OVERVIEW
It is constantly stated in so many ways that change is the only constant. So why do we drive ourselves crazy trying to stop change? Because we are human, we get hurt, want things to be familiar and comfortable, and have expectations of ourselves and others…what if you could practice freedom every day? You can, but it’s up to you.
TRANSCRIPTION
Give it up for the music team one more time. Party people. You know, I had a flashback to, gosh, over
30, 25, 30 years ago when I first stepped into this teaching. And I was a musician. I was a working musician. And one of the things that really got me was the willingness to bring the principles of this teaching into anything. I mean, that was a Rihanna song. Y’all Like, when I think Rihanna, I don’t think like, I’m getting lofty in my mind and my heart, right? I’m just, I’m gonna, I’m just going, you know, get down a little bit. But I, i, I gotta break down really quick ’cause this is gonna, this is gonna connect to our talk. So the lyrics in case you weren’t able to follow along, maybe you don’t know the lyrics of this song. I’m gonna be talking about your soul today and the glee that your soul expressed the moment that you were born. So what if this song was your soul singing to you shine bright like a diamond? I knew that we’d become one right away. Oh, right away at first sight. I felt the energy of Sun Ray, I saw the life inside your eyes. May you realize that experience with your soul as the result of our time together today.
I have a lot to say. So I got the timer set to try to keep me in wraps here. <laugh>. First and foremost, before I get into the heart of the talk, I just have to acknowledge what took place. If you didn’t know in the, uh, the land of Illinois, the land of Lincoln, the land of Chicago, the land of the natives of this country. It was the parliament of world religions, which you may or may not know anything about. Actually, the home offices are here in Chicago and it, it’s a little known fact. They don’t have a great presence outside of some of the spiritual and religious conversations. But in 1893, there was an event that took place in Chicago. Anyone know what that was? The World’s Fair?
What’s that exhibition? It was the ex, yeah, it was an exhibition. But as a part of that, there was this parliament of world religions. There was a coming together probably for one of the first times on the planet, a conscious choice and decision for people of multiple faiths and philosophies to say, Hey, let’s have a conversation. Let’s share and let’s connect. Like, go back, I think 130 years. So there were people in shackles, there were people enslaved in this country. There were people, all of horrible things happening, but there was a breaking open of consciousness that was taking place. Fast forward decades, there had been more parliaments happening around the world and it returned back to Chicago. And I had the privilege, many of us, a part of the leadership here and people from around the world, some fellow ministers from other cities, rev RevD had there, um, came and converged on this space, not only with religious and spiritual leaders, but thought leaders in the political realm, uh, in the environmental space because it was this beautiful realization for me is that you can’t have a conversation about spirit without having a conversation about the body, the body of this and the body of the earth that we live upon.
So anyway, I don’t know if there’s a way that you can download and check out stuff. I was completely overwhelmed all week. There were so many workshops and keynotes, uh, that it was literally mind blowing, but there was so much beautiful, uh, to witness. So check out parliament of, uh, world religions, um, dot org and see if there’s anything available. Now. Two, the topic of today, the theme this month at Cityside is letting go. We are looking at the book, the Universe always has a plan. The 10 Golden Rules of Letting Go by Matt Kahn. Is anyone actually reading this book? Okay, awesome. If you aren’t, check it out. If you don’t want check it out. Just listen in. Because there’s principles that are found in this book that are found in any and most of the traditions of the world. Whatever you may resonate with, there’s something that you’re going to hear today.
So let yourself get ready to hear something and say, I’m ready to hear something out loud. Affirm. I am ready to hear something. Ready hear. Okay. All right. So this book is broken down into a bunch of chapters and as always, the curator of curators, the master director of this community, of Reverend Amy, uh, handed me a handful of chapters and said, this is what I want you to focus on. I’ll do my best. Last week, um, Reverend Linda set things up and she was like, if you wanna go back and touch a little bit upon number six, go and do it. I don’t think I could do anything because it’s actually the foundation of the book. The title of the sixth golden Rule. The sixth chapter is The universe always has a plan.
The universe always has a plan. That is a weird concept. Would you agree? Yes. It’s hard to get in our humanness, but the universe always has a plan. I’m gonna break it down, don’t worry. The two that I was actually given today to focus on were rule number seven. Everything changes, but it can only change for the better. I think everyone likes the first part of that sentence. Everything changes, comma, everyone can agree with that, right? But it can only change for the better. There might be some arguments, right? Yeah, well that thing can’t change for the better. We’ll see. And then this was actually when it comes to the, the talk title, which I’ll get to in a minute. The idea of freedom and freeing ourselves from some of the should, would and could, and the blame and the shame of what we think we should be or who we should be as spiritual practitioners on this planet and as human beings in order to be emotionally free.
This is golden. Rule number eight. In order to be emotionally free, it’s okay to dislike, oh, I didn’t say hate. I didn’t say be mean. I didn’t say kill. I didn’t say anything other than it’s okay to dislike. Because if you are human, is there anyone who’s not human in the room? We may have opinions about others and think, oh, they’re not human, but I think everyone in this room is expressing humanity. And if you are, you dislike something. Agreed. It’s okay. That’s part and parcel of being in this body. Alright, the talk title today is Freedom is a practice and It’s Your Responsibility. The little blurb that I gave to kind of entice us if you read this this week was, it is constantly stated in so many ways in traditions that changes the only constant. So why do we drive ourselves crazy trying to stop change?
Because we’re human. We like comfort. We like normal and regular and familiar. We get hurt. We want things to be easy. We have expectations of others and of ourselves. What if you could practice freeing yourself from the pain and the suffering that’s often associated with that every day not get to freedom. That’s there’s this, uh, reference to freedom that I think all of us think freedom is in some place, right? When we get to the freedom land, which is a great thing in a idea to have, but we’re gonna talk about a different freedom, an everyday freedom. And this freedom calls upon nothing but your willingness to practice taking responsibility for your so freedom. In this context, it is the freedom that arises out of accepting what is. That’s it. That’s literally how simple it is. Freedom that arises out of accepting what is.
We could stop right there. That’s the truth. Rarely do I like to put end period at the end of something. ’cause I think there’s always more, but there is freedom in accepting what is. Let’s start with a personal experience. So let’s see if you can, can have a illustration right here In this moment, we’re gonna do a short little meditation. So uncross your legs and uncross your arms, those of you out in virtual land, hello and greetings to you. Salutation, stop multitasking. <laugh>, stop looking at email. Stop looking at other social media. Put your phone down. Draw your attention away from the screen. For those of you in the room, you don’t need to look at me. I’m not gonna do anything that you need to see. Let your attention drop down towards the floor and take a slow breath in through the nose.
And as you exhale, if it feels good, let the eyes close. If it doesn’t feel safe or comfortable to close the eyes, then just keep your attention focused downward towards the floor. Notice right now if there’s something that you don’t like or something maybe that you really are liking regardless, let your attention, let your opinion of this moment be for the sake of touching a moment of freedom through acceptance. See if you can stop bartering for a moment, justifying for a moment, bargaining with the moment, and just let yourself be and have this moment an easy breath in.
And as you exhale, lift your eyes back to the screen online. Those of you in the room, lift your attention back into the space. I had the, uh, privilege to speak. Uh, Reverend Roderick’s spoken here before, right? Uh, uh, he has a, a community that he does a Thursday night, uh, talk. I had the opportunity speak in his community and he gave me the title of the winning soul for a talk. And it, it, it, it totally spilled over into my thinking about today and, and this idea of the winning soul, the, the, the, the winning soul. To put that phrase together to me it implies, or it made me question, can the soul ever lose?
And I would think a lot of us in our human self would say, well, yeah, I’m losing right now. If you only knew what was going on in my life, my soul is not winning. I want to challenge that. The soul can only know winning the soul only knows winning the moment that you were born. Let’s go back to shining bright like a diamond. Your soul was like, yes, thank you. I’ve got another opportunity right now to experience life. I, I’ve got this, this thing, this, this body to be in. I get to partner with this mind. I get to partner with this body and experience life. Yes, I’ve got everything I need.
That’s the winning soul. That’s the soul that only knows possibility, that only knows creativity, that only knows a willingness to take responsibility, to be in its experience. That’s how we are when we’re born. We commune with our soul and there is a dance party happening. Even though we’re going ah, inside of us, the soul is going, yeah, but our human experience, our human self starts to take over. The ego moves to the forefront of our understanding, and the ego only knows duality. It knows right and wrong, good and bad. And that’s, there’s nothing wrong with that. The unfortunate side though is when we experience the totality of our understanding of life through the, through the ego, through our tangible human experience, oftentimes that dualistic living, it’s just not enjoyable.
Anyone ever check out of their life, you might be checked out right now. You might be having one of those moments where you’re like, you know what? I’m just not willing to participate in my life today. It may have been really hard for you to get into this room to literally get here. It may have been hard for you to open up your computer or to turn on your phone and just get here to be a part of this community online. Those are those unwilling moments, right, where we’re just feeling like it’s just you’re trudging through sludge to do anything.
Anyone feeling that way? Anyone ever feel that way? Yeah. Okay. Just making sure that we’re still all human in the room. You might feel like that today or not. Regardless. Would you be willing to say that if you become a greater participant in your life, regardless of your opinion of it, the more that you participate in your life, it will only be for the better. Does that make sense? Okay, so let’s go back to the talk title. Now, freedom is a practice and it’s your responsibility. I would like to posit, I would like to put into the center of your attention. I would like to speak to your soul and your mind today that the greater, the more the increased, the more intentional your responsibility in your life leads to a greater experience of freedom.
All it takes is willingness. And I think we can get this on the intellectual level. We can go, okay, yeah, y’all just agreed Yes, yes. If I participate more fully in my life, I can probably experience a greater sense of freedom. Totally get it. This doesn’t mean taking responsibility for the positive and thinking, oh, that that’s because I’m good. And this isn’t about taking responsibility for that which we would call negative as a reason to blame and shame ourselves and call ourselves bad. No, no, no, no, no, no. That’s not what I’m talking about. The freedom that arises out of taking responsibility for our response to things, whether it’s something that evokes joy or pain, we can take responsibility for our response to it. And the more and more we take responsibility for that, that is where we are free from the trappings of the ego, our soul and spirit and sometimes even the intellectual mind can step back and go, yep, that’s right.
This is what it means to be a new thought practitioner. This is what it means to be a religious scientist. This is what it means to be what we call a meta physician to step back from the physical. Let me read you the definition of a meta physician in case you’re like, well I don’t know. I’m not a doctor of anything. Yes you are, you are a meta physician if you are in this room or you are online listening to this talk, a meta physician is a student of the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract cons, concepts, concepts such as being and knowing. So is anyone in here a student of this first principle of being and knowing? All right then you are a meta physician. Being and knowing requires transcending the physical. That is what the prefix meta means in meta physician to transcend.
So we as meta physicians this morning and hopefully for the rest of your lives going forward, we explore transcending the physical. But you know what? You can’t be a meta physician without the physical. Some of us try to just float lofty and, and it’s like, oh, my human experience, I don’t see it. I’m just gonna bypass around it. Mm-hmm. You can’t be metaphysical without the physical. You have to have your human experience. You have to have the body whether you like it or not. The way it looks right now in the mirror, you gotta have it. It’s here to serve you, to allow you to commune with your soul, to be a meta physician.
The body has so much more richness when the soul and the spirit is involved. Would you agree? The undergirding message of this book, the universe has a plan and I think it’s the undergirding idea of any of the, uh, world religions at their course, aside from rules and regulations and, and and things is that we’re here to integrate all of who we are, mind, body, and spirit. And it’s when we integrate all of that, that we really get to experience life. But the fact that we are living in a human body, having an ego speaking so loudly, it’s hard to be meta physicians all the time.
We need a relationship with our mind and body that is freeing. This is the freedom we’re talking about. The soul is always looking for possibility. That’s it. The soul only knows the power of taking responsibility to look for that growth in the living process. But we are not only souls, we are humans, we are egos. Our human ego, and this is some of the stuff coming straight out of the book now, our human ego, the self, it doesn’t have the capacity to appreciate the present moment. Lemme say that again. Your ego does not have the capacity to appreciate the present moment. Our egos only look for good somewhere else tomorrow when there’s an extra $50,000 realized in our bank account when there’s an extra 10 pounds magically gone from the body. When that perfect partner comes into our life, when that perfect business deal falls into your lap, when the partner you have in your life starts acting right so that everyone can be okay, when we become a person that we actually aren’t here to be, we have this, this ego has this whole game of constantly going over there.
This couldn’t possibly be it. The core belief of the ego, the core construct is I can’t be happy here. That’s what the ego is saying all the time. That’s the subtext of the ego. I can’t be happy here. The present moment the ego says, couldn’t possibly hold happiness, nor could it ever. The ego wants something different than what is on the flip side. Everything that the soul experiences is for the greatest good and unfolding. It is winning the winning soul. The soul is winning at every moment. The soul says there’s so much, there’s so much opportunity right here, right now. This moment is ripe. This moment is rich, it’s juicy. I I there’s just, there’s so much that could possibly become of it. The challenge is that the ego goes, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This moment, this moment right here, sitting in this old building in wherever Chicago, this is it.
This is the right moment that I, we’ve been waiting for. And then he goes, mm-hmm. Nope. If this is it, sorry, I, I I, I gotta take control of the situation here. I’m gonna start manipulating you and I’m gonna start manipulating me to make things right. ’cause you pro obviously don’t know what that is. It’s somewhere down the road and we’re gonna get there, but we gotta start doing some manipulation right now to make it happen. Do, do you, are you tracking me here? This is the work of the ego constantly. This is the incessant story that the ego is telling us. Our ego and human self really doesn’t want to accept life as it is and we get fed up and that’s when we start to become unwilling participants where we start to check out, where we start to let go in a way that doesn’t serve us. We release responsibility. So when I come back to the reading that that John offered from the book, this particular phrase of willing or unwilling participant is straight from Matt Kahn. He says, in order to become a willing participant, you have to know what it means to be an unwilling participant. An unwilling participant is one who is attempting to avoid the gravity of surrender. Woo.
An unwilling participant is someone who is negotiating with life instead of opening to it. So go back to that meditation we did just a few minutes ago. Were you negotiating inside? Trying to like, alright, Darryl telling me to close the eyes, I can do this. Alright, I can do this for maybe five seconds. As long as they stopped breathing so loud, God, maybe if they started playing some music, then well, okay, there’s no music that’s gonna be playing. Okay, I’m just gonna focus on the sound of the air blowing. You know, we go into this negotiating that’s not meditation.
Now you’re still meditating, you’re still in a practice of paying attention to the present moment, but you are paying attention to the present moment through the chatter of the ego trying to barter and justify and bargain in order to, for true insight to dawn, we must ask our lives how our lives are only changing us for the better. With no further negotiations in mind, how is your life right now changing you for the better? And immediately the mind’s like, well that’s the negotiating. What if you could put a question mark and just listen, how is my life right now changing me for the better? You may not have the answer, but are you willing to ask that question and listen to your life? Because the universe always has a plan to go back to that. And if the universe always has a plan, it’s not that you are powerless and you have to wait and see. The plan of the universe is possibility. Period. Creativity, period, abundance, love, trust, all the things that we want and desire. That’s the plan of the universe.
When negotiation dissolves, that’s when we really get into the heart of the universe. That’s when the soul communes with the mind, the body and the spirit. That’s when we experience freedom. The freedom of the should wooden and could of yesterday and the fear and the anxiety of what may or may not be tomorrow. But that freedom no one can give you other than yourself. And it is not a single choice in decision that you make. It is a practice that you exercise every single day. The ego is in constant. Don’t make that right or wrong, it just is. However, once we really accept that that’s what’s going on, that that is part not all part of our truth, then we can be metas and transcend that physical domain, the duality of the ego and embrace the soul that is only looking for opportunity moment by moment, by moment in the humanity that we live.
This is why we practice. That’s it. To integrate, to be free in this day, to let tomorrow be tomorrow. All the freedom that you thought you had 10 years ago because something else was going on and you were in a younger body and you had less responsibility. Bull that was just a different time, a different experience right here, right now. This is the place to be. This is where the party is. It’s the only place the party can be. And if the ego and if the spirit can say yes to that and let go of the negotiation, our theme is letting go. That’s what I and challenge you to let go of is the negotiating that we’re constantly doing with life.
That song that was sung earlier in the service, let go and let God. If God is a word that kind of pushes a button for you, just let go and let, let go and let. I’m gonna ask you to come up and play a little bit more of that chorus. Let go and let God let go and let the universe have its way. The lyrics say, as soon as I stopped worrying about how the story ends and let this moment have its way, there’s two things I wanna leave you with. We must ask how our lives are only changing us for the better. With no further negotiations. This is a direct quote from the book. We must ask how our lives are only changing us for the better. With no further negotiations in mind that takes practice to support that practice. There is an affirmation that I want you to speak within your own heart today. Repeat after me. My soul is delighted with this moment and I am willing to accept it. My soul is delighted with this moment and I am willing to accept it. My soul is excited with this moment that I’m willing to acceptance.
Just partner with your soul. That’s all you need to do. My soul is delighted with this moment and I’m willing to acceptance. My soul is delighted with this moment and I am willing. All you have to be is willing to accept it. You don’t have to figure out how as soon as you let go of how the story ends and let the universe let God, let love have its way with you. May we all in this moment join with the delight of our soul, the delighted soul that says yes, yes. I’m so excited to be here in this body, in this experience, in this ripe moment right now. There’s no other place that I’d rather be. Let’s get together and have a party today. Let’s celebrate our living today. I may not like everything I see, but I can do something with everything I see. I can say yes to it, I can appreciate it. I can ask questions of it, I can give to it. I can love it, I can nurture it. I can be in the moment and there’s no right or wrong way to be in the moment, but just to stay here, this is where the divine is.
As
Soon as I stopped worrying, worrying about how the story end and let go and let love,
Let
Trust, let the universe have its way. Oh, how glorious the moment gets to be where we commune with the delighted soul. And so what I know for everyone listening to this word, whether they are in the room or someplace else, that we are communing. We are practicing freedom today, not because of a certain condition, not because a certain thing is happening outside of us because we are willing to stay in the room. We are willing to be present for our life. We are willing to be in the like and the dislike, but know that the soul is delighted with the opportunity that is being presented right here and right now. And what I know is that whatever is happening in your life, it is an opportunity. This doesn’t diminish hardship, but I say that in the midst, in the center of that hardship, there is something growing. May it grow with a little bit more ease today. May it flower, may it blossom just like something growing out of the ashes of a great fire. May it come to fruition in some way, shape or form in your mind and heart today. How grateful I am for the fulfillment of this word, for the freedom of the soul. And so it’s amen, peace and blessings to you.