What Do You Share With Others?

Let me ask you a question first: do you share garbage with your neighbours?

It may seem a silly question. But I want you to think. If your answer to the question is no, then I want to ask you again: do you share mental garbage with your family, friends, colleagues and neighbours?

I won't try to answer that for you. It’s not easy. But I can tell you that my answer is different from the first question. I know that on this spiritual journey, I too, often do not preach what I believe as common sense.

Last night during my medication, I came to the realisation that I still have a lot of negative thoughts even though broadly speaking I consider myself a very positive person. I don't want to acknowledge my negativity only because I don’t want to be labelled as being negative. Yet so many things I think, say or do are very negative. For example, I complain often since I moved to Auckland that in Auckland there is no 'people touch'. This is of course not entirely true as I do meet a lot of pleasant and nice people. Instead of focusing on the positive side, I focus on the negative side as in my current work place I have less intimate friendship from colleagues than in my previous workplace in Wellington. Another example is that when I chat with my colleagues about current news or work place attitude I still naturally participate and agree with them on a lot of negative things probably as a natural instinct to want to fit in.

What I want to say is, everyday there are too much garbage. We receive it, we collect it, and we share it with others. We even imagine a lot of garbage because we have preconceived ideas about how the situation is and how it should be because of our past experiences. Then we just fix our idea on that and demand that things happen in the way it was or the way we think it should be (like the case in my negative thought about my current work place). Then we make our lives miserable – not only that, when we share that with others, we make others lives miserable too. Just like it's not pleasant to share our garbage with our neighbours, why do we think sharing our mental garbage with others would have positive effect on anyone?

I think about why everyone loves to go to our meditation centre to meditate. We all feel great love and peace here – a feeling we don’t normally feel at home. Why? Because here we share only love, blessings, togetherness, world peace – all the positive things. The venue over the years has collected substantial amount of positive energy as such even a stranger walks in would feel it. Why don't we feel the same at home? Because we talk rubbish, we think rubbish, and we share a lot of rubbish. Most homes have had quarrels, fights, chaos, discord of some kinds and have built up a lot of negative vibrations. That's why we do not achieve the same result in meditation at home.

A spiritual journey is all about self-cleansing. When we sift out the negatives, bit by bit we will become more purified soul. Share only the beautiful things with others so that other souls can be purified too. In purification, we can achieve enlightenment and peace; gain power and wisdom; and have good health and balance in life.