The Cayce Reading of the Day
Quote of the day for Thursday , the 2 of August 2001.
Preferring Others
And in love show the preference for that companionship, in the little things that make the larger life the bigger and the better!
Reading 903-3
What do you prefer? That's the sort of choice we face each day in many little ways; for example, picking a flavor of ice cream or choosing which brand of soup to buy at the grocery store. Or selecting one channel over another when sitting down to watch the evening news.
But those are commonplace, mundane examples. Preference has a deeper meaning, too. It implies value - even love. What you prefer is that to which you give energy and attention. It's what you love, so to speak. Nowhere is this clearer than in the challenge to prefer someone else and his or her needs, even over your own.
Cayce's frequent advice was to show love by preferring the other. An ancient Jewish folk tale illustrates this wonderfully.
There were once two brothers who labored each day in a common field. Life wasn't easy for them, but they felt blessed to have a way to sustain themselves. The elder had never married, but the younger had a wife and three small children.
When autumn came and the harvest was brought in, they divided the fruits of their labors in half. It had always been their custom to divide the grain fifty-fifty. Each took his share to his own storage barn. Some of the grain would be sold and the money used for other necessities. The rest of the food would be slowly consumed in the months ahead.
But shortly after the grain had been divided this year, the older brother had trouble sleeping. Something didn't seem right to him about the method they were using. He thought to himself, "my brother has a wife and children. His needs are greater than mine. He should have gotten a bigger portion than I." So, in the middle of the night, he secretly carried sacks of his grain to his brother's home and left them outside behind the barn.
Somewhat later that same night, the younger brother also had trouble sleeping. He, too, felt that something wasn't right about the way the grain had been allocated. He reasoned, "My brother has no family. I have children who will care for me and for my wife when we are old, but he has none. A greater portion of the grain should go to him each year so that he can sell it and save the money for his old age." So the younger brother got up and, taking sacks of grain from inside his barn, he traveled secretively across the field and unloaded them behind his brother's barn.
The next morning each brother was surprised to find sacks of grain behind his respective barn. It seemed like a miracle. Each had given away some of his own portion during the night, only to find that some mysterious source, it seemed, had replaced it.
The following night both the elder and the younger brother repeated their deeds. Again, the morning brought amazement.
But on the third night, as both brothers continued their efforts to redivide the harvest, they happened to meet under the moonlit sky in the middle of their field. Then they realized what a miracle it had really been! Out of love, each had preferred the other over himself. Even though neither was any the richer with money or grain for these nightly trade-offs, both were profoundly enriched with love.
Mini-Motivator
Pick one person in your life with whom you have frequent interactions. Then for even just a single day try as often as possible to prefer him or her over yourself - that is, put that individual's needs before your own.