A universal assembly for true discernment
Topic: “The Imposter’s Tricks”
Rev. Jay McCormick discussed how the ego controls all thinking. The ego will try to prevent thoughts that reveal the ego’s tricks. Gain awareness of some key tricks and learn to watch out for them to assist in your process of awakening to eternal bliss-love-joy
Book reading: ch2 “The Direct Means to Eternal Bliss” by Michael Langford
Reader: Sharon Slack
Father, today we will forgive Your world, and let creation be Your Own. We have misunderstood all things. But we have not made sinners of the holy Sons of God. What You created sinless so abides forever and forever. Such are we. And we rejoice to learn that we have made mistakes which have no real effects on us. Sin is impossible, and on this fact forgiveness rests upon a certain base more solid than the shadow world we see. Help us forgive, for we would be redeemed. Help us forgive, for we would be at peace.
What Am I?
Although our final special theme did not directly answer the question, “What am I?” it has given us some final thoughts to contemplate before A Course in Miracles Workbook for Students comes to an end.
We were given these words to contemplate as pointers to what we are:
We were also told:
The truth of what we are is not for words to speak of nor describe. Yet we can realize our function here, and words can speak of this and teach it, too, if we exemplify the words in us. …
And thus our minds are changed about the aim for which we came, and which we seek to serve.
As the workbook nears its end, we are left with a decision to make. Do we want to practice our function here to the best of our ability so we can prepare ourselves for the final awakening, which is the realization that answers the question, “What am I?”
How committed are we to discovering the answer to the workbook’s final question?
God’s answer is some form of peace. All pain is healed; all misery replaced with joy. All prison doors are opened. And all sin is understood as merely a mistake.
Please read today’s workbook lesson in full. Notice a phrase, sentence or excerpt that you feel particularly attracted to and go into it more deeply through writing.
Meditation Options
You Who remember what I really am alone remember what I really want. You speak for God, and so You speak for me. And what You give me comes from God Himself. Your Voice, my Father, then is mine as well, and all I want is what You offer me, in just the form You choose that it be mine. Let me remember all I do not know, and let my voice be still, remembering. But let me not forget Your Love and care, keeping Your promise to Your Son in my awareness always. Let me not forget myself is nothing, but my Self is all.
What Am I?
Our special theme says, “We bring glad tidings to the Son of God, who thought he suffered. Now is he redeemed. And as he sees the gate of Heaven stand open before him, he will enter in and disappear into the Heart of God.”
Our special theme began with the question, “What am I?” and ended with, “disappear into the Heart of God.” In between that beginning and ending, although we were given words to contemplate, we were not given an answer to the question, “What am I?” That answer comes best in those last few words, “disappear into the Heart of God,” especially in the word “disappear.”
I’d like to share something that was written by Floyd Henderson, a student of Nisargadatta Maharaj. In his book, The Final Understanding, Floyd wrote:
Thus, the invitation is (to those ready, and only for those ready) to receive the final understanding…
Go back—follow the trail in order to trace what you think yourself to be. Move back from (8) the conception to (7) a sperm set into motion to spontaneously seek an egg to (6) an act of friction to (5) plant food cells being transformed into sperm and egg cells to (4) plant food being prepared and eaten to (3) plant food being acquired to (2) plants growing to (1) the elements.
Where in that chain—which can be traced back and can be seen to have been repeated for trillions upon trillions of times for millions upon millions of years on this planet—could you possibly claim the existence of any “you-ness” or “You-ness”?
Who would want to make such a claim? Only one motivated by arrogance, … Only one so trapped in one or more ego-states and in so much egotism that one would want to trace his or her lineage back to some “famous, big name people” and beyond that to “God” or “a god” or “a goddess” or some “Supreme Self.”
It may take time for some of you to contemplate the significance of what Floyd points to in this excerpt. It was more quickly apparent to me, because my dad pointed to this on a hike with me in Southern Missouri about 25 years ago, and I have had ample time to contemplate it since then.
I asked my dad what his spiritual beliefs were. My dad has never been a religious man, so I had no idea what he thought when it came to spirituality. He told me that one day he would die and be buried in the ground; his body would turn to dirt and mix with the soil; plants would grow in that soil; birds and animals would eat the plants, and then they would die and mix with the soil, so on. In that way he would live forever.
My dad was communicating truth. He is not my dad. He is not his body, his personality or his mind. He is not his sense of being human. He is not even the sense of “I am.” He is life, which continues as forms come and go. There is no “me” in life. There is no “you” either. And that is the answer to the question, “What am I?”
Each of us needs to come to this answer through our own unique, genuine awakening process. Therefore, the best our special theme could do to answer the question, “What am I?” is give us this word:
Disappear
When “me” disappears—when even the “I am” of consciousness disappears—then and only then is the answer to, “What am I?” known.
No call to God can be unheard nor left Unanswered. And of this I can be sure; His answer is the one I really want.
Please read today’s workbook lesson in full. Notice a phrase, sentence or excerpt that you feel particularly attracted to and go into it more deeply through writing.
Meditation Options
Forgiveness, truth’s reflection, tells me how to offer miracles, and thus escape the prison house in which I think I live. Your holy Son is pointed out to me, first in my brother; then in me. Your Voice instructs me patiently to hear Your Word, and give as I receive. And as I look upon Your Son today, I hear Your Voice instructing me to find the way to You, as You appointed that the way shall be:
“Behold his sinlessness, and be you healed.”
What Am I?
Our special theme says, “We are the holy messengers of God who speak for Him, and carrying His Word to everyone whom He has sent to us, we learn that it is written on our hearts.”
With these words, our special theme points to one of the objectives for Gentle Healing Year 2. I don’t mean that we are going to become evangelizers. In fact, I feel it is a mistake to overtly or covertly attempt to convert someone. It’s better to allow everyone to be as they are.
What I mean when I say that our special theme points to a Year 2 objective is that we will use words to discover “that [His Word] is written on our hearts.” Or said another way, we will use contemplation and writing to discover the clarity that lies within us.
Our first year has been focused on learning from teachings that appear outside of us. Although learning has a place on the spiritual path, learning can only take us so far. The real purpose of the spiritual path is to learn who we are. A part of learning who we are is realizing the wisdom that lies within us.
Over the past several days, I have asked you to select an excerpt from our daily lesson and write based on that excerpt. In Year 2, daily writing will be a key component of the curriculum. Each day you will contemplate a thought from Thoughts of Awakening: 365 Thoughts for Contemplation, and you will write with inner wisdom based on that day’s thought. The purpose of this writing is to discover the wisdom that is waiting to be discovered inside of you. (Speaking into a recorder is also an option.)
Although there are similarities in spiritual paths, no two awakening processes are exactly alike. Each one walks a unique spiritual path. Your way is written on your heart, and so you must go within, find it and follow it. Your inner wisdom is your teacher, and it is the key to your awakening.
Nisgargadatta Maharaj referred to the outer guru as “time-bound” and “not forever.” He said the outer guru “fulfills his purpose and yields his place to the next.” He continued, “The outer represents the inner; the inner accepts the outer—for a time.”
We could say that the outer guru is like training wheels, which help to get us started but limit how far we can go. When one is ready and the training wheels are removed, one soars to previously unimagined heights with the inner guru.
I do not feel I would be a truly effective teacher if I did not help you become Self-reliant with your inner teacher. Although it is nice to be appreciated, I hope to make myself completely unnecessary within two years. In fact, I hope to make all outer teachers unnecessary for you. For now, I hope you will trust me and do as I say, because it is my intention to effectively hand you off to your inner teacher.
Truth answers every call we make to God, responding first with miracles, and then returning unto us to be itself.
Please read today’s workbook lesson in full. Notice a phrase, sentence or excerpt that you feel particularly attracted to and go into it more deeply through writing.
Meditation Options
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Father, You promised You would never fail to answer any call Your Son might make to You. It does not matter where he is, what seems to be his problem, nor what he believes he has become. He is Your Son, and You will answer him. The miracle reflects Your Love, and thus it answers him. Your Name replaces every thought of sin, and who is sinless cannot suffer pain. Your Name gives answer to Your Son, because to call Your Name is but to call his own.
What Am I?
Our special theme says, “Ours are the eyes through which Christ’s vision sees a world redeemed from every thought of sin. Ours are the ears that hear the Voice for God proclaim the world as sinless. Ours the minds that join together as we bless the world.”
What jumps out at me from this excerpt is, “Ours are the eyes … Ours are the ears … Ours the minds…” In other words, we are the ones that have the direct experience of awakening.
Direct experience is different from belief, and belief is different from faith.
As we have already seen, faith is important on the spiritual path. We cannot know the direct experience of what lies ahead of us. The fact that it “lies ahead” means it is not our experience yet.
When we have faith in the direct experience of masters, we are motivated to continue this journey so we can find out for ourselves. Faith is a motivating factor.
However, belief has an opposite effect. Belief is intellectual. When we believe something is true, we do not have a driving motivation to find out. We think we know.
It is fair to say that faith has a healthy amount of doubt in it. It isn’t the kind of doubt that holds us back. It is the kind of doubt that isn’t satisfied until one knows for herself, from her own experience.
Belief doesn’t doubt in that way, nor has it gone far enough to know for itself. Belief is a type of delusion, where one pretends to know what he doesn’t know.
Direct experience is the only means of knowing. It is firsthand experience. For example, the only way to know what a pineapple tastes like is to bite into one. You can never know the taste of a pineapple by reading about it or by listening to others describe it. At best, you can only imagine it.
As another example, most humans who live on earth believe in death. However, no living human knows death as a direct experience. No living human has tasted death directly. Death is perceived indirectly when we see a body. The living sees a body and thinks “death.” Death is an intellectual belief. It is not a direct experience.
Death is an example of a belief.
Awareness is an example of direct experience.
Faith trusts the teachings of masters enough to want to find out, but it seeks the proof of direct experience and will not settle for belief.
It is important for a spiritual aspirant to have enough faith in the teachings to seek direct experience. However, like a scientist, the genuine spiritual aspirant has no use for belief. Belief is seen as the cause of delusion.
Sickness is but another name for sin. Healing is but another name for God. The miracle is thus a call to Him.
Please read today’s workbook lesson in full. Notice a phrase, sentence or excerpt that you feel particularly attracted to and go into it more deeply through writing.
Meditation Options
