The Supreme Gift Read Free

despicable of all human feelings.
    Envy is always waiting to destroy everything that other people do, even if they do it better than we do.
    And the only way to escape envy is to focus all your energies on Love.
    Instead of envying, we should admire the large, rich, generous soul that does not envy.

 
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    And having learned all that, we must learn something else: humility . Place a seal on your lips and forget your patience, your kindness, your generosity. Once Love has entered your life and done its beautiful work, sit quietly and say nothing about it.
    Love hides even from itself.
    Love avoids even self-satisfaction.
    Love does not boast; it is not arrogant.

 
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    The fifth ingredient is something that might seem strange and pointless in this rainbow of Love: courtesy . This is Love among people, Love in society. A lot of people say that courtesy is a superfluous feeling.
    Not true. Courtesy is Love in little things.
    ‘Love is not rude.’ You might be the shyest person in the world, the least well prepared for dealing with others, but if you have a reservoir of Love in your heart, you will always behave correctly.
    Carlyle said of Robert Burns that there was no truer gentleman in Europe than the ploughman poet, because he loved everything – the mouse, the daisy, and all God’s creatures great and small. This meant that Burns could speak to anyone, and visit courts and palaces from his own modest little cottage.
    Do you know the meaning of the word ‘gentleman’? It means someone who does things gently. That is the whole art and mystery of Love.
    Someone who has Love in his heart cannot act in an ungentlemanly manner, whereas the false gentleman, who is merely a snob, is a prisoner of his feelings and cannot love.
    ‘Love is not rude.’

 
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    Unselfishness . ‘Love does not insist on its own way.’
    Love does not even seek what is hers by right.
    In England, as in many other countries, men struggle – and justly so – for their rights. But there are certain moments when we can give up those rights.
    Paul, however, does not demand this of us, because he knows that Love is something so profound that no one who loves does so thinking of a reward.
    One loves because Love is the Greatest Gift, not because it gives us something in return.
    It isn’t hard to give up our rights; after all, they are outside us, bound up in our relationship with society. What is hard is to give up ourselves. It is still harder to seek nothing for ourselves at all.
    Generally speaking, in seeking, buying, winning and deserving those things, we have had the best of them already, and we can, in a noble gesture, forego any reward. But I am talking about not seeking at all.
    Id opus est . That is the task. Love is sufficient unto itself.
    ‘And do you seek great things for yourself?’ asks the prophet. ‘Seek them not.’ Why? Because there is no greatness in things. Things cannot be great. The only greatness is unselfish Love.
    I know that it is hard to give up a reward, but it is much harder to seek no reward at all.
    No, I shouldn’t say that. Nothing is too difficult for Love. I believe that the burden of Love is light. The ‘burden’ is merely Love’s way of living. And I am sure that it is also the easiest way to live, because the Love that seeks no reward can fill every minute of existence with its light.
    The lesson to be found in all spiritual teachings is that there is no happiness in having and getting, only in giving.
    I repeat: There is no happiness in having and getting, only in giving.
    Almost everyone nowadays is on the wrong track in their pursuit of happiness. They think a great deal about having and receiving, about outward show and success and being served by others. That is what most people call fulfillment.
    True fulfillment, though, lies in giving and serving. ‘Whoever would be first among you,’ said Christ, ‘must be the slave of all.’ He that would be happy should place Love