Sharing

(second of the three-part series)

Being is the beginning. When being opens up like a gift, there is no other way but to share it. Sharing is the second step to understand Love.

Wherever you are right now, relax yourself and feel your hands. Then, look at them slowly. Just look at them. How did you do it? Look at your hands again: did you look at your hands with closed fist or open palms? Ask your loved ones and friends to do the same. Look at how they will do it. Observe people looking at their hands. Is it the same for all people? Have you ever encountered a person looking at their hands with their closed fist? Have you ever done that yourself?

A new friend in her sixties shared her simple but amazing insight. She once looked at her hands and thought how fascinating they are. She has realized that through them, she can give caring, touch a friend, embrace a loved one, caress a dog, and a thousand of wonderful things.

There is so much truth in as simple as looking at your hands. Every one of us would naturally spread our hands, like the unfurling of petals of a blooming flower. Look again on how wonderful your hands are. Palms are always facing up. As you look at your hands, they open up, an apparent gesture of giving. Our hands are extensions of the inherent willingness of our souls to share our beings. And here lies a great paradox: there we can see in our open palms a line between giving and receiving. The pristine openness of our hands cannot anymore distinguish between how to give and how to receive. Both are happening in expressing the hands' sincerest being. This being becomes an act of sharing.

Our hands remind us of our life's purpose: to share Love. Yet, we ask ourselves "What form of Love can we share to others?" Time by time, we are stuck with the idea that we have to share something material or physical. In fulfilling the act of sharing, we often ask "how much?" or "how many?" or "what kind?" These questions are difficult to answer, especially if anyone of us have felt deprived or lacking, may it be in money or possessions. But the truth about the steps to understand Love are such remarkable, we are always reminded that there is only one source of what to share: our beings. From there, abundance of many things will come out, like a fountain of blessings. It is our Loving being that we share, our genuine presence, our listening hearts, our heartfelt touch, our gentle words. Our true beings unlock our abilities that have been locked up within the dungeons of our fears. Our hands are ready to mold our malleable possibilities.

Get into the deep trench of your psyche. That is the only place where the treasures of your being are hidden. Begin the treasure hunting. Let the questions of your being dig into it. Ask yourself: "If Love is my being, how can Love share itself to the world?" The answers are right before your eyes. What are you good at? What makes you fulfilled with promises and wonder? However you express them does not really matter. What is more important is the Love from where your expressions well up.

In many years of our lives we have been doing something that makes us busy, yet at the end of the day we feel tired and empty. We have done things to please others, to accumulate more, to make ourselves worthwhile, where our utmost aim is always to survive. We have forgotten to live. Now, it is time to live our lives again. We must become beings and start sharing. Joseph Campbell's mantra echoes the truth of being and sharing: Follow your bliss. Our beings can share, without the need for meeting others expectation, or any approval, or any reciprocal actions. No need to complete ourselves of any requirements of this world. All we have to do is to follow the bliss of our beings. It is the bliss of Love waiting for our awareness.

Perhaps one of the most iconic Filipino sculpture is the Oblation. It is a figure of a naked man, looking at the sky with hands and arms stretched out. It has symbolized a century of academic excellence of the University of the Philippines. In Christian terms, the word oblation refers something you offer to God. Offerings could be anything, like the ones offered every Eucharist. In the eyes of Love, we can see beyond. Our greatest offering is our being in its nakedness and innocence. We spread our arms to let go of our beings as an oblation to humanity. This is the sacred sharing of our Love.

After being and sharing, we now start growing. As the steps to understand Love ascend, they are now coming into full circle.

(to be continued)






"Mamang Oble" -photo by foolmoon