Aspire Magazine: Inspiration for a Woman's Soul.(TM) Feb/Mar 2019 Aspire Magazine Full Issue | Page 35
It is not uncommon to think, “Once I take
care of myself and my family, then I’ll find a
way to contribute to others.” It’s true that it’s
a mistake to get so involved with serving the
world that we neglect our family and those
entrusted to our care. Yet without realizing
that all life is one interconnected whole, we
can spend our entire lifetime trying to provide
solely for our personal needs and wants and
those of our dear ones. It is endless.
The step we take into serving life comes
through the activity of grace itself. Life is
always aiming to support us, to bring about
the actualization of our innate potential. At
some point, we wake up beyond our little
corner of self-concern — our heart opens,
and compassion begins to flow like a river.
My daughter, who was our first born, broke
open my heart. The love I felt for her was
beyond anything I had ever experienced —
tenderness, caring, and grave responsibility
for this young life. Even though I was a very
young and inexperienced mother, certain
things are both soulful and instinctual. I
wanted her to live. I wanted her to be healthy,
happy, and free from suffering. I was so
grateful that, when she was hungry, I could
feed her. When she was sick, I could take
her to a doctor.
This is what happened to my heart: I took
what I was experiencing here, with this tiny,
beautiful little girl, and extended it there —
across the nation and across the world.
I
THE IMMUTABLE
SPIRITUAL LAW IS:
INDIVIDUAL PROSPERITY
CANNOT BE SEPARATED
FROM THE GOOD OF ALL.
SPIRITUAL LAW ALWAYS
RESTS ON WHOLENESS.
supply, meeting every real need on time and
in abundance. The immutable spiritual law
is: Individual prosperity cannot be separated
from the good of all. Spiritual law always
rests on wholeness.
felt every mother and every child on the earth
in my heart. I knew other mothers loved their
children just like I did mine, and I felt what
it would be like if you could not provide for
them. What if I had no food for this child?
What if she was suffering and I could not
help her? The feeling was so clear that I
knew I needed to act on it. I took a simple
step and volunteered for UNICEF, the United
Nations organization for supporting children
worldwide. It gave me a way that I could take
my heart here and apply it there.
Serving others became for me the first step
toward truly prospering, which has only
become richer and more soul-satisfying
over the years. Many of the important life
and professional skills I learned during my
time serving through UNICEF were what I
needed for my next step, when I turned to
the vocation of teaching Kriya Yoga. The
initial impetus of my heart to serve parents
and children over the years has blossomed,
at our meditation center, into our youth
spiritual education program as well as into
an educational nonprofit organization to
teach skills of nonviolence and mindfulness
to at-risk children in schools and mothers in
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