Today’s reading is the last chapter in NTI Luke. The “voice” of this book leaves us with a summary of Luke’s teaching before it drifts off so that another “voice” can come and teach us from another point-of-view.

NTI Luke has been primarily about purification, and so the summary leaves us with a reminder to practice the new habits we’ve been taught with our every breath  until purification is complete. The next book that we go into will have a different emphasis, so let’s vow now that we will not forget Luke’s teachings as we move forward into a different reading.

Even though NTI Luke was primarily about purification of that which isn’t true, Luke ended its teaching with truth. Since the ego does not like truth, and those who have not yet completed purification are typically still identified with ego, Luke encourages us to continue to seek truth. Today’s reading says:

Bow your head and check your heart’s desire. Do you wish to be deceived? Do you wish to see what you have wished to see, or do you wish to see the truth?

The ego, being mental identification with a specific form, sees life in  form. It sees life in people, life in animals and life in plants. To the ego, which is mental identification with form, form is primary and life is secondary. That’s why there appears to be death. If form is primary and life is secondary, when form ends, life ends.

However, this is ego’s distorted view based on ego’s wish—the wish to be something. Today’s reading promises that when we are free of this wish, we will also be free of ego’s distorted way of seeing. Instead of seeing form as primary and life as secondary, we will see life as primary and form as secondary. With this shift in the way we see, everything changes.

 
The ego resists truth.

Why does the ego resist truth?

It’s because the ego is mental identification with a specific body-mind-personality as what I am.

I say that again:

The ego is mental identification with a specific body-mind-personality as what I am.

The truth is:

The body-mind-personality is not what I am. The body-mind-personality is a temporary manifestation that has come about through the Third Principle of God, the creative principal. Like all temporary manifestations, it had a beginning, and it will have an end.

The ego, being mental identification with the body-mind-personality, does not like the truth. It wants to believe that some part of what it is identified with—the body, the mind, or the personality—will in some way continue forever. The idea of an eternal soul is the ego’s wish, a hope for something that is ‘me’ that continues beyond the body’s physical death.

But that’s not the truth.

That’s why the ego resists truth. It doesn’t like the truth. When the ego looks at the truth, it can’t find itself. It doesn’t like that at all.

What is the truth?

The truth is we are life itself.

Temporary manifestations come and go. They always have, and they always will. However, as everything else comes and goes, there is one thing that always remains—life. As today’s reading says:

… all that can be final is that which lasts when all else has ended …

Let’s imagine being at a funeral. There is a body in the casket. It is a friend that you’ve known for several years. Your friend died unexpectedly of a heart attack.

If you focus your eyes and thoughts on the body in the casket, death seems very real. However, in order for death to appear real, you have to narrow your focus to the casket. You have to ignore the life that you are as you look at the casket. You have to ignore the life that is present in all of the other people at the funeral. You have to ignore the life in the plants that fill the room and in the birds singing outside the window. In order to believe in death, which is the end of life, you have to ignore so much!

The truth is that you are not the body-mind-personality that your thoughts currently identify with. You are life—that which was before this body, that which is while this body is present, and that which continues when this body ends.

Look with open eyes. See that life never ends!

Look at nature. Specific plants and animals come and go, but nature itself remains.

Consider Ramana Maharshi’s statement to his devotees, as they gathered around him mourning his impending death:

I am not going anywhere. Where would I go?

Look. Does life die, or does it recycle, reorder and rearrange into new and different forms? Can you find the end of life, or do you find only ongoinginess?

Mental identification fears the end of a specific form that it is identified with. It wishes for a “truth” that will give it eternal life. Many people believe different religious stories about continuation of the ‘me’ in one way or another. Do you know why there are so many different religious beliefs about continuation? Because those beliefs are stories; they are not truth.

The truth is beyond any specific form and beyond mental identification with it.

Awakening is the end of mental identification with a specific form. When that identification ends, one sees one’s Self as life itself. In that realization, fear is impossible, because ‘end’ is impossible.

Yesterday, we looked at fear. We learned that fear is resistance, which means the way to overcome fear is willingness.

Resistance avoids change.
Willingness is open to change.

What is the change that we fear?

Ultimately, we fear losing our self. However, as today’s reading points out, the self we are afraid of losing is not our true Self. It is an imagined self. It is a collection of ideas about who we are. It’s thought, and nothing more than thought.

Our true Self is much more than thought.

In today’s reading, Holy Spirit says:

If I am to help you release your fear, I must teach you there is nothing to fear.

Holy Sprit does this in two primary ways:

1. Holy Spirit helps us become aware of thought. We notice that thought comes and goes. We notice that thought changes constantly, sometimes quite dramatically. We notice thought isn’t consistent. For example, thought takes a side and then changes sides. We notice that thought pretends to represent our best interests, but when we inquire more deeply, we see that isn’t true.

 

2. Holy Spirit helps us become aware of our true Self. We notice our true Self is always present. It is peaceful, naturally clear and wise. It is constant, changeless and consistent. When we focus on our true Self deeply, we realize inherent joy.

As we become more aware of both the false self and the true Self, we see more clearly which one we want and which one we don’t want.  That strengthens our willingness, which simultaneously weakens resistance. In other words, increased awareness is the path of gentle healing.

Note: Today’s reading interprets the story about Jesus being sentenced to crucifixion. If you’d like to read that story in the Bible, click here.