Openness: Inspiration for the Week
Openness can be a great virtue, but only when it is exercised with discrimination. To be open to wrong ideas, or to people who would harm you, would be foolish. For it is not with openness that error can be conquered, but with love. Openness of mind is a virtue when it is centered in the desire for the truth. Openness of heart is a virtue when it is centered in love for God. Both mind and heart, however, need filters to screen out what is not true, and what is not of God. This we can do by referring back for approval to the divine presence within whatever comes to us. We must be ever open to truth and to God, but ever closed, or at least indifferent, to error and delusion.
Affirmation
My mind is open to the truth, whatever its source. True statements remain valid, even if hurled in anger.
Prayer
Divine Mother, let me hear Thy melodies everywhere: in the laughing brooks, in the songs of nightingales-yes, even in the roar of city traffic! Behind all earthly sounds, let me listen for Thy voice alone.
(Swami Kriyananda, "Affirmations for Self-Healing")
