The heart of today’s tip comes from three sentences in today’s reading:

A house divided cannot stand.

A house divided cannot stand.

Look within yourself and find what keeps you from being healed,
that you may overcome that thing and be healed.

Today is another day of self-examination. As Nisargadatta Maharaj said, we tend to “do and undo at every step.” We need to get in the habit of looking at ourselves to see how we are out of harmony with our desire to awaken. Where do we “undo” our own good work?

As a reminder, self-examination isn’t about judging ourselves to be good or bad. It’s about realizing what we want, and then looking to discover how our current way of being is in our own way, hindering us instead of helping us. It helps to see self-examination as a process of ongoing gentle refinement.

Just as a house that’s divided can’t stand, a ship that’s divided sinks. Let’s find where we are divided against our own purpose, and then see where we are willing to “tighten the portholes and batten down the hatches.”

Ohhh! The previous reference to leaking water reminds me of a Sufi story about Nasruddin, the comical spiritual master:

One day, a student of the legendary wise fool, Mullah Nasruddin, went to visit him at his home. Already expecting some crazy behavior on Mullah’s part, the student reminded himself not to react. Another spiritual teacher once told him, “If you react unconsciously, you push the lesson of the moment away.”

When Mullah opened the door, he was overjoyed to see his student.

“My friend! Just in time! You can help me draw water from the well! Here, take this bucket and follow me!”

The student followed Mullah to the well and watched while he began to pull water from the well and splash it into the bucket that the student held.

After a few minutes, the student noticed that the level of the water in the bucket was not rising very quickly. Where was all the water going?

The student glanced underneath the bucket and saw that the bucket was leaking almost as much as Mullah put in each time.

Not appearing to notice, Mullah continued to put water in the bucket. The student was exasperated.

“Mullah, you idiot! Can’t you see that the bucket is leaking?”

My friend,” Mullah responded, “I was only looking at the top of the bucket. What does the bottom have to do with it?”

Many spiritual students get confused between the purpose of awakening and the purpose of an improved life in the world. As NTI Revelation, Chapter 1 says, “The two purposes are not the same.” Today, we will revisit the difference between them.

If we were in a physical classroom together, I might lead you in an exercise that would demonstrate the difference between these two purposes. However, since we are not in a physical classroom, I will lead you through an imaginary exercise. Please read the following steps and imagine with me. Be sure to fully imagine one step, before proceeding to the next. If you read all of the steps without using your imagination along the way, this exercise may not have the same effect.

1. Imagine that you have a can of children’s molding clay, like Playdoh, in front of you. Imagine taking the clay out of the can. Set the clump of clay on the desk or table in front of you.

 

2. Close your eyes, and look at your life. Consider your health, your relationships, your financial situation, your job or other daily responsibilities, and etcetera. Look at your life as it is in your mind’s eye. What’s not perfect about your life? What’s missing? What would you change? What do you desire? Think of one way that your life could be improved. Think of something that would bring additional happiness, satisfaction, freedom or safety into your life situation. (Note: Don’t consider awakening right now. Think of a life improvement.)

 

3. Pick up the clump of clay in front of you. Use the clay to create something that symbolizes that improvement to your life. See yourself working with the clay to create that symbol. Feel the clay in your hands. Imagine the smell of it. Watch yourself work with the clay until the symbol is completed to your satisfaction. Set the completed form on the desk or table in front of you.

 

4. Look at the clay symbol of your life improvement. Imagine the symbol as the actualization of your desire. Imagine that whatever you have asked for is given. See your life with this improvement as part of it. Live with this improvement in your mind. Feel what it is like to have this improvement actualized as part of your life.

 

5. Having lived the improvement in your mind and feeling fully satisfied with it, imagine that time moves on. Things change. New desires are formulating in your mind. You do not need to imagine those desires specifically. Simply feel the notion of movement, change, a new outlook and new desires.

 

6. Pick up the symbol in front of you, which you created from clay. Using your hands, turn it back into a formless clump of clay. Set the clump of clay on the table or desk in front of you. The clay is ready to form a new symbol, a symbol that represents new dreams that are being born.

 

7. Look at the unformed clump of clay in front of you. We aren’t going any further with this exercise. We won’t create anything new right now. However, notice the unlimited potential of the clay. It can become anything.

 

Now, here’s the difference between the purpose of awakening and the purpose of an improved life:

Any improved life that we can imagine is temporary. What is made, will at some point be destroyed. Manifestations of form never last forever.

Awakening is becoming aware of the clay—of the essence as reality. People, things and circumstances come into being and go out of being. Essence is unlimited potentiality, unaffected by potentials, unaffected by the temporary actuals, and unaffected by whatever came that now ceases to be. That’s why it is called eternal.

Realizing that you are the essence, not a temporary actual, is awakening. The temporary actual will go out of being. You are eternal.

In today’s reading, we will see that the essence is manipulated, like clay, in order to change the form of a temporary actual. The purpose of this change is to demonstrate “that distortion can be replaced with newness when willingness is given for newness to be received.”

In other words, the intention of the demonstration in today’s reading is to set people on the path of questioning everything they’ve ever thought, experienced and believed. However, for most people, the demonstration does not have that effect. Instead of questioning everything and opening to a reality beyond their experience, they begin to seek more improved actuals. Not recognizing the purpose of the demonstration, they remain as lost after the demonstration as they were before the demonstration occurred.

The fact is, what we perceive as physical miracles sometimes happen. They do not happen all of the time. Even when they do happen, they are only temporary actuals. If one is invested in the form of a temporary actual, that person will be disillusioned at some point, because the actual is only temporary.

Be willing to set your sights higher than temporary life improvements. Seek to know the essence. One who knows the essence will never be disillusioned, because the essence is eternal.

Today’s reading is very short, so there is time to listen to a story about a “miraculous healing” that happened to me. Listen either before or after the reading.

Listen to this 7½ -minute audio

NTI Mark, Chapter 2 opens with, “Jesus’ great love attracted many, …”

Let’s take this opportunity to review Michael Langford’s 5 steps regarding kindness:

1. Every time you speak to a human being either in person or over the phone, make sure the content of what you are saying and the tone of your voice are loving, caring, and kind.
2. Every time you write something to a human being, make sure that what you are writing is loving and kind. Pause before you send someone an email or a text message and make sure that your email or text message is loving, caring and kind.
3. Never do any harm of any kind to any human being or animal.
4. Treat even the people who you think do not deserve your kindness with kindness.
5. Treat even people you only see briefly with great caring and kindness.

As Jesus followed inner guidance, he lived by kindness. Even when he felt tired, he chose to be kind. However, it’s interesting to notice that as he learned to follow guidance and live by kindness, he also dropped the habit of living according to outward expectations.

In Jesus’ time there were many religious laws. Many of these laws had no useful purpose. They were cultural laws, and people followed the laws because they were Jews. Non-Jews did not follow those laws.

As Jesus began to drop his identity as a Jew, he naturally began to drop the habit of following laws that had no purpose except to say, “I am a Jew.”

This is not a small point. As we awaken, we need to sort through our cultural conditioning. Which conditioning is useful and practical for human life, and which conditioning is based on imaginary roles and points-of-view?

An example of useful cultural conditioning is traffic laws. Traffic laws are meant for safety, and they are not tied to a specific false identity. We could see traffic laws as an extension of kindness. It is kind to follow traffic laws and help keep everyone safe on our roads and highways.

An example of cultural conditioning that is unnecessary is the expectation that your spouse remember your anniversary. That is tied to your identity as husband or wife. It’s also used to identify your spouse as good or bad, or to identify yourself as loved or unloved.

If someone spontaneously feels to celebrate an anniversary, fine. If the day passes and someone doesn’t notice the date as an anniversary, that is equally fine. A rule that says an anniversary must be remembered is useless conditioning that serves no purpose except to maintain false identities. No one is made safe or unsafe by the remembrance of an anniversary.

We use unnecessary conditioning (laws, traditions, expectations, etc.) to maintain our false identities and the false identities we have for others. In today’s reading, we will see Jesus as he begins to drop the habits of cultural conditioning.