Benjamin Teixeira de Aguiar
by the Spirit Eugênia-Aspásia
I know you have been facing great difficulties in realizing your ideal. However, no one told you it would be easy. If it were easy, it would not be called ideal: we would call it real. Obviously, it is important to be alert so that the deliriums of the ego do not stand between you and your life project, inflating it and embellishing it with futilities and swellings that do not correspond to your reincarnation program but, only, to the megalomaniac fantasies of personalism, thus diverting you, with dangerous seductions, from what in fact you must do.
Today, though, I will suggest you something very simple, which can really facilitate the attainment of your goals: help others to achieve theirs. I do not speak of making dreams come true only, in what concern those major goals that are difficult to achieve, just like yours. I refer to simple dreams such as going to the beach, when one is very poor and lives far from the coast; of holding a family Christmas party for children in need, who never have experienced the warmth of a loving home; a fraternal visit to an elderly person who has been abandoned by their unconscious family in a care home; a moment of friendly conversation with a complicated misanthrope, forgotten and despised by all.
Sometimes, we think that we are going to help with a lot, or that we could only do, for others and us, great gestures of faith and charity. And, often, it is in the small things that we find the dwelling of God. The Divine Providence lives in the details, in the little nuances of the way. It is also present, of course, in the unfolding of cyclopean events; but in such an intricate and profound way, for the human cognitive ability of today to interpret events, that, once again, only in the details of the unfoldment of events we will perceive It with clarity, since the greater finalities of the good, in often remote consequential facts, make it difficult to apprehend the whole. A good example of this was the Second World War, which brought a lot of advancements to humanity, in technological, scientific and moral progress, as a result of the herculean reactions and efforts of all peoples to the barbarity that constituted it. However, during the time of its occurrence, the vertigo of pain and despair was such that only the isolated gestures of solidarity, among the needy in the concentration camps or in the ruins left by the bombardments, is that one could see the living flame of hope and love.
Yes, friend, think in large measure, if you can, and, if in doing so, you favor a more beneficial demeanor in every way. But never forget the details. In the small things, we find the floor for the big things. In the insignificant, the foundation for the grandiose.
God does not want you to be a master of good, accomplishing colossal works of love for others. The Infinite Goodness wants you to start with yourself, by being kind to yourself, without demanding from you what you cannot yet give, and keeping yourself active in the solidarity of the small deeds: a smile, a handshake, an overflowing friendly gesture, an affection for all, in the desire to be useful, and in the continuous effort to improve yourself and make the groups you are part of more humane.
Now, let me finish by asking you to raise your eyes and think about what you can do for someone right now. What gesture of love can come out of your heart right now? In your genuine affection, in your sincere fraternal behavior, be sure that God will be pouring out into the world through you, infusing you with love and filling your pathways with happiness, improvising graces and wonders, where you never even thought to be possible.
(Text received on December 14, 2000.)
Difficulties in attaining the ideal
Difficulties in attaining the ideal
Difficulties in attaining the ideal