The most important job in the world & Forgiveness

“There never was a time an idol brought me anything except the 'gift' of guilt. Not one was bought except at cost of pain, nor was it ever paid by me alone.” (ACIM: T-30.V.10:3-4)

"I want to do the most important job in the world!" That's what I stated to my Mother when I was 14, and I was serious. I one time saw an article in the late 1980's about fortune 500 CEO's being asked: "if you could have any job on Earth, what would it be?" The overwhelming answer was "famous musician or actor." That's it...that's what I would do.  We all have some addiction…fame and notoriety were/are mine.

I warp you ahead 25 years. I spent many years trying to make music and did. I stood on stages in many places and played with many good (and sometimes great), and not so good musicians. But in the end I did not become "famous." I am fairly unknown, residing in a sleepy corner of South Carolina...led here by an unseen force. I play guitar, light barbecues and go on 2 week vacations. But...

…What is that feeling!?

I want to be, feel, be known as...important. 

The problem is I am not. The good thing is I am not.

I recently did a search online for an old friend. He was extremely talented as I can remember, sort of a child prodigy. He could play numerous instruments and he was a wonderful composer. On top of all that he was a nice guy, the type you just had to like.  The seemingly innocent type.

When I looked him up I was shocked to see his website, (not for that reason...everyone has a website nowadays) but he was composing music now in front of entire orchestras for video games and movie scores. He lives in LA now...a classic cliché, with his Bio on IMDB.com. 

Two feelings went through me. One was a joy for him, "it couldn't happen to a nicer guy" (even though I had not seen him in 20 years) I immediately thought. The music is beautiful (him and I secretly loved Yanni, yes, we were in the closet Yanni listeners) and I went to Amazon to purchase his music. 

The second feeling was more disguised, a sickness and a twinge of sadness. I have felt this before...a feeling of unimportance, of littleness. I was in pain and under attack. I need to get out there and DO something…be important, be noticed!  I have to write something, make music, speak….ahhhhhh!

My job as a counselor now requires that I assist many people from a vast myriad of backgrounds. I see street pavers, nurses, teachers, lawyers, doctors, actors, musicians housewives and even many therapists, etc...the list goes on and on. Yes some are well known and considered famous and some are not. But all are the same to me in a way. The only way that matters. 

I discovered over the decade and a half of working intimately with the depth of people’s hearts a few things. 

Everyone seemed the same: Sure, they had different wants, wishes and experiences.  BUT, they all had the same core wants wishes and experiences.  The same as I, the same as each other.  The problem is also the same, our wish to be happy cannot be found in outside sources but we try…and try…and try.  I recently read a quote by Edward Deci at the University of Rochester. It provides further evidence for this conclusion. It suggests that achieving goals like wealth, fame and physical attractiveness not only doesn't make us happy, but it actually makes us feel worse. True happiness, in Deci's words, comes instead from "growing as an individual, having loving relationships, and contributing to your community."

I know and understand this and I teach this on a daily basis.  This is a truth of things and a teaching of all great Masters. But to live the teachings of the masters and of our evolution is a whole different animal.  But unlike so many assumptions as to the goal of Spiritual and psychological pathways it is not the absence of these feelings which defines our growth, but what we do when we experience these feelings of pain and attack.  Yes, we would not be here if we had no problems, no worries or fears.  We would not be self creating a discord within the very fabric of self.  So we must work at it, we must be vigilant and fight our asses off to struggle through the muck and go in the other direction.  The one of peace, happiness…the one of God.  We all have to work at that…not because of Him, but because of us.  We are so used to believing that happiness lies in the wrong direction we are like Pavlov’s dogs, predictable and compliant to the egos whims.  We are sheep headed out to slaughter every time we choose an idol (read: addiction).  It will NEVER work yet like a moth headed towards the flame we commit spiritual and psychological suicide each and every time. 

“An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” –Sir Issac Newton

 

The second part of Newton’s law states the object must be acted upon by an unbalanced force.  I always wanted it to say “a more balanced” force.  But of course Newton is speaking about Physics and in physics, balance is akin to continuity. 

 But what about matters of the mind and Love?  If we keep doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result, some have called that insanity.  Indeed it is, so what’s the solution?  To add that “unbalanced force” or more balanced.  We must be aware, and then we MUST choose to do something about all of this first.  We attempt to quarantine the urine on the swimming pool each time we ignore the issue.  For an issue cannot BE ignored.  It doesn’t really go anywhere; there is no corner we can run away from our own thoughts. A thought cannot BE gotten rid of, it can only be transformed.  You can “forget” something consciously, but your unconscious mind will always remember and it will enact the process of those thoughts upon you.  

So I felt bad.  In order to exact that more balanced force upon the momentum of the ego I prayed and most of all I forgave.  I did a process forged thousands of years ago to help me.  I went through each step of the forgiveness process feeling awful as I did.  It was like regurgitating all that Goo I ate earlier in my life.  I hate vomiting, so I always avoided it…not this time, I want to feel better. I did another, and another…I was vigilant, persistent.  But not for my demise this time, but instead for my will to be happy, to Love, to be at peace…for God. I was doing real forgiveness. Not the kind in which we absolve someone for what they did to “us” but forgiveness that states nothing really ever occurred at all. This takes work, the concept is sound on every level…but to live it, hmmmm.  Forgiveness in Ancient Aramaic is pronounced: Shbag, it means to cancel out.  I WANT to cancel out these insane thoughts, but I cannot do it myself.  I cannot transform them alone; a problem truly cannot be solved by the mind that created it.

12 forgiveness sheets later…

I felt better, slowly, surely.  I didn’t care about all that stuff I felt earlier, I felt peaceful free of anxiety, of guilt.  I let go,  Hmmm, 30 minutes earlier I felt only terrible, rushed and like a failure.  I felt like I had to get something done…accomplish more…set goals, expand the purpose…have a purpose…a new purpose?

Now I could care less…My goal again has become God.  It was never so clear to me that the only reason for goals (idols) in this world is to keep us away from God. The new trip, possession, job, project, fame (or the quest thereof) etc…But here I was in the incredible contrast.  Going from EXTREME anxiety to EXTREME calm in 30 minutes. Seeing everything as backwards from how I did earlier.  In the past this is something I would never have done…I would have attempted to bury it that illusive place we all do…the “back of the mind,” the place that does not exist only to watch it resurface its ugly head a few months or years down the road with a vengeance.  This was the unbalanced force throwing the ego off kilter I required.  I needed my will to be enacted.  TRULY to NOT want to feel and think this way, I had to have enough!

I don’t want to be famous, to be larger than life; since I am life. I don’t want to want.  I want to know that I already have.  

So I forgave…

So here I am, relatively unknown by the multitudes…sitting in a small office somewhere in South Carolina. I am doing the work my creator would have me do.  Something never dreamed of in my youth and something not even on my scale.  I fly under the radar and…I am peaceful, content and happy.

I truly do have the most important job in the world.

Keith