Thursday 23 October 2008

Providing Value To The World

How are you providing value to the world?

Like many people, your initial answer to this question will probably revolve around what you’re doing to provide value and to contribute towards the upliftment of the world… I write articles on spiritual development, I teach young children, I make environmentally-friendly products, I do voluntary charity work….

As Lightworkers, when we consider providing value to the world, we usually think in terms of doing things like the examples above. They all seem very clearly geared towards assisting others and bettering the world. The value of such activities seems obvious and direct.

What if the answer to the question is something like I meditate every day or I work as an administrative assistant?

Meditating could be seen as a selfish activity – on the face of it, it is not other-oriented. Working as an admin assistant could be seen as a job far removed from traditional Lightworker roles.

However, an argument could be made that meditating calms you down, and that interacting with others later in the day is always much better when you’re in a calm state than when you’re rushed, anxious and worried. Similarly, an argument could be made that dedicated and competent administrative assistants provide value to the companies for which they work by keeping them organised, efficient and effective.

Both of these arguments are true. Yet they only hint at the full extent to which these two activities can be utilised to provide profound value to the world. The key to this lies in your state of being while doing these activities.

This is easy to see when we look at an activity like meditation. Entering into an alpha state and allowing Source energy to flow freely not only has positive benefits for ourselves, but also for the world – this energy ripples out and affects others, even those with whom we don’t come into direct contact during the day. We may not see the immediate impact of our meditative activities beyond our own well-being and positive changes in our relationships with family and friends, but it is there. Research has demonstrated that crime rates and accidents decrease when even a small percentage of the population of an area meditates (the Maharishi Effect).

Okay, so it is easy to add value to the world by meditating. But what if you don’t have time to meditate because you have to get to work as an admin assistant every day? The same principles apply. Even though you may not be sitting in the lotus position chanting Om, you can still bring a meditative state to your work by practising mindfulness and presence. When you are being peace regardless of what activity you are doing, you can bring peace to the world.

I think we can get very caught up in only considering value from a superficial point of view, in the sense that, on the face of it, someone working in an anti-crime charity seems to be adding more value to the world than someone working as an administrative assistant, for example. When we look at things from an energy level, however, the picture may be very different – it is possible that the charity worker is vibrating with anger and fear, whereas the admin assistant may be vibrating with love and peace. The former will ironically be contributing to increasing the very ills that she is trying to work towards decreasing, whereas the latter will be far more effective at decreasing crime and promoting peace, even though that isn’t her official job description.

So… let me ask you again. How are you proving value to the world?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Mags,

Good point. And I appreciate you are honoring my previous corporate role. So many people think admins are cheap -- and it's true there are cheap incompetent admins --but I think it can be a great service provider role that support the whole company in great functional tune ^_^ I liked it a lot better than my teaching job.

And the scary thing is there are dark power in charities and other good cause organizations. They may be vegetarian, living healthy and humanly conscience lifestyle, sending 10% of their income to charities . . . while condemning those who are less than that. I just had a week of interaction with those souls -- glad it is coming to close.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this awesome post :-) It makes a lot of sense and I absolutely agree with you: what's important is not really what we do, but much more how and why we do it.

Your post was like a wake-up call for me. I'm being sad at the moment. When I read your post, I thought "Hell yes, what am I radiating right now? Certainly not Harmony, Peace and Joy!"

Much Love to you Mags :-)

Anonymous said...

Gosh, Akemi, sounds like you've had quite a week! It can be quite disheartening to interact with people who are vibrating at a very low level of consciousness, even though they are going through all the motions of a spiritual life.

I had forgotten that you used to be in an admin role! From my time in organisations I know just how important administrative staff are - much more important than they are sometimes given credit for!

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Rose, and much love back to you! (Plus many hugs to help ease your sadness). We all have down times, and at least when we are aware, we can lovingly bring ourselves out of them again to our natural harmonious state. Here's to generating hardcore harmony!

Anonymous said...

Hi,
Your website is fantastic. I love it!

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Tina!

Anonymous said...

I agree, and think a lot of people struggle with taking the needed time because they think it is selfish. I think it is self-full.

I nag people all the time to take time for themselves.

Just imagine the world we could live in if everyone was flowing with that positive energy? Beautiful!

Thanks for this.