Regina Dawn Akers reads selections from books by Bernadette Roberts. The purpose of this inspired book study is to learn from one who walked through the final doorway to no self, no world, no God–Only Reality.
Kate Brennan ~ Giving Up Kate!~ “There Is Nothing Happening.” – 1/26/20
Kate shares her experience as she goes about the business of giving up her ideas about herself and the world on her journey toward purification and awakening. Kate shares with wisdom and humor and allows us a glimpse into the beautiful and sometimes messy blossoming of life examined with an eye on Truth.
1-26-20 Weekly Gathering: “There Are No Stages or Degrees of Realization, Only Stages of Spiritual Practices.”
Weekly Gathering with Rev. Meg Reinhart
Title: “There Are No Stages or Degrees of Realization, Only Stages of Spiritual Practices.”
Description: Rev. Meg Reinhart talked about observing the various states of mind the spiritual seeker sees through during purification and awakening while remaining focused on abiding in the no-mind Self.
Reading: Kate Brennan read a passage from “No Mind – I am the Self” in a section called “Sadhana”. “No Mind – I am The Self” is the life and teachings of Ramana Maharshi’s direct disciple, Sri Lakshamana Swamy and his adopted daughter and successor, Sri Mathru Sarada, who both realized Self, without the return of the dualistic thinking system.
Gentle Healing Year 3 ~ Daily Contemplation #347
Please read quotes 1181-1184 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
One should stand firm in one’s own realization without being distracted nor deflected.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Gentle Healing Year 1 ~ Lesson 331
Before we begin our new special theme, let’s take a day to review the special themes we’ve contemplated so far. I will begin “What is the Ego?” tomorrow.
What is Forgiveness? Forgiveness is recognizing yourself as the unaffected Self. Therefore, “what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred.”
What is Salvation? Salvation is healing by “failing to support the world of dreams … it lets illusions go. By not supporting them, it merely lets them quietly go down to dust.”
What is the World? It is a “false perception” where “mechanisms of illusion … go to find what has been given them to seek.” Yet, “all perception can be given a new purpose.”
What is Sin? Sin is ignorance or outward focus. “Sin is the home of all illusions, which but stand for things imagined issuing from thoughts that are untrue.”
What is the Body? “The body is a fence” that seems to separate us from everything else. It makes duality seem real and makes it seem as if we experience duality directly. However, its purpose can be changed.
What is Christ? Christ is consciousness. It is the process of creation and the unaffected witness of creation. It is what we are. It is our higher Self. (Note: There is a more ultimate reality beyond Christ, compared to which Christ is an illusion.)
What is the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is a Judeo-Christian term for spiritual intuition, which issues forth from our Self as consciousness. Its sole purpose is to help us awaken to consciousness. Once this goal is accomplished, its purpose is done. (God takes the last step to awaken us beyond consciousness.)
What is the Real World? The real world is the world as it is seen from the perspective of consciousness. It is a world blessed by forgiven eyes, seen through true perception. The real world is still a dream, but it is a dream that reflects Truth. It prepares us for the next and final awakening.
What is the Second Coming? It is awakening to our Self as consciousness. From this awakening we see with true perception and experience the real world.
What is the Last Judgment? This is the awakening beyond consciousness into Nirvana. With this step, consciousness itself is seen to be untrue.
What is Creation? “Creation” is a term A Course in Miracles uses for reality. It is what is known after manonasa, the death of our sense of self as mind-consciousness. It is our true Self beyond any sense of self. It is our actual existence, often referred to as bliss or Nirvana.
There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.
Today’s lesson helps emphasize any decision we may have made to commit even more to the path of awakening. It says:
How foolish, Father, to believe Your Son could cause himself to suffer! Could he make a plan for his damnation, and be left without a certain way for his release? … How could I think that Love has left Itself? There is no will except the Will of Love. … Conflict is sleep, and peace is awakening. Death is illusion; life, eternal truth.”
And so today we begin again. We forgive ourselves for any past “failings” that we may perceive, and we contemplate what we really want.
Here’s a song that always inspires me whenever I make the decision to increase my commitment. (The Meditation Options are below the song.)
Meditation Options
Gentle Healing Year 3 ~ Daily Contemplation #346
Please read quotes 1177-1180 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
You are pure and supreme consciousness.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Gentle Healing Year 1 ~ Lesson 330
What is Creation?
Step Five of The Seven Steps to Awakening by Michael Langford has this objective:
Be inspired, encouraged and motivated to:
- Make and maintain the decision to bring the imposter self and all suffering to its final end and thus remain in infinite-awareness-love-bliss.
- Actually practice…
Here are 21 quotes from Step Five to help motivate our decision. Please read these quotes slowly and contemplatively.
Ramana Maharshi:
Though in this false world one may live on, the ending of both “I” and “mine” in the clarity of true awareness, void of every doubt, this only is the abidance in the bliss of being That.
Returning to the source from which we have emerged, we are restored to our own true Being. Enjoying there bright and clear our natural bliss, still, still, unmoving we abide.
O mind, you wander far in search of bliss not knowing your natural state of Freedom. Your home of infinite bliss you will regain if only you go back the way you came.
A woman with a necklace round her neck imagines it is lost, and after long search elsewhere touches her own neck and there finds it; even so, the Self is here within. Probe for it there and find it.
Sri Annamalai Swami:
Don’t be discouraged by the length of the journey, and don’t slacken in your efforts to get home.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
Steady faith is stronger than destiny. Destiny is the result of causes, mostly accidental, and is therefore loosely woven. Confidence and good hope will overcome it easily.
You need maturity of heart and mind, which comes through earnest application in daily life of whatever little you have understood.
On your side there is so much trouble. On mine there is not trouble at all. Come to my side.
You are quite capable of crossing over. Only be sincere.
Faith is not blind. It is the willingness to try.
If only they go deeply into the fact of being and discover the vastness and the glory to which the ‘I am’ is the door, and cross the door and go beyond, their life will be full of happiness and light.
The Supreme Yoga
One should never yield to laziness, but strive to attain liberation, seeing that life is ebbing away every moment.
He who exerts seriously now is able to overcome predispositions and exalt himself from the states of darkness and stupidity and impurity.
The Self alone is to be sought, adored and meditated upon.
This Self is eternal existence.
The wayfarer does not despair at the sight of the long road ahead but takes one step at a time.
The man of Self-knowledge is awake to that which is non-existent to the ignorant. That which is real to the latter is non-existent to the enlightened.
One surely gains that for which one strives; if one neglects it he loses it. The mind flows along the course of wisdom or ignorance, in whichever direction you make it flow.
Sri Sankara
The Self is ever blissful and never experiences suffering.
By this discourse of teacher and pupil, the character of the Self is taught to those seeking Freedom, that they may be born to the joy of awakening.
Eternal, unfading, joy, unstained—this is the Eternal, THAT THOU ART.
I will not hurt myself again today.
Our workbook lesson begins, “Let us this day accept forgiveness as our only function.”
Our first special theme was, “What is forgiveness?” Through that special theme, we saw that forgiveness is abiding as the unaffected Self.
As today’s lesson says, “The Self which God created cannot sin, and therefore cannot suffer. Let us choose today that He be our Identity…”
Our fourth special theme was “What is Sin?” Through that special theme we saw that “sin” is ignorance or outward focus.
If you look carefully at the two sentences I have highlighted from today’s workbook lesson, you’ll see that the lesson is asking us to “go back the way you came.” That is, focus inward and return to our unaffected Self.
Here are two songs that you can listen to as you contemplate today’s lesson. The first song is directly applicable to the teaching today and over the last several days. The second song applies a bit more loosely, but it is a fun song that just might stick in your head. (The Meditation Options are posted below the songs.)
Meditation Options
This Sunday in the Sanctuary ~ January 26, 2020
Join us at 10:15 am ET/ 8:15 am MT for Our Weekly Sunday Gathering with Rev. Meg Reinhart
Title: “There Are No Stages or Degrees of Realization, Only Stages of Spiritual Practices.”
Description: Rev. Meg Reinhart will talk about observing the various states of mind the spiritual seeker sees through during purification and awakening while remaining focused on abiding in the no-mind Self.
Reading: Kate Brennan will be reading a passage from “No Mind – I am the Self” in a section called “Sadhana”. “No Mind – I am The Self” is the life and teachings of Ramana Maharshi’s direct disciple, Sri Lakshamana Swamy and his adopted daughter and successor, Sri Mathru Sarada, who both realized Self, without the return of the dualistic thinking system.
*Weekly gathering is held every Sunday morning at 10:15 am ET/8:15 am MT in the Awakening Together Sanctuary. Join us after the Gathering for our Fellowship Time, hosted by Rev. Jay McCormick.
Join us at 6:00 pm ET/ 4:00 pm MT for Something Genuine with Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert
Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert facilitates this program, in which Awakening Together members and friends join together to watch and discuss TED talks that reveal the Truth of ourselves and our universe based on the actual experience of ordinary people. Their insights are genuine—not based upon theory or dogma—and give us a “man on the street” perspective on what we are coming to learn through Awakening Together.
Join us at 7:00 pm ET/ 5:00 pm MT for The Guiding Light with Rev. Regina Dawn Akers
Regina Dawn Akers reads selections from books by Bernadette Roberts. The purpose of this inspired book study is to learn from one who walked through the final doorway to no self, no world, no God–Only Reality.
Join us at 8:00 pm ET/ 6:00 pm MT for Movie Watcher’s Discussion Group
The Nines starring Ryan Reynolds, Melissa McCarthy, Hope Davis and Elle Fanning unfolds in three parts, featuring the same actors in different (and in some ways overlapping) incarnations. Together, the three stories form a single narrative that explores the relationships between author and character, actor and role, creator and creation. Alternately funny and unsettling, The Nines is like a riddle where the answer may just lead to another question.This month’s movie discussion group will be facilitated by Rev. Jay McCormick.
The Play sheet for the movie can be found HERE.
Open for Registration – Introduction to the Teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj
This class begins on March 3. It is 4 weeks long. Registration deadline is February 23. About this class:
“When I met my Guru, he told me: ‘You are not what you take yourself to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense I am, find your real Self.’ I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me. …
I simply followed (my teacher’s) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being I am, and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the I am in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state.
In it all disappeared — myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.” ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Join us as we contemplate the extremely profound teachings of a great sage, a cigarette salesman, who trusted his guru completely and awakened to become one of the most perspicacious teachers of our time.
In this class you will:
1. To allow inner spiritual intuition to guide you to a small portion of a teaching so you can go deeper within that teaching.
2. To write from beyond one’s self in order to realize additional clarity or commitment.
3. To meditate on the sense of ‘I Am’, also known as awareness watching awareness.
Class Schedule:
~ On Tuesday afternoons, March 3 – March 24 from 2:00pm-4:00pm ET (12:00pm – 2:00pm MT). Homework begins February 25. Facilitator: Rev. Meg Reinhart
Specific Information:
Cost is $80.
Textbook needed is “I Am That” by Nisargadatta Maharaj (or use the free pdf format.)
Registration closes on February 23.
For more information on this class, click here.
Click to register
Daily Healing Year 3 ~ Daily Contemplation #345
Please read quotes 1173-1176 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
Infinite consciousness is pure existence at all times and it does not undergo any diminution. It shines by its own light, it has no beginning nor middle nor end.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
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