Lesson 119. Review of Lessons 107 – 108.
How to Contemplate, continued:
As with all things spiritual, the best way to learn contemplation is to learn from yourself. Therefore, for today’s tip I’d like to share some of my favorite quotes on contemplation. As you contemplate these quotes, you learn how to contemplate through contemplation:
Abandon the words but remain established in the experience of the truth they indicate. That supreme state is beyond all concepts. ~ Yoga Vasistha
Contemplation is the art of holding a word or a phrase patiently in the silence and stillness of awareness until it begins to disclose deeper and deeper meanings and understandings. Contemplation has the power to transcend beyond the limits of analytical thought and logic, and open consciousness up to an order of wisdom and Truth that can only be described as revelation. ~ Adyashanti
The words are no more than signposts. That to which they point is not to be found within the realm of thought, but a dimension within yourself that is deeper and infinitely vaster than thought. A vibrantly alive peace is one of the characteristics of that dimension, so whenever you feel inner peace arising as you read, the [written word] is doing its work fulfilling its function as your teacher; it is reminding you of who you are and pointing the way back home. … Allow [it] to do its work, to awaken you from the old grooves of your repetitive and conditioned thinking. ~ Eckhart Tolle
Your contemplation has to be a naked contemplation that does not rely on any luggage from the past, a contemplation that does not rely on learned beliefs and past feelings. ~ Magdi Em Be
To bring the attention to a single point and to dwell on that single point for a very long time is the way to awaken insight. Insight is not thinking and insight is not belief. Insight is a permanent new perspective. ~ Michael Langford
Jacquelyn’s Personal Contemplation:
LESSON 119
(107) Truth will correct all errors in my mind.
(108) To give and to receive are one in truth.
What are the errors in my mind? How does truth correct them? What is my part in the correction?
Truth is that which does not know I, me, mine. Truth/Awareness is that from which all things emanate. The self reflectiveness of truth, is thus a prism with unlimited perspective—free to see from all at once, from any anytime or from none. Notice how truth is as described in 1 Corinthians 13:
1 Corinthians 13 New International Version (NIV)
13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Love is truth is happiness is God—the forever and the Absolute. All things point to the great mystery of being. Faith and hope are but signposts to that one great truth. It is here that you must rest, seek sustenance. Notice in 1 Cor. 13 those things you are not in truth. To whom do those belong? For whom were they created? What is their function? Truth supports no function but is behind all. This is the truth in which we rest. This is the truth in which you live and breathe and have your being. Let the errors of mind be corrected by seeing them and knowing that these are the creations that solidify your heart and your experience. The concrete becomes ephemeral as you let these creations go. Remember, seeing is letting go.
To give and receive are one in truth. I don’t know what this means. I can guess that because there is only one, i always give only to myself. However, I get the sense that this is beyond the thinking mind’s capacity to understand. I open to wisdom.
I rest in being. Giving and receiving are merely open allowance and as such aspects (the same aspect!) of being. These words point to what has been called flow. What does one experience when one experiences the flow? Doesn’t the word itself point to the truth? What flows “in” also flows “out.” There is no obstruction nor even direction. There is no cause and effect relationship. Flow is. Truth is. Inside and outside have no definitive boundaries. Where does the soap bubble start and stop. Which point on its circumference is cause and which effect? Having and being are one. Giving and being are one. To draw distinction is creation of the same. Receiving is the great mother, the all allowing. It is this to which I give and of this which I receive. This one flow is.
