An email from Ayla to Michael was read by Regina.
Chapter 2, Page 35 from “The Importance of Practice and Effort” was read and discussed.
A Course of Love Study Group ~ 10/18/17
Rev. Carrie Christiansen and our ACOL Study Group take turns reading and discussing the book.
Oct. 18 ~ Daily Contemplation ~ Lesson 271
Section 6. What is the Christ?
Christ is God’s Son as He created Him. He is the Self we share, uniting us with one another, and with God as well. He is the Thought which still abides within the Mind that is His Source. He has not left His holy home, nor lost the innocence in which He was created. He abides unchanged forever in the Mind of God.
Christ is the link that keeps you one with God, and guarantees that separation is no more than an illusion of despair, for hope forever will abide in Him. Your mind is part of His, and His of yours. He is the part in which God’s Answer lies; where all decisions are already made, and dreams are over. He remains untouched by anything the body’s eyes perceive. For though in Him His Father placed the means for your salvation, yet does He remain the Self Who, like His Father, knows no sin.
Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace within the Heaven of your holy mind. This is the only part of you that has reality in truth. The rest is dreams. Yet will these dreams be given unto Christ, to fade before His glory and reveal your holy Self, the Christ, to you at last.
The Holy Spirit reaches from the Christ in you to all your dreams, and bids them come to Him, to be translated into truth. He will exchange them for the final dream which God appointed as the end of dreams. For when forgiveness rests upon the world and peace has come to every Son of God, what could there be to keep things separate, for what remains to see except Christ’s face?
And how long will this holy face be seen, when it is but the symbol that the time for learning now is over, and the goal of the Atonement has been reached at last? So therefore let us seek to find Christ’s face and look on nothing else. As we behold His glory, will we know we have no need of learning or perception or of time, or anything except the holy Self, the Christ Whom God created as His Son.
Lesson 271
Christ’s is the vision I will use today.
Each day, each hour, every instant, I am choosing what I want to look upon, the sounds I want to hear, the witnesses to what I want to be the truth for me. Today I choose to look upon what Christ would have me see, to listen to God’s Voice, and seek the witnesses to what is true in God’s creation. In Christ’s sight, the world and God’s creation meet, and as they come together all perception disappears. His kindly sight redeems the world from death, for nothing that He looks on but must live, remembering the Father and the Son; Creator and creation unified.
Father, Christ’s vision is the way to You. What He beholds invites Your memory to be restored to me. And this I choose, to be what I would look upon today.
Tips from Regina ~ Lesson 271
What is the Christ?
“Christ” is a symbolic term. As a symbolic term, it can mean different things to different people. However, if we look carefully at our new special theme, we can see clearly what this term means in A Course in Miracles:
Christ is God’s Son as He created Him. He is the Self we share, uniting us with one another, and with God as well. … He abides unchanged forever in the Mind of God.
Christ and God’s Son are synonymous, and they both point to what many people call consciousness. In some traditions, consciousness is the first creation. It is also the only direct creation of the source, since all other “creations” were created through consciousness. This is similar to the Bible’s claim, if “the Word” is seen as synonymous with Christ or consciousness. At John 1, the Bible says:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
It’s important to remember that terms are symbols, and because they are only symbols, terms are not used consistently. Because terms are used differently at different times, we need to reach an understanding that is beyond terms.
Let me paint a simplistic picture that will help us understand Christ-consciousness.
At the highest level of truth, the source exists. The source is a mystery, often represented by darkness. It is unmanifest life teeming with potential.
Out of this potential, consciousness arises. Consciousness is awareness, but it is more than that. It is like a canvas that potentialities can be painted on. It is also the divine mechanism, or paint brush, that enables creation. Through its beingness, ongoing creation happens. Without consciousness, nothing else could be.
This is Christ. It is what we are beyond our experience of human. The humans that we appear to be are temporary appearances in the consciousness that we are.
Christ’s is the vision I will use today.
Today’s lesson says, “Today I choose to look upon what Christ would have me see, to listen to God’s Voice, and seek the witnesses to what is true in God’s creation. In Christ’s sight, the world and God’s creation meet, and as they come together all perception disappears.”
The lesson concludes with a prayer:
Father, Christ’s vision is the way to You. What He beholds invites Your memory to be restored to me. And this I choose, to be what I would look upon today.
To behold Christ’s vision, focus on awareness in yourself and on life in every living being. Let everything be as it appears, without asking it to appear differently, while you stay focused on the life that is the same in all living things.
If you have 30 minutes for meditation today, I recommend this meditation:
Note: The music in this meditation is a bit loud (or lively) in the first few minutes, but then it settles down nicely.
Growing with NTI ~ Acts, Chapters 13 (v. 32-41) – 14 ~ 10/17/17
Facilitated by Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert & Connie Poole
Listen to this recording
Audio & Homework – Week 41 Gentle Healing Group with Regina, 10/17/17
Regina Dawn Akers guides a group of committed students who would like to make consistent, gentle progress toward genuine peace, joy and love.
The reading tonight was In the World But Not of It by Gina Lake, pages 65-72. ((Stop at “Overcoming Challenges to Being Present in the World”.)
Homework for the upcoming week:
Homework Assignment A: Workbook lessons 271-277. Practice daily awareness-watching-awareness, Loving Consciousness or Abandon Release Method meditation for 20-40 minutes each day. Practice the “Loving All” Method.
Homework Assignment B: Read NTI 1 Corinthians, Chapters 1-8 (pgs 287-297.)
Oct. 17 ~ Daily Contemplation ~ Lesson 270
I will not use the body’s eyes today.
Father, Christ’s vision is Your gift to me, and it has power to translate all that the body’s eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world. How glorious and gracious is this world! Yet how much more will I perceive in it than sight can give. The world forgiven signifies Your Son acknowledges his Father, lets his dreams be brought to truth, and waits expectantly the one remaining instant more of time which ends forever, as Your memory returns to him. And now his will is one with Yours. His function now is but Your Own, and every thought except Your Own is gone.
The quiet of today will bless our hearts, and through them peace will come to everyone. Christ is our eyes today. And through His sight we offer healing to the world through Him, the holy Son whom God created whole; the holy Son whom God created One.
Tips from Regina ~ Lesson 270
What is the Body?
The last paragraph of our special theme says:
You will identify with what you think will make you safe. Whatever it may be, you will believe that it is one with you. Your safety lies in truth, and not in lies. Love is your safety. Fear does not exist. Identify with love, and you are safe. Identify with love, and you are home. Identify with love, and find your Self.
What do I identify with? It’s possible that the mind will answer this question truthfully. For example, if you are identified with the body and with fear, the mind may give that answer. However, sometimes the mind will say, “I am identified with love,” or “spirit” or “awareness,” when that isn’t true.
How do we know, with honesty, what we are identified with? NTI Philippians recommends that we watch the body. Since the body follows the thoughts that we believe and value, the body will demonstrate what we are identified with. NTI Philippians, Chapter 2 says:
The way you operate in the world is a reflection of your faith and your belief. For the way you operate is not action, but the image of the expression of thought.
Trust that you do not know yourself, because you have not observed that closely until now. Realize that your purpose is to ensure that your faith is placed with the motive you have chosen. Be clear on this purpose, and then observe yourself.
What is it that you find yourself doing? Why are you doing it? Is that action evidence that your faith is placed with your motive, or are you finding that you have placed your faith elsewhere?
Be careful that you do not judge that which you see and observe. Separate yourself from the body. See the body as not you. See it merely as evidence of thought that is in your mind. See it as a learning device and nothing else.
When you look at the body, which is showing you what you have asked to see, what is it that you discover? What do you learn about your mind?
Realize, now, who you are as you watch this body and learn from it. Realize that you did not know, and so you lived in ignorance before. But now you do know, and it is your will to correct the ignorance you lived by before.
Be grateful for this body and all it is teaching you, for in partnership with this learning device you will correct the mind. You will bring faith into alignment with motive through your own desire to do so.
So today, watch the body with the desire to learn what you are identified with. The goal today is self-honesty.
I will not use the body’s eyes today.
The lessons says, “Christ is our eyes today. And through His sight we offer healing to the world through Him, the holy Son whom God created whole; the holy Son whom God created one.”
We have already set a purpose for today. We are using today to discover what we are identified with, the body-mind or life-awareness-presence. As we watch the body in order to make this discovery, we may see things we are tempted to judge. Instead, let’s watch the body with Christ-eyes. Let’s bring healing energy to whatever we see by watching with the Loving All Method instead of with self-judgment.
If you have 30 minutes for meditation today, I recommend this meditation:
10-16-17 ~ Regina & ‘I Am That’ – Coming and Going in contrast to Consistency
Regina Dawn Akers read and shared from her contemplation of Conversation #2, Obsession With the Body from I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.
Oct. 16 ~ Daily Contemplation ~ Lesson 269
My sight goes forth to look upon Christ’s face.
I ask Your blessing on my sight today. It is the means which You have chosen to become the way to show me my mistakes, and look beyond them. It is given me to find a new perception through the Guide You gave to me, and through His lessons to surpass perception and return to truth. I ask for the illusion which transcends all those I made. Today I choose to see a world forgiven, in which everyone shows me the face of Christ, and teaches me that what I look upon belongs to me; that nothing is, except Your holy Son.
Today our sight is blessed indeed. We share one vision, as we look upon the face of Him Whose Self is ours. We are one because of Him Who is the Son of God; of Him Who is our own Identity.
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