THE LAST LECTURE

My attention has been called recently and repeatedly to a wonderful former Carnegie Mellon Science professor named Randy Pausch. Randy is a man in his late forties, married with three small children. He is an extremely popular professor known for his unwavering dedication to positivity, and to encouraging students to dare to be all that they can be. He has a contagious philosophy of life that is steeped in the belief in the goodness of life, and the power of risk and choice as elements of transcending what we think is limiting us.
There is a tradition at Carnegie Mellon of professors giving what is known as the “last lecture.” This is an opportunity for teachers to share their overall personal philosophy of life, independent of whatever subject they are normally presenting to students. Pausch was asked, and agreed, to give his “last lecture” in 2007. As he was preparing for this talk, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. His “last lecture” turned out to be his literal last lecture. Randy is still living, beyond the medical odds, but did not choose to return to his position with the university. He chooses instead to spend his time making beautiful memories for his wife and children, and in very consciously courting a living legacy for those he will soon leave behind. If you are interested, you can join millions who have already watched Randy Pausch’s last lecture on You Tube.
As I soon will add another digit to this incarnation, I watch the stunning example of this courageous man with particular interest and admiration. While I have mostly moved beyond a place in life of having specific goals or aspirations, I am cognizant of the desire to leave a conscious legacy for those who will be left when I make my human transition. Witnessing the qualities, attributes, lessons, and legacy that Pausch finds most important invites me to revisit that same type of inquiry. If I were to give a “last lecture,” what is it that I would say? What is most essential to my Soul, and to what am I most committed to expressing while on this human journey here on earth? More importantly than perhaps giving a last lecture, am I living that legacy today? Is the sphere that I have inhabited a better place vibrationally because I have been here? How consciously am I contributing to the whole on a daily basis, and how much is my own heartfulness uplifting the race consciousness? What may I be withholding, and what would it take for me to give open through that contraction?
I have never particularly longed for longevity itself, yet I am vitally interested in squeezing every drop of juice out of the time that I spend here in this body and upon this earth. That has at times proven to be a challenge for me. Overcoming that challenge, transcending my own darkness is integral to the legacy that I am speaking of here. The way in which I love through my challenges uplifts the human whole. I have been blessed with multiple way-showers, and I return that favor by blazing a trail of transformation and transcendence for others to follow at will. Just as I have been blessed by the lessons of Randy Pausch, I give of my talents and creativity with the prayer that my service will bless those who are meant to receive my gifts.
I choose to live this day as though I too had received a diagnosis calling for a more conscious way of being. I choose to live this day full out, loving open all the places that tend to remain closed from the wounds of the past. We never know when our last word will be our last word, and so I will to speak consciously, wakefully, and with love. And that truly is the essence of what I want my legacy to be: LOVE. I know that the purpose of my incarnation is to open into and to give passionately of the Love that is my Source and is my gift. It is in giving Love that my legacy is fulfilled. That is ultimately the only lesson to be learned.
And what dear friends would you say in the giving of your last lecture?





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APRIL E-ZINE

As this is the month of my birth, I am especially reflective during April. I spend more quality time glancing back at where I have been, and I listen more deeply to where I am now being led in this next year of my incarnation. While it is my intention and more and more my experience of maintaining the majority of my attention centered in the present moment, I also find it helpful to periodically allow a perusal of where the journey of this life has taken me, and how that past is contributing to where I am now, and where I am headed next.
I am fascinated by the vast amount of power that memory has regarding the overall quality of our life experiences. I admit that there are times now when memory seems to elude me in ways that is sometimes disturbing and often embarrassing. Generally speaking, however, I have an amazing recall of what often amounts to relatively inconsequential bits of information. This is in and of its self benign. It is the astounding clarity with which I can recall painful moments that tends to give me more pause. The memories of perceived loss, limitation, slights, failures, unskillfulness can seem as brick walls in the way of preceding where my guidance seems to be leading me. Painful memories literally consume precious life force, and become a lens through which we often obscure what is actually happening in and around us in present time.
We humans live a great deal of our lives caught in the trance of the past. While I do believe that insight may be gleaned from glancing backward, staring into the past and basing our present on what has been robs us of the beauty of the now, and the potential of our innate spiritual Power. We so often do not even recognize that we are doing this. If the mind is the default that you most often utilize in decision-making and even general day-to-day navigation, the past is the guidepost by which you are most often governed. The past becomes a kind of perceptual prison, limiting the number of available choices in any given moment. These perceptions become our own personal “probability factor.” We each live within a Universal matrix of Infinite, Unlimited Possibility. That Possibility, however, isn’t experientially available to all of us equally. The determining factor is consciousness, and the power of memory is a factor in the shaping of consciousness. A question that I have learned to love dancing with is “how new is this now?” This feels especially powerful as the number of my years spent adds another digit. Aging often seems to lead people in the belief in minimized choices. People often become more “set in their ways.” A common mantra is “it’s the way we’ve always done it.” Well, perhaps it is time to do it a different way. In order to do that, a different relationship to memory and to the past needs to be established.
What I have done and not done in the past cannot be changed, but the perceptual interpretation of it can be. That is how memories that limit may be transcended. Taking our memories into the heart can be extremely beneficial, and can lead to a freedom that lifts us beyond the pain of our pasts. This is of course another way of saying that forgiveness is the accessing of a Memory that is beyond time and space. This ancient Memory isn’t accessed through the surface mind, yet is ever available through the portal of the heart. If you find yourself stuck in a past perception that is preventing forward movement, allow yourself to drop down into the Sacred heart center where Light beams Its Self through every memory. That Light has always been a guiding Force, no matter how obscured it may have seemed at times.
I remember a lovely woman once approaching me after a lecture on living in the now, and releasing the power of memory in favor of living in the present. An octogenarian, she implored me with such pathos to “not deprive her of her memories. Its all I have.” I so recall that personal memory of mine with great compassion in my heart. And I also recognize that memories are never all we have. We always have the present moment, and it is so very rich, vibrant, vital, and full. As many wonderful memories as I have of the past, they pale in comparison to a fully experienced and heartfully embraced now. And in the fullness of the now, the painful memories, that can seem so very determined, are transmuted by the Light of Presence.
If there are memories that are still invading your sense of peace, court them in the spaciousness of the heart. Allow the Light of presence to shine in and through them, embracing an expanded sense of what they mean or meant. Memories that limit are memories that are in need of forgiveness. The past and the future truly are a continuous, ever-flowing now. As James Thurber once stated,” look not back in regret, or forward in fear, but around in wonder.” The ancient Memory is everywhere present. Allow It to lead you in an experience of truly being new in the now.





TALKS WITH TAYLOR
LECTURES ON UNIVERSAL SPIRITUAL THEMES
“ IN CELEBRATION OF UNCERTAINTY”
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 2008 7:30 PM
UNITY IN THE PINES
SUMMIT BLVD BETWEEN HAVERHILL AND JOG
MUSIC BY SUZANNE WALZER
$10.00 MINIMUM LOVE OFFERING SUGGESTED AND APPRECIATED


BACK TO ONE: THE HEALING POWER OF FORGIVENESS
EXPERIENTIAL WORKSHOP
SATURDAY, MAY 10, 2008 10:00AM-4:00PM
LOCATION GIVEN UPON REGISTRATION (LAKE WORTH)
$75.00 TUITION LUNCH INCLUDED
CALL 561.585-7491 0R E-MAIL TO REGISTER: tes@taylorestevens.com
LIMITED TO 12 PARTICIPANTS


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