Another one of my favorite lessons:
“I trust my brothers, who are one with me.”
This can be a very difficult lesson until you learn that there is nothing outside of you.
Until you recognize that your brother is literally you, you will think that other people are doing things separate from you, acting in ways that are not in harmony with the way you think events & circumstances should go.
Look at it. How many times have you had an idea of how something should happen? You think someone should do something in a certain manner or act in a particular way.
And when it doesn’t happen in the way you have predetermined based on your own script … you get upset.
Then you try to manipulate (mostly in unconscious subtle, charming ways) in order to get your way.
But today’s lesson says: “I trust my brothers, who are one with me.”
Imagine doing this.
Imagine trusting your brother, even in all of his insanity.
Imagine trusting your brother, with all of his mistakes and wild ideas and madness.
Imagine accepting him exactly the way he is, without trying to change him.
Imagine allowing everything to be exactly as it is.
Imagine being in a state of acceptance.
Imagine not correcting other people.
I speak from deep personal experience. I will give you an example. I am an expert when it comes to organizing food events: weddings, parties, catering. I have worked in the food industry for over 20 years, and I have a degree in hotel/restaurant management. I am a certified food snob. I have worked with a company in NYC that caters to celebrity events. I was the head server at Mayor Guiliani’s wedding and was part of his personal catering staff for a year. I have served Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey and Caroline Kennedy, along with hundreds of others who are used to first-class service. I have been trained by the best of the best: the most professional servers in the world. So I have it in my mind that that there is a certain (right) way of doing things when it comes to food service.
So, on the opposite end of the scale I have worked in regular places where the servers don’t know where the fork or the wine glass goes on the table.
This has caused enormous conflict in me over the years. I wanted everyone to do it my way … since I know the right way it should be done. I could never understand how servers could be so sloppy and careless in serving guests, especially when it comes to someone’s wedding.
And then one day – miracle of all miracles – I decided to start trusting my brothers who are one with me.
What I realized was that even though I was no longer working in the #1 catering company, I was still working with some really great people. The working conditions might have been a little more chaotic than I was accustomed to, and I always still felt there was room for improvement … but what I began to notice is that the job still got done and guests were happy.
And the biggest thing I noticed is that I regained my peace of mind.
I stopped trying to control everything.
I stopped caring if the dinner fork was exactly 1 inch away from the edge of the table. I relaxed.
From there I realized: ultimately, none of this matters.
That was my moment of freedom.
From that time on, I decided that the only person who needed to give 100% was me. I didn’t have to be concerned with what other people were doing. I only needed to focus on what I was doing, how much I was giving, how much care I gave in my actions. If the managers gave me 3 tables with 8 people at each table, then I focused only on those 3 tables and those 24 guests. I stopped worrying about the other 100 tables (and 800 guests) in the room.
I started trusting my brothers, who are one with me, to take care of their own tables and their own guests.
I trust my brothers to live their own lives, to make their own mistakes, to fall, to get up, to try, to fail and to succeed.
This is total freedom.
Now I focus only on what I am doing and I trust that everyone else is doing their part perfectly … and if my brother needs help, I help him.
But I don’t need to correct anyone anymore. I don’t need to control.
I can allow everything to be exactly as it is.
What I realized is that I was so focused on form (where the dessert spoon goes on the table) that I was blind to content (that is my brother over there, whom I love).
Everything I did was based on past and future goals (what I thought people should be doing based on things I had learned in the past, and what I thought the outcome was going to look like in the future – how the evening was going to go). I was completely absent from the present moment.
Now, years later, I can’t remember a single event, wedding or dinner although I do remember some extraordinary individuals I met along the way.
“A major hazard to success has been involvement with your past and future goals. You have been quite preoccupied with how extremely different the goals this course is advocating are from those you held before. And you have also been dismayed by the depressing and restricting thought that, even if you should succeed, you will inevitably lose your way again.”
“How could this matter? For the past is gone; the future is imagined. These concerns are but defenses against present change of focus in perception. Nothing more. We lay these pointless limitations by a little while. We do not look to past beliefs, and what we will believe will not intrude upon us now.”
This poem is great, except with one small change: that you were important in the life of another.
Facebook comments:
Great post, Lisa. Thank you.