Jacquelyn Eckert, Author at Awakening Together

8-25-19 Weekly Gathering: “It’s a Fact That You Feel, But Feelings Aren’t a Fact.”

August 25, 2019 By Jacquelyn Eckert

Listen to this audio

Weekly Gathering with Rev. Deloris Mabins-Adenekan

Topic: It’s a fact that you feel, but feelings aren’t a fact.

Reading: Rev. Shawna Summers read from I Am That, Chapter 1, by Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Gentle Healing Year 1 ~ Lesson 185

August 24, 2019 By Jacquelyn Eckert

Lesson 185. I want the peace of God.

Our current goals:

Widen the horizons of our vision
Take direct approaches to uncover the blocks that keep our vision narrow
Lift those blocks, however briefly, in order to experience the sense of liberation that comes when the blocks are removed
Intensify our motivation for freedom

Before commenting on today’s workbook lesson, I’d like to say something about the practice we’ve used for the last two days, repeating the Name of God.

There are many things that we do each day that have become well wired into our brains, so that we do not need to pay full attention in order to complete the task. Examples include showering, housework, exercising, and even driving. Because these activities do not require the full attention of our brains, our minds tend to wander a lot when we are busy with these types of activities.

If it feels helpful to you, you can replace mindless mind wandering with the Name of God mantra when you are engaged in activities (or non-activity) that do not require the full attention of your brain. This is not a new assignment for the Gentle Healing Group, but some of you may recognize value in this practice and may want to add it to your other practices. If that’s the case, you may find it helpful to read, “Instructions for Using the Mantra” from The Teachings of Inner Ramana.

Now, let’s look at today’s lesson:

“I want the peace of God. To say these words is nothing. But to mean these words is everything. If you could but mean them for just an instant, there would be no further sorrow possible for you in any form. … To mean you want the peace of God is to renounce all dreams. For no one means these words who wants illusions, and who therefore seeks the means which bring illusions. He has looked on them, and found them wanting. Now he seeks to go beyond them, recognizing that another dream would offer nothing more than all the others.”

“Today devote your practice periods to careful searching of your mind, to find the dreams you cherish still. What do you ask for in the heart? … Consider but what you believe will comfort you, and bring you happiness.”

This is what we are asked to look at today: Do we really want our dreams or do we want the peace of God, which is awakening from dreams entirely? What is it that we truly seek?

It occurs to me that today’s lesson is a lot like the chapter on Unconditional Happiness in Michael Singer’s The Untethered Soul. Having made a commitment to happiness, you don’t trade that for anything. What would you trade it for? As he illustrates in that chapter, we do “trade” our happiness for what we think will bring us happiness. By making the commitment, you get to see what ideas of happiness you are willing to trade your actual happiness for. He uses the example of someone saying, “When I made a commitment to unconditional happiness, I didn’t know my wife was going to die.” There are no conditions on unconditional happiness.

The question is really, what do you value most and why? I value the peace of God most. The concept becomes difficult because we think we know what will bring us peace and happiness. So, when we make the unconditional commitment to the “Peace of God,” we are still focused on the end results. We confuse ends and means.

If you look at your dreams and preferences, ask yourself why the object of your desire is important to you. Isn’t it because you believe that the dream or preference will bring you peace and happiness?

Part of the reason we are still looking at outcomes is because we are seemingly hardwired to believe that our state of mind or our peace of mind is the result of or caused by peaceful outcomes. This is where we have confused cause and effect. Hear this well, “outcomes” do not cause states of mind.

Inner Wisdom told me many months ago that the means and the ends are always the same. In relation to unconditional happiness, it’s obvious that I am making a commitment to being happy no matter the outcome. The same is true of the peace of God. I am making a commitment to rest in the peace of God regardless of outcome–regardless of what I think would result in peace.

I truly do not know what will lead to the peace of God. That is because it is beyond the thinking mind. It is beyond anything that the character can conceive. To be led to peace of mind, I have to surrender. I have to surrender outcomes, or what you might call “dreams.” I have to surrender the desire to manipulate people, places, things, and circumstances in order to “gain” happiness or to gain peace of mind. The peace of God that I seek is inherent in the surrender, not a result of the surrender and certainly not a result of any circumstance.

Regina asked me to use an example of a dream that might need to be surrendered in order to become aware of the state that is the constant peace of God. What comes to mind is the idea of financial security. The thinking mind says, “you feel relatively financially secure, so you can’t use that as an example.” But, a sense of peace regarding my financial security did not come from achieving financial security and then surrendering. It came from surrendering all of those things that I thought that I needed in order to be financially secure.

When I began this journey in earnest, I was making a six figure income and, had I continued on that path, I would have continued to make that income. In fact, I would have retired at full salary and continued to enjoy a six figure income for the rest of my life. When I received the call to leave my career, leaving seemed to threaten my financial security. It seemed to require that I walk away from financial security in order to find the peace of God.

However, what I am experiencing right this moment is financial security-plus. I don’t know what’s going to happen to Awakening Together next year or in the years to come. I don’t know what’s going to happen to Awakening Together when Regina retires. I don’t know that the financial support will continue to be there. However, I do know that there’s nothing that I need to do in order to attain financial security. I understand that financial security is a really just a preference. I understand that my peace and happiness are not dependent on being financially secure. I understand that my true desire is the peace of God. I understand that the only way I can remain in the peace of God is to identify the peace of God as my only goal.

As always, ends and means are always the same. To realize the peace of God, I need merely identify my goals or dreams as intermediaries intended to bring me peace and happiness. In so doing, I see the absurdity of placing these goals before the peace and happiness available in this moment.

Our lesson today says, “No one who truly seeks the peace of God can fail to find it. For he merely asks that he deceive himself no longer …”

We deceive ourselves when we think we want the object or circumstance that we dream of. That isn’t what we want. We want what we think that object or circumstance will bring us. So why dream about an object or circumstance that is an imagined intermediary for what we truly want? Why not ask for what we truly want directly?

Gentle Healing Year 1 ~ Lesson 184

August 23, 2019 By Jacquelyn Eckert

Lesson 184. The Name of God is my inheritance.

Our current goals:

Widen the horizons of our vision
Take direct approaches to uncover the blocks that keep our vision narrow
Lift those blocks, however briefly, in order to experience the sense of liberation that comes when the blocks are removed
Intensify our motivation for freedom

Earlier this year in our Gentle Healing studies, we were asked to set a spiritual aspiration. The one I came up with seems relevant to today’s workbook lesson. My spiritual aspiration: Conduct your daily activities with little to no agenda.

I experience this aspiration like this: It feels appropriate to head to work in the mornings with the intention of actually arriving at work, but to be consistent with this aspiration, it feels inappropriate to make getting myself to work a priority over anybody else’s priorities. So my getting to work should not be more important than the guy driving in front of me who might appear as if he were sight seeing the backroads to town at 7:30 a.m.

If we believe in what we value, and we act from this belief, then living this aspiration encourages me to consistently look at what I value and what my motivations are. Aren’t my basic motivations the same as yours? ACIM’s principles of Miracles #43 says, “You can not behave appropriately unless you perceive accurately. And “the way to perceive [appropriate] behavior is to look out from the perception of your own holiness, and perceive the holiness of others.” The text says, “Whenever projection is used inappropriately, it always implies some emptiness or lack exists …”

Humans have a tendency to focus on differences. In fact, we typically define a thing based on its differences from another thing. We also define circumstances based on their differences from other circumstances and behaviors based on their differences.

Conducting my daily activities with little to no agenda makes me aware through my experiences that I am not separate from my brothers, or for that matter, from life. I do not have a separate will. My will is to know who I am in truth.

Today, we are asked to focus on the “One Identity which all things share.” We want to use the ‘Name of God’ mantra as a transition to focusing on the one identity instead of differences.

My aspiration is an expression of inner awareness of Christ and the one Identity. From this state of awareness I am in a state of grace and I naturally become gracious. I feel joy and I feel peace when I experience this Oneness and I know this is my inheritance.

Gentle Healing Year 1 ~ Lesson 183

August 22, 2019 By Jacquelyn Eckert

Lesson 183. I call upon God’s Name and on my own.

Let us remember our current goals.

Widen the horizons of our vision
Take direct approaches to uncover the blocks that keep our vision narrow
Lift those blocks, however briefly, in order to experience the sense of liberation that comes when the blocks are removed
Intensify our motivation for freedom

Today’s lesson gives us the opportunity to practice these goals in silence. Today’s lesson asks us to “Practice but this today; repeat God’s Name slowly again and still again.”

As we recently discussed, we use a mantra as a means of removing attention from thought and returning it to awareness of our true nature. We are asked to spend today repeating the Name of God, remembering that His Name is also our own. The best way to practice today’s lesson is to choose a mantra that will bring your attention back to the stillness within, if only for a moment.

You may want to use your spiritual aspiration. You may want to use the mantra given in “Inner Ramana,” “I am that I am.” You may want to start your day by asking Inner Wisdom to suggest a mantra for you.

Once you have chosen your mantra, keep it with you throughout the day. As you practice your meditation:

“Become oblivious to every name but His. Hear nothing else. Let all your thoughts become anchored on this. No other word we use except at the beginning, when we say today’s idea but once. And then God’s Name becomes our only thought, our only word, the only thing that occupies our minds, the only wish we have, the only sound with any meaning, and the only Name of everything that we desire to see; of everything that we would call our own.

Thus do we give an invitation which can never be refused. And God will come, and answer it Himself.”

It is this strength upon which we call today and each moment within the day. It is this focus upon truth that echoes the truth within our being. In this way, we welcome the Light of our being.

As we see in NTI John, Chapter 1, “The Light is in all men and with all men. The Light does not fade or wither, but the darkness that fills the sight of man does not see the Light or choose to know it. And so, the Light waits on welcome, that it may be known.”

It is this welcome we give today. Choose to be conscious of the light (truth) that the light be seen by you.

“God is welcomed into the presence of man by the desire to know God before man. The desire for truth beckons truth, and truth becomes manifest. For Love cannot say no to a request for Love. So where Love is welcomed, there it shall be.” NTI John, Chapter 1.

Gentle Healing Year 1 ~ Lesson 182

August 21, 2019 By Jacquelyn Eckert

Lesson 182. I will be still an instant and go home.

Let’s review our current goals.

Widen the horizons of our vision
Take direct approaches to uncover the blocks that keep our vision narrow
Lift those blocks, however briefly, in order to experience the sense of liberation that comes when the blocks are removed
Intensify our motivation for freedom

Recently Jacquelyn did a satsang with Loch Kelly. He asked the question, “Who would you be if you had no problems?” No problems, no worries, no concerns? One might ask, you mean what if I didn’t have children to worry about? If I had no financial issues or problems with relationship with my spouse? No concerns about my business? Well, I think I would feel free, defenseless, joyful! I might think I was in heaven! Exactly! Heaven is not a place, heaven is a state of mind. This is our home. “This is your heart’s desire.”

“Yet some try to put by their suffering in games they play to occupy their time. Others will deny that they are sad, and do not recognize their tears at all. Still others will maintain that what we speak of is illusion,” per our workbook lesson today.

The ego’s goal of preservation is accomplished by filling time with unnecessary activities. The ego’s goal is to avoid being still. It’s good to notice how we fill time unnecessarily.

We’ve been asked to change our minds about our goals. We’ve been asked if we are willing to see the goals we previously had and adopt new goals and intentions that widen the horizons of our vision, that uncover our blocks. Today’s lesson advocates letting go of those blocks, however briefly in order to experience the sense of liberation that comes when the blocks are removed.

Today’s lesson says, “When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then will you hear His Voice. So poignantly He calls to you that you will not resist Him longer. In that instant, He will take you to His Home, and you will stay with Him in perfect stillness, silent and at peace, beyond all words, untouched by fear and doubt, sublimely certain that you are home.”

Isn’t this what we really want? Today’s lesson says, “Go home with Him from time to time today.” Free yourself and be at peace a while.

Gentle Healing Year 1 ~ Lesson 181

August 20, 2019 By Jacquelyn Eckert

Lesson 181. I trust my brothers, who are one with me.

The introduction to lessons 181 – 200 setup our goals for the next 20 days.

Widen the horizons of our vision
Take direct approaches to uncover the blocks that keep our vision narrow
Lift those blocks, however briefly, in order to experience the sense of liberation that comes when the blocks are removed
Intensify our motivation for freedom

It is good to pause before beginning lesson 181 to ask ourselves if we will accept these goals as our goals. We are not asked to add these goals to the list of goals that we have already set for ourselves. We are asked to change our minds about our goals. Are we willing to see the goals we had previously set for ourselves as unimportant, and adopt these goals as our only goals now?

[Please pause to contemplate before continuing.]

Lesson 181 focuses on the first goal, widening the horizons of our vision. It says, “Perception has a focus. It is this that gives consistency to what you see. Change but this focus, and what you behold will change accordingly.”

As we discussed at our last meeting, we see what we choose to see. We see that which confirms our beliefs. In this way, we determine the experience we will have. The lesson discusses this in terms of whether I will see my brother as sinful or sinless. It tells us that if we choose to see “sin” in our brothers, we will see it in ourselves.

This is what we know: if we judge others, it is because we are projecting our own beliefs about ourselves onto them. We do this so that we don’t have to face that which we assume to be a fact about ourselves. In other words, judgment and attack are defenses against a belief I have about myself.

If on the other hand, I seek to find proof of my brother’s innocence, it is his innocence I will find.

It is all a matter of focus. And focus is a matter of what my motive is. If I am seeking to defend my self (to protect my beliefs about who I am), I will blame others for my upsets. If I am seeking healing, I will see others as innocent and will look within for the source of my upset.

Lesson 181 asks us to let go of seeing the faults in others, as well as their mistakes, and focus on awareness-life-presence as what they are. It says, “We instruct our minds that it is this we seek, and only this, for just a little while.”

Let me demonstrate how this might work:

Imagine I am talking to my husband, and he tells me that he just sent a large amount of money to his sister to help her out of a financial challenge. Let’s imagine that I have a similar financial challenge, but he has not offered to help me. An upset begins to arise in me. It feels like jealousy, unfairness, rejection and anger all rolled into one. I project it out onto him in this way:

“He doesn’t care about me. This isn’t a partnership–I have to fend for myself. Why am I wasting my time on him?”

And then I remember to practice today’s lesson. I pause for a moment and remember my goal to widen the horizon of what I see. I notice awareness-life-presence in me first. I notice it is fine, still being aware, still living, and still present in me. It has not been affected by what was just said or thought.

Next, I look at him. I notice he is also awareness-life-presence. He is being aware. He is living. He is present here now. I see us as joined in our basic essence, awareness-life-presence, and I let my attention rest there.

Lesson 181 says, “A major hazard to success has been involvement with your past and future goals.” This is why it is important to replace the goals we set for ourselves with the goals set in the introduction to this section of the Course.

In the scenario above, I could have two goals that would interfere with effective practice of today’s lesson. One goal might be to feel financially secure. The other goal might be for my husband to behave the way I want him to behave. If I keep either goal, it will interfere with my practice. But if I am willing to drop both goals and genuinely replace them with “widen the horizon of my vision”, this practice becomes easy because it is what I want. In fact, the degree to which this practice is difficult for me is the degree to which I cling to the goals I had previously set.

Today’s lesson says, “We recognize that we have lost this goal if anger blocks our way in any form.” It also tells us, “And if a brother’s sins occur to us, our narrowed focus will restrict our sight, and turn our eyes upon our own mistakes, which we will magnify and call our ‘sins.’”

In other words, if we let our vision narrow, we will see faults, mistakes, sins, guilt, blame and unworthiness everywhere, including in ourselves. Our narrowed vision blocks our own freedom.

The lesson reminds us, “So, for a little while, without regard to past or future, should such blocks arise we will transcend them with instructions to our minds. … As our focus goes beyond mistakes, we will behold a wholly sinless world. When seeing this is all we want to see, when this is all we seek for in the name of true perception, are the eyes of Christ inevitably ours. … We look neither ahead nor backwards. We look straight into the present. And we give our trust to the experience we ask for now.”

We look neither ahead nor backwards, because there we will find the goals we had previously set. We look straight into the present, because that is where we find awareness-life-presence. It is here right now.

Gentle Healing Year 1 ~ Lesson 180

August 19, 2019 By Jacquelyn Eckert

Review Lesson 180

Steady our feet, our Father. Let our doubts be quiet and our holy minds be still, and speak to us. We have no words to give to You. We would but listen to Your Word, and make it ours. Lead our practicing as does a father lead a little child along a way he does not understand. Yet does he follow, sure that he is safe because his father leads the way for him.

So do we bring our practicing to You. And if we stumble, You will raise us up. If we forget the way, we count upon Your sure remembering. We wander off, but You will not forget to call us back. Quicken our footsteps now, that we may walk more certainly and quickly unto You. And we accept the Word You offer us to unify our practicing, as we review the thoughts that You have given us.

Review Lesson 180:

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

(169) By grace I live. By grace I am released.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

(170) There is no cruelty in God and none in me.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.