A master carpenter who had worked for the same builder for nearly 50 years announced he was retiring. The builder told him how much he appreciated his work and presented him with a $5,000 bonus. Then he asked if he would build just one more house. He owned a magnificent lot with a spectacular view and wanted to build a dream home there.

The carpenter was bitterly disappointed at the small bonus and extra project, but the building fee would help him buy a small cottage. He agreed to build the dream house.

He had always prided himself on his uncompromising commitment to quality, but his resentment caused him to cut corners, ignore details, and accept shoddy workmanship from his workers. He even looked the other way when some of them substituted cheaper materials and pocketed the difference.

When the house was finished, the builder shook the carpenter’s hand and with a huge smile gave him a thank-you card. The carpenter was disdainful — until he saw inside the card the deed to the house he’d just built. The carpenter was ashamed to have misjudged his old friend and betrayed his own values, and he was remorseful the house he would now live in for the rest of his life had been made so carelessly.

Every choice we make – every shortcut, half-hearted effort, or every act of integrity – is a board laid, a nail driven, or a wall erected. Eventually, we must live in the “house” of character and consequences we have constructed through our daily living.

The Illusion of Survival vs. The Freedom of the Soul
We rely on a bogus methodology for “happiness” and a shallow definition of “prosperity” that simply perpetuates a completely soulless formula. We have become creatures who have lost all sense of spiritual presence. Consequently, we live trapped in the heavy rigors of the body and mind, operating strictly through a logic and reasoning where doubt and fear thrive. This is a deeply compromised state of existence that is dictated entirely by genetics, reducing our daily lives to the repetitive habits of ego, pride, and vanity.

Nobody wants to hear this. Most humans cannot comprehend anything beyond the logic and reasoning of their genetic dispositions. They just want a “formula”—a checklist to attach their thoughts and emotions to—hoping that through some metaphysical hocus-pocus, they will get “positive” results in this world. This superficial attitude completely undermines the authentic meaning of living, which exists for the sake of a mercy that reveals and attains to the state of the Soul.

Yet, they never realize how utterly gift-less—how thankless—they truly are, simply because they have no active sense of a Soul to give from. When a person finally attains to the Soul, they discover the authentic gift within their giving, and they realize what life is actually about. Authentic living is about offering the very meaning of this lifetime as the gift itself. If the true spirit of the gift is not present in my giving to you, then the act is reduced to mere sentimentality, cold logic, or the self-righteous attachment of believing we have done what is “right” or “fair” out of pity.

The Traps of “Rightness” and Rationalization
Over the years, I have had many a “gift” offered to Aspire out of a sense of obligation—because it was deemed the “right” thing to do. Those offerings carried little to no actual gift within them. On the other hand, I have seen far more people choose not to give to Aspire based on the exact same formula, convincing themselves it was “right” to withhold. People will tell me they must do what is “right” for themselves first, which is usually a convenient way of believing they cannot afford to give. Yet, these very same individuals will readily spend money on trips, objects, and luxuries—things designed to help them forget the kind of person they have become through maintaining an unforgiving human heart.

These individuals—who represent the vast majority of people in this world—simply have no inner realization of what mercy means. True mercy born of total forgiveness completely eludes them. As a result, they are reduced to living from the fickle whims of the human heart, which serves only pity and sentimentality.

How you have given throughout your lifetime reveals whether or not you have realized and attained to the Soul. When the Soul is present in what we do, the act naturally expands far beyond the tight confines of human logic and the reasoning of our fearful psychology.

The Double Bind of Human Fear
Most people live caught in a profound double bind of their own making. They are bound by the morals of the body, which are fundamentally predicated on the fear of survival. One part of the human being desperately wants to be free of fear, while the other part actively seeks shelter within it. This is the agonizing double bind that torments us in our daily lives, allowing us to willfully live from and within our own rationalized evils.

When you finally attain to the Soul, this entire genetic convolution is recognized for what it truly is: the deep-seated ignorance that urges us to move against the absolute Laws of Life. In that realization, we discover we have the freedom to become a direct product of the Love that is our very essence. But to attain the “gift” that must be the foundation of all our giving, we must first be capable of comprehending what “meaning” actually is within our lifetime.

I have had countless people come to me—and they still do—claiming they want to find meaning in their lives. But the moment they are called upon to comprehend the totality of Life itself, its sacred order, and its true meaning, they collapse back into the double bind of their own emotional hysteria. They lack spiritual acumen because they choose to live from fear rather than mercy. Due to sheer pride, these people cannot—and more importantly, will not—comprehend anything beyond the logic and reasoning of their genetic fears for survival.

Please know, with every ounce of whatever drives you in this world, that it is only by realizing the immense significance of forgiveness—which is the absolute essence of all authentic giving—that we ever come to the Light of Love.

The Unconditional Law of the Heart
When we choose to forgive, we become authentic. We finally free ourselves from the painful need for humiliation as the only way to shatter the ego and experience the raw truth of Love.

True transformation requires patience and a consistent, conscious restraint of the ego’s pride. It means we stop demanding that an external situation change just to satisfy our inherited, genetic ideals of right and wrong. Instead, we must simply remain willing to become a source of giving, operating entirely through the tone and temperament of the spiritual Heart.

By anchoring ourselves in this state of being, we set into motion one of the absolute Laws of this earthly realm: As you give, so shall you receive. Both the Buddha and Jesus illuminated this as the most insightful of all insights—a truth that a person can only fully realize when the mind is no longer held captive by the illusions of “gain and loss.”

It is here that our whole life takes a turn for the sake of Love.