Please take time this morning to read, “What is Forgiveness,” to contemplate Lesson 227, and to spend time in meditation. If you have 30-minutes for meditation and would like a gentle audio to guide you, I recommend this meditation by Michael Langford and Karen Worth:

AWA Description G

This is my holy instant of release.

What is God’s Will? God’s Will is life-awareness-presence. It is isness-being. It is existence. God’s Will is the truth of all things as they really are.

Today’s lesson says, “I thought to make another will. Yet nothing that I thought apart from You exists.”

NTI Romans calls this other will the wish for “something completely different” than reality. That would be something completely different from life-awareness-presence. If something is completely different from life-awareness-presence, it has no life. Therefore, it does not exist.

Our thoughts have no life. They are the other will. When we remove attention from our thoughts and place attention with life-awareness-presence, we “lay them down before the feet of truth, to be removed forever from my mind.”

Both of our primary practices remove attention (meaning and value) from thoughts. We practice forgiveness (inquiry, rest-accept-trust, right-reason, etc) and awareness-watching-awareness. Both are critical components of “our glad return to Heaven, which we never really left.”

Today we embrace our primary practices. We see they are both important to our “instant of release.” We are grateful to have these practices as part of our lives now.

Please take time this morning to read, “What is Forgiveness,” to contemplate Lesson 226, and to spend time in meditation. If you have 30-minutes for meditation and would like a gentle audio to guide you, I recommend this meditation by Michael Langford and Karen Worth:

AWA Description F

My home awaits me. I will hasten there.

There is no reason for us to hold onto unhappiness of any kind. Only our own ideas and the value we give them create unhappiness.

What ideas are you giving value to that create your unhappiness?

Do you think things should be different than they are? Is there an ideal perfection that is not being met? Is someone acting different than you want him/her to act? Should you have something that you do not have? Is your mind full of self-condemnation, or is it highly critical of another?

When you are unhappy, pause and look. What idea is currently present and currently valued as true? Do you value this idea more than the opportunity to know the freedom of truth realization? Or are you willing to release this idea and any value you’ve given it in order to be one step closer to total freedom?

Please take time this morning to read, “What is Forgiveness,” to contemplate Lesson 225, and to spend time in meditation. If you have 30-minutes for meditation and would like a gentle audio to guide you, I recommend this meditation by Michael Langford and Karen Worth:

AWA Description E

God is my Father, and His Son loves Him.

Today’s lesson says, “Father, … You have given all Your Love to me. I must return it, for I want it mine in full awareness, blazing in my mind and keeping it within its kindly light, inviolate, beloved, with fear behind and only peace ahead.”

With the realization that this is what we want, we practice giving love (attention) to life-awareness by gratefully spending time in awareness-watching-awareness meditation.

The lesson also says, “Brother, we find that stillness now.”

With this in our hearts, we practice forgiveness today. If we see an idea that someone has done something to us, we pause and notice that we are not affected at all. The mind may be agitated, but we are the presence that is aware of the mind; we are not the mind. If the agitation continues to attract our attention, we use a spiritual practice to see through the illusion of being affected. With right-gratitude for this healing opportunity, we practice inquiry, rest-accept-trust and/or right-reason in order to free ourselves from the illusion of meaning when there is none.

Please take time this morning to read, “What is Forgiveness,” to contemplate Lesson 224, and to spend time in meditation. If you have 30-minutes for meditation and would like a gentle audio to guide you, I recommend this meditation by Michael Langford and Karen Worth:

AWA Description D

God is my Father, and He loves His Son.

“Father” and “Son” are symbols. Like all symbols, they can have multiple meanings. For our purposes now, it is helpful to see life-awareness as Father and presence as Son.

Some people make the mistake of seeing the personality-mind as Son. The personality-mind is a temporary effect in presence, but it is not what you are. When one sees the personality-mind as Son, one remains stuck with the misperception that s/he is the personality-mind. In addition, the personality-mind isn’t “wholly beneficent.” When people feel that it should be, it can lead to additional guilt and unworthiness.

Focus your attention on presence (present awareness) now. Notice presence is simply aware without any involvement in the world or in thoughts. Presence is “wholly beneficent and free from guilt.” Presence is the awareness that lights up everything perceived and experienced. Without the awareness of presence, there would not be perception or experience. Said another way, nothing could exist without presence.

Presence is what you are. Presence is the Son of life-awareness.

Now focus your intuitive attention on life-awareness (activating cause), which is the foundation and essence of presence. Notice how life-awareness and presence are one. Life-awareness is the light of presence in the same way that presence is the light of the world. Just as nothing manifest could exist without presence, presence exists because of the loving and ongoing gift of life-awareness.

Today’s lesson says, “I am weary of the world I see.” Does this thought come from presence? Or is presence the silent witness of this thought? Who (or what) are you?

Please take time this morning to read, “What is Forgiveness,” to contemplate Lesson 223, and to spend time in meditation. If you have 30-minutes for meditation and would like a gentle audio to guide you, I recommend this meditation by Michael Langford and Karen Worth:

AWA Description C

God is my life. I have no life but His.

The ego is the thought that I am my own entity. It is the thought that I have life and I have awareness, but I am the entity; the life and awareness that I have are my possessions. They are “my life” and “my awareness.” It is also the thought that life and awareness other than my life and my awareness are separate from the life and awareness in me. It’s as if I have a bottled up source of life and awareness that exists in the body, which is my container.

Self-inquiry questions these basic ego assumptions.

What is the “I” that is its own entity? Of course, there is the appearance of the body. If one does not look deeply one may point at the body and say, “I am my own entity.” But does the body make these claims? What is the “I” that claims to be its own separate entity?

When one pauses to look more deeply, one will find that the mind is the “I” that claims to be its own entity.

Is it true that the mind is its own entity? Does the mind possess life and awareness as it claims or is living-awareness aware of the mind? Does thought possess life and awareness or is living-awareness (as presence) aware of thought?

Once you have distinguished between thought and awareness-life-presence through the previous inquiry, focus attention on presence (present awareness). Is presence what you are? Can you separate yourself from present awareness or is that you? Does presence make any claims of possessing life and awareness or is it simply permeated with life-awareness? Can presence be separated from life-awareness?

Contemplate the life-awareness that permeates presence. This requires intuitive contemplation of that which cannot be seen but can be realized. It has no personality. It has no sense of self. It is before presence, which does have a non-personal sense of “I am,” but life-awareness does not have a sense of “I am.” It is the life-awareness energy of presence, just as electricity is the energy that lights a light bulb.

With contemplative attention on life-awareness, the essence of presence, ask:

Is this life-awareness separate or different from the life-awareness in any other presence? (This is similar to asking, “Is the electricity that lights the bulb in this lamp separate or different from the electricity that lights the bulb in that lamp?)

Do you find that there is one source that permeates presence with life-awareness or are there different sources?

If there is one source that permeates presence with life-awareness, and if presence is life-awareness, and presence is what you are, can you say that you are your own entity? Or, are you the essence of your source, which is also the essence of all things?

Please take time this morning to read, “What is Forgiveness,” to contemplate Lesson 222, and to spend time in meditation. If you have 30-minutes for meditation and would like a gentle audio to guide you, I recommend this meditation by Michael Langford and Karen Worth:

AWA Description B

God is with me. I live and move in Him.

God is the nature of all things, both manifest and unmanifest. Where there is anything, there is God. Where there is nothing, there is God.

The basic essence of God is life-awareness. Life-awareness is before presence and it is the basis of presence. It is before creation and it is the basis of creation. One could say that presence is the extension of God, and creation is the effect of presence.

Contemplate presence today, and notice it is you.

Contemplate life-awareness today. Notice it is inseparable from presence and it is the source of presence. Without life-awareness, presence could not be.

Contemplate anything in creation. Notice it is present. Rest with the idea that life-awareness extends to presence, and in the same way, presence projects to become the manifestation of all things. (Some people use the word consciousness instead of presence.)

As you contemplate these things deeply, notice you are always in the presence of God, in the presence of that which is before presence and is the essence of all things that are present.

Workbook Lesson 221 – Peace to my mind. Let all my thoughts be still.

Today we begin Part II of A Course in Miracles Workbook for Students. In the Introduction to Part II, we are told, “Words will mean little now. … For now we seek direct experience of truth alone. The lessons that remain are merely introductions to the times in which we leave the world of pain, and go to enter peace. … For we wait in quiet expectation for our God and Father. He has promised He will take the final step Himself. And we are sure His promises are kept.”

In other words, the workbook lessons prepare us for meditation. They prepare our minds and hearts for sitting in awareness-watching-awareness.

I have always found it helpful to spend time in contemplation (which often includes writing) before going to meditation. Lately, “tip” writing has been that time for me. Previously, it may have been contemplating something from Awakening Together’s Minister Preparation Program (MPP), the Seven Steps to Awakening, or something else. A period of contemplation followed by meditation is the recommendation for all of us now.

The Introduction also says, “We will not consider time a matter of duration now. We will use as much as we will need for the result that we desire.”

Each one must find the time he/she needs for adequate contemplation and meditation.

What is “adequate?” Whatever time it takes to realize genuine wisdom and/or shifts each day.

I contemplate until contemplation feels complete, which means I have received my “daily bread.” And then I meditate for as long as the day will allow, meaning I meditate until I need to move into my workday. For me, the total time spent in contemplation and meditation is typically 3 – 4 hours per day. To do this, I get up at 5am each day. When I was a new student, I typically spent 60-90 minutes per day in focused spiritual time. As you can see, my focused time has increased over time.

Now our format for the workbook lessons is this:

1 – Each day read and contemplate the “special theme” that we are currently working with. The first one is, “What is Forgiveness?”

2 – Contemplate the day’s workbook lesson.

3 – Spend time in meditation.

4 – Recall the day’s workbook lesson hourly.

5 – Spend at least a brief time with the workbook lesson and/or meditation before going to bed at night.

Instead of writing a tip for our first special theme, “What is Forgiveness,” I invite you to listen to an audio on that theme. If you cannot listen this morning, listen later in the day, in the evening before going to bed or within the next day or two.

Audio – What is Forgiveness?

Please take time this morning to read, “What is Forgiveness,” to contemplate Lesson 221, and to spend time in meditation. If you have 30-minutes for meditation and would like a gentle audio to guide you, I recommend this meditation by Michael Langford and Karen Worth:

AWA Description A.

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.
There is no peace except the peace of God.

There is great peace in knowing you are eternal presence, witness to appearance and experience, but forever unaffected by them. Knowing yourself as This is the peace of God. It is the only answer that answers all problems immediately. It is the only truth, and it is already true now. All that needs to happen for the peace of God to be your genuine experience forever is to let go of identifying with anything that is temporary, and return identification to the only thing (non-thing) that is always here as yourself.

Original tip for this idea

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.
I am not a body. I am free

You are awareness-life-presence. Anything else that you identify with is a temporary experience and nothing more. This is what is forgotten. And this is what is realized to the core of one’s being at awakening. It is “a recognition, not a change at all.” (From Lesson 188)

This is why we put emphasis on awareness-watching-awareness in the Gentle Healing Group. By consistently looking toward our Self, we are bound to remember the truth of what we are.

During awareness-watching-awareness meditation, whenever I notice my attention has gone to thought, I ask, “To whom does this thought arise?” That inquiry is a tool I use to turn my attention from thought and toward awareness. However, in the last couple of weeks something else has started to happen.

When I ask, “To whom does this arise,” I spontaneously see the identification that attracts the thought. It might be identification as teacher, as mother, as a responsible person, as a busy person, or some other identification, but I see clearly that the thoughts are coming because of the identification.

I find this helpful. It provides the opportunity to deny the false identification and then immediately look to awareness and recognize the undeniable true Self, that which is present, non-changing and continuous as my Self.

Original tip for this idea

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.
Only my condemnation injures me.

If we decide that certain circumstances are justification for our judgment and condemnation, we have decided those same circumstances are a good reason to suffer. By making this choice, we have also decided we prefer to focus on illusion than realize truth.

The ego, which is the wish to be focused on illusion instead of realizing truth, will come up with certain circumstances that seem to absolutely justify our judgment. But, that is just the ego preferring attention on illusion instead of truth realization.

Do not be fooled by the ego’s tricks. Whenever you are tempted to condemn, ask yourself this clear-minded question: Do I want freedom and truth? If the answer is yes, then shift to a spiritual practice that will help free you from the current temptation to judge and condemn.

Original tip for this idea