Master Chef...fixe prix menu

Today I woke up with some clarity, and this phrase in my mind: “Life is not a fixe prix menu”. Indeed, it is not. The menu can change on a daily basis. It can have several options or no option at all. The Head Chef is in charge, makes the decisions.

An incident that occurred during a visit to Sathya Sai Baba’s Prasanthi Nilayam ashram in 2001 came to mind. I was in the kitchen drying dishes. Annoying little red plastic cups. I groused at the task with negative thoughts such as, “Why can’t I have dinner plates or soup bowls to dry? These little glasses are so annoying. They take so much time. They are hard even for me to get my fingers into with a drying towel.” The folks around me drying plates and bowls accomplished their task with ease. The plates and bowls went away. But for me, the little red glasses mounded up in Mt. Everest fashion. Yes, a change of attitude was required. All that negative thinking was the cause of the problem. With a shift in attitude along with an embrace of the seva given me that day, the enormous mound of little red glasses finally disappeared. Sai Baba's divine play was at work!

This was quite the lesson, one that’s not been far from mind ever since. There is no room for spiritual pride or arrogance. There is no “I’m too good for a job like this”. No. The Fourth World of Polarity is crashing down all around us. The playing field is being levelled. It doesn’t matter what our social status is, how much education we have, how much life experience we have, what our job description is, how much money we make, what religion we embrace, what color our hair and skin are, whether we are fat, skinny, tall or short. Everyone is being forced to look at the imbalances that we have created and sustained. It seems that we have reached a Zero Intolerance stage as a civilization. We are being humbled whether we appreciate this or not. It is clear that the disregard we have displayed for Mother Earth and one another will no longer be tolerated. We are being stripped down to our birthday suits. The choices that we have taken for granted apparently will cease to be an option on the fixe prix menu. As Grandmother Twylah Nitsch, Seneca Elder, taught: We are One Body, One Heart, One Mind, One Spirit living under One Law. The philosophy is One for All and All for One.

With the devastations that are taking place all over the world, people are having to come together to assist those who have lost everything but the clothing on their backs. The tragedies are real and heart-wrenching. Relief efforts are way beyond government and insurance assistance. Whether one prepped for catastrophe or not, those in the line of fire or the trajectory of the floods had to leave all their stuff behind. The rebuild is from ground up. It’s a Zero Point situation. People cannot wait for bureaucracy to kick into gear. Their needs are immediate. The new menu is fixe prix bottom-line basic: Water. Food. Shelter. Heat. Clothing. Medical Care. What we are witnessing and participating in is the rising of the human spirit to an unprecedented level of compassion, heartfelt caring and unconditional positive regard.

We have a destiny that awaits us but we need to rise up from within our very souls to get there. Second order change is what is called for. Paul Watzlawick, Ph.D., who with John Weakland and Richard Fisch, wrote the excellent book, Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution (1974), believed that humans create their own suffering in the very act of attempting to fix their emotional problems. Humans seeking homeostasis want a reset back to what they have known. Second order change goes beyond such reset to the creation of something truly transcendent that sets in motion change of a different order. Otherwise, we have same old, same old. Changing the way we think, feel and behave is necessary to ensure a kinder world that embraces Mother Earth and all her children. This level of change is necessary if we want to survive as a species. And, without destroying every living thing.

We have choice in this matter. What are we willing to do to make our world sustainable for future generations? The call to change is getting stronger each day. I guess you could say that the Master Chef is offering up a fixe prix menu for Change of the Highest Order. Are you willing to dine at this table?