We have the maxim, "It is better to give than to receive.
" To a certain extent, this is quite true and a good maxim to live by.
To be the giver means you are blessed and you are in the position to share your blessings with those who have less in life.
Carried to the extreme, however, the maxim can create a negative situation in that it de-emphasizes the fact that receiving is actually an equally virtuous act as the act of giving.
Think about it.
If we follow strictly to the letter that we ought to be giving only, who will be the recipients of our acts of generosity and charity? If everyone takes to the heart that only the act of giving is virtuous, who will ever assume the role of recipients unless they are forced by circumstances to play the role? I know of very generous people who are quite open to sharing what they have to others but who cringe in discomfort when they are in the receiving end.
Being in the receiving end appears to be demeaning for some and it is not unusual for them to invent excuses to dodge playing the role of receivers.
If you think you do not belong to this category and have never refused to play the receiver's role, think of those times when someone offered you food and you said you were full when in fact you have not eaten yet.
Or someone offered you a free ride and you insisted on paying your own fare.
I am not about to say that we ought to be leeches and always take advantage of the generosity of others.
I am only driving home the point that just as giving is important, so is receiving also important.
In fact, if you consider the act of giving as a form of spiritual practice, so should receiving be also a form of spiritual practice.
When you play the role of a receiver, you are exercising a sense of humility.
You symbolically or literally acknowledge through that act your sense of limitation and the fact that others can pitch in to fill in the gaps for you in your needs.
For even that brief moment when you received something, you had set aside that sense of pride of being somebody who was totally independent and could fully take care of himself.
On the other hand, by agreeing to receive, you are also giving the opportunity to the giver to practice true generosity and kindness, provided the act had no internal motive of gain.
You are allowing the creation of good karma that, for all you know, is something the giver very much needs to advance further in his evolutionary path.
You can never know how far reaching your act might have has spiritually benefited the person; something that would have not been possible had you declined to receive what was being offered to you.
In Christianity the basic relationship between God and man is in fact defined by that relationship of the giver and the receiver.
God gives and man receives.
The Son of God offered a sacrifice and the greatest response expected from man is simply to accept or receive the grace from that sacrificial act.
The act of receiving is, ultimately, the empowering act that enables one to give in return.
Learn to receive so that in the end, you can also give.