Yesterday’s tip pointed out that the word “lie” is in the center of the word “belief.” Today’s reading seems to echo that point when it says:

All that you experience and believe to be true is not true.

When something is true, it is in accordance with fact or reality. Today’s reading points out that everything we experience and believe is not true, because it is not in accordance with reality.

Instead of believing  that statement, let’s use inquiry to find out for ourselves.

For example, I can ask, “Is it true that I am a woman?” It appears that I am a woman, but is that a fact that is in accord with reality? There was a time when I would have said, “Yes,” but after practicing awareness-watching-awareness, I realize woman is not my essential nature. It is an appearance and an experience, but it is not the essence of my reality.

Also, if I look at awareness as what I am, I find that it is not an experience or a belief. I do not experience awareness. Awareness is that which is aware of every experience. Also, I do not hold a belief that I am awareness. Awareness is a direct knowing. In fact, it is the most intimate known about me.

The reason today’s reading points out that everything we experience and believe is not true is to help us return our focus to reality.

The reading says:

Let’s pass through your dream, see it is not real, and return in glee to all that is real and has not changed.

As NTI Acts 25 pointed out, we have a choice about how to “play” our role in the world. We can believe our experiences and suffer with them, or we can use each experience for awakening.

Today’s reading gives us another opportunity to consider how we want to play our role. Here are some questions to consider as you contemplate today’s reading:

What is your purpose for this lifetime?

How do you choose to focus your attention as everything happens?

Are you ready to look at thoughts you’ve held dear until now
and realize you don’t want them anymore?

Are you willing to relinquish judgment and self-will?

The reading says that creation/Heaven does not suffer over your experiences in the world. In this context, both “creation” and “Heaven” are symbols for consciousness. Consciousness doesn’t suffer over your experiences in the world, because consciousness knows reality, and when it sees you, all it sees is changeless, unaffected reality.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.

The tip on Day 134 said:

Something is real when it actually exists and has fixed properties. … The world does not meet this [criteria]. …

Why is it important to remember that the world isn’t real?

When you think the world is real, you subconsciously believe it has fixed properties and will not change. For example, if you believe you are headed for disaster, possibly financial ruin or a failed relationship, you subconsciously believe the situation is fixed and will not change. If you believe you are worthless or guilty, you subconsciously believe worthlessness or guilt is a fixed fact about who you are. If you believe the world is fearful, you accept that as a fact, and you are subconsciously waiting for the next terrible thing to happen.

Today’s reading reemphasizes that. It says:

The mind that believes in the world believes what it experiences to be true. And so it lives the experience as if it is true, and it suffers heartache.

Even though we experience the world as real if we believe it is real, the reading reminds us that is not the truth. It says:

Life is not in the world. Life is beyond the world. …

You are Life, and you are truth also, so you must not be in the world.

I was never one who could believe  that I am not in the world. By that, I mean that I could not turn that teaching into a belief in the way that one might believe Jesus was resurrected from the dead or there is an afterlife in a place called Heaven. I could not turn the idea, “You are not in the world,” into a belief, because my daily experience is that I am in the world. Turning that teaching into a belief felt like too big of a lie to me.

However, as I practiced awareness-watching-awareness, I began to experience myself as awareness instead of as a body-mind. As awareness, I can see that I am not in the world. I can see that the world is in me.

David Fishman has often pointed out that the word “belief” has “lie” in the center of it:

be~lie~f

That’s a nice symbol to keep in mind, since we typically confuse our beliefs with what we know to be true. For example, one who believes that Jesus was resurrected typically does not realize he doesn’t know  that Jesus was resurrected.

Instead of believing  that you are not in the world, I recommend practicing awareness-watching-awareness. Through watching awareness, you come to know  yourself as awareness (consciousness), and then you see that the mind, body and world are in you.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.

Yesterday’s reading said that Jesus is a symbol of our truth. Today’s reading says the same thing. However, it points out that Jesus isn’t the only symbol of our truth. It says:

To call you back to your truth, through the forest of your conscious awareness, the Holy Spirit sends symbols of Light. These symbols come in many forms and many manners, of which Jesus is one. But they are all symbols leading you back to your truth, which is beyond your belief and conscious awareness.

A few of the symbols of light are Krishna, Buddha, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, The Tao Te Ching, A Course in Miracles, NTI  and etcetera. There are many, many symbols of light in the world.

Today’s reading also says:

Remain alert to the symbols that are sent into your conscious awareness to follow. Lock onto them, and be led Home. Let everything else pass as you see it.

That is a very important instruction. Please take time to let that instruction sink into your heart and conscious mind today.

Interestingly, today’s reading says that the Holy Spirit is not  a symbol. To be clear, the words, “Holy Spirit,” are a symbol. Those specific words are a cultural symbol based on Jewish and Christian scripture. However, the spiritual intuition that those words point to  is not a symbol in the way that Jesus, Ramana Maharshi and NTI are symbols. Spiritual intuition is wisdom that resides within consciousness and rises into conscious awareness when you are willing for it. The reading says it is:

 “the pure reflection of truth within the memory of your mind.”

In this case, “memory” has nothing to do with the past. It is like the memory in a computer. Just as data is retrieved from the hard drive and stored in a computer’s memory so you can read it and work with it, spiritual wisdom rises into conscious awareness so you can be aware of it and follow it. That means that although Jesus, Ramana Maharshi, NTI and etcetera are symbols, the clarity you receive while contemplating them is not a symbol. It is truth realization.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.

On Day 125, we learned that “you” refers to everyone and everything in the Fourth Principle of God, not as many things, but as one thing—consciousness.

Consciousness is what you are now. Today’s reading speaks to you, consciousness, as you are. It is not speaking to the body-mind, because that’s not what you are.

Since you are consciousness, and you are not limited to the body-mind, you can feel the truth in today’s reading even if you cannot intellectually understand it. The feeling that knows today’s reading is true is an intuitive feeling, not an emotional one.

Today’s reading speaks of Jesus as a symbol “of all that is true with you.” It says:

“… all that he accomplished, he accomplished within you.”

You might think of enlightenment as something you will accomplish some day. You might think of it as something you are working towards. However, this excerpt from today’s reading means that enlightenment is already within you now. You are consciousness now, and you know your Self as consciousness now.

This might be hard to understand, especially if you have experiences that seem to prove otherwise, but those experiences are temporary manifestations. They are like waves on the ocean. You are like the ocean itself.

Imagine the ocean. See it in your mind. Allow yourself to see all of an ocean. It spans thousands of miles, and it is thousands of feet deep.

When you look at the entire ocean, which has the most mass, the waves on top of the ocean or the still depth?

Which is more permanent, a wave or the still depth?

Imagine the ocean as a sentient, experiencing being. If the ocean can feel, does it experience the waves on its surface?

Which is its substantial reality, the waves or the still depth?

If you answered these questions the same way I did, you see that the waves are less significant than the still depth, the waves are temporary and the depth is permanent, the waves are experienced, but the depth is the ongoing reality.

This is how it is with you, consciousness. Everything in manifestation comes and goes and changes. They are like the waves on the ocean. You experience manifestation, because that is a part of you just like the waves are part of the ocean, but your substantial reality is the still depth. The still depth is present now, within you, even as the waves continue on the surface of consciousness.

In other words, you are enlightenment, but you may not realize it, because you are focused on the temporary waves instead of the substantial still depth.

The reading also says:

You are eternal, as all of eternity is within you.

Let’s imagine the ocean again. You are the ocean. Somewhere in the middle of you, a small wave is born as it rises up out of you. The wave is moved along the surface by currents and winds. On quiet, clear days, the wave moves along the surface as a gentle roll, barely noticeable as a wave. On stormy days, it rises up and topples small fishing boats. One day, it comes upon a beach, crashes and ends.

From the perspective of the wave, time existed. There was its birth, still days and stormy days, and then its death. However, from the perspective of the still depth, there is only continuous stillness as I am. Time does not exist.

Enjoy today’s reading.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.

On Day 110, we learned:

Ignorance is not guilt. It is a call for knowledge.

In other words, every time a human does something wrong, it is an indication that one has listened to ignorance. The correction for ignorance isn’t guilt. The correction for ignorance is knowledge.

“Ignorant” means lacking knowledge or awareness in general. Its root is “ignore.”

Spiritual ignorance is not being aware of truth or now knowing what you are. It comes about because we ignore truth as we pay attention to thought and the world. Outward focus is the cause of ignorance. Inward focus removes ignorance.

Today’s reading is about truth, guilt and sin. In short, it says that only the truth is true, so sin and guilt are imagined. Sometimes this is hard for people to accept, because people believe heavily in the world, in mind-made laws and in action as something real—something that has real effects. The way to see that “guilt” and “sin” are not meaningful is to focus on truth (inward focus) over thought and the world (outward focus).

Let’s try an exercise:

1. Imagine yourself as perfectly innocent as the world defines perfect innocence. Imagine that you were born with a perfectly innocent human mind and perfectly loving human heart. Imagine that all of your life, you have only been caring, helpful and happy. You have never hurt yourself or anyone else in any way.

 

2. Close your eyes and imagine what it feels like to be innocence in this way. Feel the experience of being this innocent person.

 

3. Now, as this perfectly innocent person, move into awareness-watching-awareness meditation. As always, let go of all thoughts, emotions, etcetera, and focus attention fully on awareness. Stay there a few minutes.

 

4. Next, imagine yourself as a sinful or guilty person as the world defines sin and guilt. Imagine that ever since you were young, you have been selfish and mean to others. You have committed crimes that cause anguish for others, and you delight in the fact that you continue to get away with your crimes. There is no one you care about as much as yourself.

 

5. Close your eyes and imagine what it feels like to be malevolent. Feel the experience of being this malicious person who thrives on cruelty and taking from others.

 

6. Now, as this malicious person, close your eyes to practice awareness-watching-awareness meditation. As always, let go of all thoughts, emotions, etcetera, and focus attention fully on awareness. Stay there a few minutes.

 

7. Was the life-awareness of the malicious person different from the life-awareness of the innocent person?

If you were able to practice the previous exercise without holding onto judgment, you found there was no difference between the life-awareness of the innocent person and the life-awareness of the malicious person.

Today’s reading says:

God’s Truth has no end, and so it has not ended in you. You are the truth of God in your existence.

I have italicized “in your existence” in the previous excerpt, because existence is truth and existence is truth’s focus. Inward focus is focusing on existence, which is life-awareness. It is through inward focus that we realize truth, and it is through inward focus that we see nothing has ever changed or affected truth in any way. Every action in the world is completely meaningless and fully harmless from the perspective of truth.

Today’s reading also says:

No sin shall cross your mind, because there is no sin in you.

Some people may think, “But sinful thoughts cross my mind all of the time!”

If this is your perspective, you are still focused outwardly. Focus inwardly on awareness-watching-awareness. Thoughts are outward. Only life-awareness is inward. Illusion is outward. That is not you. Truth is inward. That is what you are.

When you focus inward on what you are, you will see that no sin crosses your mind and nothing that occurs outwardly touches you at all.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.