RESPONSIBILITY 1

What a great session. Thank you!

P. 64-66

RESPONSIBILITY—-OH, NO!!!!!!

As we mentioned before responsibility is the ability to respond. It is essentially the difference between our knee-jerk reflexive reactions to people places and things as compared to being aware of and practicing the ability to choose how we respond. We can also suggest that response is also about widening our perception about a person or an event.

Personally, and this might not apply to everybody, I still have many reflexive knee-jerk reactions, snap judgments you might call them, that I realize are reflections of my personality self—fears, prejudices, untruths that I've collected over the years, and even though I have the desire to change them, often times they are still here. If I take responsibility for them instead of blaming my parents or my church or any other aspect of my past, then when these seemingly instantaneous judgments occur, I can recognize they r mine and let them go without getting caught up in an argument with them.

I have spent a good amount of time and effort attempting to rid myself of these instinctual reactions. To my dismay, they are all still here. I realized I was like a person who spends all their time pulling up the weeds from their garden, but never giving themselves the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of the flowers. What I have come to learn, for me, is that perhaps many, if not all, of these reflexive internal snap judgments will continue to occur, but then I have a choice of what to do or how to respond after those knee jerks have taken place. I believe there will come a time, spiritually, for all of us, when we will be clear of judgment but I do not perceive myself being there yet. (Perhaps it would be wise of me to affirm, “I am free of all past learning that has contribute to my limiting judgements.”)

I also wonder what would be like if I were to follow the metaphor of the garden above,  what it would be like to know that the weeds are just as beautiful as the flowers????

The focus the the beginning part of this chapter is about accepting responsibility for our creations and that includes all of the things that we connect with through our five senses as well as all of the circumstances we find ourselves in. Essentially, we create in order to learn. That is a simple definition of our path at the moment. I do believe that there will come a time when our truth will be “I learn in order to create.”

For many of us, as we sit with this material, we might feel overwhelmed with what we considered to be the negative things that we have created our lives. And from that sense of being overwhelmed comes denial as well as blame, shame and guilt. Although this is a natural reaction coming from our limited personality self it is not a necessary one.

“Now this is not to frighten you. It’s about giving you freedom. When you have responsibility for something, you have a choice to deal with it in one way or another. You can be accountable to it in whatever way you believe. But what we would like to tell you now is that your choice to be responsible to yourself as the one in authority, who claims herself as worthy of what she says she wants, will create a new life for you. And what you claim will always call you forward.”

First of all, if our lives were so blatantly bogged down with negativity none of us would have survived as long as we have. Secondly, because we have identified with the limited part of ourselves, our personality consciousness, we have become attached also to a misperception of how the world is. How the world; it’s a pretty scary place. And so what has happened for many people is that they have gathered negativity around themselves as an illusory form of protection. Almost as if you were to say to yourself, “I will think about the worst thing that could happen and therefore I will be prepared, and if it does and if it does not happen as horribly as I might imagine then I might even feel a bit of relief.

Believe me I know that territory well, but does that thinking serve me in anyway? Does it really protect me from the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” or does it simply create an illusion of safety against the illusion of fear. See how “sticky” it gets? I’m creating an illusion to protect myself from another illusion!

“Now we want to teach you today about what you are responsible to: Everything. Everything. Everything. And we would like you to understand this. You are responsible to everything that you claim. “I claim I am unhappy,” claims you as the one responsible for that choice. “I claim myself in my worth” makes you responsible as the one who claims his worth. What you are not accountable to is not in your purview, you have not agreed to, you have not chosen. But if you can imagine right now that everything you see before you you have agreed to because it could not be there without permission, you will understand the volume that your responsibility extends to.”

Through our being and our conscious connection to our soul, to our divine nature, we have also created monumental and exquisite beauty. In fact, the beauty that we have created is so profound, the ego or personality self cannot comprehend that this creation came from you. Here is where we are challenged to go beyond the limited perceptions of our personality self, not only to embrace the beauty that we have created, but also the beauty that we are.

“I am now willing to embrace the beauty of creation knowing it is my beauty as well.” My does not refer to an individual self; it is not mine as a personality, it is essentially the flow of divine grace through all beings. As if we were all together watching a beautiful sunset and being overcome by the beauty of the sunset and also realizing, at the same time, that this beauty is a creation that comes from our own divine self.

Peace