We began Gentle Healing Year 2 by looking at Michael Langford’s Five Steps for the Majority. These five steps emphasize kindness with others—with all  others. Michael recommends these five steps for anyone who wants to experience more light and less darkness in their lives, even if they are not interested in awakening. However, he emphasizes that these five steps are critical if awakening is your goal.

Here’s a review of the Five Steps for the Majority:

1. Every time you speak to a human being either in person or over the phone, make sure the content of what you are saying and the tone of your voice are loving, caring, and kind.

2. Every time you write something to a human being, make sure that what you are writing is loving and kind. Pause before you send someone an email or a text message and make sure that your email or text message is loving, caring and kind.

3. Never do any harm of any kind to any human being or animal.

4. Treat even the people who you think do not deserve your kindness with kindness.

5. Treat even people you only see briefly with great caring and kindness.

When Peace Pilgrim began her spiritual investigation, she noticed that nearly every spiritual culture had a rule similar to “the golden rule.”  Jesus taught the golden rule in the Bible when he said:

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. ~ Matthew 7:12

In Jesus’ final teaching to the apostles, just prior to his arrest and crucifixion, he said:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. ~ John 13: 34, 35

What these spiritual teachings point out is that kindness with one another and with all living things is a way of being that needs to be mastered by the genuine spiritual aspirant.

Here’s our reason for mastering kindness:

Not to be kind is to be a slave to the ego.

It is good to act kind even if you do not feel kind. Restraint from acting based on mental chatter is the first step toward disengaging from mental chatter, just like restraining one’s self from smoking a cigarette is the first step toward quitting smoking. However, restraint on its own isn’t enough.

The second step toward disengaging from mental chatter is rest-accept-trust. Allow the emotions that are covering natural love-peace-joy to rise and pass.

When you have some distance from ego emotion, practice self-inquiry to discover what you believed—what idea(s) you attached to as me  thinking. Question that idea(s) until you achieve clarity with inner wisdom.

Finally, practice Self-inquiry to complete the process; turn attention toward awareness. Recognize your Self, and abide there. (The mantra may help you make this transition.)

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link

Today, we will look at a message regarding these three states of mind:

Resistor– The state of mind when you fully believe the body-mind-personality is what you are.

Doubter– The state of mind when you are learning about truth and questioning everything you believed as resistor. This is most likely the state of mind you are in now.

Abiding– The state of mind when you embrace truth as your reality and live from that instead of from thought.

Today’s message points out that when you ask inner guidance questions, you are identified with the false self. During this stage of the journey, you still think mental chatter is you  thinking, and so you seek wisdom that comes from beyond you. During this stage, which is the doubter stage, you are moving towards abiding and away from resistor, but identification still lies firmly with the false self.

As long as you identify with the false self, going within for guidance and wisdom is wise. However, at some point you will take the step that breaks the attachment to mind. When you break the attachment to mind, you will listen to inner wisdom easily throughout the day without asking questions. Wisdom simply arises and is followed.

The only reason one struggles to follow inner wisdom throughout the day is because she is identified with mental chatter.

In other words:

You always listen to yourself (as you perceive yourself) first.

If you think mental chatter is you, you listen to it first.

If you see yourself as __________ (there is no word to use here), you listen to wisdom throughout the day.

Abiding has no identification, which is why there is a blank in the sentence above. Abiding knows ‘I am,’ but there is no identification like, “I am smart,” or “I am old,” or “I am …

Ideas of identification come from mental chatter, and they aren’t true. They are simply identifying with a thought or an experience; clinging to something temporary, and saying that is what I am. But that can’t be right, because that is something passing, and you are eternal.

You are the blank in the sentence above.

Here is another way of defining the three states of mind:

Resistor– The “I know” and “I’m right” mind. Also known as the ego or false self.

Doubter– The “I don’t know” so “I must seek” mind. Also known as the seeker or spiritual aspirant.

Abiding– The _________ guided by the highest vibration in the moment. Also known as “Self-realized,” although ___________ is a much better descriptor.

Note: If one is identified  with being Self-realized, one is not abiding. More likely, since he allowed this identification to creep in, he is slipping back toward resistor—into “I know” and “I’m right” mind.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link

Please contemplate this commentary in the same way you contemplate the Thoughts of Awakening.

~Commentary on Discovering False Identity~

 You may not know how to discover your false identity, which hides the truth because the false identity has long since been believed and therefore ignored, not looked at and questioned. Through this process, the false identity has become invisible to you, and one may not know how to find and look at that which is invisible.

Nothing real has a shadow, because it is too clear. But false identity is not real. Therefore, although it may be invisible, it has a shadow, a shadow that casts many shadows. Therefore, if you look for its shadow you will find that which you did not see.

The primary shadow reflecting from the belief in a false identity is the thought “I”. It may be followed by “I like this” or “I don’t like that,” but the thought of an I that is distinct and with preferences is the shadow that reflects from the belief in a false identity.

If you are too accustomed to the false, the primary shadow may be accepted as normal, and through normalcy it may also be invisible to you.

If this is the case, look for the shadows that are cast off of the shadow. These shadows are annoyance, frustration, anger, attack and other forms of upset.

When you are upset, ask why you are upset. You will notice right away that you have found the “I” that is distinct and has preferences.

Now look at that I, the shadow of nothing real, and ask from which it comes. It will disappear into a thought … just a thought or an idea. And in this you have found false identity. It is thinking … changeable, non-dependable, unreal thought.

But what are you? Are you thought or are you before thought and beyond it?

By looking at false identity, it must die, because it is not life and you are.

~From our Holy Spirit

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link

Today’s reading is a little different from the other readings in The Teachings of Inner Ramana, because it isn’t a message from Inner Ramana. Today’s reading is in my voice as I explain an understanding that I received from Inner Ramana. I couldn’t find a message to go with that understanding, so years later when creating the manuscript for publishing, I assumed there wasn’t a message. After the publisher had the manuscript in his possession and just prior to printing thousands of copies, I found the message. I rushed it to the publisher, and it was added to the end of the book as “The Missing Ramana Message.”

Today, you will read my understanding of the missing message. On Day 326, you will read the missing message. That will give you twice the opportunity to contemplate this last message from Inner Ramana.

The message is about three states of mind:

Resistor– The state of mind when we fully believe the body-mind-personality is what we are.

Doubter– The state of mind when we learn about truth and question everything we believed as resistor.

Abiding– The state of mind when we embrace truth as our reality and live from that instead of from thought.

Everyone in Gentle Healing 2 should be somewhere in the doubter phase or possibly in abiding. When the doubter phase is complete, it is natural to progress to abiding. Although the doubter phase is a natural and very important part of the spiritual path, at some point each one must let go of doubter and consciously step into abiding. The mind will always argue that you aren’t ready for that step, but at some point you are ready, and if you do not take that step when you are ready, you will stunt your spiritual maturation.

How do you know when you are ready for abiding?

When you are able to ignore mental chatter and live (think, speak & act) from intuition, you are ready for abiding. You do not need to “wake up” in order to embrace abiding. Conscious abiding could be your path of awakening. It is the path of surrender, which is also the path of living as if  you are Self-realized. (Reference Day 297.)

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link

In NTI Romans 2, we learned that a curiosity arose:

What if nothing was as it is?
What if I could make something completely different?

When this original idea was infused with believing-attention, two options arose. The first option was a reminder of truth—the reminder that reality is reality, and it cannot change. The second option was the belief that something different had been made.

“What if nothing was as it is?” is the first sense of ‘I.’ It was the sense of an ‘I’ that can cause an effect. Out of that idea, two thoughts arose. One was a correction to the original thought; it pointed directly to truth. The other option was more thought, which led into a dream.

Today’s reading opens by saying:

The truth is that all thought rises out of the sense of “I” or because of the sense of “I,” as a correction to this thought.

Without the original error of an ‘I’ presence that can cause an effect, thought would not be. That includes right-minded thought, because right-minded thought is a correction to error-thought.

If we consider that our sense of self, our sense of others, our values, our ethics and our world are all thought, we may realize that we do not know who we are or what anything is without thought. Thought is our form of understanding; it is our form of knowing. And yet, if thought blocks reality, our form of knowing is entirely wrong. It is ignorance masquerading as knowing.

Thought is story. It is an ongoing storyline that creates fantasy. When the story comes into our mind as thought, and we believe it, we believe a story, a falsehood. Some things may be true in the storyline, but “true” in a made-up fantasy is not truth. When we search the story for what’s true in the story, we are simply engaging untruth more.

The story is in motion, and the storyline does come into your mind as thought. However, you are not the story character. You are life-awareness. You can  abide as life-awareness and see the entire story as nothing but story. You have the ability to be the detached observer, regardless of what occurs in the story.

Detached observation leads to freedom from the story.

As pointed out on Day 314, the body-mind will continue to play its part in the story even when you pull attention out of the story and abide fully in the Heart. Nothing that is to be done by the body-mind will go undone. As Ramana Maharshi said, “A yogi who is in this state is inactive even while engaged in activity.” The script continues, and the body acts according to its vibrational level in the script, but you  live beyond the script and have no part in it.

For one who is not completely detached from the script, the best way to “be in the world but not of the world” is to abide in a constant state of devotion. Devotion is living from within, instead of from thought. When you live from within, you return attention within. Through devotion, attention learns to stay at home in the Heart. It learns to abide there, until a natural transition occurs and it no longer goes out. It stays in.

Devotion is retraining attention to stay in.

With that said, please listen to this song very carefully now:

 
Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link