom) sharing our gifts is natural, healthy, and joyful. Offering what we have inside is our way of living from and within compassion. And sharing from the ground of compassion is a manifestation of self-compassion.
If we view that each of us are none other than Source, then through our sharing with each other, Source hears itself and we become aware of the true nature of reality, and this is where we find a boundless ocean of compassion for self and others.
Dreams
No matter how uncomfortable it is for me to share, I will as long as whispers from Source move through me. If you find that you, too, see the ground of Source as wisdom and compassion, you may experience that whispers from Source will gift dreams into your heart that are birthed from the ideal of compassion—dreams you are excited to manifest and share with others.
Consider sharing your gifts if have yet to do so. Or begin to discover what your gifts may be if you are unsure. Perhaps listen to whispers in your heart, they just may be glorious dreams from Source meant for you to share. The trees surrounding me will hear the song of your dreams from afar, if you dare to sing, for Truth pulses beyond time and space. And I believe a single sharing that profoundly touches a single life makes for a life well lived.
Thank you for sitting with me and the trees and the whispers.
Sending light and love,
Renée
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