The principle of giving
If you want to have an abundant supply under all circumstances, you must realise that supply is based on giving and not on receiving.
Every farmer knows this principle. He knows that he cannot get a harvest without sowing. Every entrepreneur knows it too. Both are orientated towards the material version of giving, called investment. The result of this “giving” can be good, but it can also be bad. The reason for the uncertain outcome is the ego programme that links this type of giving with the goal of being able to take in more.
Suppose I were a branch of a cherry tree. My leaves turn yellow and the cherries start to shrivel. My neighbouring branch still has green leaves and plump red cherries. Will I now try to get what I need from him in some way, will I beg, take advantage of him, take advantage of him or even steal from him? It goes without saying that the only option is to turn to the source, to the tree, because that is where life and energy are found. The supply of water flows into the branch from the tree, not from the surroundings. However, the basis for supplying the leaves is not even the physical trunk with the roots, but the life within it.
If you always want sufficient sustenance, you must replace taking with giving and practise this with the necessary awareness of being provided for. This is the knowledge that provision is based on selfless giving. People only ever want to have and take instead of giving (back) in the sense of giving thanks for the gift of their provision. This is because they themselves already have the potential to provide comprehensive care. However, they want to obtain the resources they need from outside instead of relying on the never-ending source from within.
The human concept of provision relates to money, possessions, health, family and, for some, the church. The spiritual concept contains only the interaction with the inner soul force, because whoever has this has everything, including materially, because everything externally necessary arises from this inner dialogue.
Spiritually established provision is like that of the sun. Its radiant power is inexhaustible, which is why there is always light and warmth. The earth also has an abundance of resources. The supply of soil, fresh water, fresh air, grain, fruit, vegetables, livestock, wood, metals, etc. could easily provide for twice the earth’s current population. However, people are only ever concerned with providing for themselves, and that only works at the expense of others. That is why almost a billion people are starving. A further 500 million live in misery and another billion are absolutely poor.
People usually take up a profession and get a job or open a business, etc.; they receive their income from employers or customers. This makes it look as if you get your supplies from the outside. Hardly anyone realises that the customer or employer is not the source of the supply, but the channel.
Now, job security is not always guaranteed and there is competitive pressure on producers or service providers. This is why all sides use a wide variety of manoeuvres to extract what they can from the other side. And this doesn’t just apply to employers and employees. There are countless methods such as embellished advertising, strikes, deceptive packaging, small print, creative handling of tax returns, etc. What they all have in common is that they all want to solve their supply problems on the same, i.e. material level – and always at the expense of others – which is not possible harmoniously.
Many people become corrupt due to financial constraints or greed. They resort to putting others at a disadvantage, duping them, exploiting any carelessness like a leghold trap, etc. and in many cases resort to embezzlement, fraud and theft.
Those who are poor, sick or lonely need to know that they already have the principle of divine provision within them, which, when activated, will bring forth the material forms of provision such as a job, a partner and recovery. It is necessary to address the causal level and not the formative level. Anyone who steals or embezzles makes the mistake of looking outside and not inside. If they knew how supply comes about and that the boomerang comes back (not necessarily in this life (see chapter “Reincarnation”), they would give theft and robbery a wide berth. It happens out of the instinct for self-preservation and the ignorance that problems cannot be solved by going from A to B.
It is only from the moment we connect to the source within by recognising it as the source of provision that we receive continuous and abundant provision. Because when we realise that we are provided for, the boomerang also comes back, this time in a positive way.
“The kingdom of God is within us.
Do you already have here on earth
a whole kingdom within you,
what are you afraid of becoming poor?”
(Angelus Silesius: Cherubinischer Wandermann VI, 166)
The proof is not to be provided by scientific experiment, but by concrete personal experience. The prerequisite is to take the risk of following the countless references in the wisdom writings. Once you have received the clear call through key spiritual experiences that you are destined for this path, the way is clear. As long as this is not yet the case, one risks (!) selfless giving, meditates and waits.
Those who begin the training of giving open themselves to the echo of receiving. Giving consists of:
- Giving away (tithes, donations, emergency aid for children),
- Giving up (boasting, worry, resentment, jealousy, envy, etc.)
- Giving away (offences, insults, injuries, damage),
- Giving (labour, strength, time, patience, etc.).
If you are in contact with your own spiritual core, you will always have a stable supply. One prerequisite is to stop improving the world, fighting, accumulating, chasing. There is literal wealth within us. We “only” have to activate it by starting to give. Then it will keep flowing in. Then we will never have to suffer from shortages for long periods of time. The prerequisite is that the mind gives up the fight and starts to become a channel for the soul.
A young man, just discharged from military service, begins to study. His need for contact with the female sex awakens more and more. He goes to discos, looks for contacts in lectures, joins circles of friends, etc. The harder he tries, the more disappointments he encounters. He intensifies his commitment, but all his attempts now fail even more. It’s like being bewitched. It leads to such hopelessness that he finally gives up in despair. Believing that he is unsuitable or should not be, he stops all activity. From this moment on, female friendships come at him from all sides.
Care is a general principle of life. It occurs in everyday life in a seemingly disorganised, random and arbitrary manner, but can also be purposefully achievable and plannable. It appears superficially as something that one person has and another does not. In spiritual life, it is controllable and you can subjugate it by submitting to your inner guidance.
It cannot come from somewhere, because it is already there, in every person. But only when we recognise ourselves as children of God, our likeness (Gen. 1:27), do we have everything that our soul has. Because provision is a principle, it is invisible. Its effects, such as health or money, are visible. In this respect, money is not provision, but its appearance or effect.
There is a simple principle that almost everyone has experienced. When you start with the joy of giving, the supply unfolds its effect: For example, you are faced with a task and have no idea how to deal with it. Then you just start somehow, whether it’s an essay, a speech, a search for a computer error, etc., and soon the ideas come. You have to let it flow out so that something comes in. These experiences are similar to the principle of “learning by doing”, where you start somehow without knowing the context and then feel your way through experiences. You may have been waiting for something from outside, but supply doesn’t come to me, it comes from me. For it to become visible, it has to be allowed to flow out.
The more I allow the soul to take over my life, the more I gain provision. This involves trusting and patient waiting and persistently going into the silence of meditation. The waiting then contains more and more signs of the increasing effects of the High Ego. Dreams that pre-inform as well as coincidences and favourable “coincidences” of a financial, interpersonal, health or business nature accumulate.
The Prodigal Son is the classic parable for the spiritual path of man. Among other things, it contains the principle of provision: He had everything, but then detached himself from the “father’s” domain (within him) and embarked on a detached independent path. (The ego must first be built up so that it can be dismantled. The separation is carried out, as everyone knows from puberty, for example).
He then took his inheritance (!) with him, spiritually and materially, i.e. the spark of God within him and his share of money. He used up his material possessions, which – in contrast to divine provision (symbol: manna story: Ex. 16) – were not constantly renewed. For he had lost contact and thus the awareness of his divine identity. The nasty surprise was that the part of his identity that remained, that of the biological human being, was not enough to provide for him. This is precisely the current development on our planet, in which humanity is currently consuming 1.6 times the resources available. And that is only on average: the industrialised countries consume three times as much.
It so happened that the Prodigal Son ended up with the herd of pigs (symbolising the animalistic sense of life of everyday people). However, after he decided to return and turned away from the “Highway to Hell”, i.e. went into meditation, he became the recipient of all good and all goods. Because he had decided to separate, he had fallen into destitution. However, this prompted him to “strive” for the Father’s court within and thus activate his spiritual inheritance. Even if we then have to go through fire and time and again through the bottom of a valley, the flames will not scorch us (see chapter 4). The medieval verse novel “Parzival” (French “par” = through; val= valley) is a literary treatment of this outward and return journey, whereas the path of the Nazarene largely only depicts the way back.
If I am destitute, this does not mean that I am not provided for – assuming spiritual awareness: if the infant cries because it is hungry and the mother does not come because she is getting baby food, this does not mean that there is no provision. It is always important to recognise whether it is winter or summer when it comes to the supply of fresh fruit, for example, and to overcome the urge to look outside if you always want to have a supply.
Don’t look for provision, it already exists
If we are poor, ill or lonely, we want wealth, health or a partner. Logically chasing after these things is a reasonably reliable means of not achieving them. There are few who seek the cause of poverty, illness or loneliness in order to solve the problem. The cause is disconnection from the spiritual source of sustenance. If contact with the soul is cut off, I do not receive the energy I need, or I do not receive it satisfactorily, but in any case not reliably. The lack is not in the source. The more deficiencies I have, the greater the distance to the source. If the branch of the cherry tree is bent, it is still halfway supplied with energy. If it is broken and hanging down, it will lose most of its leaves, but may not yet be completely dead. However, if it is completely broken off, i.e. separated from the trunk and lying on the ground, it will wither.
Anyone who is in need of money, for example, thinks feverishly about how they can get money: Working more, playing the lottery, saving on food, perhaps even embezzling or cheating. In any case, he tortures his mind (!) with the most diverse imaginable solutions. This is an important step in the direction that success will not materialise or is only short-lived. Or you won’t be happy with it. This is because the (sub)consciousness registers the difference between the target and the actual, i.e. imperfection, and fulfils this impulse fairly reliably. Anyone who has bought cheap products out of an unconscious lack of money and then had to buy them again knows this.
Creating the desired state is not my problem, but that of my soul. If I turn to it first, I am handing over responsibility to it. It is her job to provide me with sufficient supplies. What we lack will come to us to the extent that we give. It is only secondarily a question of quantity, but primarily one of the awareness of having – even in the case of poverty.
However, my provision through the soul is not only intended for me, but should always benefit others, too. That is why the privilege of my stable and abundant provision always has the consequence that I become a channel through which I can pass on parts of my provision to others. So anyone who has been blessed with an abundance of money and is aware of the spiritual background immediately passes on a portion. As a result, the donations become more and more extensive over time. (Anyone who speculated on profiting by giving would be shipwrecked by such a manoeuvre).
Some have started with 10 % and increased their giving to 50, 60 % or more and always had more than they needed. (This works in principle, although often not immediately; the exception, as I said, is to practise giving with the ulterior motive of receiving. Because those who want to get something overlook the fact that the trigger for this desire is an unconscious programme of wanting, a difference between the target and the actual; and this difference always strikes).
The provision of “full sufficiency” applies on the condition that some form of contact with the soul has already been established. For seekers who have not yet taken this step, it does not have to be frustrating at all: as long as contact has not yet been made, you ask (!) your soul for guidance, simply proceed according to reason, the best wisdom and a willingness to give and are then led to success through trial and error and gut feeling. In concrete terms, this means that if you are short of money, you should ignore the problem and “seek” inner guidance first, i.e. go into meditation. Under no circumstances should the problem appear in any form in your inner contemplation, because the soul always reacts to the corresponding impulses. And then you start giving, but without any ulterior motive of investment. What has been given away is and remains gone.
The problem always arises as to whether or when to give to beggars. This is tricky because you never know whether they are genuinely needy people or professional gang members. And you can only look behind the scenes with the help of your soul. Sometimes there really are desperate people, and sometimes this is not the case. And even in the case of the desperate, there is still the question of whether the parable of the Samaritan who picks up a helpless (!) man by the roadside applies. For a beggar is not as helpless as a half-dead person and in this respect has no parallel to the robbery victim. Above all, however, the main characteristic of begging is the exclusive desire to have, and this leads anyway – karmically formulated – to the fact that the one who only ever takes will be taken away. In this respect, my giving would be counterproductive for the beggar. What’s more, wanting to help is usually counterproductive anyway, as it may interfere with karmic connections and minimise suffering in the short term, which should be the case in order to point the way back through the pressure of suffering. To summarise, giving in relation to beggars is spiritually ambivalent, unless you are in the comfortable position of guidance from within, which does not judge by appearances and offers the appropriate decision-making support.
As I said, there is no point in seeking provision because it already exists. It is “only” a matter of recognising it. Supply has long been present in us, just like the electricity in the room is there and is just waiting to be tapped into. So if you want to have light, you just need to know that and how to connect the light to it. It would be wrong to try to find someone outside to provide us with electricity. It is also no use sitting in a dark room and praying for a supply. The energy only flows when the socket is found and the switch is flicked.
Most people seek care, health, respect, affection and partnership from other people. The success rate in the realm of good and evil is sometimes good and sometimes bad. But it is not sustainable. After all, we only ever receive what emanates from us, as an echo so to speak. So if you want to be cared for, you have to care first. If you want to be loved, you must first love.
Those who want to be healed must first (!) heal others (sowing). You don’t need to be a healer to do this, because the qualities of listening, devotion and caring – beyond the scope of your own family and friends – bring about healing or open up paths to it.
Those who recognise their inner care radiate spiritual understanding, just as a lamp radiates light. The sun radiates its light and warmth and wants neither light nor warmth. The cherry tree also produces its fruit and gives it away. Abundance comes to those who already have it in their consciousness. That is why many rich people become richer and richer. The vernacular describes this connection with the crude words: “The devil always shits on the biggest heap!”
Under the spiritual umbrella, there is no longer a consciousness of need, regardless of the material situation, and therefore, despite some bottlenecks, there is also perpetual provision. However, those who do not have the awareness of complete provision are also deprived of what they still possess, because the subliminal awareness of lack naturally also realises itself.
Those who seek remain trapped in the earthly principle of deficit. But if you open yourself to the soul, the consciousness of comprehensive possession opens up. It then provides paths that not only lead horizontally to material abundance, but also to a higher calling full of joy.
The only endeavour that succeeds is the spiritual one. And this endeavour is not a deficiency-driven search of the ego, but the urging of the soul. And this always leads to meditation. Then other “little helpers”, i.e. helpful instances, ideas and people, arrive on the path in good time. This primarily refers to a coach who accompanies you for part of the initial journey and advises you on how to overcome the steps and challenges that arise.
It occasionally happens that a seeker embarks on the spiritual path for the sake of full satisfaction. This will go wrong because the basis is an awareness of lack and does not come from an inner urge. And the consciousness of lack will be realised. But if we go into meditation in expectation of meeting the soul – not in expectation of “full sufficiency” – then after experiencing its presence it appears as harmony, abundance and well-being.
However, nothing comes for free. There are a series of tests to pass along the way that test seriousness and perseverance. And such checks will always remain companions on the path.
Despite or precisely because of this, abundance is realised in all areas of life. It is impossible for only individual areas such as career or health to be affected, because the innate son in man – the High I – is perfection. This means that career, living, income, partnership, health and social environment are equally developed in the direction of perfection.
However, these areas do not have to appear at the same time. In fact, some are delayed – sometimes by years – if there is a need to catch up on spiritual lessons in precisely these areas. But you can be sure that enough situations will arise during the waiting period to put a finger in the wound and reveal the deficits – e.g. in the ability to love. They can then be recognised and corrected. The main problems usually lie in looking through and failing to see past the negative surface, especially of “enemies”. Don’t shoot the messenger!
Spiritual care satisfies the needs of the moment. Storing up financial resources in particular is not a matter for the soul. This does not mean stockpiling supplies for the cold season. It is a recurring lesson in spiritual trust to use up reserves so that new ones can flow in. (A blatant example of deviant bunkering can be seen in the so-called preppers, who build underground bunkers and stockpile huge supplies in order to be prepared in times of crisis. Some of them also stockpile weapons in order to be able to defend themselves against people seeking help).
The flow is often constant, like a pension, but also changes its form. However, the principle of being provided for does not change.
In a chance conversation in a railway compartment, a woman complains that after the death of her husband, part of her maintenance payment has now run out. At the same time, she realises that, fortunately, the mortgage on the house will be paid off in the same month, but is obviously unaware of this provision.
There are infertile times, but provision comes, even if not necessarily at the time desired (by the ego), sometimes only at the very last moment. It takes a great deal of trust and awareness of abundance to be able to endure shortages and not panic.
The basics of secure supply
The basic principle of provision is giving! It is giving away what you have. Strictly speaking, however, it is not really giving, because giving is based on the awareness that I, as the lower self, have something and am giving away something of what I have.
But if I know that what belongs to me on the earthly surface actually belongs to the household of all creation and was only transferred to me – whether as an inheritance or through hard work – I also know that it was not me who gave it, but that I followed the impulse and the household of my soul. So, strictly speaking, giving does not mean giving something of yourself to someone, it means passing on spiritual energy (in the form of time, money or strength).
When I give under the spiritual aspect of over-giving, what I have spent is restored at an increased and higher level through the principle of supercompensation. Shakespeare already wrote about this with profound insight:
“The more I give, the more I have,
both are infinite.”
(Romeo and Juliet, II, 2)
Supercompensation is a fundamental principle in sports training theory, for example. It states that the depletion of muscular energy stores through stress, i.e. training stimuli, leads to the body not only reacting by replenishing the stores to the same extent, but also subsequently increasing the stores and replenishing them with additional energy in order to better adapt to such additional stress. Without supercompensation, there would be no training effects. Supercompensation results in constant growth. The reduction in stock after giving is cancelled out by the supply and exceeds the initial level.
Not worrying is also essential for supply. Those who worry show a lack of trust in the soul’s provision, especially in critical times.
“Do not worry!”
“What will we eat? … What will we clothe ourselves with? …
Seek first the kingdom of God
[the awareness of one’s own divine identity] …,
and all these things will come to you.”
“I have come that they may have life and full sufficiency.”
Those who worry have a state of consciousness that contains everything other than “full sufficiency”. You have to work hard at controlling your thoughts in order to create the conditions for the conscious principle of care to be visualised. This requires pushing away the thoughts of worry (Mephisto) that want to force the consciousness of lack on us by replacing them with thoughts of abundance of spiritual provision from within. If we manage to curb worry, this means that we have increasingly freed ourselves from external dependencies. Man is always dissatisfied – Adam and Eve send their regards – and this is precisely the cause of his suffering.
The same applies to desire, which also stems from a sense of lack. Wishing is the opposite of oneness; it does not correspond to the principle “YOUR will be done.”
“As long as you chase after happiness,
you are not ripe for happiness,
and all that is dearest would be yours.
As long as you mourn what you have lost
and have goals and are restless,
you do not yet know what peace is.
Only when you renounce every wish,
no longer know goal or desire,
no longer call happiness by its name,
then the tide of events
no longer reaches your heart, and your soul rests.
(Hermann Hesse: Happiness)
If, for example, you don’t receive your wages, are the victim of medical malpractice, have to deal with an unreasonable person who caused an accident, have an aggressive neighbour, etc., you have the choice of fighting a sometimes months-long battle or countering your thoughts of dissatisfaction with a sense of contentment, not fighting and trusting your soul to find a solution. This does not mean lying on the sofa and waiting, but rather taking all the obvious measures step by step, but only those that are dictated by higher reason – i.e. without ego, not at the expense of others and taking the overall good into account. Then success will come, sometimes in unusual ways and often only after a long wait.
If the fundamental principle of all care is giving, I always find myself in a dilemma as to how to obtain care when I seemingly have nothing to give. It is even more difficult to make myself give when I have never received anything myself. But despite the hopelessness, it’s less complicated than it looks. Because I have to clarify for myself what I have anyway. And that has two levels: The first thing I have is the awareness of the inexhaustible supply within. The second is that I recognise the principle of giving on a material level. So if I only have 1 euro left and I give away 10 cents of it – even if it’s only to the municipal parking meter – the supply starts to flow. This is because consciousness is reprogrammed from needing to owning. So if you have next to nothing and still apply the principle of giving, you trigger the flow on the moulding level.
In Jewish wisdom, this is symbolised in the story of the widow of Zarephath: Elijah asks a widow for food and drink. She replies that she has nothing but a handful of flour for her and her son. But she prepares some for him anyway. As a result, flour and oil keep flowing in and there is no shortage.
The same principle (!) is shown in Christian wisdom in the story of the feeding of the 5,000. If you give, it flows back. However, only Jesus was able to do this, because the listeners he fed were hungry again the next day, whereas he was able to constantly generate them by knowing the principle of supply.
Buddhist wisdom also teaches this connection through the story of the fish and the fishing rod:
“If you want to feed a hungry man for a day, give him a fish. If you want to feed him for a week, give him seven fish. If you want to feed him for his whole life, give him a fishing rod.”
“Moved from within …
the wise man gives from the fullness of the universe.”
(Tao Te King 5)
It is always a matter of not seeking outside, but of setting the principle in motion within, i.e. allowing the soul to unleash its power to provide. Then, however dispossessed you may be, you share with others and set in motion the giving that leads to receiving.
I cannot generate provision on my own, I possess it. But it only becomes active when I allow the spirit soul within me to unfold. The cherries of the cherry tree are not sustenance, but the life in the tree is the sustenance that produces the appearance of its fruit. It is neither the roots nor the trunk, but life. The goods in the supermarket are not the supply either. They are an expression of the principle of supply. It is the inner guidance in the producer, the distributor and the provider that produces the displays.
Those who are alone and long for companions must first be companions for others, but without the ulterior motive of investing. Then friends will appear: If you want to have friends, you first have to be a friend yourself. This means that they realise that, despite their obvious lack, they still have something to give, namely the ability to be a friend. The echo principle always works: you receive what you send out. The bottom line is that you can’t take more out of your account than you put in. If you are chronically poor, lonely or ill, you tend to blame all kinds of external circumstances. But the responsibility is their own. Out of ignorance, people only ever want to have care, health or a partner, but not (enough) giving in the sense of: Being a partner, providing for others or giving health in the sense of helping, supporting, caring, etc.
All those in need are people who believe that they have nothing to give or that they have to hold on to what little they have. All those in need have this material understanding of care. They have cut themselves off from the source and do not know that and how they can bring the abundance to flow out from within.
When unemployment, flooding, hacking, economic crisis, bankruptcy, home invasion, epidemic, harassment, financial collapse, etc. occur, those who are in dialogue with their soul walk through the midst of all these threats unscathed like Moses through the Red Sea. And the persecutors such as debt collectors, flu epidemics or stalkers disappear from the scene.
Those who have had such experiences and have gone through an armada of creditors, lawyers, arrest warrants and penalty orders, through times without money, without food, without friends, generally in total deprivation, know this. With the Comforter within them, they have survived everything without a hair being harmed. The reasons for salvation are always spiritual dialogue and consistent adherence to the spiritual law of the powerlessness of the threat.
Omnipotence only ever has a resounding effect on those who consciously place themselves under the “umbrella of the Most High” and allow themselves to become a channel for the power of their inner guidance.
The high price for infinite abundance is to forgive my enemies every day and to give away parts of my net income – in secret.
If you find yourself in an existential crisis situation without contact to your soul, this all too often leads to social collapse, violence, robbery or suicide. If we have a headache and we concentrate on it, we will continue to have it because we feed our consciousness with what is present. If I am without a partner and suffer from the awareness of partnerlessness, it continues. The trick is to get out of this consciousness. This can only be done successfully through the soul. I realise my awareness of abundance by having the soul and therefore everything – including materially. However, I must then use this awareness to take shape, which means that I demonstrate abundance in the area of my lack through concrete action (!), above all by giving away and forgiving.
Those who have overcome the misconception that giving makes you poor know that the flow of spiritual provision is inexhaustible. In fairy tales, unlimited provision is expressed in the story of the “little table laid for you”.
How many women squander their happiness in life because they cannot forgive their partner’s infidelity, this breach of trust, due to the hurt to their ego. How few overcome this ego trap and forgive with the strength of their soul. (You can still break up, but on a completely different basis of inner strength).
When we lack money, we switch to giving. We think first of the soul and its comprehensive provision (from A to C) and only then of the current state of our current account. In marital crises, we first look to the soul within us; then we observe how the soul does its job. It then acts as a catalyst for my behaviour. In the case of separation, it then appears as the appearance of those partners in our lives who suit us. When illness sets in, we may go to work anyway because we put our soul first and the current situation second. Then the soul appears as the optimal circumstance, perhaps as a collapse that forces us to regenerate, but perhaps also as a spontaneous recovery.
All threats and dangers depend on the state of our consciousness. If it is spiritual, I find myself in unity with the opponent, the reckless speeding driver, the business competitor, the asthma attack, the bad neighbour, the burglar, in other words with every “enemy”, and with the omnipotence in both of us. This means harmony between the sons of God, mutual understanding and external security.
All giving with the corresponding echo only works on the basis of unselfishness. This is why the principle of giving within the family is ineffective as care for the children, because this care is ultimately an ego function (species preservation of the mammal as an indirect function of self-preservation).
The meaning of sacrifice
Sacrifice, which has been common since antiquity and the Middle Ages, has always been and remains ineffective because it only amounts to an attempt to bribe the respective gods – just like begging them. Awareness of lack leads to more lack. Abundance is based on unselfish giving.
Those who complain bitterly that their sacrifices have not been duly honoured have devalued them because they (unconsciously) see them as part of a deal. Sacrifice, however, is based on selflessness: countless examples demonstrate this selflessness: Gandhi, Jeanne, mothers, disaster relief workers who consciously risk their lives, aid workers in war zones, Doctors Without Borders, etc.
Sacrifice is the central principle of spiritual life. Jesus showed this. Gandhi lived it, as do countless mothers every day. Sacrifice is the opposite of the rest of everyday human life, which consists of gaining, reaching, fighting, taking, grabbing, snatching, pocketing, snatching, etc.: instead of giving away and taking at the expense of others. It is a stab at the heart of the Golden Rule: give others what you would like to have yourself if you were in their position: love your neighbour as yourself.
All concrete examples of sacrifice ultimately boil down to a further principle: it is the sacrifice of one’s self-image and life as a person, instead of living with the awareness of the expression of the soul’s power; only then can the essence of the human being emerge. The powerful symbol for this connection is the crucifixion, through which the surface (= person) is erased. Even before the crucifixion, Jesus constantly tried to divert attention away from his person and towards the essential: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God!”
The sun does only one thing – give light, and it does so endlessly. It gives light and warmth without asking for anything in return. Gandhi, Jesus, Father Kolbe, the many martyrs, Mother Teresa, aid workers in war zones, whistleblowers, etc. demonstrate this principle as the power of the soul through the individual – its channel.
Sacrifice is the exact opposite of the instinct of self-preservation and the most important content of spiritual wisdom writings. Nevertheless, it is unknown that it is only through the “diversions” of sacrifice that one’s own spiritual and material abundance is realised in a fundamental and stable way. That is why the Bhagavad Gita says without any symbolic packaging:
“Sacrifice is the source of abundance;
only by giving do you receive!”
(III, 10)
Hindu wisdom, however, makes an important distinction:
“Higher than the sacrifice of earthly goods
is the sacrifice of your heart, hero;
consecrate to me thoughts, will, mind,
that is the highest sacrifice!
(IV,33)
In this way, she addresses the primacy of spiritual consciousness (Christian: “strive”) over all other motives for sacrifice. The principle of sacrifice is clearly emphasised here not as an attempt at bribery, but as a grateful response to the gift of creation and individual life with all its challenges and perspectives.
“Whoever … does not desire the fruit of the sacrifice,
because the sacrifice is thanksgiving to God,
does right and is a knower.” …
“He who knows nothing of the law of sacrifice …
he is a fool who is blind of spirit.”
(XVII, 11, 13)
The principle of the co-existence of all life forms on earth is that they all live off each other. Every living being is or ultimately becomes food for others. This applies to mother’s milk as well as to ears of grain, beef, the bacteria that live on phytoplankton or the 3000 kg of krill that the blue whale eats every day. In other words, 40 million small crustaceans lose their lives every day to a blue whale. Young blue whales, in turn, can become victims of killer whales. Biology refers to this as a “food chain”, which is a food cycle. Living creatures consume living things and are in turn food for others. The consumers at the end of this chain, including humans, are also decomposed by microorganisms after physical death. Superficially, these processes reflect the common principle of “eating and being eaten”.
From a spiritual point of view, however, it is a matter of sacrifice, of self-giving. The zebra sacrifices itself to the pride of lions, even if its ego does not want it to. All living beings are part of this cycle. All plants and animals are part of this principle and surrender to it, even if the zebra tries to resist it. Humans, on the other hand, are able to escape this togetherness and interdependence with some degree of success by breaking out of their integration into the processes of nature – equipped with the more intelligent instrument of their intellect. His ego is more powerful than that of the animals, and he can therefore replace sacrifice with the pursuit of self-preservation. He can use sophisticated techniques to reduce giving to almost zero through effective taking, through tricks in investment banking, fraud, child labour, deception of manufacturers through product manipulation, hit-and-runs, etc., etc. On the other hand, through spiritual realisation with the same mind, he can also see his life as a sacrifice and sacrifice his ego in devotion to others and offer his lifestyle to charity in such a way that he is there for others just as he is for himself; after all, the alternative to self-preservation is not only the non-self-preservation of the ego software, but also the preservation of others: “…as yourself.” By letting the ego impulses die every day, he passes on the sacrifices that living beings have made to him into his interpersonal context: this is shown by Gandhi, the countless martyrs or lifesavers and all those who go beyond preferential love and indiscriminately extend their devotion to everyone regardless of person. At present, this can be seen particularly well in the sea rescuers in the North Sea and the Mediterranean, among others. When spiritual awareness is added, people can completely turn around from their special path of non-sacrifice and rise vertically like the phoenix from the (ego) ashes. Then he is freed from the recurring suffering.
“Sacrifice is the law of the universe.”
(Bhagavad Gita III,15)