“You may find it necessary to repeat the idea for today from time to time to replace distracting thoughts. You may also find that this is not sufficient, and that you need to continue adding other thoughts related to the truth about yourself. Yet, perhaps you will succeed in going past that, and through the interval of thoughtlessness to [your Self.]”

The difference between meditation and simply sitting quietly with eyes closed is that in meditation we are doing two things: 1) We are removing our attention from thinking & mind-wandering. 2) We are attempting to place our attention with truth. We may not know what that means, so we go about it with the attitude of being an ‘inner astronaut’, observing and exploring the inner environment looking for the Self.

For beginning meditators, and on some days for seasoned meditators, step 1 takes some gentle effort. We need to softly work at not being lost in thinking. As today’s lesson recommends, we can repeat the workbook lesson to ourselves to remove attention from thought and to go back to being the inner astronaut. However, sometimes if we use the same idea too much to make this transition, the mind will begin to mindlessly repeat that idea while we are lost in thought at the same time…even while the idea is being repeated by the mind. When we notice this is happening, we can move to related thoughts. This will bring our attention out of being lost in thought, because it will take more attention (focus) to allow the related thoughts to come clearly.

Whether you are repeating the workbook lesson for the day or allowing related thoughts, let the words come slowly with space between them. Also allow as much space as possible between sentences, and move into exploring the inner environment during the space between sentences. This space between sentences may gradually become longer and longer until you are involved in the inner exploration and the sentences are no longer needed to ground your attention in meditation (or they are only needed from time-to-time).

If you would like to review the instructions for awareness-watching-awareness meditation, read sentences #10-52 at:
http://albigen.com/uarelove/most_rapid/chapter07.htm

If you want further Clarification, read #1-166 at:
http://albigen.com/uarelove/most_rapid/chapter08.htm

Let me give you an example of happiness as our natural state. We’ve all experienced happiness. Sometimes we experience happiness because of the simplest things. For example, imagine you are biting into the best piece of fruit or best chocolate you’ve ever tasted. The fruit is juicy and full of flavor. The chocolate is creamy; you just want to hold it in your mouth until it melts on your tongue.

During the brief period of time that you are giving your full attention to the fruit or chocolate, you are happy. Why? It’s because you aren’t listening to ego. You have literally disengaged from ego to give your full attention to the experience of this piece of fruit or this chocolate.

Every time you disengage from ego and bring your attention fully to the present, you are happy. You may make the mistake of thinking it was the fruit or candy (or hike or playing with your grandchildren, etc) that made you happy. However, in actuality you are happy because you temporarily disengaged from ego, so there was nothing to block your natural state.

In the language of A Course in Miracles, the act of removing your attention from ego is called forgiveness. A Course in Miracles teaches that forgiveness is your function. Since disengaging from ego returns you to your natural state, our function (forgiveness) and happiness are one.

In order to see that this is true, pay attention to your experience. Notice that whenever you are not happy, there is a thought or story present that is driving your experience. Whenever you are happy, notice you are being present with your current experience and not caught up in ego ideas in that moment. By observing this in yourself, you will come to see that ego blocks happiness and happiness is natural when we are not lost in ego’s thoughts or perceptions.