Be truly generous

The mind wants to thinks and believes that itself is a generous person.

It also wants others to think and believe that it is a generous person.

It wants to be generous to all its friends and the surrounding community.

However, it feels that it is unfair to itself for being the one to be working and supporting its family's living.

It feels that its family members shouldn't be staying at home and just looking after the household affair, while itself has to go out and work to be the financial supporter of the family. It wants its family members to also be working hard in certain way, so that it will feel better about itself.

It tells its family members to be grateful towards its contribution to the family.

It complains to others about itself has to be working hard while its family members are enjoying the fruit of its hard work.

Itself is getting frustrated and unhappy due to such ignorant thinking and petty-mindedness.

What generosity?

If there is true generosity, the mind would be so glad to be able to provide for the family, even if oneself is the one that has to be working for making a living, while all the others family members are having their own particular duty and responsibility to be looking after themselves and the household affair. There's no calculation towards who work less and who work more, or who contribute more and who contribute less.

Inquire the truth of everything.

Generosity

Under the absence of the idea of 'I', there's no attachment or identification towards the act of generosity, or the idea of "I am being generous."

There's no expectation towards others who received one's act of generosity to be appreciative and grateful, or showing gratitude.

There's no separateness between the performer of action (The one that is being generous) and the action of generosity.

Some minds are performing the action of generosity under certain intention of 'compensation towards guilt and regret for certain damaging and hurtful behavior', or 'to be receiving acknowledgment and recognition, praise and compliment, liking and support', which is also nothing to do with the selfless intentionless act of generosity.

It's the same as any kind of selfless actions under the absence of the idea of 'I'.

Selflessness is not about unselfishness. It is beyond unselfishness.

There's no attachment or identification of, "I am unselfish," and "I am performing unselfish actions."

There's no expectation of, "Some others are benefited from my unselfishness," and "Some others should be appreciative and grateful, and showing gratitude."

There's no idea of 'I' existing to be practicing non-attachment, or non-identification, or non-expectation of, "I am not attaching and not identifying towards my selfless actions," and "I am not expecting anything from anyone for my selfless actions."

While coming from others who have received the generosity from someone, recognizing such act as a form of generosity, and showing gratitude towards such generosity, that is everyone's freedom of action and reaction.

It's only when there is still the idea of 'I' and egoism occupying the mind, then this selfless mind needs to be eradicating the idea of 'I' and egoism from itself.

Inquire the truth of everything, and be free.

Money cannot buy love, peace, compassion and wisdom... Let go of stinginess and be generous...

Yoga and its practice are not meant to be some kind of pleasurable sensual enjoyment such like paying some money for getting some service like spa treatments. It is a practice to develop dispassion or disinterest in pleasurable sensual enjoyment to let go of craving and aversion.

Yoga and meditation practice is a process to change the old habits of the mind that have been there deep rooted for a long time influencing the mind for as long as we live. It is stop giving what the mind likes and wants. It is calming the mind and stop stimulating the mind. It is quite unpleasant for the mind in the beginning of the yoga and meditation practice as it takes some time for the mind and the body to adjust, to adapt, or to get use to something that it wasn't familiar with, or to develop interest in something that it never interested before. As well as it is unpleasant for the mind to be not having something that it was addicted to, or used to familiar with. It is about letting go of desires of wants and don't wants. It is not about fulfilling the desires of wants and don't wants. The mind will resist. The mind will want to runaway.

If our will-power is weak, we will give in to the desires of the mind, and give ourselves many reasons or excuses why we should not continue the yoga and meditation practice temporary or permanently, and instead we look for some other activities that the mind enjoys, likes and craves for, to make the mind feels pleasant, stimulated, or excited.

We often hear many 'yoga' enthusiasts say, "I love yoga. I want to practice yoga. Yoga makes me feel so good." But then when they experience some discomforts or unpleasantness physically, mentally and emotionally, they want to runaway. They complain this is not the yoga that they were expecting, that the yoga and meditation practice is not the way that they think it should be. They say they only want yoga that will give them pleasant sensations and which is enjoyable. They don't want yoga that doesn't give them what they want and like. Be happy. In the end it is our own freedom for what we want for our life, and what we want to do with our body and mind. We take full responsibility for the consequences of our actions derived from our desires of wants and don't wants.

In order to allow the physical body to be able to perform the yoga asana poses comfortably, our body and mind will have to go through some unpleasant purification process while developing the skills, stamina, strength, flexibility, patience, perseverance, determination, forbearance, tolerance, acceptance, adjustment, adaptation, accommodation, concentration, non-attachment, non-identification, non-expectation, non-judgment, non-comparison, faith and courage to be able to perform and hold the yoga asana poses comfortably for a period of time effortlessly without struggling. And this will allow us to realize selflessness and compassion. It is not at all about how good we look and feel during and after the yoga asana practice, nor what type of benefits we are going to get from performing all these yoga asana poses.

Money cannot buy love, peace, compassion and wisdom. It takes some efforts, self-control, self-discipline, patience, perseverance, determination, will-power, tolerance, forbearance, acceptance, adjustment, adaptation, accommodation, for us to eliminate egoism, attachment, desires, greed, craving and aversion from the mind to be free from ignorance and impurities, and to realize unconditional love, peace, compassion and wisdom.

Greed is also associated with stinginess. It's like, "If I can just pay as little money as possible and get as many things in return as possible, that would be very nice..."

Even highly intelligent or educated people might be influenced by stinginess and greed, and are not free.

Before we start practicing yoga, we need to learn to let go of stinginess and start to be generous.

If we cannot understand why we should let go of stinginess and be generous before we start to perform any yoga practice, we can never realize what is selflessness and compassion, even though we can be attending many yoga classes or yoga courses to learn and perform some forms of yoga practice, or if we have been practicing yoga asana for many years and our body has developed the skill, strength and flexibility to perform many yoga asana exercises beautifully in perfect alignment. All these qualities of names and forms have very little to do with what yoga really is.

Om shanti.