GentleHealingTips-Year1 Archives - Page 33 of 34

Tips From Regina – Lesson 50, I am sustained by the Love of God

March 5, 2017 By Dawn Fernandez

One error that creeps into the minds of many spiritual students is “magical thinking.” Magical thinking is believing that spiritual practice protects us and makes us happy by correcting the things in the world that we think need correcting. This error is fairly common and is fiercely protected by the ego, so it isn’t always easily let go.

Why is this error protected by the ego? Lesson 50 answers that question. “All these things are cherished to ensure a body identification.” Valuing magical ideas is the same as valuing pills, money, etc, because the emphasis is on valuing form.

Everything that is born will die. Each one of us does well to accept this fact. When we accept that the body-personalities that we perceive ourselves to be are temporary and can end at anytime, we are ready to seek for our eternal Self. Our eternal Self is beyond everything temporary and is affected by none of it. The realization of our eternal Self as our truth is ‘salvation’, ‘awakening’, and ‘eternal life’.

“Only the Love of God will protect you in all circumstances. It will lift you out of every trial, and raise you high above all perceived dangers of this world into a climate of perfect peace and safety.” This refers to truth realization. When you know what you are, you are not affected by the ups and downs of this world because you know yourself as beyond it.

A perfect illustration of this is the story of Ramana Maharshi’s death. When his body was dying of sarcoma, his devotees were in great sorrow. They thought they were losing their master. But Ramana responded to them by saying, “Where can I go? I shall always be here.” He knew himself AS eternal life. He identified with eternal life, not the temporary body.

Contemplate Lesson 50 carefully today, and watch your mind for every scrap of magical thinking. “Put not your faith in illusions. They will fail you. Put all your faith in the Love of God within you; eternal, changeless and forever unfailing.”

Here is a link to a song that may help you in this contemplation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llKPujyRgek

p.s. Because magical thinking is such a strong ego defense (to keep us identified with the body), people often ask me questions like, “Should I take medication?” I resonate with Byron Katie’s response. She says that the body is the doctor’s business, not hers.

Let the doctor play games with the body. If the doctor says to take a medication or go through a certain procedure, go ahead, but watch your mind for the idea that this will save you. Identification with the body is an error. You are not the body.

Ramana Maharshi allowed his devotees to call a doctor, and he submitted to the doctor’s operations. His attitude seemed to be the same as Byron Katie’s. His body was not his concern or his business. He let those who saw the body as important make decisions about the body.

Tips From Regina – Lesson 49, God's Voice Speaks to me all through the day

March 4, 2017 By Dawn Fernandez

Part 1 of 2

God’s Voice is silent. It communicates with no words at all. We ‘hear’ God’s Voice more as an intuitive feeling. An example of God’s Voice is the feeling ‘all is well.’ When we feel ‘all is well’ under all circumstances, we are listening to God’s Voice consistently.

God’s Voice prompts us in daily life, if we are willing to ‘listen’. It may come through as a feeling that ‘I don’t need to do anything’ about a particular situation; ‘I can wait’ or have patience. It may come through as a feeling that ‘it is best if I say nothing now’. Or it may come through as a feeling that ‘it is best if I say this particular thing now’. It may come through as awareness, noticing that ‘I am listening to an out-of-control mind now’ and a reminder to breathe and shift attention, etc.

The brain has the ability to translate God’s silent Voice into your language, which means you can hear God’s Voice as words/thoughts. This may or may not happen for some individuals. It may happen sometimes but not all of the time.

When I first became a scribe, my experience was listening to a Voice (a thought stream that did not seem like my own). It was like taking dictation. I would simply listen and write what I heard. However, as I became a more experienced scribe, I noticed that I was feeling the Voice and my brain was selecting the words that would best communicate what I felt. I could sense the silent communication and had full understanding of it before the brain supplied the words.

I am sharing this so you will be open to ‘God’s Voice’ in whatever way it comes to you today. If you close your eyes for 5 minutes and have no other experience except feeling more relaxed after the 5-minute practice, you heard God’s Voice. That’s it.

I will make another post today for those of you who are beginning to scribe the inner voice with language. The ego will fight this process with doubt. I am going to share a post from 2008 when I was experiencing extreme doubt about scribing, so you can see the Voice’s response to me. It may help some of you to move through your doubts and allow the conversations with the inner Voice to continue.

Great love, Regina

Tip for Lesson 49, Part 2 of 2, Looking at doubts about scribing

Question: What about…

Ahhhh! I’m having a tough time asking this next question. It is hard because there is so much judgment and fear in my mind. I am judging the question and I am judging me as the scribe. I have a huge fear that I am just writing what I want to hear. This fear is so big that it makes me want to throw down my pen and runaway and hide. I feel it in my chest.

Before I continue, what would you share about my fear?

Answer: A scribe creates her ability to scribe. This is a creation in that it takes the formless and brings it into form. (In this way, I do not use the word “creation” in the way that A Course in Miracles uses the word. I use “creation” in the way of an artist.)

An artist creates his painting or his sculpture or his magnificent musical piece of work, but any great artist will also tell you the work was born through him. He both created it and he didn’t. He created the piece of work by allowing it to be born through him in a specific form.

The scribe does this. She allows the birth of formless into form as a specific expression through being a scribe.

Because the scribe is a partner or co-creator in the birthing of what may be considered “holy words,” she can also feel guilt or fear about these words. She can fear that her ego sometimes does the writing. She can fear she is not open enough or hearing deep enough. She can even fear that she is making up the entire scribal experience and there is no co-creation with anything divine. The latter may be the greatest fear for many people who are scribe.

The best thing a scribe can do is allow the flow of words that comes through her. She can feel the flow as it comes through at a consistent rate without a break in the flow. Trust this flow that keeps flowing like a river running downhill. It is different than thought, which is rambling and seems to fire from all directions. It is a steady flow that seems to come from one consistent source. As long as the words are coming in this flow, write down the words that you hear.

Your next question frightens you because it is a question that addresses the greatest fear that you have. You are afraid that your fear will be a block to hearing Me or that it may be your ego that answers. You are also afraid, since you fear that scribing may be a human creation rather than a co-creation with the divine…you also fear that asking this question may be exposing yourself as a fake. You’ve had this fear for a long time, and it comes up around many questions. It is time to look at your greatest fear, because it is your greatest fear that hurts you the most.

I understand that facing your doubts is difficult for you, but that is only because you fear your doubts are real. In facing them, you will learn they are not real. In willingness and readiness, and out of a pure desire to take this step, ask the question you fear to ask now. …

Tips from Regina – Lesson 48, There is nothing to fear

March 3, 2017 By Dawn Fernandez

Today’s workbook lesson does not have a period of meditation. At our last Gentle Healing group meeting, I asked you to practice 5 minutes of awareness-watching-awareness meditation each morning even if the workbook lesson does not include meditation. This is a reminder of that request and, hopefully, a little bit of inspiration regarding the request.

Our reading this week is NTI James. In NTI James, Chapter 4, we are reminded, “You always receive as you have asked, … You ask from the process of creation through desire, which you give your energy to.” And then we are told, “Quietness is attentiveness.”

For most of us, the goal of Gentle Healing is Self-Realization. Yet, we have to admit that most of our attention (energy) goes to the world and thoughts about the world. That shows we still have a strong desire for illusion (and we always receive as we ask).

If we want Self-realization, we must begin to reverse what we do with our energy. We must begin to give attention to within, away from the world and our thoughts. This is the purpose of awareness-watching-awareness meditation.

Quietness is attentiveness to the Self.

By taking time and focusing attention on awareness, we genuinely ask for Self-Realization. And we ALWAYS receive as we ask.

Nisargadatta Maharaj taught that in order to realize the Self, we must overcome the obstacles of “desire for the false and fear of the true.” How do we overcome these obstacles? By our action. When we turn attention away from the world and thoughts, we are overcoming the desire for the false. When we place attention with awareness (changeless being), we are overcoming our fear of the true.

There is nothing to fear. Close your eyes and practice a bit of awareness-watching-awareness each day. In this way, you ask for Self-Realization.

Love, Regina

“Whoever recognizes that he has been desiring what he does not desire, and chooses to desire again in a new way, chooses also to save himself from a multitude of distractions in order to settle within the peace of his own Heart.” ~ NTI James

Tips from Regina – Lesson 47, God is the strength in which I trust

March 1, 2017 By Dawn Fernandez

We are spending two days with Lesson 47, because it represents an important shift. It represents a shift from trusting in ‘me’ to trusting in a mystery that the mind cannot begin to fathom.

Last week I wrote about some of the aspects of reality: life, awareness, intelligence, and love (unconditional-allowance). Another important aspect of reality is mystery; reality can never be fully understood.

There’s a story in the Bible about a rich man who wanted the kingdom of heaven, but was not willing to give up his riches for it. After Jesus’ encounter with the rich man, Jesus told the disciples, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

The disciples became very concerned, because this particular rich man was known to be very pious. They asked, “Who then can be saved?”

Jesus responded, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

The rich man’s perception of money as security can be likened to us trusting our own strength, individual knowledge, values, etc. We must be willing to leave these ‘riches’ behind and shift our trust from them to mystery. It is mystery that guides us to awakening. It is mystery that makes all things possible.

Last night one friend said she doesn’t understand awareness-watching-awareness meditation. I asked her to have the intention to realize awareness-watching-awareness and continue to try each day. One day the awareness of awareness will come on its own. This is an example of trusting mystery, trusting that the awareness of awareness will come. Our part is the willingness, and practice is the action-quality of willingness. The results come through mystery.

Tips from Regina – Lesson 46, God is the Love in which I forgive

February 28, 2017 By Dawn Fernandez

The human idea of love is typically very different from the love of God. Since our ideas about love can be mistaken, we can also misunderstand a lesson that uses the word ‘love.’ So, let’s take a minute to look at ‘love.’

Love may be best defined as openness. Other words that help us grasp the meaning of love are allowance, non-judgment, non-interference. An example of love is the space in the room where you are sitting now (or the space outside, if you are outside now). If you contemplate the space around you, notice it is open, allowing, non-judgmental, and non-interfering. For example, if two lovers decide to make love in the space around you, the space does not get in the way of that. Its openness naturally allows that. Likewise, if one person violently murders another person in the space around you, the space does not get in the way of that. Its openness is as equally open to murder as it is to making love. The openness of space is so naturally open, it can’t be anything but open. Judgment and interference are impossibilities for the space around you.

God (our true nature) is exactly the same. It is completely open and it cannot be anything but completely open.
Love = openness.

One extra practice that you can add to today’s practice, if you want to, is the practice of taking some time to notice your natural openness. Your natural openness is not the mind. The mind obviously judges, rejects, condemns, etc., but there is a part of you that doesn’t. That is your true nature.

You might start this extra practice by spending a few moments contemplating the space around you. Notice its intrinsic openness. And then close your eyes, and look for your intrinsic openness. You might notice that your intrinsic openness allows all sounds and all sensations. Notice there is no block to anything in your openness. It is simply openness. If the mind begins to chatter, look to see the openness that allows the chatter. This openness is completely natural for you. It’s an openness you cannot close.

If you notice your inherent openness for even a fraction of a second today, you have taken a giant step forward into realizing your true nature.

Today’s lesson points toward abidance as our natural open Self. In that abidance, there is nothing to forgive. However, before we fully realize our natural Self, we tend to believe the mind’s judgments. We can move toward the state of abidance through forgiveness. Forgiveness is open-allowance-without-clinging. It might look like this:

~ Someone insults me. (Happening)
~ I get angry. (Effect of believing the mind’s judgment of the previous happening.)
~ I see my anger. (Awareness)
~ I remember my purpose. (Heart)
~ I practice Rest – Accept – Trust. (Open-allowance-without-clinging)
~ The temporary event ends as all temporary events do.

For those of you who know Michael Langford’s Loving All Method, Rest-Accept-Trust is the same as “emotionally allow” in his Loving All instructions. Both Rest-Accept-Trust and “emotionally allow” are forms of forgiveness.

Love, Regina

Tips from Regina – Lesson 45, God is the Mind with which I think

February 26, 2017 By Dawn Fernandez

In order to have openness to what this lesson points toward, we may need a different understanding of the words “thought” and “think”.

In the awareness-watching-awareness practice instructions, Michael Langford defines thought as “the words of your native language in your mind.” Thoughts can also come as pictures, as they did for Temple Grandin and possibly for some of you. However, when Lesson 45 says, “You thinkwith the Mind of God. Therefore you share your thoughts with Him, … They are the same thoughts, because they are thought by the same Mind,” it is not referring to the words of your native language in your mind and it is not referring to picture thoughts. This is important to know, because if you are looking for the right words in your mind or the right pictures, you will remain focused on form and not go beyond form, which is where your “real thoughts” are realized.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “thought” simply as “past tense and past participle of think.”

“Think” has a few different definitions, but the one that applies most in this context is “to have in mind” with “mind” defined as “consciousness.” (Think = To have in consciousness.)

So a ‘thought’ is something in consciousness. Our ‘real thoughts’ are the aspects of reality. I wrote about some of these aspects the other day. Life, awareness, and embracing-allowance (love), to name a few. These will not show up in your mind as word-thoughts or picture-thoughts. Word-thoughts or picture-thoughts that point toward your real thoughts or which reflect your real thoughts can appear in your mind, but to directly experience real thoughts, one needs to transcend our fascination with word-thoughts and picture-thoughts.

Today and tomorrow as we practice Lesson 45, we go beyond word-thoughts and picture-thoughts to see if we can realize the aspects of reality (our real thoughts), which are always with us because they cannot leave us.

Remember – We will stay with Lesson 45 for two days (except if you are using this opportunity to catch up with the group.)

Love, Regina

Tips from Regina – Day 2 with Lesson 44

February 24, 2017 By Dawn Fernandez

Yesterday I wrote that “light” and “awareness” are synonymous in Lesson 44. If you read Lesson 44 with this realization, it speaks clearly. For example, the lesson says “light and life must go together, being but different aspects of creation.” In this sentence, “creation” is a term used to mean the ‘totality of reality’. It doesn’t refer to form. It refers to the cumulative aspects of reality, such as life (isness), awareness (light), intelligence (knowledge) and love (embracing-allowance).

In Lesson 44, we are focused on one of those aspects, light (awareness). We are told, “In order to see (true vision), you must recognize that light is within, not without.” In other words, we don’t see by sunlight or light bulb. Seeing isn’t with the eyes at all. We see with awareness. As Michael Langford says in The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss, “Awareness is not thought. Awareness is that which is aware of thought. … Awareness is not emotions. Awareness is that which is aware of emotions. … Awareness is not the objects seen by the eyes. Awareness is that which is aware of the objects seen by the eyes.”

The other day I was taking a shower in Pondicherry, India. While in the bathroom, the electricity went out. That bathroom had no natural light, so when the electricity went out I could not see anything at all. It was as dark as the darkest cave. But I was aware I could not see. The light of awareness was continuous. This is why Lesson 44 says, “An essential part of this equipment is the light that makes seeing possible. It is with you always, making vision possible in every circumstance.”

Again, in Lesson 44 we are focused on the aspect of reality known as awareness. Because awareness is an aspect of reality, focusing on awareness is a means of awakening to reality. Therefore, as we practice awareness-watching-awareness as our means of meditation for Lesson 44, we are indeed “attempting something very holy.”

Blessings in your practice today. Love from Pueblo, Colorado

Tips from Regina – Lesson 44, God is the light in which I see

February 23, 2017 By Dawn Fernandez

This is the lesson we will stay with for 3 days in order to practice awareness-watching-awareness meditation. You can see “light” and “awareness” as synonymous, because in this context, they are.

I recommend reading the workbook lesson in full at the beginning of each of the 3 days. If you are comfortable with meditating longer than 5 minutes, go ahead and meditate longer. However, there is no need to introduce strain or a sense of self-competition. Also, you can use the shorter practices to look at awareness many times during the day for 3-5 seconds.

If you would like to review the awareness-watching-awareness meditation instructions, please go to these links:

General instructions. Please read #10-52.
http://albigen.com/uarelove/most_rapid/chapter07.htm

Further Clarification: Pleae read #1-166.
http://albigen.com/uarelove/most_rapid/chapter08.htm

(Note: You can ignore the instructions at the above links about how long to practice. You can follow the duration instructions in the Course workbook instead.)

Love from Frankfurt, Germany

Tips from Regina – Lesson 43, God is my Source. I cannot see apart from Him.

February 22, 2017 By Dawn Fernandez

During this lesson’s practice sessions, we are asked to allow related thoughts to come to us. The lesson says, “Any thought related more or less directly to today’s idea is suitable. The thoughts need not bear any obvious relationship to the idea, but they should not be in opposition to it.”

We have seen this practice of ‘allowing related thoughts’ a few times now. This is a very helpful practice.

We all have the ability to listen to thoughts that reflect truth and point toward truth. When we allow thoughts into our mind that are related to the workbook lesson, we are tuning into that ability. The more we tune into that ability, the easier it is to access those thoughts.

Imagine it this way: You know from NTI Ephesians that we receive thoughts rather than think thoughts. Imagine thoughts flying through the air with darker (more untrue) thoughts being at a lower, heavier vibration level and with true thoughts being at a higher, lighter vibration level. Both types of thoughts are flying by, but your receiver (the mind) is tuned at a level that picks up on the heavy, more dense thoughts. Because it is so used to the density of these thoughts, it doesn’t even notice the lighter ones.

During these practices, you are learning to retrain or retune your receiver so that it notices and becomes accustomed to the lighter thoughts. Your mind is becoming sharper/more sensitive (more discerning) so that it notices the difference between the lower vibration and higher vibration thoughts, and then tunes itself to pick up the higher vibration thoughts and pull them in so you can cast attention on them.

In the Course, listening to the higher vibration thoughts is commonly called listening to the Holy Spirit or the right mind. This is the training we go through as we allow related thoughts into our mind during these practices.

It is possible that your ego will tell you that you are only making up the related thoughts that come to you as you practice the workbook lessons, but if you remember that you don’t make up thoughts, YOU RECEIVE THEM, then you will know the thought about making up related thoughts is just a lower vibration thought trying to pull you back into the lower vibration thought stream again. Stay high.

The workbook gives great instructions for staying with the higher vibration. It says, “If you find your mind wandering; if you begin to be aware of thoughts which are clearly out of accord with today’s idea, or if you seem to be unable to think of anything, open your eyes, repeat the first phase of the exercise period, and then attempt the second phase again. Do not allow any protracted period to occur in which you become preoccupied with irrelevant thoughts. Return to the first phase of the exercises as often as necessary to prevent this.”

Love from Pondicherry, India.

Tips from Regina ~ For Week Six on Lessons 38, 39 & 41

February 21, 2017 By Regina Dawn Akers

A tip about lesson 38:

The workbook lesson, “There is nothing my holiness cannot do,” may give the impression that the mind can pick a problem or form of suffering and then decide to ‘heal’ it miraculously. This is not the best way to understand the lesson. There is too much ‘me’ and what ‘I perceive as wrong’ in that.

A better way to understand the lesson is along with the teachings from NTI Ephesians, Colossians and Luke 9: As we contemplate our truth, the clean energy of our truth goes into the world as grace. As grace, it will do what it does to correct misperceptions and miscreation. However, we are not to select the miracles or even look for their evidence. We simply continue our role of contemplating our truth, and we let grace take care of the miracles.

One thing is for sure: Since you receive what you give, you will experience corrected perception if you contemplate truth instead of focusing on false perception and its stories.

Tips about workbook lesson 39:

Yay!!!!! Here we go!

If this was an aerobics class, lessons 1-38 were the aerobic warmup; we were increasing intensity to get our heart rate up into the aerobic zone. Now our heart rate is up there, and it’s time to throw ourselves whole-heartedly into this activity.

Of course, we aren’t here to burn off fat or calories. We are here to burn off ego.

As you begin exercise 39, My holiness is my salvation, start by remembering how important healing/awakening is to you. Find your motivation. Realize your excitement about giving yourself fully to today’s workbook lesson. Feel your inner motivation. (That will come from the heart, not the mind.)

Once you are aware of how valuable this goal and its means (the workbook lesson) are to you, create a plan for accomplishing the longer practice periods. Set a stretch goal … aim to do more than the minimum … but stay with wisdom and do not set a goal that is beyond what is reasonable for you (and therefore possibly self-defeating.)

Jacquelyn and I are roommates now in Tiruvannamalai, India, so we are doing the practices together. We feel that seven 10-minute meditations fit our schedule well today. We have preplanned when we will take a break for each of the meditations, and we’ve written our plan on a piece of paper, which we will carry with us as we wander around Tiruvannamalai today. That way, as we complete one meditation, we can look at our schedule to remind ourselves when our next meditation will be.

Also, take advantage of the flexibility in the instructions for today’s longer practice periods to rest with the lesson, allow related thoughts into the mind and to sit quietly paying attention to awareness. At your next Gentle Healing meeting, Ken will read the awareness-watching-awareness instructions to you. I’d like to see you putting at least a little awareness-watching-awareness into each practice session, either starting today or next week after Ken reads the instructions to you. When the instructions allow flexibility, like today, it can be interspersed anywhere during the practice session. If the instructions are more specific, you can linger a little longer after the practice session for a bit of awareness-watching-awareness. If you decide to include it in today’s practice, a few seconds to 2 minutes of awareness-watching-awareness is enough. Longer is also okay if awareness-watching-awareness is comfortable for you.

This week I have found myself coining a new term, “divine greediness.” Be divinely greedy by being excited to practice the day’s lesson. Be excited to say it to yourself 4 or more times per hour today, like someone was handing you a gold coin 4 times per hour and all you had to do was remember to stick your hand out to receive it. The longer practice periods are worth a one ounce bar of gold!!

Be divinely greedy and love today’s lesson. We only have this lesson for today, and then it is gone. Eat it up while it is here!!!

Love from Tiru.

Tip for Lesson 41, God goes with me where ever I go.

In this workbook lesson, Jesus begins to teach awareness-watching-awareness meditation (beyond thought). He also says that we will go into more detail about this kind of practice as we go along, and we will. At your next Gentle Healing group, Ken will read very specific (very helpful) instructions for this type of practice. Next week, we will spend 3 days with Lesson 44 and two days with Lesson 45 in order to slow down and put extra emphasis on brief periods of awareness-watching-awareness practice.

However, you don’t have to wait.

In addition to the 5 minute practice for Lesson 41, which is awareness-watching-awareness practice, you will say the lesson with eyes closed as often as you remember throughout the day, hopefully several times an hour. Jesus asks you to contemplate what “God goes with me where ever I go” means. One way to do that is to close your eyes, say the lesson to yourself, and then spend 3-5 seconds noticing present awareness.

This is great practice!!!!!

If you aren’t sure what awareness is, try this week’s Gary Weber meditation again. He starts by having us watch the breath, which calms and quiets the mind, and then he asks us to look to see what is watching the breath. That is awareness. Awareness is aware of the breath.

Awareness is different than the mind. The mind can think about the breath, but awareness is aware of it.

Being aware of awareness is a primary (direct) path of awakening, so it will be emphasized as part of our practice as we move forward. With Lesson 41, you can begin to experiment with noticing awareness for brief periods of time (3-5 seconds) throughout the day.