Enriching Others


What is the key to enriching others? Simply, you must first enrich yourself. How can a beggar share his wealth with others? Similarly, if you would like to enrich others with the inner wealth of spiritual knowledge and grace, then you must first fill yourself until you are overflowing. Then, quite spontaneously, without any contrived effort or unnecessary planning, your actions will begin to fill the lives of others with the most auspicious things existence has to offer.


How do you enrich your self, not just superficially through certificates, honors, position, security, or second hand knowledge, but deeply, within the very heart of your mind, body and spirit? First you must be open to receive. To be open to receive inner wealth means not just to be aware and receptive in certain situations through teachers or authorities, but to be constantly open and receptive throughout the entire flow of life in its supreme totality, its minutest details and everything in between.


Look here, a child playing with a new toy, the expression on their face, infinite insight gained in a split second twinkling of their eye. Over here, a tree aged with untold character, countless seasons of cold and warmth embedded in layer after layer of the ageless quest for life. Above you, the setting sun melting the pink clouds of the eternal evening. Below you, the superabundant variety of life- twigs, stones, earth, plants, leaves- scattered about mile after mile of forest trail.


This is just the surface, look now, a new emotion, a new flavor of experience calling you to honor the mystery of the subtle contours of inner life. A new thought, a free flowing idea shaping an unformed world into existence through the play of consciousness. If you notice carefully, these moments are constantly happening all around you, within you, in others, in the sky, in the stars above, in each and every glimmer of light that reaches your eye, in each and every texture of sound that reverberates in your ears, in each and every tingle of sensation that meets your skin, in each and every wave of breath that flows in and out of your lungs.


This may seem to be all so abstract, just useless bits of experience that offer no real benefit to yourself or others. But this is only so in a so-called modern society where the standard of “education” is how well you can operate machines, board rooms, cubicles, class rooms, all with the expressed aim of “standardized measurable results”. Inner enrichment begins by living a life beyond all measurement, by risking everything including life itself to awaken and express your profound uniqueness of being.


What else is considered to be of the highest value but the most unique are rare things of life? All that is demanded of you is constant awareness, an imperturbable inquisitiveness into the gross and subtle dynamics of inner and outer life in all possible dimensions. If you are quite sincere in this quest, then by natural law a teacher, guide or Guru will come into your life who will open you up to new dimensions of knowledge, experience and grace.


It is the Guru who is the ultimate concentrated force of nature. The countless dramas of existence, the play of atoms and galaxies, the uncharted planes of thought, the pure source of love and compassion, the supernatural bliss of supreme grace, the deepest everlasting mysteries of existence- all these are compacted into their being and are revealed to the sincere disciple layer by layer, moment to moment until the disciple is overfilled, overflowing like a thimble filled by an entire ocean.


The receptivity to be enriched by each moment of life is essential, in truth, a necessity to become fully established in the bliss of Self. If you think you can only gain insight from one belief, religion, God or Guru and exclude all the other dimensions of life you are only fooling yourself. The lightning of insight should strike you from all directions and ignite the blazing fire of supreme awareness in your own heart until all trace of delusion is cast out of your being.


By this inner light you awaken the Guru within and become an endless source of enrichment for others. Through the innumerable pathways of insight that you fearlessly chart within yourself, you can skillfully guide others into the highest truths of existence. By recognizing and appreciating each moment of existence as an opportunity for enriching yourself, no matter how painful or unenlightening it may seem, you create the capacity for utilizing anything and everything in existence as a means of sharing the wonder, glory, intelligence, compassion and bliss of the supreme Self. OM