The Season of Giving
Dear All,
There is no other period that has become as symbolic and visually recognizable worldwide for gift giving as the holiday season, for many people growing up in the West of the world the myriad shining gifts under a colorfully decorated Christmas tree are synonymous with the time of the year. Now that these festive days are approaching and we will all be pondering "what to give?" I want to explore this question more deeply. If this is a season of gift-giving? So what are our gifts? Or what do we really have to give? It is a question that requires careful consideration, but the answer goes beyond the many wish lists submitted by your family or the countless carefully designed marketing campaigns that entice you to buy their products. At its core, it is a question that taps into your unique role in the world.
Everything that lives and grows fulfils a unique role in its existence, in which, as part of the whole, it makes a unique contribution to the harmony in which everything comes together. Not only each individual being but also each species of life has a unique way of contributing in which it fulfils its potential for the benefit of the whole. Everything that lives and grows has in its becoming an "understanding" of its place in the world, this is an innate "knowing" about its place within the community in which it comes to Earth. For example, if we look at a butterfly, we see how, as a young caterpillar, it is already destined to transform itself after stripping its cocoon into a new form, a new being, which the butterfly has always been from the moment it was a larva. Throughout the life of this creature, from the moment it is a larva to the moment it transforms into a butterfly, it has a unique and specific role that it fulfils in its particular environment. This unique "niche" is unique to each individual creature and dependent on its particular place in a particular environment. Just as a caterpillar is destined to become a butterfly and thereby occupy its unique place within the worldly community, so too is man destined to fulfil a purpose in this same worldly community.
“There’s so much more to who you are than you know right now. You are, indeed, something mysterious and someone magnificent. You hold within you — secreted for safekeeping in your heart — a great gift for this world. Although you might sometimes feel like a cog in a huge machine, that you don’t really matter in the great scheme of things, the truth is that you are fully eligible for a meaningful life, a mystical life, a life of the greatest fulfilment and service.”
Every human being yearns to experience during their time on Earth a sense of what it means to be human, to live a life of meaning. This applies to everyone, whether we are aware of it or not, everyone wishes that their life may be lived out in a meaningful sense. It is this search for meaning that, unfortunately, will never be met with fulfilment for most people. Particularly among the young group of the (Western) world population, there is a collective search for meaning and interpretation that, in its massive manifestation, has almost become systematic. The reason for this massive pilgrimage to meaning can be traced back to the moment when we seem to be leaving our childhood period and we increasingly must leave behind us the sense of wonder to rush towards the so-called “reality of life”. It is at this moment that another type of wonder emerges. Not the kind of childish wonder that is so present in the early stages of life, where there is a certain reverence for the wonder we find ourselves in, but a rational questioning of how we should organise our lives according to the expectations with which we are bombarded. This scourge is immensely evident, especially among the younger people where they move from education to education, different jobs or travel to a faraway land in the hope that this might provide them with a spark of this deeply held desire for true fulfilment. This inner search is often dismissed as just a youthful phase of life and the seriousness of the underlying cause is completely ignored. While it is true that people learn to relate to the world at a young age, it is not true that this search for meaning is preserved for young people. The search often arises in an earlier phase of life, but since people rarely discover their deeper potential and really learn to 'come home in the world', the search proves to be never-ending for most people and so this problem is relevant for the majority of people.
Our educational and media systems as well as the way we are brought up are currently arranged in such a way that it is in no way able to reach this deeper layer of humanity. While the potential of humans as a species as well as for each individual human being is very much “waiting” to be fulfilled, the way we understand this potential has moved away from the conversations that take place in modern culture. In modern culture we look at the potential of people within social frameworks of jobs and companies and talk about someone's ‘purpose’ or 'role' in life from a purely human-centered point of view in a human community. We are completely unaware of the fact that everything has a unique destination, a unique role to play within the entire worldly community. A large part of humanity therefore does not fulfil its unique role, but mainly fulfils the expectations of a role that manifests itself in a certain vocation. Often this is not in accordance with their true potential, their deeper calling in life, but the choice for a specific interpretation originates from necessity or it shapes their identity, a socially constructed self-image of who they 'think' they (have to) to be. From a natural point of view there is nothing quite like a social point of view, no one is destined to have a particular job or role in a particular human community, but like all other species is born to occupy a unique, specific place within the entire worldly community. The moment you find your true fulfilment and how you should step into your unique role as a co-inhabitant of the earth, then the social identification with what you previously thought of as 'vocation' or 'fulfilment' disappears. From that moment on, identification in the modern, socially accepted sense of the word disappears and we are guided to a transition in our human experience into an abstract, mystical experience with meaning and wonder. This is when it becomes clear to man in what way he/she can be of service to the greater community, not service from a societal point of view but from a unique fulfilment in relation to the worldly community. A relationship in which you give unconditionally, in which everything becomes an invitation to offer your unique gifts to the world. Not because you are obliged, not because there is money in return or because it is expected, but because you feel that this is deeply what you have to 'give' to the world. Because every human being has the innate right to offer their unique gift to the world.
“Whether they are raised in indigenous or modern culture, there are two things that people crave: the full realisation of their innate gifts, and to have these gifts approved, acknowledged, and confirmed. There are countless people in the West whose efforts are sadly wasted because they have no means of expressing their unique genius. In the psyches of such people there is an inner power and authority that fails to shine because the world around them is blind to it.”
In the long pilgrimage that awaits us towards a harmonious coexistence with this world, it is crucial that we produce a healthy culture in which there is an awareness that we have a unique role, a deeper potential to fulfil for the benefit of of the entire worldly community. All this starts with reverence, with awe of the world. When we can look at this world with love (or fall in love with the world again as the Dutch philosopher Matthijs Schouten says), when we can see the beauty in which it manifests itself, then we can feel connected again as part of and not as “a detached looking at the world” but as a “deeply felt integral part of the world”. From this sense of wonder we can start thinking about the ways in which we can contribute, but our first responsibility is the wonder and us falling in love again, to be in awe of the wonder of life and to love the world for the beauty in which it unfolds to us. Because, from being in love, the invitation to contribute to this naturally grows.
I want to ask you to reflect on what you have to give during the upcoming holidays? What are your unique gifts you have to give to the world? What is waiting in you to be fulfilled? How do you contribute to the world? To the Earth, to nature? This is not a question reserved for climate activists, dreamers or artists. No, this is a question that concerns us all. Everything and everyone has an interest in the answer to this question and everyone should answer this question for themselves. Especially during the holidays when the "gifts" are abundant and when we are together with the people we love, it is a good time to question the nature of 'giving' and 'gifts' in the context of our own lives and how that then relates to the bigger picture.
I wish you a wonderful time, enjoy the abundance and richness of this time, winter is a time when life deepens from within, when the roots of plants reach further and recover from what has gone before. Take advantage of this precious time and let's plant the seeds of change together.
In love and reverence, sven
