It is easy to be kind when someone is in need, to lend a hand to the sick, to help a friend who is going through a crisis. Have you ever stopped to help someone you didn’t know? During the tragedy at the World Trade Centers people were more than kind to each other. It seems that kindness is very much linked to fulfilling a need from another person or to help in time of tragedies. I think kindness is definitely linked to compassion. When we feel compassion for others, it stirs us to be of assistance. Again, here we go. Compassion is usually designated for those who need us physically or emotionally. We feel compassion for those who are hurting.

I think kindness is even more than this, and I am working on discovering it for my own life. Kindness is a state of being. It is a way of experiencing life. A kind nature is definitely necessary if our world is to take a turn right now. We suffer economically. We suffer environmentally. We suffer in violent conflict. We are definitely living in a time of extremes, and kindness might just be the answer.

I have been thinking about kindness in regards to acceptance of others. I am trying to understand others from where they are instead of thinking I might be better than them because I know more or I am more highly elevated in some way. What if we looked at everyone as ourselves? Last night, we watched the movie “The Way of the Peaceful Warrior,” based on the book by Dan Millman. There were many of my favorite moments, but there was one that stands out in regards to what I am working on understanding about kindness. At a crucial and competitive moment, Dan Millman listens to a fellow teammate talk about his feelings regarding winning. Dan has been through it all and he is able to, in that moment, understand that he at one time experienced the exact same feelings as his teammate. He sees himself in the other person. He doesn’t feel better than. He doesn’t want to condemn. He just understands and offers his assistance from that place, even if that assistance is just to listen and not say anything.

Kindness is a state of being and it is linked to acceptance and the law of allowing. In the microcosm of the macrocosm, we spend far to much time talking about what others should be doing. We talk about how we can do it better. We condemn those who do not think the way we do. We elevate ourselves when really everything is a reflection of our own consciousness.

In the practice of Dr. Hew Len’s Ho’oponopono, he teaches that everything that happens in the world is a mirror of our own consciousness. When we clear our consciousness, there is a shift in the world. It makes total sense to me, and now this connection in the field energy is being proven scientifically.

If kindness is allowing and acceptance, do we need to wait until a need shows up to be kind? Can we instead reveal a state of being of kindness? This doesn’t mean that we condone those who hurt others or allow a Holocaust to happen. I’m talking about a mental and emotional attitude that allows us to assist without condemnation or to take on the idea practiced by the Master Jesus, “Father forgive them, for they no not what they do.” It is just pure love and compassion not matter what.

Kindness can be practiced when dealing with family members who don’t think the way we do. Kindness can be practiced when someone hurts us financially. Kindness can also be practiced when someone else succeeds where we feel like we failed. Kindness is a state of being that can be brought into every experience. I think the world will be better for it, and that we will see energies shift and change. If we can be for each other and against nothing, if we can assist without condemnation, if we can realize we live in unity no matter who we are, if we can love instead of judge, well, I believe we will turn these times of extremes in the opposite direction and begin to heal ourselves and our planet.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita