This self improvement article about spirituality is appealing for those interested about this topic


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Self-gratification is not bad; it depends on the amount we pursue and the results of pursuing it. Some of our self-gratification can result in benefit. For example, someone might be extremely interested in art; he loves to paint and has spent the last ten years locked up in his room, eating one piece of bread a day and painting, at the expense of his health and friends. He doesn't have anything else. Then, suddenly, he might connect with an organisation that asks him to paint for them. His paintings might become a huge success and raise a lot of money for a good cause such as research for curing cancer. That is wonderful.

But if we are stuck on a self-gratifying activity and we do it just for ourselves, it takes time away from everything and anything that is important.

It is not just Dharma and I am not just talking about going to the Dharma centre. People in every country around the world have their own little hang-ups about what is important; and individually, everyone has his idea or perception of what should be done.

In Tibetan culture, it is to work part-time for the Dharma, to sincerely donate your time and energy to the Dharma, so that your Gurus, the temple and the Dharma can spread with less hindrance and less problems. You don't burden them but you help in taking away the burden. In Chinese society, it might be filial devotion, to take care of your parents. (But you don't go all the way - you don't sit there for the rest of your life
and not do anything else because you're taking care of your parents. You do it with logic.)

Everyone has his own culture and no one can say one is good or bad because the bottom line is whether we are focusing on what is important or focusing on ourselves. That is the bottom line. That is why there is no argument about what is important in different cultures and in our minds for bringing out our Divinity. All these methods are just vehicles for bringing out our Divinity. It is not the actual action.

In ancient societies and old cultures like the Tibetan, Indian, Japanese or Chinese cultures, our promise and word of honour - or samaya - is extremely important. It makes us human or not. It makes us honorable or not. Whatever and whomever we are committed to - whether our Guru is big or small - we remember what we have promised and we do it. That is very precious. If you were to break your promise in ancient Japanese culture, you cut your finger off. It is as simple as that. They don't make you do it, but you have to give something back. There is retribution and it shows who you are.

It is very bad when we lose this honour or this statement of who we are because we are suppressing our Divinity. It is us saying, "It doesn't matter how you feel, it is important how I feel. I don't care about you." That is the unspoken message we are giving when we don't do what we are supposed to do, whatever society we are in. People who live like this go further and further down. As the years advance, their reputation, their happiness, what they want and what they pursue will go down, down, down because they are only going after things that suppress the Divine - Buddha nature, God, Paradise, Heaven, or whatever we want to label it.

Tsem Tulku