Your Good Works

 Let your light so shine that others may see your good works.

Think of your entire experience as a test. Your only assignment seems terribly simple: Make the world a better place. You pass if you succeed and you fail if you don’t. What is the world? This is a bit tricky; it does not begin where you end and it does not end where you begin. You are not the center of everything, but everything passes directly through you without the slightest inconvenience. When we are thinking of everything, therefore, you are it. Otherness includes you and your experience and your story. What you think of as yourself is usually your body and what it conceals. However, that is only the half of it. That only equates to your skin and what it covers. Of course, you see the problem. If that was all there was to you, you could exist, but you could not have an environment or an experience. In order to have an experience, you would necessarily be that stuff inside your skin and the stuff on the outside as well.

When you understand this truth, you begin to understand how important it is to allow your light to so shine that others may see your good works. 

You are not to be a sentient black hole; stealing every experience nearby. The choice is yours though. If you can remember that otherness includes yourself, you will see that giving away your goodness does not deplete it.

I am not a good example of one who has tried, but I believe that you could give away everything you think of as your own and still never go without. It really isn’t just things by definition only. It is your happiness, your joy, your peace and love as well. If the math is right and if I am both this inner and outer self, then any retention of any event, experience or thing would, in no way, help me to pass the test where making the world a better place is the only right answer. However, purposeful shining and reflecting of all of that which shines on me would lead to passing by at least 100%.

What makes your world a better place? You do.

If all of the most wonderful experiences are allowed to pass through me, then all of the most dreadful experiences pass through just as surely.

“And they took stones and threw them at him, but he was hidden and he passed by.” ~ John 8:59 MCV

This is not an easy essay. This story reveals the cloak of invisibility. We are only invisible and/or invincible, when we are so dissolved as to allow good and evil free passage right through our being. To be a mirror adds the risk of mirroring harmful rays. Allowing your light to shine is to let it pass through you.

“When you see me, you see the father.”

We are to reveal the truth; not reflect it.

“For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” ~ Philippians 2:13 KJV

While this is probably the hardest assignment ever given, there is a way to cheat: Acceptance.

“When we accept what is, it becomes possible to find freedom.” ~ Tolle

Do not resist. To resist is, again, to reflect:

“…Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Matthew 5:39

We seem to see ourselves as a mirror in this case; but in order to enjoy, there must be out-joy. If your preoccupation is yourself, you will not see the needs of others. In the worst case, you use your experiential mirror to consider yourself alone. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) can rob you of all joy and even ruin your life-story.

“I’m a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.” ~ Mother Teresa

Tolle has brilliantly given us what-isness and how to accept it. I want to add one thing more: Anyway.

I am being inspired by other quotes by Mother Teresa. I noticed that she often told her students to Love Anyway.

There will almost always be a reason not to give, not to love and not to treat the very least as we would treat the greatest. However, becoming the event horizon is to fail miserably. A black hole is a selfish mass, hoarding everything it attracts and never giving anything back.

I am often confronted by a beggar on the streets. I tend to size them up. If they seem to be well fed, well-groomed and wearing nice shoes, I withhold my offering. It goes against my better judgment to give; but I should give anyway.

I meet people in my workplace and they come to me complaining. They throw insults and unload all of their dissatisfaction on me. I find it difficult to be kind and smile in return; but I should be kind and smile anyway.

I sometimes work and feel as though I am not being paid well enough to do my best; but I should do my best anyway.

Love, joy, peace and goodness will only have their effects on me as they pass through me. Life is a current like a river. I don’t beat my heart; my heart beats. If Life happens to you, it is not Life; if it happens through you, you are alive.

Right now, in order to process what I am writing, you are not thinking as much as thoughts are occurring to you. Share your thoughts with the world. Don’t hoard encouragement. You will never miss any encouragement you give away.

Let your light so shine so that others may see your good works.

On the inside of a mechanical clock, there is a movement. It is a marvelous thing to consider. When you meet others on your journey, be as clear as possible so they can see what makes you tick. They’ll see which gears are turning? They’ll see your mainspring and they’ll see how tightly you are wound. They’ll see that you are more than a face, yielding information. They’ll see that you were intricately and lovingly made. How marvelous are your works. And you will know that you are that which has been fashioned and wound for a purpose. Life happens through you. You know that you don’t beat your heart, wind your own spring or turn your own gears; it happens through you, and on your face, there is the time.

You are more than a keeper of time; Let The Light shine through you, so that others may see your good works.