Thoughts of Awakening # 352
There is a desire to avoid stillness,
and there is the lovely music of stillness too.
Which one do I choose today?
~A thought of awakening
A universal assembly for true discernment
Please read How to Awaken from the Dream from The Teachings of Inner Ramana and contemplate it with your inner teacher. Follow inner prompting regarding the best way to contemplate the reading with the inner teacher. If you don’t feel a specific prompt, ask the inner teacher to share whatever is most important for you to know, see or realize regarding this message.
If prompted, review the tip from Day 310.
There is a desire to avoid stillness,
and there is the lovely music of stillness too.
Which one do I choose today?
~A thought of awakening
The Gentle Healing Curriculum guides committed students to make consistent, gentle progress toward genuine peace, joy, and love. Gentle Healing Year 3 is based on The Seven Steps to Awakening. The art and practice of contemplation are heavily practiced and reinforced as part of the curriculum of the ongoing daily homework that is assigned to this group. As part of the deep sharing of those contemplations, participants are asked to post on the Awakening Together Forum. This particular Gentle Healing Group is facilitated by Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert and Connie Poole.
Add to Your Calendar
*To add this program to your own calendar click the three dots in the upper right-hand corner, and then click “copy” and “save”.
Homework for this week:
Daily Contemplations Week 47.
Here’s a direct link to the helpful facilitator guide for Gentle Healing Year 3 that helps you to know what week you are on: Click Here
Rev. Shawna Summers guides a group of committed students through year 2 of Gentle Healing who would like to make consistent, gentle progress toward genuine peace, joy, and love. This group meets weekly on Mondays and all members are committed to specific assignments and practices between group meetings.
Our Home~Play for Week 105.
*If you don’t already have it, order The Seven Steps to Awakening. That will be our text for Year 3. Year 3 will start on February 28, 2022. Yay!
During our time together, we will explore what it takes to live from an open, undefended heart. Naturally, any true exploration of living from the heart necessarily entails taking a deep and sustained look at what prevents us from keeping our hearts open. Grounded in the knowledge that the essence of us, our true nature, is the very lovingness within us all, we will explore how to recognize and release egoic energies by cultivating open-hearted awareness practices which support us in directly experiencing our true Self. By leaning into willingness, steeped in self-honesty, and with a consistent dash of courage, we endeavor to open to whatever life brings, as it brings it, that is, on life’s terms. In so doing, we trust that everything – absolutely everything – is here for us to use for healing, for purification, and for learning to live from the heart. We look forward to supporting each other in our individual explorations of how we truly embrace the entirety of this show we call life.
Please note: it may be necessary to download the audio to listen to it fully.
Add to Your Calendar
*To add a recurring program to your own calendar click the three dots in the upper right-hand corner, and then click “copy” and “save”.
Plan to join us for discussion of this Month’s movie, “American Beauty,” on Sunday, February 27 at 8 pm ET.
Lester Burnham, the hero of “American Beauty,” is played by Kevin Spacey as a man who is unloved by his daughter, ignored by his wife and unnecessary at work. “I’ll be dead in a year,” he tells us in almost the first words of the movie. “In a way, I’m dead already.” The movie is the story of his rebellion.
“Look closer,” the film’s tag-line tells us. Look closer at the beautiful things we yearn for and spend our life chasing. The characters in “American Beauty” are yearning to fulfill a dream that they think will get them out of their miserable lives.
By the end of the film, most of the characters get a taste of their dreams and discover the underlying emptiness of their lives. Looking closer, they see the decay that has replaced genuine beauty and meaning and discover that their dreams are nothing but illusions.
The movie is available on Amazon, Hulu, Showtime, Vudu, YouTube and other streaming services. The playsheet for the movie will soon become available.
This evening (or tomorrow morning):
Read NTI Hebrews 11 (v1,2) thru (v11,12).
Tomorrow:
Please read quotes 1109-1112 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
Previous impressions are destroyed only by intense self-effort. Even if the mountains were pulverized and the worlds dissolved, one should not give up self-effort.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Please read Clarity on Practice from The Teachings of Inner Ramana and contemplate it with your inner teacher. Follow inner prompting regarding the best way to contemplate the reading with the inner teacher. If you don’t feel a specific prompt, ask the inner teacher to share whatever is most important for you to know, see or realize regarding this message.
If prompted, review the tip from Day 309.
I listen Within,
although I may hear no sound.
No words. No form.
There is music in stillness.
~A thought of awakening
Revs. Glen Ganaway and Yolanda Mapes, who are interfaith ministers, share a delightful, funny, and inspiring hour of A Course in Miracles. Come join in on the fun, the laughs, and the music while unlearning the ego through the lessons and chapters of ACIM. You can find out more about the Mighty Companions on their website: themightycompanions.com
*To add a recurring program to your own calendar click the three dots in the upper right-hand corner, and then click “copy” and “save”.
This was a special edition of Clarifying the Teachings. Regina Dawn Akers couldn’t be with us live so she suggested that we as a group discuss the teachings thus far that she has shared with us. Also, to take this time to see if there are any lingering questions that we still may have and want to present to her on the next installment of the Clarifying the Teachings program. Cyndi Krupp was the facilitator for this group meeting on Sunday, February 13, 2022.