{"id":949,"date":"2011-03-17T00:22:21","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T06:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/?p=949"},"modified":"2011-03-17T01:09:27","modified_gmt":"2011-03-17T07:09:27","slug":"bottom-line-responsibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/bottom-line-responsibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Bottom-line Responsibility"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; padding-right: 30px;\">(Note to new readers:\u00a0 This heartfelt expression is dedicated in the form of devotional prayer, the lower part of myself expressing towards the highest Self, the Divine One, and is offered in the prayer that it may touch and inspire connection with the Divine within you.\u00a0 The original recording can be heard by clicking the link below.\u00a0 Newsletter subscribers may hear the audio online by clicking on the title of this post.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"audioplayer_container\"><span style=\"display:block;padding:5px;border:1px solid #dddddd;background:#f8f8f8\" id=\"audioplayer_1\">Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adobe.com\/shockwave\/download\/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash&amp;promoid=BIOW\" title=\"Download Adobe Flash Player\">here<\/a>. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">AudioPlayer.embed(\"audioplayer_1\", {titles:\"bottom-line-responsibility\",soundFile:\"aHR0cHM6Ly9sdWNpZHRtZWRpYS5jb20vam91cm5hbC93cC1jb250ZW50L3VwbG9hZHMvMjAxMS8wMy9ib3R0b20tbGluZS1yZXNwb25zaWJpbGl0eS5tcDM\"});<\/script><\/p>\n<p>Heavenly Father, your presence <a title=\"4.  The Wisdom of Silence and Stillness\" href=\"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/4-silence\/\" target=\"_blank\">in the midst of the lamb<\/a> fills me with so much joy.\u00a0 My heart is opening again.\u00a0 My ability to love, to trust myself, and to trust people in the positions of leadership around me are being <em>restored<\/em> in this moment.<\/p>\n<p>Heavenly Father,\u00a0 I am deeply meditating upon the insight that following a virtue is in many ways like being an artist and appreciating art.<\/p>\n<p>When I was a teenager, I would spend my time on the weekend helping my Dad at his folk-dancing club as cash registrar, and I would pass the time by doing colored pencils drawings of usually of dolphins in ocean scenes or outer-space scenes.\u00a0 People would often comment, \u201cOh, you\u2019re such a good artist.\u201d\u00a0 At first, I was just gracious and said \u201cthank you,\u201d but as this pattern continued over and over I started thinking more about what this means that people were praising me for being an artist.\u00a0 And finally my reply came as \u201cEveryone&#8217;s an artist.\u00a0 Everyone is beautiful in something that they do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On one of my drawings I put the words inspiring me at that moment, which were, \u201cLook beyond to see that we are nothing.\u201d\u00a0 Look beyond to see that we are nothing.\u00a0 This was poetry on my part, and yet they are words that, in the spirit of the song \u201cDust in the Wind,\u201d convey something of our eternal nature when we let go of forms.<\/p>\n<p>When I would write things like this people would often say \u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d\u00a0 And my reply was:\u00a0 \u201cWhatever it means to you, is what it means,\u201d even though I had my own idea.\u00a0 Similarly with things like the Rorschach ink blot test, every person sees something in the pattern of their own mind in response to their world, and in many ways it\u2019s similar to the appreciation of and the creation of <strong><em>ART<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 And I\u2019m seeing this in the <em>realm of virtue<\/em> also now.<\/p>\n<p>Recently in the <a href=\"http:\/\/sunriseranch.org\" target=\"_blank\">Sunrise Ranch Community<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/emissaries.org\" target=\"_blank\">Emissaries of Divine Light<\/a> Ministry, there is <a href=\"https:\/\/emissaries.org\/programs\/leadership-program\/\" target=\"_blank\">a leadership program<\/a> and in this program there\u2019s a huge emphasis on Eldership, learning how to be a leader.\u00a0 There is tremendous pressure to be a person who can accept <em>bottom-line responsibility<\/em> for our world.\u00a0 This is huge, and yet, what does it mean?\u00a0 It is being pushed so heavily and directly by the leaders of this program and it is opening this place up in me, Father, this place of trust of myself and of my leader.\u00a0 Yet, what does it mean?\u00a0 How do I apply it?<\/p>\n<p>There are some direct steps that I can take in this moment, and yet, no specific guidance is given.\u00a0 How do I apply this?\u00a0 It is an art.<\/p>\n<p>The art of application of virtue, is a matter of perception, action, perception, action.\u00a0 And yet the realm of applying virtue in daily life <em>cannot be achieved without trust<\/em>.\u00a0 We have to trust ourselves, and we have to trust the people in positions of leadership.<\/p>\n<p>There is a way to <em>see<\/em> strong leadership as a gift of energy.\u00a0 No matter whether we agree with leadership or not, no matter how angry it makes us, no matter how unclear it is \u2013 there is a way to perceive it as energy.\u00a0 There was one time in a leadership session where I was rebuked for doing something creative, and afterwards we were presented with a teaching from <a href=\"https:\/\/emissaries.org\/about-us\/beginnings\/\" target=\"_blank\">Uranda <\/a>regarding \u201cFaith in People.\u201d\u00a0 That theme really applies to this faith in leadership and <em>earning<\/em> the faith of others.<\/p>\n<p>After hearing this teaching, Father, I cried and cried in repentance to thee &#8211; around my attitudes towards people and made the promise to <strong>you<\/strong> that I would never use the extended capacities of my potential to ever put someone else down or make them feel \u201cless than.\u201d\u00a0 And now, here I am on the opposite end of that promise, being presented with the opportunity to <em>take bottom-line responsibility for my world<\/em> and thus <em>earn<\/em> the faith of others.\u00a0 Earn their trust, earn their respect, but none of it is possible without trust:\u00a0 trust in myself and trust in those in a <em>role<\/em> of leadership.\u00a0 Those roles of leadership I have accepted into my life for <em>very specific reasons<\/em>.\u00a0 If I have accepted a person of leadership into my life and not trusting them, I am wasting my time.<\/p>\n<p>One of my classmates who had seen the genuine flow of tears and sincere repentance following this teaching thought that I was crying because of the rebuke of the director of the program.\u00a0 My reply to her was:\u00a0 \u201cDoes a leaf cry when the wind blows?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is such a great thought.\u00a0 It is such a great image for not taking things personally.\u00a0 It is such a great image for <em>receiving <strong>fully<\/strong><\/em> the energy of leadership and being nurtured by it.<\/p>\n<p>Yet when it is time to <em>take<\/em> bottom-line responsibility for our world, the verb \u201cto take\u201d is <em>very<\/em> appropriate, because no one is going to give it to you, no one can give you responsibility unless you take it.\u00a0 And whether someone gives it to you or not, it is yours <strong><em>to take<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In the book by Robert Bly, the story of <em>Iron John<\/em>, one of the key parts of that story is that the little boy who has been interacting with Iron John, his true power, his true sovereignty as a divine being \u2013 he has been interacting with him but yet Iron John has been in a cage.\u00a0 That cage has been imposed by his parents, by civilization, to keep order and the little boy wants his ball back, he wants his joy, he wants his love, he wants his life back.\u00a0 He may be a grownup little boy now, without any joy and Iron John, his true self, is in the cage, powerful, covered in hair.<\/p>\n<p>Iron John says he will give the boy his ball if only he sets him free.\u00a0 The key that he needs is under his mother\u2019s pillow, but he can\u2019t ask them for it \u2013 he has to steal it.\u00a0 This is a necessary part of his becoming his true self and accepting his true power, to steal something out from underneath his mother\u2019s pillow.\u00a0 His mother represents all the nice things about him, and there comes a time in one\u2019s development of leadership where being nice just doesn\u2019t work anymore.<\/p>\n<p>We need <em>to take<\/em> bottom-line responsibility because it is <em>ours to take<\/em>.\u00a0 <em>Those parts of ourselves that are nice can couch them for a while, but the joy in our life is gone unless we have the capacity to embrace <strong>all of ourselves.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>We are very lucky to live in this physical world where communication can flow between people of <em>very different<\/em> consciousness, but in the invisible world, the realm of vibration that is not the case.\u00a0 When we no longer have this body as a tool, communicating with unlike minds is impossible just as different channels of a radio station are independent of each other.<\/p>\n<p>Heavenly Father, I am very grateful for this physical body and for this world, that I may learn from enlightened thinkers who have left behind stories such as Iron John, who have left behind these clues to our development before departing into higher realms of enlightenment and wisdom.\u00a0 I am very thankful, Father, for these stories and for the wisdom of the saints and sages of the world, that they have left behind clues to their own development and thus <em>nurturing<\/em> the spiritual evolution of humanity before departing into their higher consciousness, into those places that I cannot reach.\u00a0 I am thankful for their stories, Father, I am thankful for Iron John and how that story has affected the men\u2019s movement in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Heavenly Father, in thy spirit I am moved.\u00a0 I am <em>moved<\/em> in trust of thee.\u00a0 I am <em>so moved<\/em> in trust of myself.\u00a0 I am <em>so moved<\/em> in <strong>trust<\/strong> of the leadership which I have accepted into my life, just as a leaf is moved by the wind.\u00a0 It is so joyful to receive energy in the form of guidance from those who I trust, and may it be so that I <em>may take<\/em> bottom-line responsibility and that I may have the same joy in applying the winds of spirit to reform this world.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Note to new readers:\u00a0 This heartfelt expression is dedicated in the form of devotional prayer, the lower part of myself expressing towards the highest Self, the Divine One, and is offered in the prayer that it may touch and inspire connection with the Divine within you.\u00a0 The original recording can be heard by clicking the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/bottom-line-responsibility\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Bottom-line Responsibility<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seek-the-lowest-point-of-being"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=949"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":955,"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949\/revisions\/955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucidtmedia.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}