Disappointment and the Path to Redemption

Watch Marshall Vian Summers speaking after the Broadcast of Night 5 of the 2019 Steps Vigil, May 30, 2019.

Full Broadcast

Marshall: It’s a Step that says I welcome those things that will challenge me or that will redeem me. Is that the Step? Come on, my Steps experts, help me out.

I remember when I first did Steps, when I came upon that, I really had to stop myself and say, Do I really welcome…? It’s like redeem also means disappoint. I could lose everything, something catastrophic could happen to my life physically, emotionally, practically. Would I really welcome that thing that would redeem me, having known by then that redemption is not just a walk in the park, but is really a trial? Boy, I didn’t know if I could say…I didn’t know if…I couldn’t say that. Or very conditionally: I’ll welcome what will redeem me if it’s really great or fun or sweet or meaningful or gentle or…

But that’s not what the Step says. It’s one of those honesty moments that you frequently can come across in Steps to Knowledge where you have no real idea yet how much is holding you back. You just feel held back.

So I think disappointment is one of the things that can redeem you because one of the first tasks of Knowledge is to keep you from giving your life away to people, places and things that do not represent your destiny. That’s why the most frequent experience of Knowledge in the beginning, and even throughout much of your training, is restraint.

And in one of my later teachings during this Vigil, I’m going to talk about the stages of development in a very broad way, and how that restraint is viewed in each of these stages, which I think is very important.

So the next time you are tempted to want to be in love with someone who you probably don’t know at all, ask yourself, “Am I willing to go through a lot of disappointment over this?” And better at the outset than 20 years later. True? Yeah.

Because the quest for fulfillment in the world blinds us so much that we can’t see ourselves. We can’t see other people clearly. We don’t know what we’re looking at because what we’re looking at is ourself: our desire; our fear of not having, now parading as something beautiful, but really is what it is.

So disappointment can give us the eyes to see and the ears to hear. It’s another way of saying it. You would not be here today had you not been disappointed.

That, by the way, all came to me during our meditation. I wasn’t planning to say anything tonight. But, then, things come and things come and things come and things come. And it’s all because of what you said.

You know, the word disappointment is just a very…it’s not simple, it’s confounding because it has many different levels of reality and understanding associated with it. It’s not just one thing.

Thank you, Lin, very nice. Thank you.

…

[reads from Wisdom I, chapter 27, Disappointment]

We find disappointment to be a very great opportunity. Because it is a natural fact of life that you will encounter disappointment, it must then be seen as an advantage, not always something you can appreciate at the outset, but an advantage nonetheless. There is very great effort by many people to avoid disappointment at all costs, but We want to encourage you not to avoid disappointment. Bring it on. Let it happen. There are lessons you must learn in life, and disappointment will illustrate many of them. We do not encourage people to repeat their mistakes, of course, but certain lessons are waiting for you. Taking advantage of them means that they can unburden you so that you may walk lightly through this world. (Just like you read.) The burden of avoiding disappointment is a far greater burden.

If you are to have a strong partnership in life, it will usually happen later after you’ve come to terms of who you are and where you’re going, and have divested yourself of many of the illusions and fantasies of your culture and of your time. And your relationship will be largely about what you can do for others, together.

But we still have Stone Age bodies. And our Stone Age bodies say you have to mate when you’re 15 years old because you’re only gonna live to be 30. Damn. So you’re wired up to have children early just because that’s the evolution of your vehicle. It wasn’t made for the long haul. It was made for the short sprint in life when survival was much harder than it is today.

…

I remember I met a waitress. I was visiting my mother at a skilled nursing facility and—it wasn’t really a skilled nursing facility; it’s a senior housing—and she was from Bosnia. And she was probably 30 years old. And I looked at her, I asked, Is it too late for her? She’d been through the war, scarred and it’s…You know, it’s not just old age. It’s not just being set in your ways for too long. I mean, it’s also trauma and violence and what people have gone through and been scarred too much.

So not everyone is an opportunity to communicate the New Message. I mean, “Should I communicate the New Message to this person?” No. And you don’t have to have any judgment against them whatsoever. It’s just…and in some cases, you know, you look at someone and they can’t respond. So it’s okay. It’s got to be okay because it’s what is.

Reed: Do you feel that, should you meet someone like that, there is no way forward for them? Like there is no…like Knowledge or the teachers have not recalibrated a new trajectory for them, that both, or one of the two have literally pulled back from this individual in Separation to let them just live out their life?

MVS: Oh, I think there’s always something you can give someone that’s helpful that they can…

RS: I’m not talking about us giving it to them. I’m talking about is there a way of redemption still for someone who is laden, let’s say, with, you know, twice, ten times as much…

MVS: I couldn’t answer that question. But you can see with certain people, given what you want to offer, which is a very ultimate thing, you can know if they are able to respond or not, without even talking to them sometimes. It’s just evident and it’s apparent in the engagement. So whether that means they can never respond, well, I don’t know. But for some people, it’s…you don’t want to make the effort, other than giving them some form of comfort or support or caring in that moment, you know, being compassionate with them. Otherwise, you think everyone is a candidate and then you don’t respond and you get judgmental and you get frustrated and you lose your faith in people or you lose your faith in yourself or you think this is never going to happen.

But that’s a storm you’ve created because of where you’re coming from. I mean, an act of kindness is usually good anywhere. But to offer someone a great turning point in their life…you can point…I read this chapter on Disappointment and it really affected me and helped me. It’s here. You can read it for free. And just give it to them. And they do or they do not.

Da Vinci said…in his notes he said there are three types. There are those who see, those who see when shown, and those who do not see. Better to look for the one in the crowd who’s really got something or demonstrates something.

I have a brother who’s my surviving brother; my other brother just passed away a year ago. He never asked me about what I do, but we get along great. But twice he’s come to me seeking counsel about his life, about a situation in his life. He said…this is all in the last year and a half. And he said, “I seek your sage wisdom.” Those are his words, which from him is…I mean, it’s amazing. But we, you know…I’m totally okay with where he is and what he’s dealing with and he’s an honorable man and I love him and it’s okay. And he’ll never be a student of the New Message, well, maybe not never, but highly unlikely.

And some people, on their deathbed, have an epiphany. My older brother had something like that. Sweet man. Very unsuccessful. Disappointing life. Long illness. I went to see him on Christmas Day; it was a year ago last Christmas. Advanced COPD. Emphysema. He’s in a hospice—VA—Veterans Administration hospice unit. Extremely weak. Extremely limited.

And I had my visit with him. He’s always regarded me in kind of an unusual way, but he never really came into my sphere in terms of what I do. I found out later, after I left…And this had nothing to do with my being there, I’m sure. My other brother was with him because my other brother had taken care of him for a couple of years at a distance, which was just really difficult, and would go every day to the VA to be with him because every day he was gonna die any day.

So my other brother, named Bill, was standing at the foot of my oldest brother, who was in bed and was only conscious for a moment. He would come out and he would talk and then he’d fade away. He had like 10% lung capacity at this point, so weak, you know, he just could hardly stay conscious. And my brother Bill told me this, and it was like an amazing experience for him.

He said my older brother, whose name was Pembroke—Pembroke, talking about you—here he is, out of it, like for hours. He could awake for a few minutes and then…He was so weak he could hardly move. All of a sudden he sits up in bed, out reaches his arms, looks out into space over my other brother, and goes, “Wow!” and then just kind of faded back into his state.

And my other brother was transfixed by this. He had never seen anything like it. And he knew that something really big had happened, like not of this world kind of thing. So he was very excited to tell me about this, and I was excited to hear about it.

So even in the last moments, something can happen. It’s too late to fulfill your mission, probably.

But something happens.