“In order to understand the symbol, one must accept the Love of Christ. One prepares himself to accept that Love BY RECOGNIZING HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND the symbol, and then he ASKS for understanding. By OPENING UP TO RECEIVE UNDERSTANDING WITHOUT JUDGMENT, he opens up to accept the Love of Christ. With that Love comes Christ’s knowledge, for they are the same and inseparable. Then the meaning that is beyond the words is understood as a Light that shines for all who look to see.” There are two main points about contemplation in this paragraph: 1 – In order to receive wisdom, I have to realize I don’t understand the words I am reading. For example, when you contemplate today’s workbook lesson, do not assume you know what “light,” “joy” and “peace” are, even if you have received clarity about those terms before. Let today’s inspiration be free to interpret those symbols in a new enlightening way. 2 – In order to receive wisdom, I have to be willing not to judge what I receive. The other day I was listening to Jacquelyn Eckert’s teaching in the Awakening Together online Sanctuary. She commented that when she asks a question of Spirit and receives an answer, it takes a few days before she can look at it without believing that it came from her ego. I know the feeling she is talking about. Jacquelyn is doing well when she allows herself to write what came and when she waits a few days until her ego has quieted down in order to look at it again. With practice our egos will quiet down sooner. If you heard the weekly gathering she taught most recently (April 2017), then you heard that the entire gathering was based on wisdom she received from within. Thank goodness she trusted what came. This is what we all need to do. We need to trust what comes when we ask for understanding. The two instructions above were important instructions to move me completely beyond my ego, including my spiritual ego, so that I could receive spontaneous enlightened clarity without blocking it with what I thought I already knew and without shutting it down by judging that it wasn’t enlightened clarity.

Regina’s Personal Contemplation of Lesson 112:

Light and joy and peace abide in me. I am light and joy and peace. That is my nature. I cannot be separated from light and joy and peace. The lightness that I am can taste other experiences, joy can mask itself as interest in problems, and peace is the openness that allows that, but I am still light and joy and peace.

I am as God created me. I cannot be otherwise. To know my true Self, pay attention to my true Self. When I look to discover what is changeless about me, what do I find?

Let’s take advantage of this third review to enhance our contemplation skills. That’s really what the review instructions are pointing to when they say, “Read over the ideas and comments that are written down for each day’s exercise. And then begin to think about them, while LETTING YOUR MIND RELATE THEM to your needs, your seeming problems, and all your concerns. PLACE THE IDEAS WITHIN YOUR MIND, AND LET IT USE THEM AS IT CHOOSES. Give it faith that it will use them wisely, being helped in its decisions by the One Who gave the thoughts to you.”

The words I have written in ALL CAPS above are words that point to HOW to contemplate. Notice there is a passiveness in contemplation. Instead of thinking hard about the lessons, you read them softly and let insight come to you, like a gift.

What I will do each day during this review period is share different tips to help you learn the art of contemplation. I will start today with a quote written by Regina Dawn Akers. This is something that came to me one day while I was contemplating a quote in The Seven Steps to Awakening. So, this quote itself is a fruit of contemplation:

“Contemplation is not thinking or trying to understand. Contemplation is silent diving into the restful, devotional, open heart of the words, and there being; just being in the state of contemplation without seeking to understand or get answers.” ~RDA

If contemplation is new to you, try contemplating my quote above along with the paragraph I have quoted from the review instructions, and then practice contemplation with today’s lesson. Don’t put pressure on yourself. Just BE WITH the words with the intention to receive additional clarity or a deepening of clarity. I recommend writing down what comes and reviewing it several times throughout the day. It may come in words, as a picture, as a vision or as a feeling. If it comes as one of the latter three, consider making a few notes that will remind you of the experience later.

Regina’s Personal Contemplation of Lesson 111:

Miracles are seen in light. Darkness is the personal point-of-view as seen through ‘my’ thoughts, ‘my’ prejudices, ‘my’ fears, ‘my’ judgments, etc. Miracles are not seen in darkness. They are seen in light. They are seen through openness, through loving all.

Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one. This must also mean that darkness and weakness are one. My personal point-of-view is weakness regardless of how smart or right it may feel. Thinking of ‘me,’ ‘what I want,’ and ‘how I want it’ is a position of weakness. Lay weakness aside each time it is noticed, and strength is naturally received.

When you rest the mind, realize you are allowing time for healing. Rest during meditation, rest when you happen to notice that thought is all wound up and also rest when you feel an upset. Learn to relax attention away from thought. At first you may need to put attention on another thought like the day’s Course lesson, because you are used to having attention on something, but the goal is to learn to rest in openness. Just be open. For me it feels like being general instead of specific. Some might call it being unclenched instead of clenched. Play with resting, and you will get the feel of it. When you feel tight, it is helpful to take a breath, relax, and then relax deeper into rest.

Today might be a good day to do one of this week’s homework assignments. You can rest as you listen to the music playlist or let Adyashanti guide you into a state of rest through this week’s guided meditation.

Today’s lesson says, “One thought, completely unified, will serve to unify all thought.” That’s the power of the Loving All Method. It unifies everything so that there are no opposites. It brings about a “state of mind that has become so unified that darkness cannot be perceived at all.”

Here is the link to the Loving All Method for those of you who want to review it this week:

Since I’ve started meditating more, my house is less clean and I have missed working out in my gym. I’d love to workout and spend more time cleaning my house, but only if life rearranges itself so I can do those things without giving up time meditating.

Why has meditation become so important? When I meditate, it seems that nothing much is happening. Attention habitually goes into thought, and I gently pull it back to focus on awareness again. After a certain amount of time, attention rests more easily with awareness, but there is still some going out and pulling back that occurs. That’s it, nothing else for up to two hours. But there’s this intuitive feeling that I have. It’s a feeling that something much more powerful is occurring. Something that is subtle to the ego, which looks for progress and tries to measure it, but something very steady and very precise.

To put it in the language of today’s workbook lesson, truth is correcting all errors in my mind as I willingly pull attention out of thought and rest with awareness to the best of my ability. I feel my small, poorly skilled effort is allowing something remarkable to take place.

And that is what today’s lesson tells us.

“It is impossible that anyone could seek it truly, and would not succeed. … Give truth its due, and it will give you yours.”

True spirituality isn’t about belief. It is about your own direct experience.

Our “faith” isn’t based on belief. Our “faith” is based on trust. We trust the teachings enough to try it for ourself. Instead of believing the teachings, we practice them, and through practice we experience truth directly.

Keep this in mind as you go forward with spirituality. There will be a lot of opportunities to believe something. Believing isn’t the point. Practice is the point.

What you give, you receive.

Jesus put it this way in the New Testament:

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” ~ Luke 6:38

Divine law does not discern for you. It does not look at what you are giving and decide that you would rather receive something else. It returns to you exactly what you give.

Today’s workbook lesson is pointing out that because of divine law, you cannot withhold happiness from others and know happiness.

In actuality, you cannot withhold happiness from others. They will receive what they give. However, as an example, if spitefulness is in your mind, you will feel wounded or attacked by what others say or do.

Remember: What I think, I see. What I see, I experience. What I experience, I think.

Today’s workbook lesson asks you to think of “those brothers who have been denied by you the peace and joy that are their right under the equal laws of God” and tell each one “My brother, peace and joy I offer you.”

This is a good opportunity to also practice the Loving All Method. What is your grievance? Can you look at it in your mind now and love it? Accept it? Emotionally allow it? It would be good practice to do so, and then say, “My brother, peace and joy I offer you.”

Another suggestion: If you contemplate today’s lesson alongside the Loving All Method, you may see the great benefit in making the Loving All Method a way of life

“Sin” is that which should not be. It is impossible to be happy with something if we judge that it should not be. This judgment, which is the fundamental judgment and the root of all judgments, is what we need to learn to let go of. There isn’t one circumstance that we can withhold from our love, our happiness, our forgiveness, because if there is any circumstance that we withhold from love, we have deemed that to be separate from love. Metaphysically, we withhold healing from anything that we withhold love from. We also withhold healing from ourselves in the same instant.

The decision not to love something, not to be happy with something, not to forgive something, is the cause of all suffering everywhere in the world.

This week as you read the Loving All Method, contemplate it deeply. Look at those situations that you want to withhold from love, realize those are situations that you’d like to see healed, and then remember that love is the only healing power. We cannot guarantee that a specific situation will be healed by your love, because many others may still hold judgments against it, but we can guarantee that your love will heal something. Not least of all, your love will heal you. We can also guarantee that your love will never add to a problem anywhere. When you love, you subtract from problems; you do not add to them.

The Loving All Method is generous. It gives you options. If you find you cannot love something, you can at least accept it. If you find you cannot even accept it, you can at least emotionally allow it. “Emotionally allow” is the same as Rest, Accept and Trust with the feelings you have about it.

Read today’s lesson again, and notice how clearly it points to the Loving All Method as an important practice in accepting truth. If love is all there is, if God is all there is, then happiness is all we experience. If we do not experience happiness, we have defined something as sin. Pause, look at it. Notice you have decided that should not be, and then practice the Loving All Method with it. Love it if you can. Accept it if that is the best you can do. Emotionally allow it if love or acceptance is too much of a stretch for you now.

Gotta go. Dad is calling me to breakfast. Gotta love it