The Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu
Image by Carey Linde
One of my favorite Dalai Lama quotes is “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”
And another: “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
One of our recent newsletter articles was Always Speak Your Truth Fearlessly. Some folks, including me in earlier years, take that to mean speak your truth aggressively with no regard or consideration for others. That, as I see in hindsight, is a very bad policy.
As the Dalai Lama says, it’s always possible to be kind.
My spirit guides have often said even the smallest act of kindness can have huge effects down the road. It’s all about the Law of Attraction—whatever we do, say, or think inevitably comes back to us in one form or another.
Every act of cruelty will return to us. Every act of kindness will return to us.
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This video, even though it’s an advertisement, illustrates perfectly and beautifully how an act of kindness can return to us in ways unimaginable.
Related links:
Kindness
Kindness Prevails
Lessons From Bob the Barber
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How can you be kinder to others and—just as importantly—to yourself? Do you have any “kindness tips” you can give us? Please share your thoughts and comments with us below.
What other subjects would you like us to talk about in these posts? Please email me.
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About John Cali
John Cali is a writer, blogger, and channel for a group of spirit guides. His next book is Real Answers to Life’s Pesky Questions: Conversations With Spirit, Book 1. John lives in northwestern Wyoming. Sign up for his newsletter here.
Martha
Thank you, John.Thank you Susan. Thank you one and all.
Eric Butterworth was my first teacher of Truth. I used to go listen to him on Sunday mornings at Avery Fisher Hall. I would sit in the front row and cry. I wasn’t sure why I was crying but the Truth he spoke felt like mother’s milk to me.
I am familiar with the Course and got the books back in the mid 80’s. I know in my soul that every letter of it is true. And yet I still have trouble accepting that the severe abuse that I suffered as a child is merely an illusion. This messes with my head as did the people in my family, perpetrators and victims alike, who told me and continue to tell me it didnt happen and that I am just a big pain in the ass. Shame blame and judgment from people in my family – two of whom are card carrying ACIM students!
Lately, since my parents’ deaths this year the need to tell the story of what really went down has been fierce.
I can see that the validation I seek from unconscious or otherwise disbelieving family members such as my father’s brother who is a minister AND a self professed “ACIM junkie” is a set up for me to re experience that lonely pain I felt as a kid.
I know the path I have walked. Telling that story to folks who get it with love and compassion helps me to feel validated.
But I need to find way to release the effects of the pain of the past without denying it.
I would really like to be a kinder person both to myself and others. Having been brutalized as a child this has been a challenge. However I know my essential nature and heart is very tender and sweet.
Perhaps my greatest illusion ( or delusion ;-)) is that if my family really gets it and acknowledges what I have lived through and apologizes for their abusive treatment of me over the years, that then and only then will I be able to finally awaken from the nightmare and at long last be happy
Yeah…..and I got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell ya too !
I am in charge of my thoughts. What I give attention to grows. Thoughts of separation ((wounded child) or thoughts of ONENESS ( Universal Mind ).
” God is in you the way the ocean is in a wave “. ~ Eric Butterworth
I am in charge of my vibration..
Thanks for the opportunity to pause amd reflect on truth and kindness.
Until now those two things in me have not been compatible.
And I can see how they need to be.
with Love,
Martha
John Cali
You’re most welcome, Martha.
Shih-Min
Dear Martha,
We believe you. We believe that you were brutally hurt and suffered terribly during your childhood. Because you were, and still are, a sensitive, lovely soul who didn’t avenge and become like your abuser(s), you kept anger and feeling of humiliation within yourself instead of taking it out on someone who was weaker or younger. We love that goodness in you.
We feel your pain, and we believe it’s not your illusion. We understand that it’s really not much to just ask for an acknowledgement and apology. You deserve it and have been deserving it for such a long time. . . .
Is it OK if we, a member of Oneness, give you that acknowledgement and say to you, “Sorry that terrible things happened to you which almost made you lose faith in Love and Compassion. Sorry!” For we really want to say that, and wipe tears off from your cheeks.
Then, if we have made you feel a bit better, we would like to suggest that you go out for a walk, feel the earth under you, embrace a tree, and be your true happy self again.
Love,
Shih-Min
Martha
Shih-Min,
I felt so loved when I read what you said to me. I took it into my heart very deeply.
I am not used to being loved like that.
Thank you for believing me
for your kindness to even take the time to write to me and offer me this blessing.
YES – it is okay! My tender heart feels your love and laps it up like a thirsty puppy. I am deeply humbled by your simple acknowledgment of my experience and affirmation of my goodness.
I have been mad as hell about this one thing ( and really not about anything else) for as long as I can remember and it has really gotten in the way of my happiness and fulfillment in all areas of my life. Most of all it caused me to turn my anger inward and brutalize my own innocent self creating depression and disharmony within.
I receive unto my soul your loving breath of care and I release the past to Spirit’s loving care.
There is a Big Love in me bigger than all of this. If I can allow this LOVE to take up residence in me and fill me, there will be no room for these old resentments and wounds that have kept me bound.
No human can release me – only Spirit can, according to my willingness to let go of the need to be right and Let God be God in me, like the ocean in a wave.
Thank you, Shih-Min, for delivering the Truth to me with such kindness.
This allows me to feel love and not fear which allows me to hear the voice of God.
And now I have to walk barefoot, hug a tree and be the true happy me I long to BE!
Susan
Wow! The power of this joining is truly incredible. It moves me to tears. Thank you, Shih-Min, Martha, and John…
Love and blessings,
Susan
John Cali
You’re most welcome, Susan!
Love,
John
Conshana
Dear, Sweet Martha,,,
Family members as a general rule are blind to the pain they have caused. What is a living hell, as you probably well know, is being an orphan with two parents.
I will suggest this. Find a wide open space, with no one around for at least a half mile.
Then Scream your lungs dry. Drink some water, and repeat as necessary. AS YOU DO THIS, See the pain of the past rising to the Clarity of the Cosmos, on the waves of the sound of your screams.
Then comes the hardest part. The acceptance of the Peace that will surround you.
Whether your 20 or 70, makes no difference. The pain of the past rides one until it is released, one way or the other. This way worked for me. The flashbacks are easier to handle now, but my “Psychic Scream” is always available, and has been used more than once.
My Love and My Prayers are with you, Dear Martha.
Blessed Be,
Love and Living Light,,,
I AM Conshana
Martha
THANK you, CONSHANA.
Thank you thank you thank you thank you.
“What is a living hell is being an orphan with two parents”
and ” family members as a general rule are blind to the pain they have caused”
struck a deep chord in me.
You tapped into my key chakra…the VOICE. I hope to manifest some solo time on a deserted beach and will try what you suggested.
My deep gratefulness for your love prayers and Living Light.
Thank you John and eveyone who gathered round me here in love.
Thank you for being what family ought to feel like. It felt wonderful.
True and kind.
with love,
Martha
John Cali
You’re most welcome, Martha. We are indeed richly blessed to have this loving community around us.
Love, John
Martha
This is a good one for me to hear.
When I get fired up about injustice, or denial of abuse that occured in my family of origin, I tend to strike a truth warrior pose and in those moments as I encounter resistance, shaming and judgment, I forget to be kind. I become consumed with my need to say, “”look – this really DID happen….why are you so hell bent on denying or minimizing it?”
I had a brave mother who taught me honesty, but honestly not everyone has the stomach for it. I get stuck on needing to be right ( and I am) but S ACIM says it never made me happy.
How can I be kinder to myself and others without compromising my principles of honesty and truth? I can be pretty brutal in the face of resistance!
I know I must be going about it. wrong but I wonder how I can approach it differently?
Suggestions are most welcome ( as long as they are kind ..;-))
Thanks, John.
John Cali
Thank you, Martha.
I can only answer your questions from my own perspective. When someone is unkind, cruel, or even brutal, I remind myself they are doing the best they can with the level of awareness they currently have.
That may sound simplistic, but it works beautifully well for me.
Anyone else care to respond to Martha’s questions?
Susan
Martha,
I just received an email from Pathways of Light, which is an ACIM based organization,
and I copied this for you:
Miracles News Article —
Lesson 76: I Am Under No Laws but God’s
“There are no laws except the laws of God. This needs repeating, over and over, until you realize it applies to everything that you have made in opposition to God’s Will.” (ACIM W-pI.76.6:1-2)
So simple. And yet it asks me to dissolve every belief that I have in the physical and relative world and to replace them in something so great I cannot even get my mind around it. How awesome. How terrifying.
I remember when I attended my first ACIM book study. I felt like I had stepped into a different realm. I had. I felt light headed and unsteady. The next morning, I remember thinking that if I continued to attend this line of study my entire world would change. Just as I was contemplating this, my friend who had attending with me had come to the same conclusion. Up to that point, my life had been a conglomeration of heart-break and pain. What did I have to lose? What indeed! I chose to continue.
Eighteen years later, I am an ordained minister with Pathways of Light and spiritual ministry director at my local Unity church. My main assignment is to be what I call a midwife to consciousness. As a midwife, I guide the birthing of a new way of thinking from the relative physical, always changing world to the absolute unchangeable world of the Divine, God. It is a journey I humbly step on to every day. I am constantly reminded that “The body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself.” Our thoughts and beliefs effect our experience. My mantra has become, “How can I see this situation/condition differently?”
Recently a beloved friend and work associate who had been suffering from an illness shared that she recently found a small booklet written by Eric Butterworth. His instruction was simple. He said to simply stop, take a breath, repeat the phrase “This is an illusion. It has no power.” She found it so reassuring. Profoundly simple and yet powerful to the extreme. It is the same message that Lesson 76 is giving: Stop… Breathe… REALize… There are no laws but God’s. When we study ACIM, do we understand that our experience of a ‘miracle’ means that we are seeing rightly? And when we are sick and tired and afraid and experiencing lack, we are not seeing rightly?
It takes great courage and faith to let go of everything we have been taught in the realm of our changeable reality. It takes great courage and faith to take in something so simple and yet has complete and total power. “I am under no laws but God’s.”
by Rev. Gail Hamley, a Pathways of Light minister living in Tustin, California. (From Miracles News Fall, 2013)
May this be of loving service to you…
Love and blessings,
Susan
Dan
It is interesting that we associate fearlessness with aggression. I tend to think, as I imagine you do as well, that when we are in a loving state we are actually even more without fear.
And yet, I get it – we don’t see fear as the absence of love (which I think it is) but rather a reaction to danger (which in a state of love is clearly an illusion). Spirit is always reminding us that being present and joyful we are always safe. (A truth almost impossible to share with other people who live in our world)
In any event, I think it is wonderful that you are kind enough to want to print a clarification. I doubt anyone who actually read the previous article would have misunderstood … but good that you recognized the possibility of a misunderstanding.
And absolutely – no one wants to be hit over the head with someone else’s truth.
Thanks for all the articles!
John Cali
Thanks very much, Dan.
I agree — when we are in a loving place, fear cannot exist for us. As you said, if we are present and joyful, we are safe. Then there is no possibility of feeling fear. Love and fear cannot exist together.
Thanks again, dear friend,
John
Shih-Min
Yes, we, as a friendly group, also appreciate that John’s previous article is followed by this one, so to make the truth more “safe” for everybody — sometimes a “piece” of truth could be dangerous. Love,
Shih-Min
John Cali
Thank you, Shih-Min.
Martha
“No one wants to be hit over the head with someone else’s truth”…
” Before engaging mouth, put mind and brain in gear”!
Thank you, Dan and Conshana for those gems of insight.
Joseph
The concept of Kindness comes from the gods. All religions and time frames reference it in some manner, the most famous version being the Golden Rule or Ethics of Reciprocity. Did you know there is even an Angel of Kindness – Hael. If you envision a river with tributaries, Love would be at the head waters with compassion and kindness being offshoots. Kindness requires a physical action for it to be made manifest. It is a conscious doing, an outward manifestation of one’s inward degree of love, and the one things that gives back to its’ giver more profoundly than any other action they can take. There is no judgment or conditionality involved either so it truly is the closest thing one can do ‘on Earth as it is in Heaven’.
John Cali
Thank you, Joseph.
Conshana
Before engaging mouth, put MIND and Brain in gear, and ask Self, “How would I like this brought to MY attention?”
Blessed Be,
Love and Living Light,,,
I AM Conshana
John Cali
Thank you, Conshana. I love that — “Before engaging mouth, put MIND and Brain in gear….” 🙂
Chuck
yes you speak truth responsibly in a way that does not hurt others.
You dont call a fat person fat directly even if its the truth. Even though you dont tell them they are in perfect health which is a lie, you consider the fact that it can hurt them but put it in a way where its softer.
so you need to weigh in whats going on and use your common sense while that does not mean you actually lie.
Humans try to put rules and want to follow rules and this is another example where not everythign will work as a rule.
So whilst its correct to always tell truth there are times where you use it in a way not to hurt others.
John Cali
Thank you, Chuck.
Mikala
Hi John:
I rather think this message connects to the last blog.
If you truly know yourself and the magnificent Being you are, as well as your lineage from Creator Source all the way to Earth Human (grin), then you know and understand that our essence is Love – Divine Love. Within that state of Being, and that mind set, you will speak, (act, behave, think) with kindness because you have experienced it’s opposite here on Earth, and probably have behaved without kindness in the past. You know what it feels like to be on the other end of things, and you don’t want to ever be the cause of pain of any kind, which includes yourself.
If you truly love yourself as What You Truly Are, you can’t be unkind to another because we are all ONE.
John Cali
Thank you, very much, Mikala.
I agree wholeheartedly — if we know and understand we are love, we will always think, act, and speak kindly toward others and ourselves.