A Marsha Summers Blog

It has been said that children’s fairy tales have a deeper meaning than merely as entertainment and are also teaching stories.  The teaching story when read or spoken can reveal hidden conditioning within us that creates confusion in our daily lives.

In the story of Sleeping Beauty, the evil Queen wants to kill Sleeping Beauty because the mirror on the wall threatens her vanity with not being the fairest of them all.

Last night I heard a director of a show I have entered talking about a really talented guitar player.  I didn’t recognize the envy in me until I heard the phrase above.

I was awakened to the fact that it was a “not I” within me that had been hiding.  Then I asked where it came from and discovered it was childhood ideals taught by church and parents.  We were not allowed to say or think that we were good and worse yet we were not allowed to love ourselves. 

So we were to speak with humility even if we didn’t believe it in order to escape disapproval and judgement.

Further, this set up a field for us to compare ourselves to anybody thereby creating unpleasant emotions of  insignificance and judging ourselves rather than seeing we are all very different which is beautiful because it gives rise to different tastes and different talents—all needed in this manmade world.

The other field it sets up is one of competition.  Though competition if viewed as a motivation to practice to get better at what we love and want to do, it is harmful to my way of thinking that only one can be best.    That leaves everyone else feeling a lack.  This has been observed as really harmful wit setting ideals and goals of winning evidenced by contests, races, beauty pageants and the like  which set up joy for only the winner and the rest are beset with unpleasant emotions which are destructive to the human body for an impossible ideal.

Further, this concept sets up an internal war of conflict, struggle and resistance.  Instead of acceptance of what is and agape for self and others.

A simple definition of agape is that of seeing all others as doing the only thing they can with what light (conditioning) they have experienced in their lives so they feel they are right, proper or have justified their behavior. 

There is a better description on the webpage. https://marshasummers.org/innerman/agape.htm

Dr. Bob gave us “The Story of Mushkil Gusha”.  It begins with the suggestion that we not try to interpret but to just let the story work on us.  There is much in the story that doesn’t make sense and these teaching stories have been around for many, many years.  It is said that the teaching story can take us to a higher consciousness.  I will leave that idea there for you.  I just can say I have found those stories not only interesting, but valuable. 

My daily tasks of observing self and others without criticism or judgement is certainly a challenge.  This week I have observed a couple of examples.

When someone puts me down in one way or another, the thoughts react in defense or judgement and an imaginary conversation can ensue for days.  I have unconsciously interpreted that I know what they meant by their words and it was to annoy me or try to change and improve me in the guise of “helping”. 

I was excited to hear that from the mulberry fruit from a neighbor 5 years ago that grew into a tree above my house had mulberries.  Because of the blindness, he offered to help me find them.

In my excitement, I went to the yard knowing there was nothing else and swung my cane back and forth until it hit the trunk.  He appeared and picked a few berries which I popped into my mouth.

As we left, I found my way to the sidewalk with my cane on the grass until I felt cement and turned to the right.  I tapped back and forth from grass to cement until both were cement and figured I was at the driveway.  When I asked him for help, he said “You found your way out, find your way back.”

And, of course my inner being reacted with all sorts of “snarky” remarks which I refused to express because it only escalates an argument, defense and hard feelings.

As I entered the house and the thoughts went wild, I remembered this idea of interpretation and remembered he recently was hit by a car while riding his bike and here I was asking him to cut the top out of the tree so it would grow mulberries lower and thus easier to pick. 

That was only one interpretation, so what is fact is that I have no idea where that statement was coming from and it is much kinder to myself and to him to let it go.

The idea of not thinking we know what another person means by their words is valuable to remember.  We can also ask them point blank if what they said was meant to put us down.  I have tried that when I can remember and have an opportunity to do so. 

Two other favorite teaching stories are “The Magic Horse Story” by Idries Shah and also “The Princess of the Water of life” if you would like to explore the internet for either of them.

Studying this teaching material since 1995 and transcribing the ideas you find on this website has been a work of dedication.

There is much said about why questions and not to use them because it is like a scorpion of a thousand tails.  When you ask a why question and get an answer, the next question is “Why that?”  So it’s endless.

But Dr. Bob told us that he never wanted to be an authority and to check out what he said. 

So I thought I would do what might be called a deep dive and see how that would work in my daily life.  The question I asked myself is could I survive with no why questions at all, and the answer came up “no.” 

One of the things I discovered was that yes, there are some why questions are pertinent to the day, for example …

Why is my computer hanging up?  If my spouse explains the correct process, I can then work more efficiently and independently.  So that why question seems appropriate. So I’ve asked myself, when are why questions not appropriate?  I’ve come up with the idea that there is much confusion and misinformation  I when  try to find out what people mean by the things they do or the statements they make such as “Why did you say that?” or “Why do I keep doing that when I know it’s harmful?” .   We can spend hours, days, months and even years trying to figure out why someone, including self, said or did something.  It is an endless loop where there is absolutely no answer in the many brain cells.

Now on to explanations…

Dr. Bob said explanations can actually obscure reasoning rather than clarify.

One should be plain spoken and easy to understand; however, he didn’t elaborate to any great degree.  So, again, he left it for us to check out for ourselves instead of setting an edict to parrot and try to follow.

In the blind community there is much we must manage without sight.  Thankfully technology has come up with audio descriptions and sometimes artificial intelligence can describe locations such as our surroundings on the street, obstacles in a room and much more.  This can be very valuable information and can be used for us to function independently even though we are not sighted.

Sometimes a description of a process needs an explanation, but sometimes not.  I have found that using too much of an explanation to seek understanding for something I am trying to do ends in a tangle of one sort or another – whether cooking, playing piano, writing a paper, or learning how the many devices and communication codes to relate to the sighted world.

But in frustration because there is so much to learn, I often panic and give scrambled explanations. 

Ha, ha – maybe I just did that!

I find it a temptation to want to explain why I’ve done something, am doing something or going to do something – which falls on deaf ears.

One particular relative says, “Just tell me what you want; and then you can say anything you want.” 

Further study harkens back to childhood when my father used to say “Why did you do that.”  There’s the why question dealing with mentality or emotions which is unanswerable; but always demands an explanation.  Now as an adult, I don’t really need to explain anything, and that goes hand-in-hand with another teaching idea that Dr. Bob gave us which is.

“There is nothing to defend.”

Sounds like another great study for observation!

Thanks for reading.

Now, at 82 years of age, I recall what I learned as a kid  about how I was to behave with simple good manners.  Over the years I’ve observed many changes particularly with the use of technology, Therefore, I decided to see what I might want to consider as what, to me, are simple good manners. 

1. If I use acronyms not familiar to whom I’m talking with, I give a brief description.
2. I feel more comfortable talking to someone on the phone to make a date as sometimes text, voice mail, and answering machines are not seen or heard resulting in miscommunication.
3. If I’m going to be late, it is simple good manners to me to let the person know.
4. Though it’s very difficult, I try to let people finish their sentence and not interrupt yet when I’m on the iPhone with voiceover, Siri tells me lots of information I don’t need and I interrupt her all the time unconsciously creating a habit that it’s okay e. So I need to remember the difference.
5. Due to my blindness I have learned more than ever how valuable it is to be on time for those that are gracious enough to pick me up and take me places I want to go, often very much out of their way.
6. I find it respectful to not berate another for their opinion especially in front of others just because I don’t agree with them rather strongly!
7. If someone seems to deliberately do something that hurts or inconveniences me, I’ve found it valuable not to seek revenge.  I can either originate a kind motion or choose to exclude them from my daily living.  I find criticizing another only hurts me because of the emotion it creates in me and in many cases they are oblivious of how they affect me and others.
8. There is a popular word called snarky and I find that attitude is not simple good manners so I refuse to either express that way or acknowledge people who find it desirable.
9. I remember when I decided it was not simple good manners to gossip about others.  I realized that in doing so, I was unconsciously trying to feel better than them, a case of vanity taking over within.
10. When engaged in conversation, I’ve been working on a simple good manner of letting the other person have an opinion and trying to hear them out—particularly in the 2025 political arena. Often I don’t express my opinion as it can lead to an argument and in an extreme event the separation from friends and family when there is so much more to each of us then the opinions!
11. I recognize that sometimes I want to explain why I did something or why I want something and it becomes annoying to another, so I try to be concise.

In closing, I can see that many of what I learned as simple good manners has disappeared; however, I’ve also discovered that I can’t change anyone.  So what’s left is I can set an example or make a demonstration of what good manners are to me and maybe some will see the value can catch on.  Meanwhile, I can only observe and have agape for them.  Agape is seeing that whatever a person has done, is doing or ever will do, including self, is doing it with what light they have at that moment. They feel it to be right, proper and/or justified.

And if I really want to experience being rude, I practice with spam calls.  I now answer the phone with “Who’s calling” and some get the message and hang up and others I hang up on. 

PS You probably don’t have many experiences being around blind people, but I’ve found simple good manners can be extended to those of us with disabilities and following is a few of those needs.

Blind manners

This part of the blog is extra, but I add it since I’m experiencing blindness in a sighted community.  Many sighted people are uncomfortable and even scared to approach a blind person thereby missing out on some interesting conversation.  So here are some ideas.

If you see a blind person struggling and seeming lost, ask of you can be of assistance.  This happens to me at the gym because I don’t want to sit in someone’s lap by accident and they may not see my cane, so I find the back of the machine and follow it down so I might find a shoulder.

If it is necessary to lead a person, it is helpful for me to hold on to your elbow. That way if one of us trips and falls, we both don’t go down.

If an aisle is not wide enough you can move your elbow toward your back and that tells me without voice to get behind you so I don’t run into whatever’s in the way.

It is well to remember that my fingers and hands are now my eyes, so I may need to touch things and covid created much discomfort around this very natural human connection.

I very often shy away from social situations because I can’t see who’s in the room and so sitting alone is a bit uncomfortable.

If you are speaking to me, please use my name if you can so I know I’m being spoken to.  Refrain please from saying “Can you guess who I am?”  It’s embarrassing and I have many voices to remember.  All my friends and family now are just voices and the joke is that with AI many of the voices don’t have any bodies and are not really human.   For me it’s Siri, voiceover, Alexa, Echo, Ziggy, Jaws and now Meta glasses.  

PSS: So with this age, there are many disabilities.  Living with a deaf person gives me the challenge and opportunity to try to communicate with someone who can’t hear and understand his challenges opposite to mine.

So at any age, we are challenged adjusting with, to us, what is to us simple good manners to those we’re around  –  with their past, present, health challenges and much more.  All this makes it even more valuable to look at the pages within the website and learn how we can be sane and also serve in this manmade world.

As a new little spirit, I – the being named Marsha – was subject to believing that everyone was an authority over me so I needed to heed their suggestions, opinions and conclusions (which included those of parents and religion).  Of course as I grew, my peers created further conflict with their striving to gain independence.

So, by the time I came to the teachings, I didn’t know good from bad in the realm of food and what to eat since all those I asked had differing opinions.

At a workshop, Dr. Bob mentioned an idea of personal taste.  Wow, that encouraged me to check out the opinions of others.

Now one day I discovered a container in the fridge — being blind makes every day an adventure.  I was told they were egg bites and contained egg whites, spinach and a couple other items.  I was also told they weren’t very good. 

But in light of knowing about personal taste, I decided to try them to decide for myself.  I found I did like them.

Very often in the workshops, Dr. Bob says “check out for self”.  These ideas are very valuable to remember and experiment with in our daily lives.  Being what is called “awake” can lessen confusion and help us to discover what is to our advantage.

Have you ever experienced feeling guilty? Did it haunt you? Did you ever question where it came from? Thanks to the teaching ideas, I have a bit more information to expose this miserable-making emotion.

With the 48 basic tapes, we look into ideals and how we have been conditioned by parents, church, school, society and peers as to what’s right, what’s wrong and what’s good and what’s bad about everything and everyone in this manmade world we’re in.

So with these many bits of conflicting ideas, of what ought to be, beliefs and conclusions WE HAVE ACCEPTED conflict between “A” side and “B” side.  There is fertile ground to always feel guilty for not doing the right thing. Unobserved, I have known those who are burdened with guilt and taken it to the grave missing much of the privilege of life here on earth.

Recently I happened upon “Bible and the inner man” – the first segment of tape 6 takes an idea from Ephesians Chapter 5, verse 14.

Dr. Bob gave us another way to look at the message when applying it to the picture of man which is split in two—the “A side being complain, stick up for rights, and blame to get my way.  The “B” side uses the pleaser, quoting accepted authorities and self-improvement.

So with a question asking where it comes from, Dr. Bob said that if something brings up an A side reaction and we express it, we covertly don’t realize that we justified our verbiage or violent behavior.  Now the interesting part.

He defined it as having justified a behavior from being asleep and mechanically reacting with methods from the “A” side of complaining, sticking up for rights or blaming and afterwards the thoughts flip to the self-righteous side of picture of man to berate the self for said behavior used by justification thereby causing much conflict, struggle and resistance with no relief in sight. 

It is to our advantage to see what’s going on and Dr. Bob commented “Have you ever held guilt long enough that it subsided”.

I’ve found one idea that can work on that is having agape for self; but I’ll let you look that up on the website for yourself.