To Light One Candle

Author(s): Pramoda Chitrabhanu
Publisher: East West Unity Press Ananda Ashram New York

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I
MAITRĪ OR METTĀ
A Feeling of Lovingkindness toward All Living Beings
Maitrī, also known as metta, is a feeling of friendly connectedness with all beings. When we observe even the tiniest creature struggling to avoid pain and death and to find a source of happiness, it dawns on us that life force is one and the same in all, even though our bodily forms are different.
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The more we glimpse this insight, the more we synchronize and suffuse our thoughts, words, and actions with lovingkindness and magnanimity. This represents a turning point in our spiritual evolution and a choice to cause pain to any being and to care deeply for all of life. This means that we will stop adding negative fuel to the karmic wheel which otherwise would keep on spinning painful effects from our past unwholesome actions into our present, and from our present into our future.
When we come to respect everyone as a precious life, as a potential light unto the world, as a friend, we experience maitrī. A feeling of kinship with all life sprouts in our cells, and we become buoyant, cheerful and happy. In this generous mood, acceptance of ourselves and others grows deeper, and it becomes second nature for us to spread a fragrance of friendliness wherever we go.
Metta, the Pali word used by Buddhists for lovingkindness, is equivalent to maitrī, the Sanskrit word used by Hindus and Jains.
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