A Marsha Summers Blog

Long ago in my life, I always wanted to play in a big band.  Loving music, I wanted to do everything I saw anybody do in music, whether it was dancing, singing, playing an instrument, acting – you name it.

It came to pass that a big band guitar player happened to call and ask if I would like to play with the Moonlighters Big Band. I thought, “Oh, I couldn’t do that. I don’t have a college education.” But I jumped in anyway.

There are so many lessons I learned – I say Life Lessons in having taken that leap — but I’m here to share this one.

The family I grew up in was very affectionate with hugs and kisses, always saying good night, good morning, and I love you. We were interested in each other – and close.

When I began with the band, there were 17 men and one woman – me. I was so thankful to get to play in a big band that when I went to rehearsal, I hugged any man who came close to me. (No sex intended.)

Ralph, an old saxophone player who had been with the band for years, was included in my hugs. Yet he may have been afraid of his wife Bernice’s reaction.

One day, Ralph said to me, “Don’t hug me; my wife is jealous.” And so, I never hugged him again. Meanwhile, I wondered if I had done something wrong by innocent hugs.

This absence of hugs with him went on until Ralph died. The band held a wake for him with all of us band members playing. I suggested to Bernice that she could continue coming to the rehearsals, which she did.

I also invited Bernice to assist me with the large cumbersome books. As my sight diminished, driving to rehearsals was impossible, and she graciously started driving me to and from the rehearsal hall.

She described her life with Ralph, and there was never any hint of jealousy from her. I wondered, “What does this mean?” I could only guess at Ralph’s motivation to deny hugs. Did he not like them? Did he believe that Bernice was jealous, when she may not have been? Was he embarrassed? Did he come from a “cold” family environment?

The point of the whole event for me was that if I believed Bernice to be jealous and rejected her because of this, I would never have had her friendship. She became essential in finding the current song in one of the gigantic music books for me as well as driving me to rehearsals and gigs.

The teachings I have come to embrace were of value to me. Being open to see “what’s really going on,” I came to question Ralph’s claim of Bernice’s jealousy.  I had accepted his words at face value.

 I’ve heard the Bible mention something about “hearsay,” but I never knew what that word meant. How often have I shunned some people because of the gossip I have heard from others. The gossip is only how those others may see them. It’s not for me to “believe” what they say, but to find out for myself. This lesson has come to me frequently through the years.

There are so many beautiful people in the world. I would like to discover them on my own, rather than listen to others’ opinions, conclusions, preferences, and conditioning.

Since both Bernice and Ralph have passed away, all I can say is they were some of my teachers in this “Life School.” I’ll continue to use this open approach and my own judgment when I am no longer sequestered because of Covid and can again be out there with real living beings – not virtual!

From “Have It All Workshop” 1980 CD 3

A man took a chicken embryo heart one time; and he wanted to find out how long this heart would last if it had the proper nutrition and was cleansed of the waste material every day.

So he put it in a little box – a glass box with the proper nutrient and every day he took it out and washed it all the way out to get all the waste products out of it, dropped it back in this little container. Well, the thing kept growin’ and growin’. He couldn’t get it in the container anymore so he clipped off a bunch of it, but he weighed how much he clipped off.

And he kept on and after some 60 or 70 years through three or four experimenters, the thing was still growing strong; and he had cut off almost a ton of tissue. Now that’s how much it had increased. It was growin’. And it wasn’t any older at the end of that time than it was the day they put it in there ‘cause he had kept the tissues clean every day, washed out the end product of the metabolism every day, and he fed it properly. Now it’s all he did to it. Now it didn’t have a brain hooked on to it, so it didn’t get any worries or no tellin’ what would have happened to the thing – it’d probably had all kinds of disorders on it, but as it was, this piece of tissue kept on pumpin’ for all those years. 

So they decided there was no need to run the experiment longer because they had demonstrated that tissue cell is in a continual state of regeneration as long as you don’t pollute it or stress it. Feed it properly, don’t stress it, and keep the pollution out of it. So it would seem that there is physiological evidence – not only that one, but many others that you could stick around and remain fairly youthful; and that you wouldn’t wear out and become an old wreck just because so many days had gone by.

But we have bought that idea very solidly and all these levels so we fear old age, is that one of the big fears? 

[And as a fellow student, Sibel, who is proofing many of the transcriptions said: It covers “the heart of the matter” keeping the inner world uncontaminated …]

[from Marsha….Here’s an interesting challenge for all our relationships.]

Once you say you “understand”, it’s like saying you know somebody. 

Now you never “know anybody” because they’re changing every moment. 

If I decide that I “know somebody” and decide they are a bad person, then no matter what they do, I see them as being a bad person. I experience them being a bad person and I have nothing but unpleasant experiences with them. 

But if I change the whole makeup and say I’m gonna look at this person as they are right now, even if I don’t come up with a different viewpoint, most of the time, people are behaving pretty nicely. So then I can begin to experience them. 

So when we say we understand something, we’ve come to the end of our investigation of that. 

Instead of saying we understand, we can put that in the “I don’t know department”. I like to keep an awful lot of things in the “I don’t know” department.  I think it works better then. 

I don’t know anybody because I’m only “knowing you”; and I like KNOWING you; but I would not want to say I know you because then I’ve settled the matter and I’ll never experience you as you are moment by moment; I will only experience the conclusion I have about you.

[from Marsha…This is easier said than done; but definitely an idea to work with.

One event to event comes back to me. Long ago my husband would get angry and be violent against stuff. He got angry because the tire was flat on his bicycle and he kicked it and got a blue toe. I secretly had to find a bit of humor in that.

When it wasn’t a physical thing and it was something to do with bookkeeping and it was 1 penny out, he would wring his hands and say “goody goody” and he’d go after the error.

Then later on I met a man who went to the nursing homes with me. Something was broken and he looked at it and said “Hum”? I was so amazed, he didn’t throw it or break it. Wow!

And so now I’m with another man. When something is not working he uses some colorful language; but as Dr. Bob says, those are just words. The other cool thing about him is that once he gets it out, he doesn’t hold it. It’s over and he’s back to neutral.

So that was transferring conclusions from one person to another person just because they were men.

Is there any reason to “wake up”?

Could all those conclusions about everyday affairs and people also be true for observing me?]

[from Marsha: Through the years I and fellow students have asked that very question.

“Well how can I make something unimportant?”

Often I used Dr. Bob’s idea of “being free to experience” which worked much of the time for me; and I’ve also adopted the idea of “this is an adventure”. First of all I need to recognize that I’m anxious and see just what I’m making important.  My behavior is a give-a-way because I’ll pace the floor, not be in the present moment, be unable to remember what I just did. Sometimes I just have to laugh at watching myself. I remind me of a “doodle bug” that runs around in circles and isn’t going anywhere.  And so this excerpt from John B. came at a wonderful time – Christmas, pandemic, election, economy, race riots, sequestered, and on and on.]

How do you make it not important?  You set your state of being against that. You’re not making it important. I heard somebody say here a while ago, that they were ‘making it important” to “not make it important” so they could do something.

You take the importance out of things because you “turn it a-loose”. It really doesn’t matter what’s going to happen. Does it? 

Did you ever try “turning whatever your making important a-loose” and seeing what would happen?  You are just curious and interested to see what will happen.  You have no control over all the other people that have “a finger in the pie”; and you don’t have control over circumstances or the physical body. So you can make a little contribution with your good mood and see what happens.

All you need to do is “turn it a-loose”, it doesn’t matter — so what! And you really mean that, you don’t just say the words. And when you cease to make things important, you find that you can function quite well. You function on top of the world like that, okay? You now have all the ability to do it — that’s in third brain; but you’ve got to let it get quiet. You can’t get quiet while you’re making things important. You get it quiet by listening. Just stop to listen for ten minutes instead of keep pounding away of making it important and criticizing yourself because you’re making it important — it would have been “over with.” So let’s do it the easy way.  Everything that works is simple

It really doesn’t matter, does it? — whether I feel “top of the world right now”, or whether I’m tired right now. It doesn’t make any difference.

Anything works when you do it, but just to know about it doesn’t make it work. You see, you have to do it. So you say, “so what’, I’m not going to fret over this today; and you “turn it a-loose” down here, and you feeL wonderful. You keep your mood up a little bit and you’re doing fine.

 When we make something “important”, we have placed a “false” importance to it from the “conditioned frame of reference.”  We have made it to do the “right thing”, the “best thing”; and can you answer what the “best thing” to do is? Can you ever answer what the “right thing” to do is?  There is no right thing to do!

There are generally two kinds of men in the world — one that makes about anything he meets important.  Everything that comes upon him, he makes important.  That’s one kind of a man.  Somebody tells him that it’s “important” that he eats properly and immediately he becomes all concerned about how he eats and he becomes a health food faddist. 

Another one comes along and says, “You should get 8 hours sleep.” And so he makes it important to get 8 hours of sleep and promptly stays awake all night — he can’t get to sleep worrying about getting the 8 hours. 

Another one says you should eat three meals a day, and so he does that.  Shortly he hears another one say, “You should only eat one meal a day, and so now what’s he supposed to do? 

So, everything that comes along is believed and made important.  Making things important is thought to be really great.  People talk about being dead serious.  

If I make anything important, I feel anxious which binds me and makes me miserable.  Let it go.   It’s an experiment in well-being.

[from Marsha:  I love Dr. Bob’s parable of food and have been caught up in the “chase” of what is “best” and “right” to eat and not eat. Wonderful to observe in self and others and apply to other such “importances” in our lives.

If you want to read more about a quiet mind, check out “The Three Brains” on the website

If you would like to read before and after around this excerpt, go to: Port Orange, Florida 4/21/91 – Page 2 on the website.]

[from Marsha:  Having been using this work since 1975, it took me a long time to see the value in experimenting. To just read or hear the material does not anchor it – it becomes as fleeting as all the other thoughts that go through our heads moment by moment.  By running an experiment for a week or as long as we can remember it, the idea is then available to us along with what we have discovered from the week experiment. 

My friend John B. perused the website and found different aspects about experimenting and has given me permission to share his exploration with you.]

The teaching is not an authoritative system. It is based on scientific principles that one takes an aspect of the teaching as a “hypothesis only” and then “experiments with it”, and possibly the best way to experiment with it is to try to “disprove it”, not “prove it”. Experiment with it in any way that one can see to experiment with it, and find out for “self” if the teaching is a light. And, in this one, becomes a student of living; a student of man, and he begins to have a true knowledge–a true knowing. He has experimented for himself.

FOUR PROPER USES OF THE MIND

1. Seeing WHAT IS at this particular moment.

2. Recording for memory what takes place.

3. Making up the mind as to what experiment to run.

4. Seeing probable sequence of events.

WHIM

Doing as an experiment to see what happens, usually based on an AIM or interest, but not a commitment to achieve a goal.

REASONING

Goes step-by-step as an experiment, using the information gathered from the previous steps to see possible or probable sequence of events. It starts with a description and ends with a possibility.

EXPERIMENTING

Doing something just to see what happens.

SCIENTIFIC

Based on observation and experiment without regard to judgment.

AWARENESS

Interest in following an AIM to conduct an experiment to see what happens, placing value on WHAT IS, called “joy.”

On doing an afternoon gig, I encouraged people in the audience who wanted to sing to “sit in” with me. I learned a lot about following amateurs; however, they were able to enjoy some of what I call “sparkle time” and it increased my following which also solidified my employment.

At some point Ernie showed up. He was a professional musician and played piano and sang. He did a good job and it was nice to sit down and let him do a couple of tunes.

The audience came to be like a family with each supporting the other despite any degree of expertise.  

As it went along, a few of us decided to go to a buffet restaurant called Morrisons to eat dinner and continue the camaraderie and the happy feelings we had created together at my gig.

And as it evolved, there was a wonderful black band that played at a hotel called the LaPlaya from 9 – 1 am and they allowed “sit ins” also; so we extended the joy even later.  I had the opportunity to sit in on bass, the piano and also sing in front of the band without needing to play. We also had some great music to dance to. 

This continued for years and Ernie traveled with us. But as is the way of not I’s and how they can take over the mind and influence how we see others, Ernie started finding fault with the people, the music and some circumstances at the LaPlaya. And so he made the choice to leave  us after the buffet.

I didn’t think too much about it until he began to find fault with the buffet. The food didn’t suit him even though there was many choices. And so he stopped going with us after the gig.

Now I was starting to get interested in seeing the probability of what would happen next.  Sure enough, he then started finding fault with my gig or the audience or whatever the not I’s found to make him miserable. He only kept one friend named Jim. Jim told me that Ernie would call every day with something that he didn’t like.

Jim said he didn’t know what to do about it because when Ernie finished with him, he always had a big headache and now he had a bunch of not I’s talking to him too.

I mentioned to him something I had heard Dr. Bob say which was — tell the not I’s to ‘SHUT UP’! 

So the next time Ernie called with his sad and blaming tales; and after they hung up, Jim remembered. He said he stood up with this head full of all he had heard from Ernie and screamed at the top of his lungs…………….”SHUT UP”!  

And they did!

From that experience, I have continued to observe people through the years. So often the not I’s start out with some tiny little judgement. When they (the not I’s) have one convinced of that, the one right after that is bigger and this judging and blaming grows and grows until the person has stopped relationships with so many people that his world gets smaller and smaller devoid of people who are much much more than some ideal we have set for how they look, dress, behave, think and believe. I can only apply what I’ve learned to how I am seeing the world I live in from day to day and ignore the petty judgements I hear within so as to see others with agape and understanding.