What is the Second Coming?

Our special theme says, “The Second Coming is the time in which all minds are given to the hands of Christ, to be returned to spirit in the name of true creation and the Will of God.”

That is an extraordinary sentence.

“all minds are given to the hands of Christ”

“to be returned to spirit”

“in the name of true creation”

“and the Will of God”

Please take time to contemplate this sentence today. What clarity comes to you as you contemplate this beautiful symphony of words? Be sure to write your clarity down, so you can return to it if it is forgotten later in the day.

This instant is the only time there is.

Today’s lesson is also incredible.

“I have conceived of time in such a way that I defeat my aim.”

“I must change my perception of what time is for.”

“Time’s purpose cannot be to keep the past and future one.”

“The only interval in which I can be saved from time is now.”

“The birth of Christ is now”

“present blessing”

“love is ever-present, here and now”

“Thanks for this instant, Father.”

Oh my goodness! What a glorious feast! It is a perfect combination of ideas to bring us into the heart.

Please contemplate these words from today’s lesson, just as you contemplated the excerpt from our special theme.

I can hardly wait to get this tip posted, so I can move into my own joyous and fruitful contemplation. The heart is already opening in anticipation of it.

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What is the Second Coming?

Our special theme says, “The Second Coming ends the lessons that the Holy Spirit teaches, making way for the Last Judgment, in which learning ends in one last summary that will extend beyond itself, and reaches up to God.”

Our last special theme, “What is the Real World?” shared the same teaching. Spiritual intuition leads us across a bridge that leads from the false self to truth. When we have reached the end of the bridge, spiritual intuition’s job is complete. God takes the final step to pull us into Itself. In today’s excerpt from our special theme, that step is called “The Last Judgment.” (We will look more at the “Last Judgment” later, because that is our next special theme.)

We’ve talked about the third stage of spiritual awakening as merging. This is the phase of disregarding the apparent personal will by following spiritual intuition until no separate will can be said to exist anymore. When merging is complete, there is realization of only one consciousness and one will. This is a highly awakened state where one is not tempted by the ego anymore. One lives a fully harmonious life that is centered in the still-point of God. This is the Second Coming. In NTI, it is called the fourth stage of awakening. However, it is not the last step in awakening. One step remains, which is God’s final step.

Here is how the final step is described in NTI 1 Corinthians:

The one that seems to be in the fourth stage is but a symbol of the truth that is. So this one must pass away also. But in its passing, you pass from a final illusion of beauty to Beauty that cannot be contained in illusion. You pass from form, which reflects Light, to Light, which shines into form.

Using the Four Principles of God as a symbol, this is awakening from the Second Principle, consciousness, to the First Principle, Source, which is ultimate truth.

Conflicting wishes cannot be my will.

Today’s lesson is focused on the third stage of the spiritual path, merging. However, this lesson is also useful to you if you are in the purification stage.

If merging is your primary focus now, use today’s lesson to increase your desire for surrender and your sincerity in that practice. Read today’s lesson in its entirety and with heart at least five times today. Let it give you a boost in enthusiasm. Also, practice surrender throughout the day.

If purification is your primary focus now, spend today noticing the thinking in the mind. Notice that your thinking does not have one goal. In one moment it prefers one solution to a specific problem, and in the next moment it criticizes that solution and prefers another. As The Teachings of Inner Ramana says:

The mind is not constant. The concerns of the mind for one day may be completely different than the concerns for another. If all of the concerns for one day are written down, it may be seen that concerns and imagined solutions conflict with one another, so that no true peace can be found with the mind. The solution of concerns creates new concerns. And so again, there is no peace with the mind.

This is why one must step away from the mind to find peace. Peace cannot be found with the mind.

Stepping away from the mind is as simple as losing interest in it. When the mind chatters, it chatters because you are listening. As you lose interest in what it has to say, because you know its answers are not your answers, the chattering of mind shall fade away.

Each time you notice the chaos of mind today, remove attention from thinking and place it with your willingness to lose interest in the mind, and then repeat today’s lesson, “Conflicting wishes cannot be my will.”

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What is the Second Coming?

Our special theme says, “Forgiveness lights the Second Coming’s way, …”

When we are learning to undo the ego thought system, one thing we learn is to let go of ego thoughts without speaking them or acting on them. This is important, because speaking them or acting on them fortifies them with our belief in their validity. That is the opposite of forgiveness.

Conversely, speaking from and acting on our choice to awaken strengthens that choice. It also sends a message regarding our sincerity to the creative principle, which results in a stronger response from Grace, one that is equal to our sincerity. This is why Nisargadatta Maharaj said, “strive for the coveted Grace with sincerity and honesty.”

Sincerity is more than a mental decision or emotional feeling. It is living from one’s convictions free of pretense, deceit or hypocrisy.

You cannot fool the creative principle. It responds to you as you are actually being in mind, heart, word and deed.

Are you ready to “strive for the coveted Grace with sincerity and honesty”?

The gift of Christ is all I seek today.

As you read and contemplate today’s lesson, also contemplate your sincerity as it is defined above. Do this without judgment. We aren’t interested in finding ourselves guilty, lacking or bad. We are simply interested in determining if there have been limits to the Grace in our life, because there have been limits in our motivation to live from our decision to awaken.

If we are limited, Grace responds in a way that is equal to our sincerity.
Likewise, if we remove all limits, Grace responds in a way that is equal to our sincerity.

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What is the Second Coming?

Yesterday we looked at the creation principle and saw how Grace is created based on our change of focus. Interestingly, Michael Langford writes this in his book, Manonasa:

[You may] wonder, “Is it by grace, luck, fate or magic that those very few who attain Manonasa (the final end of the false self after which it can never reappear) succeed in attaining Manonasa?” It is not by grace, luck, fate or magic. It is by using a different approach than the crowd uses. …

The intensity of the desire for freedom from the false self is the key factor. When that desire for freedom becomes extremely intense it changes everything. The extremely intense desire for freedom changes all of one’s actions, it increases the level of self honesty, it changes one’s approach to everything and especially it changes one’s approach to how to go about attaining Manonasa.

In his book, The Direct Means to Eternal Bliss, Michael writes:

When your desire for Freedom becomes extremely intense, for the first time you can see what is essential for freedom and what is not essential. … When the desire for Freedom becomes even stronger, the desire for Freedom itself will bring you everything you need to succeed in your quest for Freedom including the answers to all your questions, the Direct Path teachings, the solution to all obstacles, the motivation to practice, etc. … The extremely intense desire for the direct experience of the absolute Truth will guide you to your inner Teacher.

So, when Michael writes in Manonasa that Manonasa (awakening) does not happen by grace, he is using the word “grace” as synonymous with “luck, fate or magic,” meaning that it does not come to you without your participation. This is true, because of the creative principle. If you feed interest in the world into the creative principle, you receive thoughts and circumstances that reflect that. But when you feed desire for truth into the creative principle, especially when that is backed by action, you receive everything you need to help you awaken. Gina Lake and I call that Grace; Michael does not. He gives credit to your desire for Freedom. However, we are all teaching about the creative principle and how it responds to you.

You do you part,
and Grace will do its part.
It is a divine partnership.
It is the law of the creative principle.

There is a peace that Christ bestows on us.

The prayer from today’s lesson says:

Father, the peace of Christ is given us, because it is Your Will that we be saved. Help us today but to accept Your gift, and judge it not. For it has come to us to save us from our judgment on ourselves.

Contemplate this prayer along with the teaching on divine partnership. What clarity comes to you through this contemplation?

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What is the Second Coming?

Yesterday I wrote of Christ’s Second Coming as the fully integrated state of knowing one’s self as consciousness. I also encouraged you to take part in awakening to consciousness by fulfilling your role within your current stage of awakening. Today, I will write about Grace and the part it fulfills in your awakening.

Recently, I read to you from Chapter 4 in Gina Lake’s book, In the World but Not of It. Here is one paragraph that I read:

Exercising your power to choose silence or any other activity that promotes Presence is a real turning point on the path to spiritual liberation. This marks an acceleration in your spiritual growth which will reverberate in your life in countless ways. Things will change, many of them unexpected. Anything truly begins to be possible. More conscious choosing of Presence lays the groundwork for Grace to be more active in your life. The more sincere you are, the more Grace is bestowed.

This is true because of the Third Principle of God, the ongoing creation principle.

The creation principle is a principle of now. It is as if all of the data in the universe is fed into a creation mechanism, which then creates the current moment of time based on the information received. You learned about this principle through “The Code” and NTI Ephesians.

When you are focused on the world and your thoughts about the world, this is the data that is fed into the creation principle, and so the creation principle responds by giving you world-based thoughts to think. Your life is also filled with circumstances that reflect your desire for the world and its drama.

However, as you begin to want truth, and you back that desire up by acting upon it, you send new data into the creation principle. The creation principle responds by giving you new thoughts to think and by filling your life with circumstances that support your desire to awaken.

In that way, Grace isn’t anything miraculous. It is divine law acting in the way divine law always acts by responding to you. It is as Nisargadatta Maharaj said:

I know nothing about miracles, and I wonder whether nature admits exceptions to her laws, unless we agree that everything is a miracle. To my mind there is no such thing. There is consciousness in which everything happens. It is quite obvious and within the experience of everybody. You just do not look carefully enough. Look well, and see what I see.

Our special theme says, “Forgiveness lights the Second Coming’s way, …” Please contemplate this line from our special theme along with the teaching I just shared about the Third Principle of God. What clarity comes to you?

Let not my world obscure the sight of Christ.

Today’s lesson begins, “I can obscure my holy sight, if I intrude my world upon it. Nor can I behold the holy sights Christ looks upon, unless it is His vision that I use. Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.”

With the teaching about the creative principle in mind, what does this mean? Please write the answer to this question as if you are teaching about the creative principle and its effects to another person.

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What is the Second Coming?

Our current special theme is about Christ’s Second Coming. That is symbolic language that points to an awakening, which is commonly referred to as awakening to consciousness. In the model I shared yesterday of The Four Principles of God, it is awakening to the Second Principle of God.

Two days ago, I shared four stages of the spiritual path as it is depicted in NTI. Today, let’s look at those four stages to see how they fit with awakening to the Second Principle of God.

Second Principle of God – Consciousness. This is the only direct creation of the Source. In A Course in Miracles it is called “Christ” and “the Son of God.” It is the unaffected, still witness. All things manifest are made of this principle; therefore, all things are consciousness.

Typically, when one begins the spiritual path, that one believes s/he is a person in the world. In other words, one believes the manifest realm is reality. That means that the process of awakening begins in the Fourth Principle of God, manifestation.

The goal of awakening, although the spiritual aspirant may not be aware of the goal yet, is to awaken from belief in manifestation as reality to the Second Principle of God, consciousness. This awakening includes three basic stages: the search, purification, and merging with spiritual intuition.

Some people appear to ‘pop’ into consciousness without going through these three stages. However, those people complete their maturation after awakening by completing the stages they have not yet completed. In some cases people find themselves at the beginning, in the search, after awakening. They experience it as searching for what has happened to them.

Whether one goes through the three stages of awakening and then awakens to consciousness or seems to awaken to consciousness and then complete the stages, one is not fully integrated as consciousness until all three stages have been completed.

Our special theme refers to the Second Coming of Christ as all-inclusive. That means that the Second Coming of Christ is a term that points to the completion and total integration of consciousness as self.

In NTI, the Second Coming of Christ is the fourth stage of the spiritual path. NTI says:

The fourth phase is a glorious phase, upon which your feet shall barely touch the ground. As you walk the earth, you know where you walk, so that the earth is merely a symbol within the mind. You shall not know brothers, but you shall talk to them. You will not need food, but you will eat with joy. Music shall accompany you in your every moment, and yet, you will have no need for your ears. Your sight will be changed from earthly sight to sight that is provided from Heaven. All things shall be new, and you shall have no need for any of them. In this, your joy shall be complete.

Or, as our special theme says:

It is the all-inclusive nature of Christ’s Second Coming that permits it to embrace the world and hold you safe within its gentle advent, which encompasses all living things with you. There is no end to the release the Second Coming brings, as God’s creation must be limitless.

The holy Christ is born in me today.

The prayer from today’s lesson says:

Your Son is welcome, Father. … He is the Self that You have given me. He is but what I really am in truth. … He is my Self as You created me. It is not Christ that can be crucified. Safe in Your Arms let me receive Your Son.

Near the end of our last special theme, I asked you to determine which stage of the spiritual path you are on, and based on that, what your primary function is.

If you are at the first stage, the search for truth, your primary function is reading and listening to spiritual teachings while feeling within for an inner confirmation regarding which teachings are for you.

If you are at the second stage, purification, your primary function is inquiring into your perceptions and thinking, giving willingness to let go of false thinking, learning not to act or speak from false thinking, and allowing repressed emotions to rise and heal.

If you are at the third stage, merging, your primary function is letting go of your personal will, including your thinking and conditioning, and surrendering to spiritual intuition until that surrender is complete, and you no longer experience a separate will.

If you are at the fourth stage, you know yourself as consciousness and the first three stages are completed.

Assuming that you are in the first, second or third stage of the spiritual path, spend today giving welcome to consciousness as your self by practicing your function as fully as you can. We are not here simply to say, “Let me receive Your Son.” We are here to back up that intention by doing our part to fulfill our function.

Tomorrow, I will talk about Grace’s role on the spiritual path. Today, just be aware that you are not alone as you do your part.

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What is the Second Coming?

Our special theme is about Christ’s Second Coming, which is awakening to Christ-consciousness. Our special theme refers to it as “part of the condition that restores the never lost” and as “an invitation to God’s Word to take illusion’s place.”

In other words, it is an important awakening, but it is not yet awakening to absolute truth.

This may be a good time to introduce what I call, “The Four Principles of God.” These principles are like a map, which depict the journey from the absolute to manifestation. The principles also highlight the awakenings that occur, which “restores the never lost, and re-establishes what is forever and forever true.”

The Four Principles of God

First Principle of God – Pure, unmanifest, life-awareness; abstract, unlimited potentiality. It is what A Course in Miracles calls “Father” and “Heaven.” It is also called Nirvana. It is the Source and ultimate truth.

Second Principle of God – Consciousness. This is the only direct creation of the Source. In A Course in Miracles it is called “Christ” and “the Son of God.” It is the unaffected, still witness. All things manifest are made of this principle; therefore, all things are consciousness.

Third Principle of God – The ongoing activity of creation, which occurs naturally through the interaction of the witnessing principle with that which is witnessed. In Gentle Healing, we learned about this through “The Code” and NTI Ephesians. I often call it Divine Law. It is how consciousness forms itself into the many temporary forms that make up the manifest universe.

Fourth Principle of God – Manifestation. Everything in this realm is temporary, and so it is often referred to as a dream. It is consciousness appearing as something other than consciousness, and so it is called illusion. One who believes this is the realm of reality is referred to as unconscious, not awake, or ignorant. When this realm is seen through ignorance, it is fearful and full of suffering. When seen through clarity, this realm is miraculous.

Today, spend some time contemplating the four principles in order to gain deeper understanding on your own. Formulate a question, which you feel will take you to a deeper understanding, and ask that question using the form of writing that we learned from Adyashanti. Write everything you think you know about your question; write to the boundary of your knowledge, and then wait for something to come that you feel is true. Seeking answers from yourself is an important part of the awakening process, and it is time for us to begin practicing that skill.

Where darkness was I look upon light.

Today’s lesson points to The Four Principles of God when it says, “Father, our eyes are opening at last. Your holy world awaits us, as our sight is finally restored and we can see. We thought we suffered. But we had forgot the Son whom you created. Now we see that darkness is our own imagining and light is there for us to look upon.”

Let today’s lesson assist you as you contemplate of The Four Principles of God and decide on a question to ask within.

Meditation Options

Over that last several weeks, you have been introduced to several guided meditations including awareness-watching-awareness, loving consciousness and abandon release meditation. I am not going to recommend specific meditation audios as part of the daily tip anymore. However, these and other meditation audios are available for you to use. You may access Awakening Together’s meditation audios at this link:

Guided Meditation Audios

If you prefer not to use a guided meditation, but you would like to listen to music or nature sounds as you meditate, consider the options in this meditation playlist:

YouTube Meditation Playlist

What is the Second Coming?

Our new special theme opens by saying, “Christ’s Second Coming, which is sure as God, is merely the correction of mistakes, and the return of sanity.”

Christ’s Second Coming is awakening to consciousness. It is the stage of true perception or seeing the real world. It is sometimes called “enlightenment,” yet it is not the final awakening.

Here is how NTI 1 Corinthians describes this stage:

What is received when all that is false has been let go is only that which reflects truth. This, which is received as truth, shall fill you with new eyes and a joyous heart. In this way, you will be ready to point the way, for you will no longer be fooled by that which is false. You shall have a taste of truth. It is upon this recognition, which is the completeness of recognition within time, that you enter the fourth and final earthly phase of the path of truth with Me. …

NTI describes four stages of the spiritual path prior to the final awakening to truth.

1. The search for truth, which is really one’s search for his/her spiritual path. This is a phase marked by reading lots of books and listening to many different spiritual teachers. It is an outward-focused search.
2. Purification, which is when one begins the serious inner work of looking at false thinking, beliefs and conditioning and letting them go. This is a phase of healing perception.
3. Merging into one, which is a phase of discarding the personal will and following spiritual intuition until no separate will can be said to exist anymore.
4. True perception, which is the last earthly phase. This is the phase when the person lives as one with spiritual intuition and with all things perceived. You know yourself and everything as Christ-consciousness. It is what A Course in Miracles calls the real world and the second coming of Christ.

And God Himself shall wipe away all tears.

Today’s lesson says that “God’s world is happy. Those who look on it can only add their joy to it, and bless it as a cause of further joy in them.” The lesson also says, “unless I judge I cannot weep. Nor can I suffer pain, or feel I am abandoned or unneeded in the world.”

In other words, all suffering that we experience is caused by our own decision to see with individual thinking instead of with spiritual intuition. All suffering is a symbol that we need to accept the atonement, the correction of misperception.

As our special theme says:

Christ’s Second Coming,
which is sure as God,
is merely the correction of mistakes,
and the return of sanity.

If you have 30 minutes for meditation today, I recommend this meditation:

Loving Consciousness Description Z

What is the Real World?

Our special theme says, “As we look upon a world forgiven, it is He Who calls to us and comes to take us home, reminding us of our Identity which our forgiveness has restored to us.”

In the excerpt from The Experience of No-Self by Bernadette Roberts, which we contemplated yesterday, Bernadette wrote, “The onset of this second movement is characterized by the falling away of self and coming upon ‘that’ which remains when it is gone.”

Similarly, Ramana Maharshi said, “Not letting the mind go out, but retaining it in the Heart is what is called ‘inwardness’. Letting the mind go out of the Heart is known as ‘externalization’. Thus, when the mind stays in the Heart, the ‘I’ which is the source of all thoughts will go, and the Self which ever exists will shine.”

What do you see when you contemplate these three quotes together? Can you see that “Identity,” “that” and “Self” are all the same, even though Bernadette calls that “no-self”?

Spend time with this contemplation before continuing with today’s tip.

Only an instant does this world endure.

The lesson says that today’s thought “is a thought which can be used to say that death and sorrow are the certain lot of all who come here, for their joys are gone before they are possessed, or even grasped. Yet this is also the idea that lets no false perception keep us in its hold, nor represent more than a passing cloud upon a sky eternally serene.”

I quoted Ramana Maharshi today, while looking at the special theme. Here is more of that same quote:

When the mind that is subtle goes out through the brain and the sense organs, the gross names and forms appear; when it stays in the heart, the names and forms disappear. Not letting the mind go out, but retaining it in the Heart is what is called “inwardness”. Letting the mind go out of the Heart is known as “externalization”. Thus, when the mind stays in the Heart, the ‘I’ which is the source of all thoughts will go, and the Self which ever exists will shine.

If you contemplate today’s workbook lesson along with this quote, you will see that letting our attention go outward towards the world and thoughts is the cause of suffering and illusion. Alternatively, keeping our attention inward leads to joy and truth realization.

Today is the last day with our current special theme. It is a good time to review the work that you did with this special theme, and reach a helpful conclusion.

The work you did included:

• Listing some of your perceptions as you looked at the world, and then labeling each of those perceptions as fear or peace.
• Selecting one fearful perception and inquiring into it.
• Using a form of writing recommended by Adyashanti, called “meditative self-inquiry,” to discover what you need to learn about the selected perception and then to ask how you can teach what you need to learn in order to learn it.
• Determining which phase of awakening you are currently in—purification, merging or waiting—and then based on that, what your primary function is now.

What summarized lesson can you take from all of this work? How do you put it into practice? Is there something you can do to remind yourself so you do not forget to put it into practice?

Answering these questions will result in some form of ‘inwardness’ that is fully right for you now. It will be your guidance—your current step—and “exactly what to do to be restored to Heaven and our true Identity.”

If you have 30 minutes for meditation, I recommend this meditation today:

Abandon Release Description F

What is the Real World?

Our special theme speaks of two phases of awakening. The first is “quiet eyes” and “a mind at peace.” This is the mind that sees the real world, which “is a symbol, like the rest of what perception offers.”

The second phase of awakening occurs when God takes “His final step, and time has disappeared, taking perception with it as it goes, and leaving but the truth to be itself.”

Contemplate the teaching in our special theme alongside this description from a Catholic contemplative, Bernadette Roberts. It is from her book, The Experience of No-Self:

Within the traditional framework, the Christian notion of loss-of-self is generally regarded as the transformation or loss of the ego (lower self) as it attains to the higher or true self in its union with God. … Thus there is no longer any sense of “my” life, but rather “our” life—God and self. In this abiding state, God, the “still-point” at the center of being, is ever accessible to the contemplative gaze—a point from which the life of self arises and into which it sometimes disappears. But this latter experience of loss-of-self is only transient; it does not constitute a permanent state …

Because this was the limit of my expectations, I was all the more surprised and bewildered when many years later I came upon a permanent state in which there was no self, no higher self, true self or anything that could be called a self. … In main, I am convinced that the contemplative life is composed of two distinct and separate movements…

The first movement is toward self’s union with God … wherein the emphasis is on interior trials and dark nights by which the self is established in a permanent union with God, the still-point and axis of its being. In this process we discover that self is not lost; rather, a new self is revealed that functions from the deepest, innermost divine center.

Following this first movement is an interval during which this union is tested by a variety of exterior (not interior) trials whereby this oneness is revealed in all its enduring depths of stability and toughness against all forces that would move, fragment, or disturb its center… [It is] actually the preparation for a great explosion—a quiet one, however—that ushers in another major turning-point. … [A] point is reached where the self is so completely aligned with the still-point that it can no longer be moved, even in its first movements, from this center. It can no longer be tested by any force or trial, nor moved by the winds of change, and at this point the self has obviously outworn its function; it is no longer needed or useful, and life can go on without it. …

The onset of this second movement is characterized by the falling away of self and coming upon “that” which remains when it is gone. … The immediate, inevitable result is an emergence into a new dimension of knowing and being that entails a difficult and prolonged readjustment. The reflexive mechanism of the mind—or whatever it is that allows us to be self-conscious—is cut off or permanently suspended so the mind is ever after held in a fixed now-moment out of which it cannot move in its uninterrupted gaze upon the Unknown.

Eternal holiness abides in me.

Today’s lesson speaks of our holiness, “which is far beyond my own ability to understand or know.” The lesson says, “Illusions can obscure it, but can not put out its radiance, nor dim its light. It stands forever perfect and untouched. … And I can know my holiness.”

Today, contemplate where you are in the process of coming to know the eternal holiness that abides in you.

• Are you in the purification stage, which is primarily involved with noticing false thinking, beliefs and conditioning and letting them go?
• Are you in the stage of merging, which is primarily involved with perfecting your abidance with the right-mind (spiritual intuition)?
• Are you in the stage of true perception, where merging has been perfected, and now you wait quietly for God to take His final step?

Also, based on where you are in this process, what is your primary function now?

If you have 30 minutes for meditation, I recommend this meditation today:

Abandon Release Description E