We have a question around family,
and we have a question from Japan.
Mie
Saito.
And Mie's question is:
"Thank you for always guiding me,
I have a question. It is about the
difference between
people-pleasing and kindness.
I think that people-pleasing has a lot
of fear in it
but when it comes to kindness,
I'm not sure
if what I want to do is kind or not.
For example,
after talking with someone who was going
through a difficult time
and I felt as if he was a reflection of my mind,
I suddenly felt like doing something for him
and wanted to make lunch for him.
Also, when I see someone working in the
midst of feelings of dissatisfaction
I want to help them with their work.
Does this mean that I'm just looking at
my poor self
because I can't see them as Spirit in a
safe place yet?
What can you tell me about kindness?
Thats a really good one.
We love this kind of deep questions.
Yes, yeah.
Yeah, it's so beautiful that you're
asking this too because
having an awareness of the,
we'll say, the Japanese culture,
and Frances and I have visited
there in Tokyo and
done digital gatherings and so forth.
I feel
a sense of honouring, a deep honouring.
I mean, a very deep honouring
that's actually even part of the Japanese culture.
I know,
I have friends sometimes, a friend,
Nicolas
up there in Kamas, one time when
I was doing, Kirsten and I were doing
an interactive
online retreat and
he was having a lot of resistance
coming up before the
online retreat but
seeing these amazing, honouring
gentle,
meek,
kind,
Japanese women,
he just cried, he just couldn't believe
that there was such
kindness and gentleness and honouring
and presence.
He said to me after the retreat was over,
he said: "Well I broke through my
resistance. I'm back. I'm back now with
Jesus."
Just from the interactions
with these these women and their
kindness and sincerity. It was so strong.
So let's take a look at this more deeply
because I know a lot of people are
saying,
kindness seems extremely important and
yet kindness has to come from a state of
mind of true, I'll call it gentleness
or meekness. That's what Jesus
even said 2000 years ago: "Blessed are the
meek
for they shall inherit the earth."
It got to be pretty important if he says meekness
is associated with inheriting
the earth.
And he says in the Course, he explains himself,
he says, they will
literally overcome the earth with the
strength of their perception.
Wow!
That's an amazing interpretation of meekness.
But meekness must come from true gentleness,
which must come from true empathy.
So I must be so aligned with the Spirit
in what is real and true
to be truly gentle,
to be truly meek, and to be truly kind.
So this is where you start to realize that
you can't really act kind.
You have to feel
the kindness, you have to
have the kindness state of mind,
in order to be strong,
to overcome the world, as Jesus says,
the meek shall overcome the world.
Another thing, an aspect of it is,
to be truly gentle
you have to be defenseless.
If the mind is identified with the body
it's not, it can't, be kind.
If the mind is identified with personhood,
with family constructs,
with societal constructs,
it can't actually be truly consistently kind.
It may have glimmers of kindness,
but it won't be able to be consistently
kind in all circumstances
because of an identification
with a self-concept
that God did not create.
As soon as you start to believe in ego things,
then expectations come in.
And you may go visit a friend and they may talk to you,
and say things, and you may
and you may keep a kind smile on your face
and you may keep a sweet look,
and yet if they say something,
or do something,
that the ego, the mind takes offense to,
it identifies itself in a personal way,
and it's suddenly just takes
something personal,
the ego will say keep smiling,
but it's not going to feel good.
You're thinking: "Kind,
stay kind,
stay kind". And you know how it is
in Japan. You know that's part
of the self-concept of being a woman.
You're supposed to be kind.
But as soon as you take something personally,
even a little bit personally,
then the mask tries to stay there
as a kind look, a kind appearance,
but inside...
Oh, that hurts!
Because the mind has taken something personally,
and when it does, the kindness
of the spirit is out of awareness.
The Spirit never takes anything personally,
because Spirit isn't personal.
So it's a really good question,
and you have to be, remember:
"In my defenselessness my safety lies."
Now, even with the Course in Miracles
students and teachers this has been
a very big lesson.
I know there was one Course teacher
who always was talking about
kindness, be kind, be kind, be kind
and yet when it came to the copyright
controversy
the teacher seemed to take a side.
Whoa!
When you take a side in this world
the kindness is just a word.
The kindness is gone as soon as you
identify with one brother over another,
or one side of a
illusory issue than another,
kindness is gone,
because as soon as judgment enters
gentleness is gone, tolerance is gone,
and kindness is gone. And remember, I said
yesterday, truthfulness,
honesty is consistency.
So that's another aspect of this,
in order to truly
be kind without any people pleasing involved
you have to
say what you mean, you have to mean what you say.
You have to have a consistently
peaceful state of mind
and then just let the actions,
if they are to come,
come involuntarily from Jesus.
So that it's not a person acting
It's just the words,
if there's words, they'll come,
or if there's a smile, it will come
or a laughter,
it will come,
but it all comes from thoughts,
it's not about trying to act kind.
And I think that's part of the
struggle in the human condition,
even with course students,
they say: "I should be kind"
Should be kind?
What does that even mean?
"I should act kind" Well don't worry
so much about your actions,
watch your mind, watch your thoughts
that's what we're always working on.
I just remembered, when I read
the Tao Te Ching
there was one sentence, it says when people
lose the dao
they
try to act normal.
So when I first read it, I was like, wow!
When people try to do good,
it's because they already lost the dao.
When we're trying to do good,
even though that looks so good in this world
that's maybe the best,
the highest standard,
but
inevitably we already lost the Spirit.
So the Spirit is the only good,
the Spirit knows in all situations how to be truly loving.
And another example,
when you were talking about taking sides
I was thinking, when
Bill Thedford, again, when he went to
a Course group
and two students were arguing about
what a Course sentence means
and then someone asked him what do you say Bill?
He said just rip the page off the book.
That kind of action
is a demonstration of an attitude,
it's a demonstration of the Spirit, it is coming
from an attitude,
to be in alignment consistently
with the miracle and with the truth, then that
comes through, that becomes such a gentle...
gentleness that radiates out.
Yeah.
Good old Bill. That was a good example.
Rip it.
It's better to rip the page out from the
book than to argue with your brother.
That's what he said
at the time, and that is such an
example of
go into the kindness in your mind.
Go into your right-mind
and be defenseless.
And that's accepting, be accepting.
I think 2000 years ago
Jesus had a teaching where he said
if someone
smite you on one cheek
turn the other cheek.
And that,
even for
Gandhi and Yogananda, they were kind of
like, whoa!
That's a strong teaching: "If somebody
smite you on one cheek, turn the other cheek."
But Jesus, I don't think was
talking so much about the behavior
like a literal thing, as he was saying come
back to your right mind.
If you if you perceive an insult,
if you perceive something that is offensive,
if you perceive an attack,
turn back
to
the love
of the Spirit in your mind.
Come back.
Turn to your right mind
and in that sense, you don't get into a
defense.
If you do this to me,
I'll get you back.
If someone does something wrong,
they need to be punished.
If someone does something wrong,
they need to face the consequences.
What Jesus is saying is, no, the meek
shall overcome the world with their
strength.
By turning the other cheek,
He's just saying,
calmly remember what you're here for.
You're here for the miracle,
you're here to be the light of the world,
you're here always for only one reason,
is to shine
the light of Heaven
and to shine it for everyone
and everything.
And, therefore,
if we perceive an offense, or an attack
he's saying, that's just a misperception.
Come back
to me.
Come back
to your right mind.
And I think to me, that really relates to
your question. That's how you're kind.
If you're a miracle worker,
you will
naturally
radiate kindness
and it will come out
with clarity.
Kindness and ignorance don't go together.
But kindness and clarity do.
So a clear mind
that's free and open to let the light shine through
will naturally be kind
without trying to please
any person or place or thing.
It's just this...
It's a beatitude. It's like the beatitudes.
Kindness is
one of the beatitudes.
It's peaceful.
Thank you.
That's a very subtle
question.
It's very beautiful. Yeah, thank you.