Takingness v. Givingness

The Unexpected Solution To Your Problems

We talk a lot about change here. Really, the core idea of any manifestation teaching is that you can change the circumstances of your life if you first change yourself. And so, we set off in search of different strategies and practices that can help us change our inner worlds slowly, day by day so that eventually, our outer worlds can change too.

This is a good and effective method of growth. Plus, a lot of tools are available here for our use — we can release, we can visualize, we can practice conscious living, etc. There’s really no end to the ways you can drive inner change.

But slow and steady progress isn’t the only method of growth available to us. There is a way to change your inner world entirely (and permanently) in almost the blink of an eye. And that’s what I’d like to discuss today — the fastest and most effective method of achieving spiritual growth.

Before we proceed any further, I’d like to say the following: though the method we’re about to go over is the fastest and most effective one we’ve ever covered together, it’s not necessarily the easiest. It won’t be difficult because it is fundamentally difficult or requires any immense time/money/energy investment; it’ll be difficult because you’ll find yourself incredibly averse and unwilling to do it.

It’s for that reason that this method serves not only as a strategy for growth but as a barometer of progress — at the point where you’re actually willing to engage with it, you’ll know you’ve already begun to make incredible progress.

But anyway, let’s get into it. And let’s begin with a question.

Have you ever, even one single time in your entire life, done something that was truly selfless? Meaning, have you ever acted with zero intention of personal gain, upkeep of reputation, acquisition of approval/control, etc.

Everyone’s immediate, gut instinct will be to answer this question, “Yes.” We all can point to instances in our lives where we acted with apparent selflessness. Maybe we allowed an old lady to cut us in line at the supermarket. Maybe we allowed our husband/wife to drag us to a movie that we had no interest in seeing. Maybe we sacrificed something that we really wanted so we could buy our kids something that they really wanted.

But again, even with all these potentially selfless experiences in mind, I ask you whether or not you’ve ever acted truly selflessly.

Here is a fact we have to constantly consider if we ever want to progress on the spiritual path:

The human being is a super sophisticated, perfectly optimized “taking machine.” Every bit of programming we have is designed with the express purpose of allowing us to effectively take both subtle and gross resources from others. We develop strength and intelligence so that we can outcompete each other on the battlefield and in the workplace. We create charismatic personas so we can win the approval and attraction of others. We learn to behave respectfully and responsibly not because we have any interest in being respectful or responsible but because we know that those characteristics will allow us to keep the disapproval of others at bay. Everything we do, we do for some form of personal gain.

Though you may know this intuitively, it can feel like an immense kick in the teeth when you realize that you may have never acted truly selflessly a single time in your entire life. That all your apparently good acts were just cleverly disguised strategies for winning yourself resources, approval, or control. You may even feel guilty as it’s revealed to you that you’ve acted selflessly once or twice but that everything else in your life was about personal gain.

Again, though, I want to remind you that selfishness is inherent to the human condition. Selflessness, despite the fact that it’s a highly regarded virtue, is totally foreign to us. It’s something that just doesn’t compute for the average person.

Here is why I bring this up:

If you can deny your human nature and begin giving to the people around you (and to the world) with no intention of personal gain, you will be catapulted to the top state immediately. At the point where you can give instead of take 100% of time, there’s nothing left for you to do. You’re there.

You can make that commitment right now, before even finishing this essay, and that’ll be that.

This is difficult to believe, but if you break things down, it actually makes complete sense.

We constantly hear how we have to let go of our egos or how the “separate self” is the root of all our suffering. All we have to ask ourselves, then, is where the ego or separate self “is” (where does it exist) when we’re not working with the intention of personal gain?

When you go out and do something kind for another person with no hope of material or mental/emotional payment for that kind action, what happens to your ego?

It disappears.

When there’s no advocation for a personal self, there is no personal self. And that’s the great fallacy inherent to our taking-obsessed nature: We believe that we are or possess a personal self and, thus, that we advocate for that personal self. But really, the personal self is invented at the point where we start advocating for it. There is no ego until there is an intention to claim or take something to serve the ego.

If you don’t believe me, just do this simple exercise: Sit down, close your eyes, and think of someone you really, truly hate or dislike. Someone who has wronged you (or wronged others) so severely that your dislike of them is completely justified and rational.

Now, once you’ve done that, wish this terrible person the best. Hope for them that they can find happiness and fulfillment. Hope that they can let go of any pain and live the most productive and enlightened life they are capable of. Hope that they can make great strides on their own spiritual path and find endless peace and bliss.

Hope for all of this without for a single second considering what you have to gain from this hope. Do it not so you can feel like a good person but because you really want the best for the other. Hope not just for the other’s happiness but for their complete happiness. Hope not just that they have a great life but that they have the greatest life — even if that life might be greater than your own.

If you can do this (don’t beat yourself up if you can’t, as most people can’t on their first attempt) when you look back and analyze the experience, you’ll realize something strange happened — as you were hoping and imagining this person’s perfect life, it is almost as if you were imagining a world in which you didn’t exist. Not in a literal sense, but in the sense that you were so focused on the other that your personal self simply wasn’t present for the duration of the exercise. And, in effect, this is the same as the personal self not existing at all.

Selflessness leads to SELF-lessness. When you give fully instead of taking, your personal self disappears. Because, again, the personal self is invented fresh each time you begin advocating or taking on its behalf. If you don’t try and take anything, the ego is never born.

I refer to this as an “unexpected solution” in the subtitle of this essay because we are so attuned to viewing the world through the lens of personal gain that the value of selflessness becomes counterintuitive to us. We imagine a completely selfless life as one that sucks — we imagine ourselves living in a terrible studio apartment with no material possessions, no happiness, and with the unfortunate burden of having the whole entire world walk all over us (because, after all, the rest of the world will still be conditioned to take even when you commit to giving).

But that imagining is based on a crucially faulty belief: the belief that the ego or personal self persists even when you aren’t advocating on its behalf. That just isn’t the case, though. And because of this, selfless living is not only better for the rest of the world, but it’s better for you directly and immediately.

When you act selflessly, you cannot suffer. There will not be any self to suffer. This means that you can still experience joy, love, peace, and all the other things that are inherent to the true, non-personal self, but without any of the crappy stuff that the ego burdens you with.

And there’s actually another direct benefit to selflessness.

Givingness is a bottomless well inside of you. You can give love, wishes of goodwill, etc., in infinite amounts without the well ever running dry. No matter what is happening in your life or how other people are treating you, you can continue to give positively, and you will never feel exhausted by your givingness — you’ll feel energized and inspired by it.

Takingness is the exact opposite. We can only take from the world in finite amounts. And the things we do take, because they’re finite, have to be guarded and protected for all eternity, or else we might lose them.

This is why people spiral into negative states like anger, fear, and apathy. They’re suffering from a crisis of energy. Taking requires energy, and the things you take are like lumps of coal that only provide you with a little bit of finite energy before they’re worthless. So, the more you take, the more energy you waste, and if at any point you aren’t taking enough energy to maintain your function, you inevitably are forced to slip into a lower energy form of taking. At the end of this road you wind up in apathy — you have no energy to even go out and try and take anymore.

Givingness, on the flip side, is an infinite free energy generator. It requires no resources, and every ounce of energy it generates makes it produce more energy faster.

I want to finish up with two stories about givingness/takingness that I really love. (The first isn’t so much a story as it is a reference, but you get the idea)

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All throughout the Bible, we have references to the frequency with which Jesus went somewhere quiet and prayed. We’re told he’d wake up before sunrise and pray for hours and that sometimes he’d stay up all night praying, even after having spent the previous day healing people and doing miracles.

Whether you view the Bible as a literal retelling of historical events or as a story meant to be understood metaphorically, the lesson here remains the same.

Jesus was Jesus, and still, he spent more time than anyone else in the story praying for the world and for others.

This almost makes me laugh — you would think that if anyone would be justified in skipping prayer and just hanging out every once in a while, it’d be the purported son of God who is traveling the land, healing lepers, and walking on water. If any of us could do those things, and a person asked us why we were skipping prayer one morning, I think we’d tell them that we’d already done more than our fair share of helping out the world. “Hey, didn’t you see how I turned that water into wine? What else do you want from me? How about you go pray and let me relax for a minute.”

But Jesus kept praying. He kept giving. All he did was give, actually, and that’s kind of the point of the story. No amount of giving made him feel like he’d given enough.

This is just something to think about. Personally, I think about it all the time when things are going great in my life, and I have the thought, “Eh, what do I have to meditate/pray for today? Let me just enjoy things. Let me take just a teensy tiny little bit in return for my giving.”

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I once heard a student of Lester Levenson say that anytime a person would compliment or say something nice to him, Lester would pause and appear to disappear into his own head. They didn’t understand why this was the case until one day they realized…

Lester was checking to see if the compliment or nice comment was triggering any emotion in him. He was seeing if the praise made him feel good.

Even as someone in the top state who dedicated his entire life to helping others, Lester was so acutely aware of takingness that he refused to even “take” the slightest bit of approval or praise. If he found himself feeling good thanks to a nice comment, he’d immediately release on his urge to take the approval.

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Let’s all be a little more like Lester and Jesus today. Instead of trying to take from the world, concern yourself with giving and giving only. Give not so you can get, or even so you can feel good or generous for having given, but for the sake of givingness alone — give completely for the sake of the other. You’ll be much better off for it, and so will the world.

As always, good luck.