Transcription from Sunday Service on December 8th, 2019 by Rev. Beverly Toporowski.
If it’s magic, if it’s important, if it’s precious. Then It is important that I to tend to it. I love this song, which is so pure and simple. When I listen to this song, I can feel there are no choices to be made. There is only one choice. All the false choices and false needs just fall away. Such a beautiful reminder of what is truly real.
I chose the reading from NTI Matthew Chapter 13 because it spoke to me of the nature of the journey to awakening. It speaks about how we must tirelessly lay ourselves aside. Can I surrender my understanding or my perception, for what is real? There is absolutely no other choice. I love how the choice is so clear and simple. No 10 steps to understanding, just one. I love this simplicity.
All that I do, I do by choice. This does not seem apparent if I am not abiding in the Self. It would seem that outer influences are running everything, and that I am the victim of which direction the current is flowing. Sinking deep within the unaffected Self allows us to see the current, which is not the Self. If we understand this, we can choose. No matter how many times I get swept up, I can reorient myself through the Self. We are all vulnerable to the under-toe of illusion. I have seen myself setting up the most ridiculous routines in my life, causing myself stress, whether it’s the hoops that I have to jump through to get through my day, or the obstacle course that I set up around getting my kids ready for their day—so much happening, none of it necessary. ALL that I do, I do by choice. There is no exception. That was one, that I had to sit with. “ALL of it I do by choice?” I would ask myself. Then I think back to how, as my children are moving into adolescence, in my opinion, there is never more me projected into my experience than at this time in their lives. To quote myself exactly, “Put your retainer in you mouth”—thinking about all the money I spent. “put deodorant on!”—not wanting them to be alienated “Put a coat on, its cold today!”—as I beg my daughter to wear a coat in 40-degree weather. Or here’s a crazy one “If you don’t stop stretching the wire to your ear buds, you won’t be able to hear out of them!” –all obviously crises! Meanwhile, the false self is losing sleep! Empty threats flying! Not to mention that the “I am bad” belief makes it difficult hold any boundaries with consistency. There is never a more crazy-making time in a parent’s life (in my opinion) as when your children are coming into adolescence. It is the epitome of letting go. If there are levels to insanity, I think I hit them all! I really had to look at myself. I was reading some books about dealing with difficult scenarios with children. And there was some wisdom. It was called Natural Consequences—meaning let life be the teacher, of course barring anything that may cause harm. So—No head phones, no music; no coat, the cold is the teacher; no retainer, it’ll be what it will be. The beauty is that sometimes everything is fine and life is teaching me too. So, when you’ve done all you can do—”Chop wood, carry water”—then there’s Natural Consequences. The Zen saying is not “Chop, wood, carry water, and then get attached to the outcome”. To me, Natural Consequences is another way of saying that awareness knows what it is doing. I don’t have to control everything. So, YES! The answer to my question is, ALL that I do, I do by choice. And I can choose to leave the circus at any time.
What does it mean to lay myself aside? To me this means to lay aside that self that is affected. To lay aside that self to whom matter matters. The One who has the gripe or complaint, the one who is in terror, the one who feels loss or even, the one who is deeply satisfied by current circumstances. When I have not laid myself aside, it has been because I had a plan, or I feel that my idea of what is happening is true, or I feel that I know, and because I know, I have to carry out my insane plan, because not to, would be irresponsible, so my ego tells me. I have made many regrettable choices along this line of thinking. There is no understanding that can be had, unless I lay myself aside. No matter how complex I may think something is, the answer is right here. I need but clear the confusion to allow clarity to show itself. I am viewing life through a defective lens—and all my choices are made from this faulty perception. I remember when a family member was having some digestive issues, and it was beginning to worry me. Me, being a doctor was throwing everything at it, creating even more confusion. The course I was taking was logical, and well thought out, but apparently not what was needed. I then let it go. I let go of the outcome, my fear, all of it. I truly did lay myself aside—without expectation or motive. Then it came to me without effort as I was sleeping, something so simple that in all my thinking, had not occurred to me. And with its implementation, the illusion disappeared. I say illusion, because there was never a problem. “There is no one or no thing keeping us from our Self”. Sometimes surrender will look different though. NTI Luke 9 that I happened to be reading the other day says—You will not be healed by the following ways that make sense to you. Following what makes sense to you has brought you to the point of needing healing, and so it cannot be healing itself. So, It is not always about relief from the perceived problem, but freedom is the gift, regardless. What I sometimes hear is “stop seeking to fix your affairs. Inherent in this seeking is, more affairs to fix. It is not Truth you seek. You seek to save your world. You seek a temporary peace because you seek to solve the temporal. Therefore, the solution is temporal also.”
Then it says in NTI, “not everyone you meet will be ready to make the choice that you have made.” I have gotten hung up on this one, more times than I can count. I have thought that everybody needs to be aligned with what I am doing for things to work. I constantly have to remind myself that there is no other. I can see myself bucking against the current, needing things to be different before I set myself aside. To continue to have love and acceptance for what is, is most key. Loving and accepting what is, means no judgment. There are times when I can hear myself saying, “this is never going to work”—why would I say this? Because I think I know. My thoughts have already distracted me from my purpose. I have already assigned meaning to everything and everyone. Loving what is, is the alchemy that allows one to see clearly. If I give up my confusion, then confusion will cease, if I give up my fear, then fear will cease, if I give up my solutions, then problems will cease—because none of these things are real. But I am the only one that needs to lay myself aside. The temptation to have everyone get on board with what I am choosing, is a trap. There is only one choice and it is mine. The idea of needing to get involved in what others are choosing, just creates a confusion and complexity that does not exist.
It is my choice that must be guarded—my choice to lay myself aside. There is no other choice to be made. No matter how many times I may forget, the choice that I must make never changes. What I have found, though, is that the Ego tries to tell me that I am not worthy of even making the choice, because of the number of times that I have been distracted. The ego sometimes seems to almost make light of my journey due to its inconsistency at times, but these too are distractions. I cannot fall so far where surrender cannot return me immediately back to the Self. The choice must be made Now, again and again. The ego would say, “so just like that, you think you can just go back like nothing happened?” and I now say, “Yup!” with the confidence and knowledge that this is so, because NOTHING is ever happening. The more I remember to make this choice, the more the choice makes itself. I have found that when I am diligent with this practice, not only do I automatically start making the choice, but the distractions become more apparent and the return to Self occurs more quickly. It becomes hard not to remember. The self-floggings start to disappear too.
The wonderful thing is that the choice is all that is needed as NTI says. There is no effort past this one choice that is needed. A plant does what it does when you water it. If you remember to water it, it will grow. If you are not ready for the meal that has been prepared for you, then earnestly seek the bread crumb. The moment to moment choice that we make is the bread crumb.
The choice to release all thoughts that are not love is the task. I have noticed that the most innocent, seemingly harmless false thoughts, can gain momentum like a snowball rolling down a hill. All thoughts that are not love must not be allowed to linger and take root. What we look for we will find. I have looked at situations or people in my experience, and have allowed statements like “this is hopeless”,or, I’ve just had the negative sentiment of judgement without words. It’s like a silent agreement based on past memory or experience. The silent negative prophecy in my head. That person or experience that has not changed, and feels like a fixture in my life, is sometimes held in place by the very thoughts that I think I think privately. I judge with the usual ignorance that feels like truth. I trust the law of probability which is grounded in illusion. I use deductive reasoning, saying “well if it looks and quacks like a duck . . .then there you have it,” and these thoughts often go under the radar, unchecked. I realize I cannot release only some parts of the script. I have to release all the ways that I participate in this co-happening. All thoughts that are not love must go. Where am I putting my faith? The choice must be pure, untainted by these subtle outlier thoughts that go unseen, and make our choice unclear, muddling the Truth. I had the opportunity the other day, to lay myself aside, I was somewhat inflamed by the way a social worker in my office handled an elderly pt. There had been ongoing issues in the office regarding this social worker. I felt myself gearing up for a rant and I then made the only choice. I respectfully asked for what I needed for my patient from my office manager and then I put myself aside. I did not bad mouth the social worker but stated my patient’s needs. It was at that time I made the choice to put myself aside, but something also was taking over me like a silence. The silence was easy. I felt no sense of repression or tongue biting, but just the wisdom to stay silent and at peace. The rest truly was effortless. Something was happening without effort. There was the question of “What do you want?” which was followed by the one choice to set myself aside, knowing that I could not possibly answer that question from a place of will. It then became apparent that what I wanted was exactly what happened, Peace.
Sometimes, when I ask for help in setting myself aside and I receive it through guidance, I find myself looking at past choices that I have made, and the “I am bad” belief pops up out of nowhere. I may see the consequences of the choices I have been making, or see the damage or hurt I have caused through past choosing, and I get stuck in self-judgment. Though I am choosing a new path, there needs to be vigilance about old thoughts that can sabotage this new path with thoughts of guilt. The Ego may say, “Look at what you did when you weren’t conscious!” I cannot hide these thoughts from myself, as they are part of the house cleaning that I am doing. Guidance says: Give them up, they are not yours to judge. As the new choice you are making sheds light, accept the light, and shine it on every thought that rears its head.
In some areas of my life there would seem to be comfort within the false self, and it can be easy to just remain here, though it causes me pain. The more time spent in the Self, however, the less the false self feels like home. It starts to feel like anxiety, panic, restlessness, irritability . . . As I look at the self that I have made. There really are no comforts in it. It is ever-changing, unpredictable, unreliable, unquenchable. I no longer find comfort in it. But my Inability to find comfort in it, is growth. It is a result of watering the plant as often as I can remember—and the growth, no effort of my own.
The light within can be revealed with the simple choice to give up what we are not. So precious have I made all these things. These things that hold together the false self. My journey, my wounds, my appearances, my status, my story. . . The mystery of what I am, however, is so alluring at his point in my journey, that there is no more mystery left in the temporary—it comes, it goes—end of story. What I am, can be revealed in my ability to free-fall into the choice to surrender all knowing. I have thought, there is no wonder in the mundane life that I live. Or, there are no miracles to be had here in this dysfunctional situation I find myself in. But the depth and the possibilities for awakening are endless, right NOW! In everything that I have judged as madness and a waste of time, who am I to say that God is not in it, when I know that all is in God. This too is the trap of a “routine” life. Just lay your judgement aside. “Chop wood, carry water” and AWAKEN if you dare.
