A universal assembly for true discernment
Please read quotes 1121-1124 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
One alone is, the pure consciousness. Nothing in the three worlds is ever born or dies. The infinite consciousness alone exists.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
What is the Last Judgment?
Our special theme says, “God’s Final Judgment is as merciful as every step in His appointed plan to bless His Son, and call him to return to the eternal peace He shares with him. Be not afraid of love. For it alone can heal all sorrow, wipe away all tears, and gently waken from his dream of pain the Son whom God acknowledges as His.”
We have seen very clearly that the last judgment is awakening beyond perception and the world entirely. It is awakening into Nirvana. It is something we cannot imagine.
It may be difficult for us to desire this final awakening, since we cannot imagine it and we are told that everything we know disappears with this awakening. If we think about Nirvana for long, we may find that we fear the final awakening. That’s because we are thinking about it with the ego mind. We are considering awakening through the lens of ego consciousness.
It’s really important to look at awakening with the reasoning of the right-mind.
As I shared yesterday, duality is like a pendulum. Like all pendulums, it swings. When we look at these swings from the point-of-view of ego consciousness, those swings are from good/acceptable to bad/unacceptable. If you look at the world today as a whole, regardless of the challenges that you may face in your life now, you may be able to see that things can get worse. And they do.
As I shared yesterday, it can be difficult to think about losing when you are winning.
Let’s look more closely at the story of the rich man from Matthew 19 in the New Testament:
Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” …
Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
“Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, 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.”
When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.
Please contemplate this scripture in light of the tips from yesterday and today. What clarity comes to you? What has this clarity got to do with you?
All gifts I give my brothers are my own.
The gifts that we give our brothers are letting go of ego and turning our attention inward to embrace truth as it is, without asking it to be different. That is the highest gift that can be given.
Please take a moment to watch this video as you consider how important your gifts are, and then continue the practice from the last several days of looking at judgments, inquiring into them, remembering what you truly want, and letting them go. I will post the links to the meditation options below the video.
Meditation Options
Title: Wait! What am I Defending?
Revs. Glen Ganaway and Yolanda Mapes share a delightful, funny and inspiring hour of A Course in Miracles. Come join in on the fun, the laughs, and the music while unlearning the ego through the lessons and chapters of ACIM.
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.
Please read quotes 1117-1120 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
Remain well established in peace and tranquility, free from mental conditioning.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
What is the Last Judgment?
Our special theme says, “God’s Judgment is the gift of the Correction He bestowed on all your errors, freeing you from them, and all effects they ever seemed to have. To fear God’s saving grace is but to fear complete release from suffering, return to peace, security and happiness, and union with your own Identity.”
When we read that perception, the world and bodies all disappear in the final awakening, a thought might cross the mind that says something like, “I don’t want that!” I know I’ve seen this idea, and I suspect you have too.
It is hard to want to let go of everything you know for something you cannot even imagine. It is especially hard to let go of everything you know if things are going well for you right now.
I am reminded of a line from the movie, Revolver. The line is, “It’s hard to think about losing when you are winning.”
That line is similar to Jesus’ statement, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:23, 24)
That fact is, duality is like a swinging pendulum. When the pendulum swings to the right, life is pretty good. At least it is acceptable. To the mind, the known acceptable is much better than the unknown.
However, every pendulum that swings to the right swings back to the left to an equal degree, and the left is suffering. In other words, “good” or “acceptable” doesn’t last in duality. Whether it is in this lifetime or another lifetime, duality affects everyone who has not yet awakened to the unaffected Self.
It may be hard to think about losing when you are winning, but it is wise to do so. Why wait for extreme suffering before wanting awakening with “all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind.” Why not take advantage of this relatively easier time and awaken without so much pain? (Matthew 22:37)
Today may be a good day to review Choice A and Choice B from Chapter 5 of The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss.
All gifts my brothers give belong to me.
Today’s lesson speaks of the gifts our brothers give to us. It speaks of positive things like smiles, words of gratitude and awakenings. However, that is only one side of the gift coin.
Use writing (or speaking into a recorder) to find the answer to this question:
What gift is present in my life now that I do not see as a gift?
What would you tell me about it?
Let the writing come regardless of whether it feels like you are writing from your knowledge or it feels like an intuitive answer comes right away. If you write to the boundary of your knowledge, hold at that boundary until something intuitive comes in answer to the question.
Also, continue to let go of judgments in this way today:
Meditation Options
Regina Dawn Akers reads the conversation dated January 11, 1981 from Consciousness and the Absolute.
The Awakening Together Board of Directors held a special Board meeting on Sunday, January 5. At that meeting, our Directors elected a new Chairperson.
Joanne has been on a personal spiritual path for quite some time. In 2009, she was ordained as a minister through Pathways of Light. In 2016, she was ordained as an Awakening Together minister.* She has been involved in Gentle Healing since January 2017. Joanne also teaches in Awakening Together’s Sanctuary each Wednesday at 8:30pm ET. Her program is called One Journey Together.
In Joanne’s professional life, she works as university faculty where one of her roles is to chair a board of researchers who review research for the protection of human subjects. This board considers both safety and ethics.
Joanne recently accepted the role of Chair-Minister for Awakening Together’s Board of Directors. The Chair-Minister leads Awakening Together’s highest board, the Board of Directors, and supervises the President-Minister. Joanne has served on Awakening Together’s Board of Directors since August 2018.
*Note: According to Awakening Together’s Constitution, the Chair-Minister must be an ordained Awakening Together minister.
Please read quotes 1113-1116 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
I experience the greatest joy in remaining established in the reality that shines in my heart.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
What is the Last Judgment?
Our special theme makes each of the following statements:
The three previous statements refer to perception, the world and bodies as having completed their mission and no longer having a purpose. Now they are useless. These statements are worth contemplating.
If perception’s mission is done, doesn’t that mean it had a mission? If the world and bodies “now are useless,” wasn’t there once a purpose and use for them?
Since none of us are at the point of the last judgment, we are each still at the point where perception has a mission, the world has a purpose and bodies are useful.
What are perception, the world and bodies for?
Let writing (or speaking into a recorder) lead you to the answer to this question. Start by writing the answer that feels true to you. Write to the boundary of your knowledge, and then wait to see what truth comes from beyond the boundary of your current knowledge.
I seek a future different from the past.
Today’s lesson says, “From new perception of the world there comes a future very different from the past. The future now is recognized as but the extension of the present.”
This means that prior to purification and the completion of merging, our future is based on our past.
How is that possible?
It’s possible because we hold onto the past and to what we think we learned from the past, and then we see the current moment through that lens. Since we are seeing with a filter based on the past, that perception is fed into the creation principle, which results in a future based on expectations that were derived from the past.
What a mess!
Why should we keep building a future based on past confusion?
It is time to be with the present, now, in a different way, so that our new way of being is fed into the creative principle, which will result in a future different from the past. As the prayer in today’s lesson says, “Father, we were mistaken in the past, and choose to use the present to be free.”
Let’s add a step to our practice of letting go of judgment. Today, practice in this way:
Meditation Options
Regina Dawn Akers reads from the Tao Te Ching in order to contemplate enlightened leadership.
