As a consultant, I have a client who for many months had complained to me about someone with whom she works, explaining that he was getting credit for work that the client had done. And she railed against this person.

Part of the upset that she had chosen to create was that this person had won an award! An award for work that she had done!

After hearing this story a few times, I said, “Stop competing! Just do your best.”

It was all quiet on the western front (she works in the western part of the U.S.) from that time on. I never heard another competitive complaint. It was done, gone from our work-related conversations, which we continued to have.

Then, one day not long ago, she happened to mention to me that she had won an award and how surprised she was. The company that she works for had selected her for one of their key honors; in this case, for innovations in software design.

In the conversation, she seemed to have forgotten entirely about “competing.” The focus seemed to be on the work she was doing.

I was reminded of this the other day when I shared with Dr. Lane, the Founder and Director of Cosmos Tree, Who is My Spiritual Teacher, that, up until now, I have been competing. I have been very competitive. Dr. Lane immediately asked me What The Teachings that My Teacher Brings Forth say about competing. My initial response was that it separates me out from Spirit; that it blocks the Flow. My Teacher reminded me that it separates me out from all Souls, from the Oneness of the Spirit that we are. That I automatically lose.

As Dr. Lane explains in the Talk titled “Equality And Equity In The Sound Current” (#A290), “Equality is everyone is equal. Everyone is regarded equally, created equally, etc. … So somehow there’s this whole competitiveness: a beats b, b beats c, etc., etc. And it’s one against the other … What are we doing but practicing false identification? In the Sound Current there’s only our True Identification and That is as Spirit and as Spirit we’re all equal. …”

Let me give you another example! The other day I went to Queens, one of the five boroughs of New York City. I live in another borough, Manhattan, and I went to Queens to visit an art studio where I had scheduled a ceramics lesson.

Almost immediately upon entering the studio I realized that a competitive pattern was coming up inside of me and I immediately let it go. I just let it go. I didn’t feed it. I stayed open and I made it the Priority to be “empty” inside, to be clear.

Much of the time, I dropped the negativity the instant it came up; dropped it, dropped it, dropped it. While I don’t remember exactly as of this writing, I likely also used the Two-Part Release Technique by calling in the Light Of the Most High, “Lord, God send me Your Light!” Then: “Lord, God for the Highest Good please take this negativity/separation from Spirit/competitiveness from me!” And I told mySelf “it’s OK to let I go!” And I let it go.

When it came up again, I let it go again. 

Then I noticed something. My instructor, with whom I had taken multiple lessons prior to this one, seemed unusually joyous; “what a wonderful day to be in the studio!” she said. Prior to this, she might have easily complained about something; the colder weather, for instance. Then, after the lesson, when I was about to pay, she kindly waived me away. “We can take care of that the next time!” Very unusual.

I vaguely recalled as I left that she had apologized to me shortly after I had arrived for misunderstanding what we had agreed to work on that day. And that I had simply suggested that we do something else, which we did. I didn’t care at all.  

I also realized re: the competitiveness that I had dropped and dropped and dropped again – that in a studio visit prior to this one I had run a thought and that that thought was pure competitiveness; it was along the lines of  how much better “Manhattan” is than Queens, it was a “status” thing. In looking back on that visit, I realized, too, that everyone there had picked up on that. The openness and joyousness and helpfulness that was all around me this most recent time was absent. I had cut that off. I had created negativity inside mySelf, which is contagious. That negativity is also karma, for which I am responsible.

I offer here, too, that the other Important Help that I received from My Teacher was special Homework that I was doing during this visit. This Homework was to write down the moment I am competitive and then to list the alternative I chose.

That alternative – to do the Inner Work by Surrendering the separation between mySelf and the Spirit I am – and, as a result, to be open and “empty” inside mySelf – was the cure.

And, as I was further reminded by My Teacher during a recent The Teachings Study Group, negativity is to be used as a springboard to Focus into the Positive, into Spirit! To be Present. On that visit, I let go and let go and let go but I did not use the negativity to Be Present. I also needed to consistently reFocus into Spirit! Re-Focus into Spirit!

That’s the Key.   

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