What is the World?

Our special theme says, “When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear …”

I would like to quote from an article by Bentinho Massaro. The article is titled Update on my Graduation from Creation – Part 1.

After several years of practicing resting as Awareness and increasing my lucidity and emptiness of self and bias, 5 years ago I penetrated beyond all that into the Absolute. I directly realized that the Absolute ‘me’ was beyond all perception, beyond all Creation, beyond everything, beyond even Consciousness/Awareness as we know it to be (infused with experience). There is nothing beyond this Absolute. It is Infinitely Absolute. Absolutely Infinite. Absolutely One. Indescribable. Unimaginable. It is Final Completion.

This penetrative ‘experience’ of being beyond all perception/Creation (and I have had several complete absorptions since then) showed me that there was a realization or disappearance possible way beyond what most of us consider to be ‘Enlightenment.’ Penetrating into the Absolute made ‘awakened living’ seem like nothing at all in comparison; just more mind, more illusion. This was true liberation beyond all levels and utterly indescribable. …

There are many levels of ‘Enlightenment’ or rather: there are many degrees of transparency to the One while still associated with I AM (while still partaking in the illusion). However, they are all trumped and rendered irrelevant when the Absolute is realized.

Most levels of awakening simply increase the lucidity of this Illusion, but do not actually wake you up to the point where this illusion of perception or experience disappears entirely.

You can compare this to your dreams at night. You usually dream unconsciously. Let’s say you have one of these usual dreams and you meet a guru in your dreams and this guru is reminding you of the fact that you are dreaming.

You start to ponder this idea in the dream and your experience “I am dreaming” becomes more lucid. You become more awake IN the dream. You may even start to intuit that your actual body is laying in its bed in another reality. You may start to imagine and remember what that other reality is like outside of the dream, and you may even become awake and subtle enough to channel that intuitive experience with other dreamers. But when it comes down to it, your experience is still that you’re in, or part of, the dream to a greater or lesser extent depending on your ‘level of clarity.’

Lucid or not, the dream is an illusion, and as long as we are associating ourselves with a portion of the dream, or even the dream as one, inseparable whole, we are still, nevertheless, dreaming and thus not aware of our true Absolute Self.

And then there may be a time in your dream at night when you are totally ready to part from the dream; you did everything you felt you needed or wanted to do, dropped your attachments to those seeming other-selves within the dream, and even are letting go of your attachment to being ‘alive in the dream’ at all.

You let go completely, intensely desire or will yourself to wake up, and suddenly the dream disappears completely and you awaken in your bed in your ‘real’ body/reality.

What was heretofore your only known reality from which you could only imagine and speculate what waking reality must be like, is suddenly reduced to a vague, intangible memory that seems to lack existence as you wake up into your real self.

Dropping into the Light of Self, but especially and really only upon penetrating into the Absolute beyond even the Universal Presence of Isness-Love-Light, is exactly like that waking up FROM the dream to where even universal Isness (Creation’s substratum) disappears and is woken up from. The Absolute Alone Remains.

Please contemplate what Bentinho has written. Return to what is written above at least two more times during the day to read and be with it. If you have time and feel the calling to do so, you may also read Chapter 5 from The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss again. It might be helpful to read it again just before going to bed.

This day is God’s. It is my gift to Him.

Today is a day of devotion to That which knows so much more  than we know with our limited minds and from our limited experience. Today we drop all ideas that we know anything, because we don’t, and we surrender to something that is far beyond the meager perspective of the false self, and therefore fully capable to lead us back to our truth.

Here are two prayers to contemplate alternatively throughout the day. The first prayer is adapted from today’s workbook lesson. The second prayer is from NTI Acts, Chapter 1. Remember to pause frequently today. Give your full heart, mind and soul to one prayer or the other each time you pause. (If you would like to edit the prayers in order to fit better with your heart, you may.)

From Lesson 242:

I give today to You. I come with a wholly open mind. I do not ask for anything that I may think I want. Give me what You would have me receive. You know all of my desires and wants. And You will give me everything I need that will help me find my way to You. I surrender everything else to you in complete trust. Amen.

From NTI Acts 1:

Father, I do not know what is best for me now, in this time and this place, that I may be led back to You. Because I cannot see the path I am ready to walk, take my hand and send me your Voice to guide me. I shall go where it asks me to go, and I shall do as it asks me to do in joy and peace and certainty. Amen.

If you have 30 minutes for meditation today, I recommend this meditation by Michael Langford and Karen Worth:

AWA Description O

Over the next 10 days, I will share something in each tip about our new special theme, and then I will share about the lesson for the day. I will end each tip with a recommended meditation.

What is the World?

Our special theme begins, “The world is a false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source.” Its source is error. In this case, it is an error about what we are. The Course calls it “the thought of separation.” The thought of separation, the ego and the I-thought are synonymous.

As Michael Langford writes, the ego “has created all the wars, diseases, death, suffering and evil that every human has ever experienced.”

It might be helpful to look at the suffering the thought of separation creates. In Chapter 5 of The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss, Michael Langford speaks of the “thousands of wars; thousands of diseases; thousands of forms of violence; all of the ways humans deceive, hurt, and cheat each other; and every other form of human suffering that you can think of.” I find it helpful to look at specific examples of suffering, so let me share two news stories that came to my attention today:

• Police in Kentucky say a 5-year-old boy watched helplessly as his mother was beaten, bound and thrown off a cliff over the weekend. Two hikers discovered the boy’s mother Saturday morning at the bottom of an 80-foot embankment. She survived the fall and is recovering in the hospital. Her discovery set off a search for her son. More than 200 people searched for the boy on Saturday and Sunday. Authorities found the boy’s body near where his mother was left for dead.
• Members of an indigenous tribe in Brazil’s Amazon Basin were allegedly killed by illegal gold miners, according to Survival International. The organization, which advocates for indigenous rights, said the massacre included women and children and may have wiped out one-fifth of the tribe. Members of the tribe were gathering eggs along a river in the Javari Valley, in the country’s remote west, when they came across the illegal miners. The miners later boasted about the slaughter at a bar in the nearest town, and even showed off a hand-carved paddle they claimed to have stolen as a trophy. They bragged about cutting up the bodies and throwing them in the river.

Sadly, there are many, many more stories like these that are not in the news. These stories are only a tiny sample of the suffering caused by the thought of separation everyday.

It would be helpful to read Chapter 5 from The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss again. Please read it at a time of your convenience today.

This holy instant is salvation come.

Our last special theme said that salvation “is a promise, made by God, that you would find your way to Him at last. It cannot but be kept. It guarantees that time will have an end, and all the thoughts that have been born in time will end as well.”

Today we celebrate this promise. We also realize that we are not passive receivers of the promise. We have a role to play. Our role is forgiveness. Forgiveness is remaining focused on our unaffected Self while failing to support the ego—choosing not to uphold it with our attention and action.

Since we are not supporting the ego, we need another way to live in the world. That way is surrender, seeking guidance from spiritual intuition by asking, “What am I to do now?” and letting it lead us in everything we think, say and do.

How glad we are to celebrate the promise of salvation today! We celebrate by joyously doing our part. We are eager to play our role in salvation. (With a heart full of joy, we make Choice A.)

If you have 45 minutes for meditation today, I recommend this meditation:

Existence-Consciousness-Bliss

If you don’t have that much time, consider this 25-minute meditation:

Miracles Meditation

If there is time in your day today, consider doing both meditations, possibly one in the morning and one before bed.

Today is our last day with our current special theme, so please take time this morning to read, “What is Salvation,” one more time. Also, contemplate Lesson 240 and spend some time in meditation. If you have 30-minutes for meditation and would like a gentle audio to guide you, I recommend this meditation:

Self Inquiry Meditation

Fear is not justified in any form.

Two days ago we noticed that our decisions are based on who we think we are. Fear is a decision. Whenever we are afraid, it is because we have decided to believe fearful thoughts in the mind. We have decided those thoughts are true, and this decision is based on who we think we are.

Look at some fearful situations. You may look at current fears or fearful situations that you remember. What is the identification that is the basis of the fear?

For example:

1. I am afraid that I will die. My identification is with the body.
2. I am afraid that I will run out of money. My identification is ‘powerless’.
3. I remember a fear of facing someone. My identification was ‘guilty’.
4. I remember a fear of inviting someone to spend time with me. My identification was ‘rejectable’.
5. Etcetera.

Today’s lesson says, “Not one thing in this world is true.” Contemplate that statement as you look at your list of fears and the identifications that caused them. Practice this type of inquiry with each one:

1. If nothing in this world is true, is this body what I am? What am I? (Pause and look at awareness.) Is awareness what I am? Is the body what I am? Which is more intimately what I am and which is more at a distance? Is awareness vulnerable like the body is vulnerable? Is it possible the body could die, and I would continue to live? Have I experienced death directly or is life all I know? Do I know that death is real or is death something that the mind imagines? (Look and see if death is something you know, like you know life, or is death only in the mind?) Does awareness have a concept of death? What am I? (Be still, and continue to notice awareness.)
2. If nothing in this world is true, is ‘powerless’ what I am? What am I? (Pause and look at awareness.) Is awareness what I am? Is powerless what I am? Which is consistently me, and which is a passing idea or feeling? Is awareness powerless? Is it vulnerable? Or is awareness present and unaffected? What am I? (Be still, and continue to notice awareness.)
3. If nothing in this world is true, is ‘guilty’ what I am? What am I? (Pause and look at awareness.) Is awareness what I am? Is guilty what I am? There may be the feeling of guilt, but what sees this feeling? What looks at it? Am I the feeling of guilt or am I that which is looking at it? Which one is more intimately me? Is awareness guilty or is it simply present, purely itself? (Be still, and continue to notice awareness.)
4. If nothing in this world is true, is ‘rejectable’ what I am? What am I? (Pause and look at awareness.) Is awareness what I am? Is rejectable what I am? Which is consistently me, and which is a passing idea or feeling? Is awareness rejectable? Can I reject awareness? (Look and see if it is possible to reject awareness.) Can awareness see itself as rejected? (Look and see if awareness believes the concept of rejection.) Does awareness reject anything? (Look and see if awareness rejects or if it is perfectly open and allowing of everything.) What am I? (Be still, and continue to notice awareness.)
5. Etcetera.

Notice that the questions changed slightly as I looked at each concept of identification. Let intuition guide your inquiry and your looking. We cannot let go of fear when we are identified with a vulnerable concept. However, as we realize the truth of what we are, which is eternally invulnerable, fear becomes meaningless.