As Oliver Twist famously discovered, the world teaches us to
limit ourselves. Be content with the little you have, don't be greedy, settle
for what you can get, know your place, which is keeping your head below the
parapet. Actually, these days we are more likely to hear 'Dream big,' 'More is
better,' 'Don't miss out,' 'Must have,' 'Grab it quick, get it now' - but this
way of thinking is only the
other side of the same coin, not truly inspired by a sense of abundance. It is still motivated by an assumption of relative
scarcity and a perceived need to compete for what there is, as if there is
only so much to go around and if you don't get it first, someone else will.
The world operates on an either-or principle: either you or
me, one or the other, kill or be killed, king of the castle or dirty rascal.
We swap roles: you win one, you lose one, as we say: Loser
and gainer merely shift about in changing patterns (W153 3.5). You cannot perceive
yourself as winning without the guilt of it being at someone else's expense. You cannot
lose without experiencing the pain of loss, by definition; which generates either resentment
or self-loathing. Neither position leads to peace of mind. If anyone loses, we all lose,
because thinking in terms of comparison and opposition must perpetuate division
and insecurity.
But you can change your thinking. The reality we think we
live in is a belief system, and it changes as we change our minds. We think
small because we have lost sight of our true magnitude. We have so shrunk in
our estimation of ourselves and of others that we suppose resistance is noble, and
aggression is valour: you believe that
magnitude lies in defiance, and that attack is grandeur (T13 III 4)
When you think of yourself not as competing, but as completing - as the missing link, as an essential part of the whole - you do not need to elevate yourself at anyone else's expense. The
more you allow yourself to be and have, the more you add to the whole. The more you ask of
life, the more you have to give. The more you draw on your own capacity for
greatness, the more you invite others to do the same.
You do not ask too
much of life, but far too little. When you let your mind be drawn to bodily
concerns, to things you buy, to eminence as valued by the world, you ask for
sorrow, not for happiness (W133 2)
Be not content with
littleness...Everything in this world is little because it is a world made out
of littleness, in the strange belief that littleness can content you. When you
strive for anything in this world in the belief that it will bring you peace,
you are belittling yourself and blinding yourself to glory...You will always
choose one at the expense of the other (T15 III 1)
Salvation can be
thought of as a game that happy children play...there is no loser. Everyone who
plays must win, and in his winning is the gain to everyone ensured (W153
12)
It is easy to
distinguish grandeur from grandiosity, because love is returned and pride is
not. Pride will not produce miracles (T9 VIII 8)
Love is 'returned' in the sense that the more of yourself you
give, the more fulfilled you feel, the more rewarding is your experience of
life, and the more connected you feel with everyone and everything. Unlike
anything in the physical world, the more of love, peace, joy, truth and light you give, the more you have to give. The
more you give, the more you get. The more you withhold it, the more deprived you feel. You cannot love too much. Love is unlimited. It
is we who try to ration love: bargain with it, restrict it, hijack the word to
mean something else, give it grudgingly or with conditions embedded. Start the
day, then, by asking for nothing less than everything, and pass it on.
Which reminds me of another poem.
Don’t Let That Horse
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Don’t let that
horse
eat
that violin
cried Chagall’s mother
But he
kept right on
painting
And became
famous
And kept on
painting
The
Horse With Violin In Mouth
And when he
finally finished it
he jumped up
upon the horse
and rode away
waving the violin
And then with a
low bow gave it
to the first
naked nude he ran across
And there were
no strings
attached
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