This world is erected upon the principle of reciprocity. Neither a drop of kindness nor a speck of evil will remain unreciprocated. Fear not the plots, deceptions or tricks of other people. If someone is setting a trap remember so is God. He is the biggest plotter. Not even a leaf sits outside of God’s knowledge. Simply and fully believe in that. Whatever God does He does beautifully.
The law of reciprocity states that what is given comes back again. The energy of the whole is preserved, all that happens are transformations of the form which energy takes on. This is what we have learned from the physicists. All there is are processes in which one form of energy transmutes into another, and the amount of the whole stays the same all the time. All existing things give away from what they have and receive back from the others, and the sum of all these actions do not change by this.
How are these matters among humans? Here we have immensely numerous levels for exchange, starting from breathing the shared air on to all the social and economical processes up to ethereal and subtle realms. A detailed consideration on all these structures and their innate logics is of course not possible in this framework.
As we have the inclination to reduce complexities in order to make the world more manageable, esoteric simplifications of reciprocity become quite popular like the law of attraction which says that we attract what we send out („The Secret“). We should be aware when dealing with such concepts not to become paranoid in the sense that we just have to transmit our wishes in the right way and the universe has to serve us accordingly. We just have to align our energy with the great whole and then we will get everything we dream of. When we fail, it is our fault as we have not applied the appropriate methods consistently enough.
This is the track of the materialistic consciousness, which believes that we just have to invent suitable procedures to govern the world and then all our wishes will be fulfilled. We can make gold from straw and increase our wealth more and more and more. This is the fairy tale of the capitalist, and esoteric prophets like to copy such fantasies.
In my opinion, esoteric can be distinguished from spirituality as the former does not make a clear and radical distinction from manipulation and strengthening of the ego. Many esoteric insights are targets of marketing and selling for the purpose of the individual improvement of life and self enhancement. Spiritual insights have no profit, but in the best case reach a person and touch her, so that inside of her a change arises and the world becomes new. When we meet wisdom which attracts and grasps us, we can pay our attention to what enlarges inside of us: Our loving heart or our greedy belly.
How could we use the concept of reciprocity for our practical life? Here I will try to take a closer look at the area of giving and receiving. Starting from the image of an egomaniac we believe about ourselves that we prefer taking over giving. So we know a lot of rules which should ease our giving: Give and so you will be given. What you want to receive, give in the first place. Giving is more blessed than taking etc. Following these rules is not always easy as it goes against our self-will.
Yet the insight they contain says that we have the chance to change the course of affairs in a direction which serves life or in another direction which diminishes it. We can widen the area of love or reduce it. Again and again we can find anchor points in our own history, basically in any moment. Anchor points are those, in which something new wants to start. By setting an anchor point consciously, we stop to go on spinning the old threads and start to give: We give a new direction to life which opens and frees. We stop to take by using old patterns for our purposes in a rut. Instead, we jump over our shadow.
For all that has been used up and become comfortable, all we cling to as soon as it is over, becomes part of the shadow area. However, following the courage to try new trails in giving from a deep inner source of creativity, enriching and beautifying life, then we move out of the shadow towards the sun, towards the light.
What we receive back from this giving, we feel right in that moment where we accomplish the new: A simple, yet clear feeling of joy and fulfillment arises. This is the immediate gratification for our friendliness and kindness towards life.
So life offers us immediate recognition as soon as we have given selflessly and altruistically. Thus the reciprocal equilibrium is created straight away and does not need further compensation. The cycle is closed in the act of giving and in the momentary feedback of life.
Yet we tend to move on and open the next cycle by overlooking the gratification we just have been offered. Instead, we expect, claim or wish another form of getting as soon as we have given. When I give A, I expect to receive B. By this, I narrow down the world to B, only B can satisfy me; although I get C, I am disappointed (except when C is an augmentation of B, which can help me over my disappointment, when I get an invitation to a dinner instead to a drink for have given a service to someone). In any case I act as if the world, which is usually the other people, should know exactly what I need to regain my reciprocal balance.
In many areas reality works approximately like that – I take a good and give the money printed on the label in return. The economical = materialistic consciousness has furnished the world in a way that possibly every object and every action has a distinct numeric value a quantification, which indicates the appropriate equivalent.
This is the origin of the following idea: I produce, by this I give value, e.g. cake, and for this I want a certain value back, e.g. money. It was exactly this connection which Karl Marx termed as alienation. For our theme this means that we alienate ourselves from our actions, when we subject it to quantification. Then it is no longer our unique contribution to the world but a product which is obeying the logic of the world of wares. One of the consequences of this form of reciprocity is that not only the results of human labor are reified but even more that these things get quantified, which means turned into numeric values. Eventually there are only numbers in the internal world of the capitalistic man, and his or her mood runs parallel to the rise and fall of the numbers in the account or stock markets.
So should we no more charge money for anything? A society which works without money and is still able to regulate a highly complex system of exchange of goods and services has not been invented so far. Up to then, we have to live with the current system and handle its shortcomings. When we act consciously within the economical processes of a capitalistic world, we can keep the human dimension of these processes of exchange alive at the same time. We can become aware of the human investment in every object we buy, and also that everyone who sells this object to us, is a person who gives. It is up to us and our awareness, whether we hand our power over to the capitalistic system or to humanity and kindness by taking every form of giving and receiving as a spiritual practice. Then we avoid the pitfalls which have been installed in the elaborate world of wares and consumers with its reified enticements on every corner.
The rules are taken from Elif Shafak's novel “The Forty Rules of Love” (Viking 2010). They are inspired by the Sufi tradition and worded by the autor's imagination. www.elifshafak.com
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