Review instructions: Spend at least 15 minutes in the morning and evening contemplating today’s lesson. Repeat today’s idea at least hourly. Use today’s idea throughout the day.

Today’s review idea:

I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
The peace of God is shining in me now.

I will be still, and let the earth be still along with me. And in that stillness we will find the peace of God.
It is within my heart, which witnesses to God Himself.

The peace of God is shining in me now. It is. It does what the peace of God does. It naturally extends to all that is. It is not a goal to be achieved, a state of mind to be brought about, it is “but a recognition, not a change at all.”

This is why we practice awareness watching awareness. As Michael Langford tells us, we are only now turning within to know ourselves. We do this not by mastering some new technique but by employing what we are—awareness—to observe what we are—awareness-life-presence.

The peace of God is shining in me now. The peace of God is shining all about me. We recognize it for what it is as we practice turning away from the circus of the world and focusing on the meadow of our own nature. The “circus” merely distracts us from the looking and thus the recognition of that which we always have been and always will be.

As you repeat the words of the lesson today (the “mantra,” ‘The peace of God is shining in me now’), do so with a devoted heart and feel the power that waits within you, as you, to be discovered by you.

Original tip for this idea

Review instructions: Spend at least 15 minutes in the morning and at least 15 minutes in the evening contemplating the lesson for the day. Repeat today’s idea to yourself at least hourly. In addition, use today’s idea throughout the day.

Today’s review idea:

I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
I bless the world because I bless myself.

Have you ever done something and when someone asked you why you did it, your only explanation was because it was just the natural thing to do.  Let’s say someone asked, “Why did you feed that stray dog?”  You might reply, “I was feeding our dogs and I saw the stray one so I fed him too.” Or, “Why did you cut that strip of grass between our yard and our neighbor’s yard when that strip is obviously the neighbor’s?”  “Because I had the mower out and it needed cutting so I cut that portion of the neighbor’s yard.  I was already in the act of doing it for myself and it just seemed natural and helpful.”

It is natural, and reasonable, and loving, and kind, and helpful to bless the world because I bless myself.  Most of us have been reading, and learning, and studying what separation means our whole lives.  Now is the time to take the practical steps, the easy steps, the natural steps.  You don’t have to go out of your way, just bless the world as you bless yourself.  When we believe the world is important, letting go of the value we have assigned the world is perceived as a sacrifice.  When we are awake or aware that the world lacks value then the idea of sacrifice isn’t believed.  Sacrifice is only a relevant idea if you think you can lose something of value.

We bless ourselves when we stop clinging to these old, familiar and comfortable thought patterns.  Isn’t peace, salvation and the blessings they bring worth the risk?  Wake up and be enlightened now.  Awakening is the spreading of the light in the one mind (and in the world).  There is nothing real here for you.  You sacrifice nothing when you give up what you don’t want.  Jacquelyn said, “As you draw knowledge and strength from the truth, you increase the strength of recognition of truth in all minds.”  Trust that there is another way of being.  It is like mowing that strip of grass in your neighbor’s yard.  Demonstrate what you have learned and be enlightened now.

Original tip for this idea

Review instructions: Spend at least 15 minutes in the morning and at least 15 minutes in the evening contemplating the lesson for the day. Also, repeat today’s idea to yourself at least once hourly. In addition, use today’s idea as much as needed as a transition from ego thinking to spiritual intuition.

Today’s review idea:

I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
Salvation of the world depends on me.

Lesson 186 suggests we might reject this idea outright because we believe it to be arrogant or because we believe in our own unworthiness. The lesson assures us that we are up to the task. We each know this to be true or we would not be spending any time in study, review, contemplation or meditation. Ask your heart what you want. You will find that awakening is your heart’s desire.

Your heart’s desire was placed there as a call to return. Though the thinking mind would convince you that another will is yours to pursue, you cannot change either the call or the desire to follow it. Today, take the time to contemplate the call of your heart as soon as possible upon awakening and visit it at least briefly each hour. When you find yourself caught up in thought or emotion, remind yourself of your heart’s desire.

Your salvation is awakening. Let your desire for awakening guide you today. The salvation of the world depends on it.

Original tip for this idea

Review instructions: Spend at least 15 minutes in the morning and at least 15 minutes in the evening contemplating the lesson for the day. To keep your mind focused on today’s idea and to help absorb the idea fully, repeat it to yourself at least once hourly.

In addition, use today’s idea as much as is needed as a transition from ego thinking to spiritual intuition. For example, you can say, “This thought I do not want. I choose instead ______. And then repeat the idea for the day, and let it take the place of what you thought.” Next, ask spiritual intuition for guidance that suits the moment.

Today’s review idea:

I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me. I want the peace of God”

“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.”

In Michael Singer’s book, The Untethered Soul, Chapter 12 Taking down the walls, he tell a story about a person who is so enamored with this sun filled field that he builds the home of his dreams there. The home is built sturdy to protect him and keep him safe for a long time. Trying to make himself safe, he battons his home down. He stopped going out into the world and choose instead to stay in the fortress that he has built. He forgets about his orginal dream of enjoying the sun light, and the joy he feels bathing in the sun. In fact he ends up in just the oppose space that he had orginally longed for because his home in the sunny field becomes a dark fortress.

What is it that we really want? Are we looking for financial security? Do we want to see our kids get a college education? Do we want our home paid for? Would these wants and desires bring us peace? Maybe, but it is a shallow peace. It is like giving a hungry guy a fish sandwich, as a opposed to teaching him to fish.

The limited mind knows not how limited this thinking really is. There is a place in the mind where you experience that which we cannot speak of, but that is yours for the asking. Choose the peace of God and take your walls down.

Experience this. It is there available to you. What is the source of this peace? It doesn’t come from the world. This comes from the abstact, the eternal, and the changeless. If you are feeling upset, it is only because you are choosing the ego. You are choosing separation. How one is feeling is the result of a decision, a choice. That, and only that choice brings peace or upset. Decide for God and you decide for peace.

Link to original tip for this idea.

Review instructions: Spend at least 15 minutes in the morning and at least 15 minutes in the evening contemplating the lesson for the day. To keep your mind focused on today’s idea and to help absorb the idea fully, repeat it to yourself at least once hourly.

In addition, use today’s idea as much as is needed as a transition from ego thinking to spiritual intuition. For example, you can say, “This thought I do not want. I choose instead ______. And then repeat the idea for the day, and let it take the place of what you thought.” Next, ask spiritual intuition for guidance that suits the moment.

Today’s review idea:

I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
The Name of God is my inheritance.

All things are the same in God. Focusing on differences is the life blood of the ego. The thinking mind must focus on differences in order to organize its review of the past or plans for the future. What we all share, we all share here and now. What we all share is awareness-life-presence. Use your Name of God mantra today to focus on the sameness that unites us all.

Link to the original tip for this idea

Review instructions: Spend at least 15 minutes in the morning and at least 15 minutes in the evening contemplating the lesson for the day. (You might use that time to review the original lesson in the Course, to review the original tip, to write in your journal or to move into awareness-watching-awareness meditation using the idea for the day as your ‘anchor thought,’ a thought that helps you transition from attention on thinking to attention on awareness.)

To keep your mind focused on today’s idea and to help absorb the idea fully, repeat it to yourself at least once hourly.

In addition, use today’s idea as much as is needed as a transition from ego thinking to spiritual intuition. For example, you can say, “This thought I do not want. I choose instead ______. And then repeat the idea for the day, and let it take the place of what you thought.” Next, ask spiritual intuition for guidance that suits the moment. 

Today’s review idea:

I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
I call upon God’s Name and on my own.

Repeat God’s Name slowly again and still again.  The mantra is a means of removing attention from thought and returns it to awareness of one’s true nature.  We are asked to spend today repeating the Name of God, remembering that His Name is our own.  Choose a mantra that will bring your attention back to stillness within, if only for a moment.

“Become oblivious to every name but His.  Hear nothing else.  Let all your thought become anchored on this.  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.”

To have a single unified point in mind like this announces that our desire is single pointed and that we want only God and nothing else.  NTI John Chapter 1 tells us, “God is welcomed into the presence of man by the desire to know God before man.” The mind has to willingly empty itself.  Bentinho Massaro says, “As soon as you relax your thinking mind for even as much as two to five seconds, a window of consciousness becomes aware of the essence that remains when we are not over laying it with thoughts.”

Today’s review says, “The Name of God is my deliverance from every thought of evil and of sin, because it is my own as well as His.”  Every thought has a source.  Ego thoughts, chattering thoughts are certainly not coming from God, but real thoughts must come from God.  The eternal comes from the eternal.  ACIM Teachers Manual says, “It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindered and unbound.”

Today we use the idea for the day followed by a Name of God mantra to gently replace all frivolous mind wandering. Use any Name of God mantra that opens your heart, quiets your mind, and places attention on awareness.

Click here to review “Instructions for Using the Mantra” from The Teachings of Inner Ramana 

Original tip for this idea

I saw a sign today, it said, “Join us for a 9 week class to financial peace.” This is a perfect lead in to today’s lesson, don’t you think? “There is no peace except the peace of God.” Isn’t this what we do in the world? Instead of recognizing our identity as awareness-life presence and knowing that, that is where our peace is found, we’ve identified with the body-mind where life force, isness, beingness, what we really are, is dumbed down to the promise of financial freedom.

If we say we want the peace of God and we want it more than anything else, what must happen that we might have a direct experience of eternal peace and the rest and joy and happiness that come with it?

While this truth is available this very moment, anything in one’s mind that stands in the way of knowing our true identity must be released. Forgiveness, which is letting go illusions, is a helpful stepping stone because illusions distract us from realizing ourselves as awareness-life-presence. We use several practices, such as self-inquiry, rest-accept-trust, the loving all method, right reasoning and right gratitude to help us grasp true forgiveness.

Another practice that we use to come to know the peace of God and therefore our true identity is Awareness watching awareness. Through awareness meditation our attention is removed from the thoughts of the world. We feel dis-identified from form and there is no awareness of separate persons, situations or events.

The peace of God is described in today’s lesson as “the bridge that everyone will cross to leave this world behind. Now the way is easy, sloping gently toward the bridge where freedom lies within the peace of God.” Where freedom lies is in our eternal oneness where form has no meaning.

Forgiveness gives up the entire belief system including the world and the ways of the world. Seeing our inability to judge anything is the key to accepting awareness-life-presence.and thus bring an end to the error. We pay attention to awareness because we know it to be a reflection of the Reality and a doorway to infinite awareness and the true peace of God.