Lesson 103, God, being Love, is also happiness.

Today’s workbook lesson begins with this:

“Happiness is an attribute of love. … Yet can the mind deny that this is so, believing there are gaps in love where sin can enter, bringing pain instead of joy. This strange bellef would limit happiness by redefining love as limited, and introducing opposition in what has no limit and no opposite.”

“Sin” is that which should not be. It is impossible to be happy with something if we judge that it should not be. This judgment, which is the fundamental judgment and the root of all judgments, is what we need to learn to let go of. There isn’t one circumstance that we can withhold from our love, our happiness, our forgiveness, because if there is any circumstance that we withhold from love, we have deemed that to be separate from love. Metaphysically, we withhold healing from anything that we withhold love from. We also withhold healing from ourselves in the same instant.

The decision not to love something, not to be happy with something, not to forgive something, is the cause of all suffering everywhere in the world.

This week as you read the Loving All Method, contemplate it deeply. Look at those situations that you want to withhold from love, realize those are situations that you’d like to see healed, and then remember that love is the only healing power. We cannot guarantee that a specific situation will be healed by your love, because many others may still hold judgments against it, but we can guarantee that your love will heal something. Not least of all, your love will heal you. We can also guarantee that your love will never add to a problem anywhere. When you love, you subtract from problems; you do not add to them.

The Loving All Method is generous. It gives you options. If you find you cannot love something, you can at least accept it. If you find you cannot even accept it, you can at least emotionally allow it. “Emotionally allow” is the same as Rest, Accept and Trust with the feelings you have about it.

Read today’s lesson again, and notice how clearly it points to the Loving All Method as an important practice in accepting truth. If love is all there is, if God is all there is, then happiness is all we experience. If we do not experience happiness, we have defined something as sin. Pause, look at it. Notice you have decided that should not be, and then practice the Loving All Method with it. Love it if you can. Accept it if that is the best you can do. Emotionally allow it if love or acceptance is too much of a stretch for you now.

Gotta go. Dad is calling me to breakfast. Gotta love it!

Lesson 102, I share God’s Will for happiness for me.

Today’s workbook lesson tells us that we think pain and suffering buy us something, something that we want. If we are not perfectly happy, this belief is in our mind. It may not seem that way. It could even feel offensive if someone tells us that we are unhappy because we think unhappiness will get us something that we want, but it’s true.

One example: When we are unhappy with the government or its policies, we think enough unhappiness like ours will generate the change we want to see.

Some of you may have thought, “Well, yea!” when you read that. There might even be a fear that if you aren’t unhappy, the change you want will never happen.

This belief that unhappiness will get us what we want is a deeply held belief, and it is completely screwed up. The only thing this belief does is keep us from being happy when we could be happy. Metaphysically, that’s more sinister than it may sound since our energy goes out and paints the world we see.

If you want the world to be a happier more secure place, offer it a happier more secure person. Give what you want to see by being what you want to see.

In Chapter 15 of “The Untethered Soul,” Michael Singer wrote:

“[Unconditional happiness] leads you to absolute transcendence because any part of your being that would add a condition to your commitment to happiness has to go. … You have to transcend the personal, and as you do, you will naturally awaken to the higher aspects of your being.”

Happiness is the way to contribute to a better world, and happiness is the path to enlightenment. If you are not choosing to be happy now, there must be something else that you think you want. What is it?

Don’t simply read this and say, “Uh-huh,” or click Like. Read this and look. Whenever you are not happy, you think you can get something from not being happy. What is it that you think unhappiness will get you?

Will people start acting the way you want them to act?
Will people give you attention that you want?
Will God grant your wishes like a genie?
Will your thoughts quit coming?
Will you quit making mistakes?
Will your health get better?
Will someone love you?

Just what do you think you have to gain by being unhappy? What is the hidden desire that unhappiness is chartered with resolving? AND can you see that it is not your true desire? Are you willing to let it go, and simply be happy ???

Be happy even if people act differently than you would have them act. Be happy even if you don’t get attention from others. Be happy even if your wishes are not granted. Be happy even if the same thoughts keep coming in your mind. Be happy even if you make mistakes. Be happy even if the body isn’t healthy. Be happy even if someone chooses not to love you.

Do you share God’s Will for your happiness? Are you ready?

Lesson 101, God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.

Two days ago the tip for Lesson 99 led you in an inquiry. As part of that inquiry you were asked to “Notice the difference between thought and awareness. Notice which causes all kinds of trouble and suffering, and which is peacefully present. Notice which is you and which is not.”

I hope you were able to see, at least briefly, that you are awareness, which is peacefully present. This seeing helps you to understand what today’s lesson points to…there is no sin.

Lesson 98. I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.

What is God’s plan for salvation? In the language of the Course, it is forgiveness. What is forgiveness? It is removing your attention from the untrue.

Removing attention from problems.
Removing attention from grievances.
Removing attention from fears.
Removing attention from regrets.
Removing attention from jealousies and envies.
Removing attention from judgments.
Removing attention from all of our ideas about how other people should be.
Removing attention from all thoughts about our weaknesses and shortcomings.
Removing attention from our doubts that the truth is true.

Lesson 97. I am Spirit.

What a wonderful reminder this tip provides. We are not that which we have spent so many years imagining ourselves to be. I am not this thing I believe myself to be—I am Spirit.

“Today’s idea identifies you with your one Self. It accepts no split identity, nor tries to weave opposing factors into unity. It simply states the truth”.

We have a ready avenue for remembering the truth that the self-made concept has covered over—awareness watching awareness.  In spending time in awareness watching awareness (or awareness being aware of itself), we lay aside our self concepts, even if momentarily, to make room for the answer that is given when we ask, “What Am I?”

Recently, in my Satsang Interview with Eshwar Segobind, he asked one of our members the same question he had asked me in our prep for the interview: “Tell me who you are without using concepts.” This invitation is the same one we make to Holy Spirit/Inner Wisdom/Consciousness in awareness watching awareness meditation: “I am willing to set my concepts aside and not believe a single thing I have ever believed about myself in the past. In this space left empty of my ideas and concepts, please tell me who I am.”

My experience when attempting to answer Eshwar’s question was a bit of disorientation. How can you say who you are with no point of reference? I could see the thinking mind wanting to define/describe/narrate. But, without concepts, it felt unsettled—a bit threatened. I shared with you in the last Gentle Healing group that this “wobble” is where I want to be. This wobble is where Truth is welcomed.

This lesson is inviting all of us into this undefined space. It may feel uncertain, but only because the thinking mind has nothing to hang its hat on—by refusing to participate in formulating concepts, its illusory underpinnings are removed. Sitting in the wobble takes faith and courage as we let go our familiar foundation of self and reach to understand, with a felt sense rather than the thinking mind, True Self. As the Course promises, in this unoccupied space, “What you Are will tell you of Itself.”

In my spiritual aspiration and vision plan, I have committed to living in that undefined space (wobble) as much as possible: to see where I am applying meaning; to let go comparisons; to let go my self concept as the orienting factor in the experiences I encounter; and, to deeply consider as often as possible throughout the day, “If I am not what I have always thought myself to be, what am I?”

In this short meditation video, Mooji extends the same invitation, to experience yourself without self image. You may wish to use the video for one of your hourly practice periods today.

Lesson 96. Salvation comes from my One Self.

The most important thing about today’s lesson is that we continue to practice looking at awareness for 5 minutes every hour. When we can’t do that, we at least say today’s lesson to our self and practice Bentinho’s 2-5 seconds. This practice of looking at awareness frequently is much more helpful than you may imagine. Literally, your salvation (awakening) comes from paying attention to your Self (awareness).

Remember, you are praying for whatever you pay attention to. We learned this in NTI Ephesians. Pay attention to the world and your thoughts about it, and you get more of the ongoing dream script. Pay attention to awareness, and you will come to know your true Self as a direct experience. (Salvation comes from my one Self.)

Lesson 95. I am One Self, united with my Creator.

Today’s lesson is really subtle. It’s an important lesson. It’s also a lesson that the ego can’t understand. Let’s look at it carefully and slowly so it can be understood and digested beyond the ego mind.

“I am one Self, united with my Creator.” If this is true (and it is true), can I do anything apart from my Creator? In order to do something apart from my Creator, we’d have to be two, wouldn’t we?

This means that if I forget the lesson for a few hours, or if I remember but I have too much resistance to give 5 minutes to practice, that I am forgetting or resisting WITH my creator.

Yep. This may not seem right to you, but if it doesn’t seem right it is because you are still thinking of your creator as something other than you.

Remember The Code. The entire world experience, including every thought that comes into your mind and every feeling that comes into your body, comes from our oneness and how we cast attention. Our oneness is the creator. So if we are distracted from remembering the lesson, where do those distractions come from? My creator of which I am a part. And if I have too much resistance to practice, where does that resistance come from? My creator of which I am a part.

When the ego mind thinks it understands this, it thinks, “Then I don’t even need to try because everything is God.” That’s not a right understanding. Again, remember The Code. The code that we create has different vibrational levels in it. When we choose the highest level available to us, we raise higher in vibration.

Look carefully at today’s lesson again. Look at paragraphs 8, 9 & 10. Can you see how those paragraphs are teaching you to make higher choices so you raise yourself in vibration?

~ If you forget, forgive yourself.

~ Overlook your lapses/failures; don’t give them any power.

~ Try again to remember with regularity.

All three of these choices will pull you up in vibration. Their opposites would keep you down.

Paragraph 8 says, “The Holy Spirit is not delayed in His teaching by your mistakes. He can be held back only by your unwillingness to let them go.” Translation: Choosing to believe a lower vibration thought/feeling cannot keep you down; only continuing to believe lower vibration thoughts/feelings can keep you down.

So when you make a mistake, correct it as soon as possible by choosing the highest vibrational thought available to you now. That is, forgive yourself, don’t give power to ideas like failure or guilt, and try again.

Also, look at paragraph 14. We are the creator, which means as you choose to raise yourself in vibration, you also raise the world in vibration, and “each time you do so, someone hears the voice of hope, the stirring of the truth within his mind, the gentle rustling of wings of peace.”

“I am one Self, united with my Creator.” With this knowledge, I choose the highest vibration available to me today.

If you’d like to review The Code, click this link. The Bonus audio is a good one for a review.