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Audio & Homework – Week 9 Gentle Healing Group with Regina, 3/7/17

March 7, 2017

Listen to this recording

Regina Dawn Akers guides a group of committed students who would like to make consistent, gentle progress toward genuine peace, joy and love. This group meets weekly and all members are committed to specific assignments and practices between group meetings. Everyone who is willing to make a commitment to healing/awakening is invited to join this group.

From tonight’s sharing:

Homework Assignment A: Workbook lessons 53-59.

Homework Assignment B: Read NTI Romans, Chapter 9 – 16 (pgs. 273-285)
Homework Assignment C: Listen to Gentle Healing Music 1 at least 2 and up to 4 times this week. When you listen, listen to the entire playlist without being engaged in any other activity.

Gentle Healing Music 1 Playlist

Regina’s Tips for Year 1

Regina’s Tips for Year 1 as an ebook

Gentle Healing Facebook group: Sharing in Contemplation Together

Tips From Regina – Regina’s Review, Lessons 51 & 52

March 7, 2017

When I see the world through my individual point of view, I see an individual world. No one else sees a world exactly like the world I see. It is as if each of us is walking around with a box on our head. Our unique worlds are drawn on the inside of our boxes, and that is all we see. We argue that we are right about our points of view, but we are not right. We are blind. In order to see, we need to take the boxes off of our heads.

Whenever I am upset, it is because I am looking at the inside of my box. There isn’t a single exception to this statement. Some ideas may be drawn inside my box in bold colors, and I mistake them as important because of their boldness, but I am looking at a colored box. The box deceives me.

Some people may have a few ideas written on the inside of their boxes that are similar to some ideas I have written inside mine, and if we get together and compare what we see, we agree that we are right; but that does not change the fact that we are each looking at a limited colored box. Our boxes deceive us.

If we took our boxes off, cut them open and laid them flat on the ground so we could see everything written on them, and then we took all of the boxes on everyone’s heads and did the same, we would be amazed at the ideas and stories that colored the vision of each individual person. Instead of being angry at those who disagreed with us, we would have compassion. “Oh,” we would say, “That is why you felt that way. I see the writing on your box. I understand now.”

The writing inside my box started with a single idea scratched upon its surface. “I.” As I stared at the one idea inside my box, I bumped into someone, and another idea was scrawled inside my box. “Other.” I held something soft and pleasurable in my hands, and then felt the “other” take it from me. “Mine,” “victim” and “defend” appeared on the box. And in this way, the ideas multiplied until a complex web of ideas colored the inside of my box, all birthed out of the original idea, “I”.

This box has become its own little universe. It is filled with so many ideas, that it entertains me all day everyday and all night every night. With so much entertainment coming from the box, I have lost the sense of curiosity about the outside world. I have become so accustomed to the dark that I no longer crave the light.

With the box on my head, I see only what is scrawled upon the box. That is blindness. Because I have accepted the box as my universe, and because I have become comfortable in my own little world, whether I am happy, upset or suffering because of what is written on the box, I feel sheltered by it. I don’t know what is outside of my box, and I don’t really want to peek outside to see. To me, the known is better than the unknown. I have become accustomed to the familiar scribbles inside my box.

Common sense can see that this spell, my fascination with my box, needs to be broken. It isn’t healthy. It isn’t true. … It isn’t true. … That’s the problem. I fooled myself into thinking that the world inside my box is true, but it isn’t true. The box deceives me.

Tips From Regina – Instructions for Review Lessons 51-60

March 6, 2017

The instructions for Review 1 are fairly flexible. For example, you are told that “if any one of the five ideas appeals to you more than the others, concentrate on that one.”

The flexibility in the instructions allows you to develop a personal relationship with the review lessons.

When Helen scribed the review lessons, she also wrote a paragraph below each lesson. We do not know if this paragraph was fully scribed or if it is a reflection of her personal relationship with the lesson. In the instructions, you are asked to read these paragraphs, but you are also told that it is “not necessary to cover the comments that follow each idea either literally or thoroughly in the practice periods. Try, rather, to emphasize the central point, and think about it as part of your review of the idea to which it relates.” This might be because the comments are Helen’s personal relationship with each lesson. Rather than emphasizing her personal relationship, it is more helpful for you to develop your own personal relationship.

One way to develop your own personal relationship with the lessons is to contemplate each lesson and then write your own comments, comments that reflect your relationship with the lesson.

My intention for the review period is to spend time each morning contemplating the day’s review lessons and writing my own comments. Throughout the day, I will spend at least two minutes each hour deeply contemplating one lesson and the comments I wrote for that lesson. At the end of the day, I will reread the lessons and comments in the workbook along with my own comments.

If this feels right for you, please feel free to do the same. Developing your own relationship with the lessons as we do the review can be extremely, extremely helpful.

I will post my comments for Lesson 51 as an example.

Regina’s personal comments for Lesson 51:

1. Nothing I see means anything. I do not see with the body’s eyes. I see either with the mind or the heart. It is not what I see, but what I see with that gives meaning. When I see with the mind, I am lost in an individualistic illusion that has no meaning at all. When I see with the heart, I am in communication with my true Self. When I am in communication with my true Self, I know my real thoughts. My real thoughts are meaning.

2. I have given what I see all the meaning it has for me. This is true when I see with the mind. When I see the world through my individual point of view, I see an individual world. No one else sees a world exactly like the world I see when I see through the mind. When I see with the heart, however, it is different. When I see with the heart, meaning is not supplied from the outside or by thoughts. The meaning is my Self. What I am, I see. If I see anything that is not what I am, it is as thin as aging gauze.

3. I do not understand anything I see. When I see with my mind, my seeing is colored by my thoughts. Sometimes my thoughts are so dense, I walk about in the world without seeing the world at all; all I see are the thoughts in my mind. My thoughts are an obstacle; they hide or distort everything I see. Things that are hidden or distorted are not understood. Far from it. They are missed entirely.

4. These thoughts do not mean anything. My unique point of view is 1 out of 7,376,000,000 unique points of view in the world today. It is as if each of us is walking around with a box on our head. Our unique worlds are drawn on the inside of our boxes, and that is all we see. We argue that we are right about our points of view, but we are not right. We are blind. In order to see, we need to take the boxes off of our heads.

5. I am never upset for the reason I think. When I am upset, it is because of the box on my head. I will know peace-life-love if I remove the box, because peace-life-love is what I am.

Tips From Regina – Lesson 50, I am sustained by the Love of God

March 5, 2017

One error that creeps into the minds of many spiritual students is “magical thinking.” Magical thinking is believing that spiritual practice protects us and makes us happy by correcting the things in the world that we think need correcting. This error is fairly common and is fiercely protected by the ego, so it isn’t always easily let go.

Why is this error protected by the ego? Lesson 50 answers that question. “All these things are cherished to ensure a body identification.” Valuing magical ideas is the same as valuing pills, money, etc, because the emphasis is on valuing form.

Everything that is born will die. Each one of us does well to accept this fact. When we accept that the body-personalities that we perceive ourselves to be are temporary and can end at anytime, we are ready to seek for our eternal Self. Our eternal Self is beyond everything temporary and is affected by none of it. The realization of our eternal Self as our truth is ‘salvation’, ‘awakening’, and ‘eternal life’.

“Only the Love of God will protect you in all circumstances. It will lift you out of every trial, and raise you high above all perceived dangers of this world into a climate of perfect peace and safety.” This refers to truth realization. When you know what you are, you are not affected by the ups and downs of this world because you know yourself as beyond it.

A perfect illustration of this is the story of Ramana Maharshi’s death. When his body was dying of sarcoma, his devotees were in great sorrow. They thought they were losing their master. But Ramana responded to them by saying, “Where can I go? I shall always be here.” He knew himself AS eternal life. He identified with eternal life, not the temporary body.

Contemplate Lesson 50 carefully today, and watch your mind for every scrap of magical thinking. “Put not your faith in illusions. They will fail you. Put all your faith in the Love of God within you; eternal, changeless and forever unfailing.”

Here is a link to a song that may help you in this contemplation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llKPujyRgek

p.s. Because magical thinking is such a strong ego defense (to keep us identified with the body), people often ask me questions like, “Should I take medication?” I resonate with Byron Katie’s response. She says that the body is the doctor’s business, not hers.

Let the doctor play games with the body. If the doctor says to take a medication or go through a certain procedure, go ahead, but watch your mind for the idea that this will save you. Identification with the body is an error. You are not the body.

Ramana Maharshi allowed his devotees to call a doctor, and he submitted to the doctor’s operations. His attitude seemed to be the same as Byron Katie’s. His body was not his concern or his business. He let those who saw the body as important make decisions about the body.

Tips From Regina – Lesson 49, God's Voice Speaks to me all through the day

March 4, 2017

Part 1 of 2

God’s Voice is silent. It communicates with no words at all. We ‘hear’ God’s Voice more as an intuitive feeling. An example of God’s Voice is the feeling ‘all is well.’ When we feel ‘all is well’ under all circumstances, we are listening to God’s Voice consistently.

God’s Voice prompts us in daily life, if we are willing to ‘listen’. It may come through as a feeling that ‘I don’t need to do anything’ about a particular situation; ‘I can wait’ or have patience. It may come through as a feeling that ‘it is best if I say nothing now’. Or it may come through as a feeling that ‘it is best if I say this particular thing now’. It may come through as awareness, noticing that ‘I am listening to an out-of-control mind now’ and a reminder to breathe and shift attention, etc.

The brain has the ability to translate God’s silent Voice into your language, which means you can hear God’s Voice as words/thoughts. This may or may not happen for some individuals. It may happen sometimes but not all of the time.

When I first became a scribe, my experience was listening to a Voice (a thought stream that did not seem like my own). It was like taking dictation. I would simply listen and write what I heard. However, as I became a more experienced scribe, I noticed that I was feeling the Voice and my brain was selecting the words that would best communicate what I felt. I could sense the silent communication and had full understanding of it before the brain supplied the words.

I am sharing this so you will be open to ‘God’s Voice’ in whatever way it comes to you today. If you close your eyes for 5 minutes and have no other experience except feeling more relaxed after the 5-minute practice, you heard God’s Voice. That’s it.

I will make another post today for those of you who are beginning to scribe the inner voice with language. The ego will fight this process with doubt. I am going to share a post from 2008 when I was experiencing extreme doubt about scribing, so you can see the Voice’s response to me. It may help some of you to move through your doubts and allow the conversations with the inner Voice to continue.

Great love, Regina

Tip for Lesson 49, Part 2 of 2, Looking at doubts about scribing

Question: What about…

Ahhhh! I’m having a tough time asking this next question. It is hard because there is so much judgment and fear in my mind. I am judging the question and I am judging me as the scribe. I have a huge fear that I am just writing what I want to hear. This fear is so big that it makes me want to throw down my pen and runaway and hide. I feel it in my chest.

Before I continue, what would you share about my fear?

Answer: A scribe creates her ability to scribe. This is a creation in that it takes the formless and brings it into form. (In this way, I do not use the word “creation” in the way that A Course in Miracles uses the word. I use “creation” in the way of an artist.)

An artist creates his painting or his sculpture or his magnificent musical piece of work, but any great artist will also tell you the work was born through him. He both created it and he didn’t. He created the piece of work by allowing it to be born through him in a specific form.

The scribe does this. She allows the birth of formless into form as a specific expression through being a scribe.

Because the scribe is a partner or co-creator in the birthing of what may be considered “holy words,” she can also feel guilt or fear about these words. She can fear that her ego sometimes does the writing. She can fear she is not open enough or hearing deep enough. She can even fear that she is making up the entire scribal experience and there is no co-creation with anything divine. The latter may be the greatest fear for many people who are scribe.

The best thing a scribe can do is allow the flow of words that comes through her. She can feel the flow as it comes through at a consistent rate without a break in the flow. Trust this flow that keeps flowing like a river running downhill. It is different than thought, which is rambling and seems to fire from all directions. It is a steady flow that seems to come from one consistent source. As long as the words are coming in this flow, write down the words that you hear.

Your next question frightens you because it is a question that addresses the greatest fear that you have. You are afraid that your fear will be a block to hearing Me or that it may be your ego that answers. You are also afraid, since you fear that scribing may be a human creation rather than a co-creation with the divine…you also fear that asking this question may be exposing yourself as a fake. You’ve had this fear for a long time, and it comes up around many questions. It is time to look at your greatest fear, because it is your greatest fear that hurts you the most.

I understand that facing your doubts is difficult for you, but that is only because you fear your doubts are real. In facing them, you will learn they are not real. In willingness and readiness, and out of a pure desire to take this step, ask the question you fear to ask now. …

Tips from Regina – Lesson 48, There is nothing to fear

March 3, 2017

Today’s workbook lesson does not have a period of meditation. At our last Gentle Healing group meeting, I asked you to practice 5 minutes of awareness-watching-awareness meditation each morning even if the workbook lesson does not include meditation. This is a reminder of that request and, hopefully, a little bit of inspiration regarding the request.

Our reading this week is NTI James. In NTI James, Chapter 4, we are reminded, “You always receive as you have asked, … You ask from the process of creation through desire, which you give your energy to.” And then we are told, “Quietness is attentiveness.”

For most of us, the goal of Gentle Healing is Self-Realization. Yet, we have to admit that most of our attention (energy) goes to the world and thoughts about the world. That shows we still have a strong desire for illusion (and we always receive as we ask).

If we want Self-realization, we must begin to reverse what we do with our energy. We must begin to give attention to within, away from the world and our thoughts. This is the purpose of awareness-watching-awareness meditation.

Quietness is attentiveness to the Self.

By taking time and focusing attention on awareness, we genuinely ask for Self-Realization. And we ALWAYS receive as we ask.

Nisargadatta Maharaj taught that in order to realize the Self, we must overcome the obstacles of “desire for the false and fear of the true.” How do we overcome these obstacles? By our action. When we turn attention away from the world and thoughts, we are overcoming the desire for the false. When we place attention with awareness (changeless being), we are overcoming our fear of the true.

There is nothing to fear. Close your eyes and practice a bit of awareness-watching-awareness each day. In this way, you ask for Self-Realization.

Love, Regina

“Whoever recognizes that he has been desiring what he does not desire, and chooses to desire again in a new way, chooses also to save himself from a multitude of distractions in order to settle within the peace of his own Heart.” ~ NTI James

Tips from Regina – Lesson 47, God is the strength in which I trust

March 1, 2017

We are spending two days with Lesson 47, because it represents an important shift. It represents a shift from trusting in ‘me’ to trusting in a mystery that the mind cannot begin to fathom.

Last week I wrote about some of the aspects of reality: life, awareness, intelligence, and love (unconditional-allowance). Another important aspect of reality is mystery; reality can never be fully understood.

There’s a story in the Bible about a rich man who wanted the kingdom of heaven, but was not willing to give up his riches for it. After Jesus’ encounter with the rich man, Jesus told the disciples, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

The disciples became very concerned, because this particular rich man was known to be very pious. They asked, “Who then can be saved?”

Jesus responded, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

The rich man’s perception of money as security can be likened to us trusting our own strength, individual knowledge, values, etc. We must be willing to leave these ‘riches’ behind and shift our trust from them to mystery. It is mystery that guides us to awakening. It is mystery that makes all things possible.

Last night one friend said she doesn’t understand awareness-watching-awareness meditation. I asked her to have the intention to realize awareness-watching-awareness and continue to try each day. One day the awareness of awareness will come on its own. This is an example of trusting mystery, trusting that the awareness of awareness will come. Our part is the willingness, and practice is the action-quality of willingness. The results come through mystery.

Audio & Homework – Week 8 Gentle Healing Group with Regina, 2/28/17

February 28, 2017

Listen to this recording

From tonight’s sharing:

Homework Assignment A: Workbook lessons 47-52. Practice lesson 47 for 2 days in a row.
Homework Assignment B: Read NTI James, pgs 419-426.
Homework Assignment C: Watch Awakening Together Satsang with Tess Hughes (from the Gentle Healing playlist.)

If you would like to review the awareness-watching-awareness meditation instructions, please go to these links:

General instructions. Please read #10-52.

Further Clarification. Please read #1-166.

(Note: You can ignore the instructions at the above links about how long to practice. You can follow the duration instructions in the Course workbook instead.)

Regina’s Tips for Year 1

Regina’s Tips for Year 1 as an ebook

Gentle Healing Facebook group: Sharing in Contemplation Together

Tips from Regina – Lesson 46, God is the Love in which I forgive

February 28, 2017

The human idea of love is very different from the love of God. Our ideas about love miss the mark by quite a bit. Since our ideas about love are mistaken, we can also misunderstand a lesson that uses the word ‘love.’ Therefore, let’s take a minute to look at ‘love’ in order to get more clarity about it.

Love is best defined as openness. That’s what all embracing allowance is: openness.

Other words that help us understand the meaning of love are non-judgment and non-interference.

To illustrate, let’s consider the space the room where you are sitting now (or the space outside, if you are outside now). If you contemplate the space around you, notice it is open, allowing, non-judgmental, and non-interfering. For example, if two lovers decide to make love in the space around you, the space does not try to stop them. Its openness naturally allows that. Likewise, if one person violently murders another person in the space around you, the space does not try to stop that either. Its openness is as open to murder as it is to making love. The openness of space is so naturally open, it can’t be anything but open. Judgment and interference are impossibilities for the space around you.

God (our true nature) is like the space around you. God is completely open. God cannot be anything but completely open. Love is the perfect openness of God.

Consider love as perfect openness as you review these phrases and sentences from today’s lesson:

God does not forgive because He has never condemned.

His Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness.

God is the Love in which I forgive myself.

I have already been forgiven.

Optional Practice: If you’d like to add an extra practice today, take some time to notice your natural openness. You won’t find your natural openness in the mind. The mind obviously judges, rejects, condemns, etc., but there is a part of you that is always perfectly open. That is your true nature.

You might start this extra practice by spending a few moments contemplating the space around you. Notice its intrinsic openness. Then, close your eyes, and notice your intrinsic openness. Notice that all of the sounds in your environment are allowed by your openness. Notice that all of the sensations in your body are allowed by your openness. If the mind begins to chatter, notice your openness allows the mind’s chatter too. Your openness is completely natural for you. It’s an openness you cannot close. In that way, you are like the space around you.

If you notice your inherent openness for even a fraction of a second today, you have taken a giant step toward realizing your true nature.

Tips from Regina – Lesson 45, God is the Mind with which I think

February 26, 2017

You will spend 2 days with this lesson, before going to the next lesson.

In order to have openness regarding what this lesson points toward, we may need a different understanding of the words “thought” and “think”.

In The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss, Michael Langford defines thought as “the words of your native language in your mind.” Thoughts can also come as pictures in the mind’s eye. However, when Lesson 45 says, “You think with the Mind of God. Therefore, you share your thoughts with Him, … They are the same thoughts, because they are thought by the same Mind,” it is not referring to the words of your native language in your mind and it is not referring to picture thoughts. This is important to know, because if you are looking for the right words in your mind or the right pictures, you will remain focused on form and not go beyond form, which is where your “real thoughts” are realized.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “thought” simply as “past tense and past participle of think.”

“Think” has a few different definitions, but the one that applies most in this context is “to have in mind” with “mind” defined as “consciousness.” Therefore:

Think = To have in consciousness

So a ‘thought’ is something in consciousness.

Our ‘real thoughts’ are the aspects of reality. I introduced some aspects of reality in the second tip for Lesson 44. Life, awareness, and all embracing allowance (love) are aspects of reality, so life, awareness and all embracing allowance are examples of your real thoughts.

Your real thoughts will not show up in your mind as word-thoughts or picture-thoughts. Word-thoughts or picture-thoughts that point toward your real thoughts or which reflect your real thoughts can appear in your mind, but to directly experience real thoughts, one needs to transcend the fascination with word-thoughts and picture-thoughts.

Today and tomorrow as you practice Lesson 45, try to go beyond word-thoughts and picture-thoughts to see if you can realize the aspects of reality (our real thoughts), which are always with you.

Note: Stay with Lesson 45 for two days. Go to Lesson 46 the day after tomorrow.