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.

Stay with the practice of letting spiritual intuition lead you throughout the day. You don’t need ego to guide you. Ego offers nothing of value. Spiritual intuition is the only guide we want 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.

So far during this review period, we have asked for guidance after noticing that we were caught in the ego perspective. Today, let’s put spiritual intuition up front.

Instead of waiting to get caught in the ego perspective before asking for guidance, let’s ask for guidance all through the day. In other words, instead of getting caught and then asking for help, let’s allow guidance to lead us through the day so that we don’t get caught in ego snares. Let’s stay in the heart today, with spiritual intuition in the lead.

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 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.

What is it that your mind thinks you want? What are your dreams? Why do you want those dreams? Spend time inquiring into your dreams to find what they represent for you. Do you really want that thing or circumstance, the object of your dream, or do you actually seek the peace of God?

Today is a good day to review the teaching from a previous Weekly Gathering entitled, “Wanting.” If you would like to listen, you can skip to 33:10 in this audio.

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.

The ego-perspective focuses on differences. The spirit-perspective focuses on sameness, awareness-life-presence. Today, we will use the idea for the day along with a Name of God mantra to repeatedly turn our attention away from the ego-perspective to contemplation on awareness-life-presence.

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.

The instructions to this review period said, “Permit no idle thought to go unchallenged. If you notice one, deny its hold and hasten to assure your mind that this is not what it would have. Then gently let the thought which you denied be given up, in sure and quick exchange for the idea we practice for the day.”

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

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. (Click here to review Inner Ramana’s instructions about surrender.)

Today’s review idea:

I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
I will be still an instant and go home.

Workbook Lesson 182 said,  “When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then will you hear His Voice. So poignantly He calls to you that you will not resist Him longer. In that instant He will take you to His home, and you will stay with Him in perfect stillness, silent and at peace, beyond all words, untouched by fear and doubt, sublimely certain that you are at home. Rest with Him frequently today.”

Let’s make stillness a more important part of our lives. When you notice that you are ‘killing time’ with unimportant activity, drop the distraction and spend time in quiet stillness instead. Choose to do nothing. Sit outside and be aware with nature, or close your eyes and spend time in awareness-watching-awareness meditation. Let’s make it our goal to fall in love with quiet time, time to do nothing but be awareness.

Link to the original tip for this idea.

The last twenty lessons have been foundational. Because of that, we will spend a full twenty days reviewing those twenty lessons. We want to absorb those lessons to the point that they become our automatic response to the world, the thinking mind, and negative emotional experiences.

That’s why the review instructions say, “Besides the time you give morning and evening, which should not be less than fifteen minutes, and the hourly remembrances you make throughout the day, use the idea as often as you can between them.”

In fact, referring to the importance of these twenty lessons, the review instructions go on to say, “Each of these ideas alone would be sufficient for salvation, if it were learned truly. … Each contains the whole curriculum if understood, practiced, accepted, and applied to all the seeming happenings throughout the day. One is enough. But from that one, there must be no exceptions made.” However, we will use them all and “let them blend as one, as each contributes to the whole we learn.”

In addition to the structured instructions given in the first paragraph of the review instructions (and repeated in the second paragraph above), you are asked to use the day’s idea whenever you are tempted to speak, act or think from ego. The review instructions say, “Permit no idle thought to go unchallenged. If you notice one, deny its hold and hasten to assure your mind that this is not what it would have. Then gently let the thought which you denied be given up, in sure and quick exchange for the idea we practice for the day.”

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.”

This thoughtful remembrance of the day’s idea is not the end of your response to temptation. After gently shifting with the heart from the ego-based thought to the review lesson, you will experience at least an instant of relative quiet. We are asked to use that moment of quiet to ask spiritual intuition for guidance that suits the moment.

In fact, the review instructions say, “To Him I offer this review for you. I place you in His charge, and let Him teach you what to do and say and think, each time you turn to Him.”

This is a good time to review Inner Ramana’s instructions about surrender.

As we go through this review period, I will begin each tip with a summary of these review instructions. I will also provide a summary review of the idea for the day along with a link to the original tip for that idea. Beyond that, you will be left to inner guidance, “allowing Him to teach us how to go, and trusting Him completely for the way each practice period can best become a loving gift of freedom to the world.”

Today’s review idea is:

I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
I trust my brothers, who are one with me.

When most of us read the word “brothers,” we immediately think of the body-minds of others. The body-mind is not what our brothers are. This is also why we do not need to replace the word “brothers” with “brothers and sisters.” When we contemplate this lesson, we are not looking at a body-mind; we are looking at sexless awareness-life-presence. “Brothers” in this idea is a symbol for that which is beyond changing form, for that which is constant.

As you contemplate the idea for today, contemplate awareness-life-presence, which is what our brothers are and what we are.

Link to the original tip for this idea

Our current goals:

• Widen the horizons of our vision
• Take direct approaches to uncover the blocks that keep our vision narrow
• Lift those blocks, however briefly, in order to experience the sense of liberation that comes when the blocks are removed
• Intensify our motivation for freedom

We pause before beginning our next review period in order to clarify the goal and intensify our motivation for it.

“There is no peace except the peace of God. Seek no further. … This is the final point to which each one must come at last, to lay aside all hope of finding happiness where there is none; of being saved by what can only hurt…”

What is the peace of God? It is identifying with awareness-life-presence instead of identifying with the individual body-mind. Awareness-life-presence is where we are all the same. It is our truth.

Today’s lesson tells us, we “can ask as easily for love, for happiness, and for eternal life in peace that has no ending. Ask for this, and you can only win. To ask for what you have already must succeed.”

That is “the good news of the kingdom of God.” The good news is that you already have and are what you seek. (Luke 4:43)

Take a moment to turn your attention to awareness. Notice it is here now. It is infused with life. It is peace. And it is your presence.

“The kingdom of God is within you.”
(Luke 17:20 21 KJV)

Today’s lesson points out that Heaven is accessed “through a door that opens easily” to welcome us. That door is your awareness. Awareness is the doorway to infinite awareness, which is absolute truth.

Our spiritual practice is two-fold:

1. We practice forgiveness, which is letting go of illusions, because illusions distract us from realizing ourselves as awareness-life-presence. We use different tools, such as self-inquiry, rest-accept-trust, the loving all method, right-reason and right-gratitude, to help us practice forgiveness.
2. We pay attention to awareness, which is the doorway to infinite awareness, through meditation and many glimpses throughout the day.

In other words, our path is letting go of the temporary and embracing the eternal.

Although we ignore the world when we are in awareness-watching-awareness meditation, we welcome the world when we are not in meditation. We have gratitude for the opportunities it gives us to practice forgiveness, and we appreciate awareness-life-presence as it is reflected in the world.

“Now the way is easy, sloping gently toward the bridge where freedom lies within the peace of God. … Only if we attempt to wander can there be delay and needless wasted time on thorny byways. … Today we seek no idols. Peace can not be found in them. The peace of God is ours, and only this will we accept and want. … For we have found a simple, happy way to leave the world of ambiguity, and to replace our shifting goals and solitary dreams with single purpose and companionship. For peace is union, if it be of God. We seek no further. We are close to home, and draw nearer every time we say:

There is no peace except the peace of God,
And I am glad and thankful it is so.”

Our current goals:

• Widen the horizons of our vision
• Take direct approaches to uncover the blocks that keep our vision narrow
• Lift those blocks, however briefly, in order to experience the sense of liberation that comes when the blocks are removed
• Intensify our motivation for freedom

Today’s lesson says, “Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself. … The mind can be made free when it no longer sees itself in a body, …”

In the above sentence, the word “mind” does not refer to thinking. It refers to awareness. In other words, awareness can see itself as free when it is no longer tied to the body and thoughts about the body as ‘me.’

The lesson tells us, “Attack thoughts cannot enter such a mind, …” You saw this yesterday when you paused to look at awareness. There are no concepts in awareness, and so there is no condemnation and no attack.

When we accept awareness as our identity, we become the observer of everything that appears. We abide as our Self while temporary appearances come and go. We do not give undo meaning or value to anything that does not last.

The lesson says, “It is essential for your progress in this course that you accept today’s idea, …”

Pause for a moment and contemplate how true that statement is. All of our upsets come from giving meaning and value to temporary appearances. If we continue to give meaning in that way, we will never be free of the swings in mood that come with changing appearance.

One who abides as awareness is able to accept temporary appearances as they are and respond to them in an appropriate way without being upset by them. This way of being is known as clarity. Today’s lesson encourages us to live from clarity.

The lesson says, “In immortality you live forever. Would you not return your mind to this?” Immortality and awareness are synonymous, since awareness has no beginning, no end and is absolutely changeless.

The lesson also says, “The Holy Spirit is the home of minds that seek for freedom.” The Holy Spirit and clarity are synonymous. Both represent giving value only to that which is true and lasting. Therefore, one who seeks for freedom chooses to live from clarity.

When we decide to live from clarity, we also decide to live from “an undivided goal.” Our only purpose is awakening from illusion entirely. That becomes the only purpose of this body. We are not here to make such-and-such happen or to ensure so-and-so likes us. We are here for one purpose only—truth realization. Everything is about one thing; our purpose is unambiguous.

The lesson requests, “Cherish today’s idea, and practice it today and everyday. Make it a part of every practice period you take.” This is so important!

If we are willing to decide that we are not a body—we are awareness, and our only purpose is realizing that completely—well, that changes everything. In a way, we are reborn the moment we make that decision, because every experience has a different purpose now.

Spend today deeply contemplating your choice to make this decision. Begin living this decision today. You already know how to live this decision. The only thing that needs to be done is to decide that this decision is all you truly want. Once you decide you want it, you will live it.

Our current goals:

• Widen the horizons of our vision
• Take direct approaches to uncover the blocks that keep our vision narrow
• Lift those blocks, however briefly, in order to experience the sense of liberation that comes when the blocks are removed
• Intensify our motivation for freedom

Today’s lesson makes clear that illusions are used to undo illusions, because truth has not been touched by illusions at all. This is why we are doing two things at once: We are practicing the teachings of A Course in Miracles Workbook for Students and practicing awareness-watching-awareness meditation.

Our work with A Course in Miracles is learning about and practicing the illusions that undo illusions. Let’s not get confused about this. Many students have become lost, because they have adopted the Course’s thought system as the truth. It isn’t the truth. It is an illusion that can be used to undo illusions.

Our second practice, awareness-watching-awareness, is the practice of paying attention to truth, which remains untouched by illusions. Today’s lesson says, “To condemn is thus impossible in truth.” This is not a minor point, and it is a point you can verify for yourself.

Take a moment to become quiet and look at awareness. As you look directly at awareness, notice it has no concepts in it at all. Being beyond concepts, it is also beyond condemnation. Judgment is not possible for awareness.

Remain quiet and continue to look at awareness. Can you separate yourself from awareness? Can you let go of awareness, or is awareness what you are?

If you can see that awareness is what you are, then you also know that there is no condemnation in you. Condemnation and attack, and the injury that occurs because of condemnation and attack, are at the level of body and mind only. They do not occur and have no effect at the level of truth.

When we practice the teachings of A Course in Miracles, we are using illusions to undo illusions, but truth is not involved at all. It is in the background merely being aware. We are working entirely with dreamscapes.

Why bother working at the level of the dream? As today’s lesson says, “Injury is impossible. And yet illusion makes illusion. If you can condemn, you can be injured. For you have believed that you can injure, and the right you have established for yourself can be now used against you, till you lay it down as valueless, unwanted, and unreal. Then does illusion cease to have effects, and those it seemed to have will be undone.”

In other words, as long as you believe illusions have value, you are caught at the level of illusions. So, illusions must be used to undo illusions until you come to see that illusions have no value at all. When this occurs, your attention will leave illusions completely and choose to abide with truth.

Today’s lesson refers to forgiveness as “illusion that is the answer to the rest. Forgiveness sweeps all other dreams away, and though it is itself a dream, it breeds no others.”

Forgiveness is letting go of thought. It is removing value, meaning, belief and attention from thought.

A few days ago, we learned to use right-reason, another illusion, to talk ourselves into letting go of thought. However, unless we are vigilant for forgiveness, the mind will use wrong-reason to justify our judgments and attacks. Today’s lesson asks, “And why would you oppose [forgiveness], quarrel with it, seek to find a thousand ways in which it must be wrong; a thousand other possibilities? Is it not wiser to be glad you hold the answer to your problems in your hand?”

The lesson points out, “This world has many seeming separate haunts where mercy has no meaning, and attack appears justified. Yet all are one …”

Let’s look at this point more carefully. I have noticed over the years that many spiritual students are able to practice forgiveness in some things, but not all things. For example, they may be willing to let go of their judgments of others based on physical appearance, and yet they are still willing to judge and attack based on political, spiritual or moral points of view. It’s as if politics, spirituality and morality are “separate haunts where mercy has no meaning.”

Is that true? Are condemnation and attack sometimes justified?

The lesson says, “Yet all are one.” In other words, the lesson is pointing out they are all illusions, all distractions from truth.

Let’s look at an example. If I have a democratic political leaning, and I believe democratic policy creates a more inclusive and compassionate society, I may feel justified when I attack republican points-of-view in conversation with friends or through a post in Facebook. However, when I do that, am I identified with awareness or with this personality-mind as what I am?

Look again. Does awareness have any political points-of-view in it?

You see, illusions are all one in that they are illusions, and to the degree that we are caught up in them, we are identified with illusion as what we are. In other words, all illusions have equal power to keep us lost and ignorant regarding our truth. This is why forgiveness is justified regardless of what the illusion is. This is why any reasoning that justifies condemnation and attack is always wrong reasoning. The only right reasoning is the logic that convinces us to let go.

Today we become more committed to let go of condemnation and attack in all circumstances. We do not withhold any circumstance as the special circumstance that validates our condemnation. The basis of this commitment is that we want to experience truth directly. We are no longer interested in being distracted from it. We are ready for Self-realization.

Remember to feel gratitude for all opportunities to practice forgiveness. Gratitude helps increase our willingness to let go.