The Most Important Teaching

Purpose

Do I have your attention? I’m about to reveal something here that you’ve always wanted to know. Maybe you already know it and maybe you don’t. What is the most important thing for you to know about your life?

If you could ask God…

the Creator, the source of all, just one question that would help you to live a great life, what would your question be? What secrets of the Universe do you want to know? This is really tough, I know, there are so many questions you could ask. You might have different questions tomorrow and a hundred more questions 5 years from now. You might make a list over time that could look something like this:

  • Where did I come from?
  • What should I do when I grow up?
  • What is my purpose in life?
  • Why are there so many problems in the world?
  • Is there anything I can do to make the world a better place?
  • Who should I marry?
  • Where’s the best place in the world to live and raise a family?
  • Why is life so difficult?
  • What happened to my hopes and dreams?
  • Why does it seem like some people are lucky and some are not?
  • What should I do next, now that my other plans have not worked out?
  • What happens when I die?

We go through life with many more questions than this, and at each stage of life there are new questions to be asked. You and I are born to learn. We seek, we desire experience and knowledge, because somehow these things are connected to our happiness. Jesus said, “Seek and ye shall find, knock and the door will be opened, ask and you shall receive…”. But he didn’t say what to seek, which door to knock on, or what to ask for. Wow, there are a world of possibilities there. Thanks for the advise Jesus but could you narrow it down a little bit, be a little more specific?

His answer would be, “No, that’s your job.”

Your job is to ask your questions, seek what you are looking for in life, and knock on the doors that you think might lead to where you want to go. But, before you start seeking and knocking there is one very important step you can take to prepare for your life’s journey. That step could be called practicing the art of selective give and take action.

There will always be choices to make

As you were growing up and going to school you were probably given choices that helped you to practice this art. Maybe your choices were limited by where you lived, your parents income, or your parents belief system. You might say that the universe narrowed down some of the options for you to begin with.

life in harmony with natureHowever, at some point you started making your own choices. What was the basis for your choices? Did you have a goal in mind? Were you striving to fulfill a higher purpose; or were you randomly following desires as they presented themselves? Were you just following the crowd because it seemed safer and easier? Or did you have a vision and a plan that naturally led to a specific group of choices?

Learning to make good choices that will help you focus on achieving goals is the first step in the art of selective give and take action. There are millions of possibilities and opportunities that present themselves in life, but you can’t do it all, and you can’t have it all, in this physical lifetime. You can however pursue what’s most important to you, and that is where your choices begin.

Selective Give and Take Action

Rev. Moon once said that “Give and Take Action is the most important teaching in the Divine Principle”, and that if we really understood it our lives would be very different. Give and take action is within the realm of individual responsibility; as a co-creator you get to choose what, where, when, how and why you have give and take with everything in the world around you, and within you.

However, if you just randomly have give and take with everything and anything based on fleeting daydreams and shallow desires you will create chaos and pain in your life. There is a reason that young children are full of questions; they don’t want chaos, they want to make sense of life. There is a reason that you and every other human being have questions that need to be answered before you feel comfortable making decisions. You are meant to choose wisely and the choice is meant to be centered on your higher purpose.

The beginning point of quality give and take action is knowing yourself, knowing your value, knowing what motivates you, and feeling connected to a higher purpose for your life. You don’t need to know exactly how things are going to play out, that would make life boring. You don’t even need to have all the answers before you make choices. The point is to keep selectively choosing to have give and take with the world and people around you in a way that will fulfill the hopes and dreams of your higher mind, your purest ambitions.

Practice makes perfect

If you were to asked God that one question about what would help you to live a great life, this might be the answer that you would receive: “Practice the art of selective give and take Man on the top of the mountainaction centered on your higher mind.”

Life will throw all kinds of stuff at you from many different directions, but you are the only one who can decide how to deal with it all because you are the creator of your own lifestyle. You may as well figure out how to be a great co-creator.

Here are some steps that might help you practice this most important teaching:

  1. Pray or meditate every day to connect your higher mind to the source of love and goodness. Do it anyway you want, whatever works for you.
  2. Learn about your personality, motivation and capabilities and form a vision of what you might like to accomplish in life. This happens very quickly for some people and takes a long time for others, so don’t give up. Just keep working with what you know, and seeking clarification of your inner calling.
  3. As you get in touch with the things that are important to you, start making both long term and short term goals that you can realistically work toward.
  4. Continuously narrow down the things and people you have give and take with by asking yourself this question: Is this give and take valuable, is it helping me move toward achieving my life goals and purpose?
  5. Focus on becoming really good at something that’s valuable to you and benefits others as well.
  6. Focus on relationships that are supportive, where you can give and receive
  7. Don’t thoughtlessly fill your life up with things, people and activities you think you want or need, stay centered internally and selective externally.
  8. Your internal vision, focus and goals can change as you learn and grow – the important thing is to stay internally focused and faithfully work toward your goals by selectively choosing what, where, when, how and why you have give and take action.
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this:
Visit Us On FacebookVisit Us On TwitterVisit Us On YoutubeVisit Us On PinterestVisit Us On Instagram