“Look at the Seven Billion humans living on the earth. Billions of them are not even on a spiritual or religious path. They are materialists who are just living this one life for whatever pleasure this one life can give them and they are not interested in anything that is not physical or material. You do not fall into that category because you have an interest in the spiritual and that is a reason to be encouraged.

“Billions of people are on some sort of spiritual or religious path. Almost all of those spiritual or religious paths are feeding the ego illusion. Most of those people have never even read one book or seen one video that describes the truly Direct Path. Let us suppose that out of the seven billion humans on earth that seventy thousand have read a book or seen a video that describes the truly Direct Path. You are one of the seventy thousand that has read books that describe the truly Direct Path and that is a reason for great encouragement!

“Whatever you do or do not do for the rest of your life with the truly Direct Path, you have been introduced to it and therefore you are way ahead in the game of awakening! That is a reason for great encouragement, not discouragement.”

For those of you who don’t know, “the direct path” refers to watching awareness. Everyone in the Gentle Healing Group has been introduced to this path and hopefully is practicing it a little each day. That means everyone in the Gentle Healing group is “way ahead in the game of awakening!” Our feet are solidly on the path, and this is reason for great encouragement.

By the way, Michael also mentioned in his letter that discouragement is of the ego. It is one of the ego’s preservation strategies, since discouragement keeps us from spiritual practice. If we see discouragement as an ego trick, it may help us NOT listen to thoughts of discouragement.

Before coming across Michael Langford or Ellie Roozdar, I already knew that full awakening was extremely rare. Yet, I felt called to reach for it in this lifetime, and so …. well, that was that.

One song that has always encouraged me in my quest for awakening is “The Impossible Dream.” Here’s a link to Susan Boyle’s version of that song:

What we need to notice about this is that the body-mind learns to crave what we give it, so we have to GIVE IT in order for the body-mind to begin to crave it.

That could mean that in the beginning there isn’t much motivation to practice. However, in order to create the motivation to practice, we need to practice anyway. It reminds me of an Awakening Together Daily Quote from last week:

“Each step may seem to take forever, but no matter how uninspired you feel, continue to follow your practice schedule precisely and consistently. This is how we can use our greatest enemy, habit, against itself.”
~ Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

Buddha taught that when we see the cause of suffering we also see the path to ending suffering. The cause of suffering is the ego thought system. The path to ending suffering is the spiritual practice that leads to the end of the ego thought system. That understanding is our motivation to begin spiritual practice even though we may not yet crave spiritual practice. If we will do that, the motivation to spiritual practice will increase as the body-mind learns to crave it.

In other words, through spiritual practice we become a soul on fire.

Watch the video

Siddhartha was never allowed to go outside the walls of the great palace. Inside those walls, the king made sure Siddhartha had everything he needed for a life of constant pleasure. However when Siddhartha was a young man, he grew increasingly curious about what was outside of the palace walls. His father knew this curiosity had to be resolved, so he arranged for the prince to have a tour outside the walls. The tour was carefully orchestrated so that Siddhartha only saw young, healthy people. The old, the sick and the dying were hidden on back streets that were not part of Siddhartha’s tour.

As it turns out, one curious old man peeked around a corner to get a glimpse of the prince as he passed, and Siddhartha saw him. Prince Siddhartha had never seen old age before and was immediately struck by what he saw. He followed the old man in order to learn more, and stumbled across everything his father had tried to hide from him. Old age, sickness and death.

Prince Siddhartha was overcome with compassion for everyone who suffered from these maladies. Driven by compassion, his quest became the pursuit of the end of suffering.

Now, this is what is important for us to notice. When driven by compassion to end suffering, did Siddhartha decide to be a great king so he could make new laws? Did he decide to become a doctor? A scientist? A social worker? No. He decided to seek enlightenment. Somehow he intuitively knew that the answer to all problems rested with truth realization.

We are practicing true compassion when we dedicate our lives to the pursuit of truth realization. This is because the ego thought system is the cause of all forms of suffering.

Today I have selected a Christmas song for inspiration. It was written by John Lennon. I picked this song because it asks us, “What have you done?” This is not meant as an accusation, but as an internal question that we can each contemplate until increased motivation for spiritual practice arises within us. If we ask, motivation will come

Listen to the song by John Lennon   Note: You may have to click “I Understand and Wish to Proceed” to watch the video in YouTube, because of the violence presented in the video.

If we looked at the full horror caused by the ego thought system, that would be our ‘kick,’ so the ego makes sure we don’t look.

In spite of any suffering we may experience, our lives aren’t bad. Our level of suffering is tolerable, which is why we put up with it. The disadvantage of that is that it doesn’t push us to desire awakening with our whole heart, our whole soul, all of our strength and all of our mind.

However, there is an advantage to our easier lives too.

If we were overly consumed with suffering, we might not have time or energy to focus on awakening, because we would be too busy trying to resolve the problems of our suffering (or too sick/weak to do anything). Our more cozy lifestyles permit the opportunity for spiritual practice, if we will take advantage of them. And as yesterday’s tip pointed out, we can be motivated by the suffering of others, if we are willing to look like Prince Siddhartha (Buddha) looked.

Most of us (if not all of us) know that we do not take full advantage of the time allotted to us for spiritual practice. Yesterday I was driving to the bank in our new AT Ride (a van donated for our Retreat House) when I heard a Christian song on the radio. The song said that a saint is someone who, “falls down and gets up, falls down and gets up, falls down and gets up.”

So, that’s what we need to do. When we notice we have slipped or forgotten our purpose (fallen down), we just begin again (get up). In this way, we awaken ourselves and the world.

Here’s a song to inspire us to sainthood

North Korea’s nuclear missile campaign is increasing. Their leader has been willing to execute his own family members, so there is little to no trust that he will be responsible with nuclear weapons. His goal is to obtain the capability to strike the US.

A maid, who had been cleaning windows outside of a high-rise apartment, slipped. She held on to the windowsill and screamed desperately for help. Her employer thought it was funny. Instead of helping, she grabbed a smart phone to video it. The terrified maid fell. The employer walked over to the window to finish the story on video by showing her lying about 15-20 floors below. (Amazingly the maid survived.)

A Michigan woman, age 41, was arrested for choking a high school girl at Disney World on Wednesday night for blocking her view of the Disney fireworks show.

These are just a few of the stories in the news this week. The sad thing is, there are many, many, many more stories like them that we will never hear about. These aren’t just stories ‘out there.’ These stories are the affect of the ego thought system.

Buddha’s motivation for letting go of ego was the desire to find the end to suffering. His own suffering didn’t motivate him. Personally, he didn’t know suffering. He was motivated by compassion for others.

Jesus said his life was a ransom for many. Could he have had the same motivation as Buddha?

Can we look at the suffering and terror that is caused by the ego thought system, and like them, choose to let go of it?

Please take a moment to watch the following video today. And thanks for any effort that you put into letting go of the ego thought system in your mind. It is a gift to all of us.

Happy Birthday, Jesus

~ Do not allow your intent to waver in the face of distracting thoughts. … Replace them with your determination to succeed.

~ Regard these practice periods as dedications to the way, the truth, and the life.

~ You are dedicated to salvation. Be determined each day not to leave your function unfulfilled.

Repeatedly we are told, “Be determined and dedicated.” So this is the primary objective of lessons 81 – 90. We are here to gather our motivation and strength so we may continue on with increased determination and dedication.

My tips each day during this review period will not focus on the specific lessons that we are reviewing that day. Instead, I will focus on the objective of gathering motivation and strength so we can continue with increased determination and dedication. I will be our coach.

“Do not dwell in the desert hot of the non-self, eating arid sand. Come into the Heart, the mansion cool, shady, vast, serene and feast on the bliss of Self.” ~ The Garland of Guru’s Saying

When I did open the Course workbook and see today’s lesson, “the problem” it spoke about was clear. The lesson called it “separation,” but we experience it as thinking or mental chatter.

Things do come up that need to be handled, as they did with me today, but those things aren’t actually the problem. ‘Thinking’ (mental chatter) is the problem. ‘Thinking’ is the cause of all wars. Based on what we learned from NTI Ephesians and The Code, ‘thinking’ is even the cause of disease, weather patterns, etc.

If we look carefully at our thinking, we can see that it IS separation. After all, each of us thinks about ‘me’ and ‘mine.’ Each of us holds to a ‘personal’ point of view. We don’t find universal unity in the mind’s chatter.

Today’s workbook lesson says, “The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved.”

Early in the Gentle Healing group, we listened to an audio by Alan Watts. In that audio, he taught that our true Self is present and fully awake right now. In order to reach it, we need to dive to where it is. In other words, we need to take our attention off of the thinking mind’s chatter and seek inwardly toward the depth of our Self.

“Perceiving the underlying constancy in all the problems that seem to confront you [& that underlying constancy is mental chatter], you would understand that you have the means to solve them all. [You can remove your attention from mental chatter and seek your truth within.] And you would use the means, because you recognize the problem. [Clarity on the problem increases the desire to use the means to end all problems forever.]”

With that said, what do you think I should do? Should I go back to work on the two technical problems that I woke up to today, or should I be happy with the little I’ve done for now and go directly from this post into meditation?

Guess which answer I’ve decided on