The title in itself may sound simple. You may say, “Surely, everybody knows how to give and to receive.”

Why waste any of my valuable time on something that is instinctive.”

 

Before you read much further you will find that it is not as simple as you may believe. The person who can give and receive gracefully and thankfully is rare indeed.

 

With your new-found strength and Power you can make these two important acts as natural to your everyday life as breathing and sleeping.

 

You must learn to give thanks to the Master for the gifts and for the assistance you are about to receive. The mere fact that you ask for assistance should be proof that the assistance actually exists. The very act by which you call upon the Master should be sufficient proof to you that the Master is. You must assume that the assistant that you ask for is already in your hands when you ask for it.

 

In your world there is no lack of anything that you need. If you feel the need of anything, that which you require exists. You would not have need of something that does not exist. If it exists it is at the disposal of the Master. Since you are one with the Master, all things are yours. Think it over carefully. Know that the world is yours for the taking.

 

Never hesitate to give thanks for the things you have received, are about to receive or for the things you hope to receive.

 

Many people look upon giving thanks as a sign of weakness. They feel that it puts them in the position of humbling themselves before another. They feel that by giving thanks they are making themselves inferior. They imagine that their taking and their thankfulness will make them appear smaller in the sight of the giver.

 

This is wrong.

 

If you think that way, change your thinking.

 

That which is given to you comes not through the grace of any one individual. It comes to you direct from the Master who is aware of your need. The giver is merely the instrument through which the Master is working.

 

You are doing the work of the Master by graciously accepting and by giving thanks for all His gifts, even before you know what the gifts may be.

 

You must be as willing to give freely as you are to accept.

 

You must learn to give freely of the things that you may hold, be they thoughts or material things.

 

By the giving of your material possessions you are doing the Master's work. Nothing that you have is really yours. You hold it temporarily through the grace and the bounty of the Master. You are the momentary custodian. It is only by giving the things you have to another that makes these things your own.

The only things we really own are those things which we can give to others.

 

This applies to all things, wealth, knowledge or Power.

 

The wealth that we give to others is the only wealth we ever keep. The giving brings to us the thankfulness of the receiver. It is this thankfulness that adds another star to our Crown. These are the treasures that we lay up for ourselves. Those are the treasures than no on can steal from us. These are the treasures that neither moth nor dust can corrupt. They are ours forever.

 

More and more of the wealth of the world come to us as we can demonstrate that we know how to use it wisely and to the glory of the Master.

 

Material wealth is merely another of the gifts of the Master. He gives it to us in abundance when He knows that we know how to use it.

 

Another form of giving that you should practice is the giving of good thoughts.

 

Maimonides, the famous Hebrew thinker, speaks of the charity of thought as being the greatest of the eight forms of charity.

 

By charity of thought you are taught to give your good thoughts to all. To the people you know, to those you do not know. For those that you do not know may know of your or you may get to know them at some later stage of your life. And since we are all brothers, creations of the one Master, it is only because of time and space that we kept from the intimate knowledge of all brothers.

 

Therefore think well of all the world and its people. Their virtues you will engrave on the tablets of memory, their faults you will write on the sands.

 

At all times send good thoughts out upon the thought waves that circle the earth. They may find a welcome in the heart of some deserving soul who is hungering for the good thought of another.

 

Do not blame others for their errors. Think kindly of them for they know not what they do.

 

Help them by giving them the assistance and the comfort of your thoughts, your kind thoughts, your helpful thoughts. For thoughts can help another just as thoughts have helped you in your progress to your Power-aim.

 

You must learn to accept gracefully anything that is given to you. You must learn that by accepting what is offered you are actually helping another person to attain his destiny.

 

This goes for material things as well as spiritual. As your learn to accept you likewise learn to give. The two are linked together by an unbreakable bond.

 

If you have erred, learn to accept gracefully the fruits of your errors. Do not argue over the justice of the case, for in the Master's eyes true justice is always meted out in its true degree.

 

Be quick with your thanks whether it be to a brother or to the Master.

 

Do not be self-conscious or permit a false pride to overcome you. Honest thanks is at once your greatest duty and your highest privilege.

 

You owe nothing to the giver or his generosity. Often the giver is indebted to you for accepting his bounty. You have done him a service by your acceptance.

 

And when you give, do not give with conditions or strings tied to your grit. Give freely, with the fulness of your heart and with the bounty of the Master.

 

And when you receive, accept with thankfulness in your heart. It was just another way in which the wishes of the Master have been manifested. You have been the instrument through which his will has been done.

 

When you give to others you are opening the way for more and greater blessings to be bestowed upon you. When you accept from others you are opening the channel through which greater and more permanent gifts may come to you.

 

Give with grace and freedom.

 

Accept with grace and thankfulness.

 

Do both with an open heart and know that it is the will of the Master.

 

Know that what you give is given through your own Power.

 

Know that what you accept comes to you to strengthen your own Power-aim.