There are many people who are depressed and who do not know how to get out of this condition of depression. Many of them do not even know what the cause of their depression is. Some of them try this and that technique to get out of depression, like taking a vacation, performing physical and mental exercises, etc. Others turn to excessive smoking, drugs, alcohol or sex. Here and there a few commit the ultimate solution to their depression, suicide. Almost all people around these persons who are depressed do not know that they can lift the spirits of the latter through love. In this post I discuss how this can be done. When you become used to this way of helping others you may even detect on your own intuition, without others telling you, the people around you who suffer from depression. Then you can help them get out of this state through love, even if they are not aware of this.
Love Is Some Thing
When I asked my students before to define or describe love most of them said that love is a feeling. Because many know that feelings come and go, so also they think that love comes and goes, like smoke. In other words, most people think that love is ephemeral. It lasts as long as the feeling is there. When the feeling is gone, then love is also gone.
Most people do not realize that love is as real as the stone that they kick on their pathway, as real as the building they are in, as real as their hands and feet. The stone, the building, the hands and the feet are there whether you feel them or not. Love is like that. It is real. It is some thing. Its reality does not depend on our feeling.
Perhaps nobody has understood this so well as the writer to the First Letter of John in the christian Bible. In chapter 4 of this letter he states twice that God is love. Just as God is real and his reality does not depend on our feeling, so is love. In fact at the beginning of this Letter the writer affirms that he has heard this love, he has seen it, he has handled it. For him love is as real as the stone, as the building, as his hands and feet.
You Can Give Love
Because love is some thing, you can give it, just like you give food to your children, you give a paper to someone. The difference is that while the food and paper are visible, love is an invisible reality. It is invisible because nothing can contain it. It is so vast no container can hold it, it is so deep no measurement can fathom it, so high no rocket can reach it. It is in God himself, as the writer of that Letter we referred to above affirms.
Not the Object of a Wish or Good Will
When I say that you can give love I do not mean that you merely wish someone well and love will flow to that person. You can be a person who wishes well being to all but you may not be giving love at all. To give love to someone is to give God himself to that person. And here the most crucial part of the process is obvious. You cannot give God to someone if you yourself do not possess God, if you yourself have not heard of him, seen him, handled him.
But since it is also true that it is in God that we move and have our being, having God is not difficult. It is just a matter of realizing that in God we move and have our being.
Giving Love to Uplift People's Spirits
When we visit a sick person in the hospital we usually bring food or some other help, like cash, to help that sick person. What most people do not realize is that giving food, cash or some other visible thing to a person is not the same as giving love to that person. Giving love is completely different. It is giving ourselves to that person wrapped in the love which comes from God. A little explanation will make this clearer and enable us to give real love to other people to lift their spirits.
Experienced preachers know whether the words they are giving to their audience are received by the people listening or are bouncing back to them. Sincere lovers know whether the words they speak to each other find their way to the heart of their beloved or are just a waste of sound. A child can know whether he is really loved by the person holding him.
Persons can know whether we are giving them God or not. They can know because there is an upliftment that they experience when we give them God or love. We can wrap this love in the words we say, in the hand with which we touch them, or merely in the thought we project to them. But whatever way it is we can give them love and they feel elated and transported to a higher plane of reality.
An Example
I visit a person in the hospital who has been diagnosed by the doctor as someone with a severe and chronic depression. I come to him with nothing in my hands, no food, no flower, no cash. After some words of greeting and informal conversation I project to him the God who is in my heart. I focus on the unseen energy projecting from me to him, giving him God himself. We continue with our conversation. But as we do so a slight change occurs. The person now responds with greater voluntariness, he talks more about himself and his problems. Here I have used words to give love to him.
I project more energy from God to him, the energy which is God himself. I lay my hands on him. Soon the sick person smiles and begins to see light on his condition. This is the continuation of giving love to that person to uplift him. Sooner or later he will get well. This is the way of the touch.
As I leave him I still think of him and continue to project love to him in my thoughts. This is the way of thinking.
The three ways I suggest here are: 1) by our words; 2) by our touch; 3) by our thoughts.
There are others around us who are depressed but have not experienced so acute a depression that they think they have to be hospitalized. They too will be grateful to us if we give them this love of God so that they can be lifted out of themselves: by our words, by our touch, by our thoughts.
Click Here!
Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:
http://bit.ly/devspirit
for your spiritual growth
http://bit.ly/alternativehealth
for your health
http://bit.ly/novotrends
for learning about the new trends around us
http://bit.ly/bepaidonline
for earning some income from the Internet
Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.
Spiritual Retreats – How to Experience This Type of Awakening
During the Lenten season many people go into spiritual retreats. In our city, Cotabato City, Philippines, every year two radio stations do not broadcast their regular programs from Holy Thursday to Maundy Saturday because their staff go on a spiritual retreat. There are many other people who go on spiritual retreat during the Holy Week. But judging from the effect of these retreats in their life it seems that they do not experience spiritual awakening during these retreats. This is because they continue the same kind of life before and after these retreats. They may experience some kind of spiritual or religious high. But deep inside them nothing has really happened. This post discusses how you can make use of spiritual retreats so that you can experience a spiritual awakening.
Have a Specific Objective When You Go on Retreat
The first thing you need to do in order to experience spiritual awakening during a retreat is to have a specific objective as you go into this kind of activity. It does not matter whether you are herded into a retreat by your manager or human relations officer or you undertake this on your own, get a specific objective as you plan to make a retreat.
The objective does not have to be a big one, like changing your life for the better. This has been the general objective. But to get a better experience out of a retreat, have a specific objective. For example, you can put as your objective the making of a resolution not to smoke anymore. Or your objective can be the complete reading of one of the Gospels during the course of the retreat. Or it can be the resolution to be quiet at home. Whatever it is, make it specific.
Make the Retreat a Time for Talking with Your God
Secondly, as you proceed with the retreat determine that this will be a time for talking with your God, whoever or whatever you conceive him to be.
Usually a retreat has a series of talks by the retreat master or facilitator and reflections for the participants. Even during the talk of the retreat master discuss this over with your God. For example, while you are listening to the talk, you can say to your God, “Make me listen attentively to this talk so that I get some benefit from it.”
I say “your God” because each one of us have a different concept of God, even if we are all Christians or Muslims. The Buddhists do not have a specific concept of God as the Christians and Muslims do. The atheists or non-believers have actually a concept of God which they deny. You cannot deny nothing. There is some concept of God you deny. It is with this God that you talk things over during the retreat.
Then during the time for reflection, talk with your God about anything that comes to your mind. In this way you begin to contact powers beyond yourself, if you have not yet done so, and the retreat becomes an occasion of spiritual awakening for you.
Write a Record of Your Reflections
Thirdly, write a record of your reflections in a good notebook. I notice that many during the retreat do not write anything. They listen to the speaker and do the exercises they are led through like singing and doing posture exercises but they do not write.
Not to write your reflections means that you do not have a record of these and there is no easy way of bringing back these reflections to your mind later on. Whereas if you write them you can read them later and see how your life has progressed since the retreat. In this way you can see how your life has improved since then. And if you see no improvement, you can make the necessary adjustment to move forward again in the journey to eternity. In this way you can discover whether you have wakened up spiritually or not yet, or whether your spiritual horizons have broadened if you have already experienced spiritual awakening.
These are the ways to make use of retreats effectively so that you can be awakened spiritually: Have a specific objective, talk with your God throughout the retreat, write down your reflections. Good luck to your retreat!
Click Here!
Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:
Have a Specific Objective When You Go on Retreat
The first thing you need to do in order to experience spiritual awakening during a retreat is to have a specific objective as you go into this kind of activity. It does not matter whether you are herded into a retreat by your manager or human relations officer or you undertake this on your own, get a specific objective as you plan to make a retreat.
The objective does not have to be a big one, like changing your life for the better. This has been the general objective. But to get a better experience out of a retreat, have a specific objective. For example, you can put as your objective the making of a resolution not to smoke anymore. Or your objective can be the complete reading of one of the Gospels during the course of the retreat. Or it can be the resolution to be quiet at home. Whatever it is, make it specific.
Make the Retreat a Time for Talking with Your God
Secondly, as you proceed with the retreat determine that this will be a time for talking with your God, whoever or whatever you conceive him to be.
Usually a retreat has a series of talks by the retreat master or facilitator and reflections for the participants. Even during the talk of the retreat master discuss this over with your God. For example, while you are listening to the talk, you can say to your God, “Make me listen attentively to this talk so that I get some benefit from it.”
I say “your God” because each one of us have a different concept of God, even if we are all Christians or Muslims. The Buddhists do not have a specific concept of God as the Christians and Muslims do. The atheists or non-believers have actually a concept of God which they deny. You cannot deny nothing. There is some concept of God you deny. It is with this God that you talk things over during the retreat.
Then during the time for reflection, talk with your God about anything that comes to your mind. In this way you begin to contact powers beyond yourself, if you have not yet done so, and the retreat becomes an occasion of spiritual awakening for you.
Write a Record of Your Reflections
Thirdly, write a record of your reflections in a good notebook. I notice that many during the retreat do not write anything. They listen to the speaker and do the exercises they are led through like singing and doing posture exercises but they do not write.
Not to write your reflections means that you do not have a record of these and there is no easy way of bringing back these reflections to your mind later on. Whereas if you write them you can read them later and see how your life has progressed since the retreat. In this way you can see how your life has improved since then. And if you see no improvement, you can make the necessary adjustment to move forward again in the journey to eternity. In this way you can discover whether you have wakened up spiritually or not yet, or whether your spiritual horizons have broadened if you have already experienced spiritual awakening.
These are the ways to make use of retreats effectively so that you can be awakened spiritually: Have a specific objective, talk with your God throughout the retreat, write down your reflections. Good luck to your retreat!
Click Here!
Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:
for your spiritual growth
http://bit.ly/alternativehealth
for your health
for learning about the new trends around us
for earning some income from the Internet
Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.
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