A universal assembly for true discernment
Please read quotes 1153-1156 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
The wayfarer does not despair at the sight of the long road ahead but takes one step at a time.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
What is Creation?
Our special theme says, “What God has willed to be forever One will still be One when time is over; and will not be changed throughout the course of time, remaining as it was before the thought of time began.”
Time is defined as “the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.” ~ New Oxford American Dictionary
What captures my attention in this definition is “indefinite continued progress of existence and events.”
It seems like awakening is a process that occurs over time. It seems like awakening is an “indefinite continued progress.”
If you contemplated the target example from yesterday’s tip, then you might see why awakening seems like “continued progress.” However, since reality is the absence of that which experiences “continued progress,” awakening to reality has not occurred until Grace’s final cannon ball destroys consciousness (often called “the mind”). Reality is not known until only the hole remains. Of course at that point, it is no longer a hole. It is all that is.
That which seems like “continued progress” is still part of the illusion of consciousness. However, it is an illusory path that we walk anyway. As NTI Luke says, “We are all followers of the path that comes from within. We are all guided to learn the truth by following the path of unreality.”
I merely follow, for I would not lead.
As our workbook lesson says today:
So let us follow One Who knows the way. We need not tarry, … And it is He Who makes the ending sure, and guarantees a safe returning home.
Please contemplate your personal commitment to walk the spiritual path to its end.
Is there something you can let go of in your life in order to give more focus to the spiritual path and spiritual practice?
If something is not immediately evident, consider asking and receiving an answer from within through writing. After all, inner spiritual intuition is the “One Who knows the way.”
Meditation Options
Please read quotes 1149-1152 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
One should rest in the inner peace.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
What is Creation?
Our special theme says, “Creation is the sum of all God’s Thoughts, … There was no time when all that it created was not there. Nor will there be a time when anything that it created suffers any loss. Forever and forever are God’s Thoughts exactly as they were and as they are, unchanged through time and after time is done.”
Yesterday we contemplated God’s Thoughts as Infinite-Eternal-Awareness-Love-Bliss, perfect love-joy, Love-Bliss for all eternity, and infinite-eternal-existence-being-life. These ideas are not things. These ideas are formless reality, which A Course in Miracles calls “creation.”
Let’s take a moment to look at the contrast between unreality and reality (creation) using the example of a bulls-eye target. The entire target, from the white circles all the way to the yellow bulls-eye, represents the sense of self. Reality does not exist anywhere on this target. Reality is in the absence of the target.
Let’s assume the yellow and red portions of the bulls-eye are the wrong-minded, selfish, personal sense of self that people typically call ego. The blue portion is more general cultural conditioning and human identity. The black and white portions of the target are increasing levels of spontaneous, purified mind.
When the sense of self is fully intact, it blocks reality (God’s Thoughts) entirely. However, when Grace responds to our spiritual commitment by shooting at the target and blowing away a portion of the sense of self, one begins to have direct experiences of reality through the hole in the target.
The direct experience of the divine through a hole in the target is often called awakening. However, as long as any portion of the target still exists, there is some sense of self—some illusionary experience—and reality is not yet known as it is. Instead, it is known through some degree of a sense of self. When Grace fires at the target with a cannon ball that completely demolishes the sense of self in its entirety, Manonasa has occurred and Nirvana (creation) is known.
If you consider this example, you might see how there can be different levels of awakening or multiple awakenings.
For example, imagine a person experiences a shot from Grace that blows out the yellow portion of the target. That will feel like an awakening. However, the red, blue, black and white portions of the target remain. Those portions may be blown out all at once one day with Grace’s cannon ball, or there may be a few more shots with a shotgun that blow away additional portions of the target before the final cannon ball comes.
Another person may experience one awakening—one cannon ball blast that destroys the sense of self all at once entirely.
Yet another possibility is a shot that blows a hole in the center of the target and starts a fire, which consumes the entire target from the inside out. This is experienced as gradually decreasing self, as the inner flame burns self up.
If you look carefully at the example of the target, you can see several possibilities:
I gladly make the sacrifice of fear.
The example of a bulls-eye target can also help us see why one experiences fear or resistance during awakening. Imagine holding still while someone takes a shotgun or cannon and shoots directly at you. We can even experience fear when Grace shoots at us with nothing bigger than a BB gun.
If we want to experience higher levels of awakening, and especially if we want to experience Manonasa, we must be willing to give up listening to fear. If we listen to fear, we will jump out of the way when Grace comes with its gun. We need to learn to hold steady, be still and do nothing even as fear shouts and screams, so Grace can take aim and fire.
Please contemplate this tip today. Give yourself some time to be with it instead of rushing on to other things. The ego would love for you to forget this teaching. Be determined to absorb it deeply instead.
Meditation Options
Awakening Together member and dear friend, Lynn Turner, passed away on Saturday, January 11, 2020 at 3:47 pm ET. Her family was in prayerful meditation by a fountain near her hospice room at the time of her passing. She left as her family held the space for her safe and light filled passage.
Awakening Together will celebrate the life of Lynn on Sunday, January 19 at 11:30 am ET (immediately following the Weekly Gathering). Please join us for this 30-minute celebration of remembrance, if you can.
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.
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.
Shawna Summers will interview Laura Bedford on Sunday, January 19th, from 8 to 9 pm Eastern time, which is 6- 7 pm Mountain time, in the Awakening Together Sanctuary. Shawna has decided to interview Laura, because Laura is an inspiration living as a Peace Pilgrim in a way the world might think of as crazy. In 2015, Laura walked coast to coast to raise awareness that Inner Peace is our True Divine Christ Nature. Every lack of Inner Peace flows from not knowing our True Self.
Laura had her first mystical experience in childhood that helped raise questions in her mind. Since 1992 she has been involved with learning and practices for enlightening to our True, Divine Christ Nature. She makes no claim to enlightenment, saying she has simply been given (mystical) windows that confirm to her the existence of God. Join us to discover more about her unique journey!
Please read quotes 1145-1148 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
I am firmly established in the pure non-dual and indivisible consciousness which is the supreme state.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
What is Creation?
Our special theme begins, “Creation is the sum of all God’s Thoughts in number infinite, and everywhere without all limit. Only love creates, and only like itself.”
Today, please contemplate those two sentences from our special theme along with the sentences and phrases from The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss that I have listed below. As you contemplate these sentences together, keep in mind that the descriptions of truth in these sentences and phrases refer to the First Principle of God only.
If something comes to you as you contemplate, please write it down. However, simply reading the sentences and phrases slowly, and quietly being with them for a period of time, is enough. It is good to read them more than once. I recommend reading them slowly at least three times before continuing to the tip about today’s lesson.
The sentences and phrases to contemplate are:
I can give up but what was never real.
Today’s workbook lesson begins by saying, “I sacrifice illusions; nothing more. And as illusions go I find the gifts illusions tried to hide, awaiting me in shining welcome, and in readiness to give God’s ancient messages to me.”
God’s “ancient messages” are Himself. They are what our special theme calls “God’s Thoughts.” God’s messages are not from Him; they are Him. They are what he is and what you are.
I have created a new list of sentences and phrases that combine the sentences and phrases you have already contemplated with new sentences from today’s workbook lesson and based on today’s workbook lesson. Quietly contemplate all of these sentences and phrases together:
Meditation Options
Please read quotes 1141-1144 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
You are THAT, that has neither birth nor death.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Regina Dawn Akers reads the conversation dated January 12, 1981 from Consciousness and the Absolute.
What is Creation?
As we look at this new special theme, we will do our best to eliminate all confusion about what is true and what is false. This may take some slow reading and contemplation on your part, because the ego mind prefers the state of confusion, and it will attempt to cling to confusion. However, the truth is actually very, very simple, and if our intention is to be clear on truth, we will be able to do so.
Our special theme begins by saying, “Creation is the sum of all God’s Thoughts, in number infinite, and everywhere without all limit. Only love creates, and only like itself. There was no time when all that it created was not there. Nor will there be a time when anything that it created suffers any loss. Forever and forever are God’s Thoughts exactly as they were and as they are, unchanged through time and after time is done.”
Let me review the Four Principles of God with you:
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.
There is a truth and an untruth in my wording of the Second Principle of God. I called it “the only direct creation of the Source.” The truth is that the Second Principle of God is the only direct creation of the Source when looking at God from the perspective of self and illusion. As we climb the ladder upward toward truth realization, or as we return in the same direction that we came, consciousness is our last dream experience before awakening to truth entirely. Therefore, it is the only aspect of the dream that touches source. There are no aspects of the dream prior to consciousness.
