Please take time this morning to read, “What is Salvation,” to contemplate Lesson 239, and to spend time in meditation. If you have 30-minutes for meditation and would like a gentle audio to guide you, I recommend this meditation:

Appreciating Life

The glory of my Father is my own.

I found an interesting chart on a Christian website called The Sword of Spirit. This chart shows the difference between false humility, true humility and pride. Today’s lesson begins by saying, “Let not the truth about ourselves today be hidden by false humility.” Look at the first column in the following True Humility Chart. Do you find ways that you hide the truth about yourself with false humility?

True Humility Chart

Today, whenever you notice your thoughts slipping into false humility, be instead “thankful for the gifts our Father gave us.” Practice right-gratitude, which is gratitude for awareness-life-presence as it is. Be grateful for awareness-life-presence in one’s self, in others and in nature. Let today be a day of focusing on truth with a grateful heart.

If you would like, you can review my tip from Workbook Lesson 195, Love is the way I walk in gratitude.

Please take time this morning to read, “What is Salvation,” to contemplate Lesson 238, and to spend time in meditation. If you have 30-minutes for meditation and would like a gentle audio to guide you, I recommend this meditation:

Being in Love

On my decision all salvation rests.

Our decisions are made based on who we think we are. Every decision is based on the current moment’s identity. For example, if I think someone is taking advantage of me, I will react from that identified perception.

Please contemplate the sentences above, and notice this is true for you. It might help to remember two or three recent decisions or recent reactions, which are simply fast decisions. Look to see what idea you were identified with at the moment, and notice your decision came from that identification. (For example, I recently snapped at my partner. In that moment I was identified with, “I am being pulled in too many directions at once. “)

Because our decisions are based on who we think we are, it is important to realize who we are. When we know ourselves as awareness-life-presence, we naturally make decisions that are based on love. Our decisions are based on love, because awareness-life-presence is love.

Today we contemplate the love that we are. Today’s recommended meditation will help with this contemplation. The more we contemplate the love that we are, the more we realize ourselves as love. As we see love as our Self, our decisions spring forth from that instead of from misidentification. In this way, we are effortlessly “steadfast in holiness” and a natural savior in the world.

p.s., Notice that I am not asking you to try to be love. You will always make decisions based on what you think you are, so I am asking you to notice, again and again, the truth of what you are until you naturally identify with that.

Please take time this morning to read, “What is Salvation,” to contemplate Lesson 237, and to spend time in meditation. If you have 30-minutes for meditation and would like a gentle audio to guide you, I recommend this meditation:

Time With Your Self

Now would I be as God created me.

Today, as I write this tip, a number of events are in the American news:

Hurricane Harvey recently stalled over southeast Texas resulting in the worst rainfall disaster in US history. Approximately 20,000 homes were damaged or destroyed by flooding, and tens of thousands of people were displaced.

Hurricane Irma, the largest and strongest hurricane to ever form in the Atlantic Ocean, has just pummeled islands in the Caribbean Sea and is heading straight for Florida.

An 8.1 magnitude earthquake just struck southern Mexico. It is the strongest earthquake to hit Mexico in a century. Tsunami warnings have been triggered.

North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, is obsessed with the development of a nuclear warhead that is able to strike US soil.

On the day when you read this tip, there will be something else in the news, but there will be something. There may also be a challenge occurring in your personal life.

I am reminded of something Ramana Maharshi said when bandits broke into his ashram to rob it. In the process of the robbery, they beat Ramana Maharshi. One of his devotees, upon seeing what the men had done to Maharshi, grabbed an iron instrument lying near by and wanted to go after the robbers and get revenge. Ramana Maharshi replied, “We are sadhus [spiritual disciples]. We should not give up our dharma [way of being].”

This, I feel, is the meaning of today’s workbook lesson.

Now would I be as God created me.

“Now” implies now, regardless of appearances and events. Even if I am being robbed and beaten, I will be as God created me. I will be the peace of God, because that is what I am. Through being peace, I “allow the light in me to shine upon the world throughout the day. I bring the world the tidings of salvation which I hear as God my Father speaks to me.”

Remaining as the peace that I am under all circumstances is the meaning of Jesus’ statement, “Turn the other cheek.”

Today, as you go through your day, there will be events in world news and circumstances that arise in your personal experience. As these things occur, remember to be the presence of peace. Even if you find yourself getting upset, remain the presence of peace throughout the upset by practicing rest-accept-trust or the Loving All Method.

Now would I be as God created me.

This is what the world needs from us. This is what we need from us. This is the practice of our truth, our dharma.

Please take time this morning to read, “What is Salvation,” to contemplate Lesson 236, and to spend time in meditation. If you have 30-minutes for meditation and would like a gentle audio to guide you, I recommend this meditation by Michael Langford and Karen Worth:

AWA Description N

I rule my mind, which I alone must rule.

The Teachings of Inner Ramana says, “Mind is like a tool that must be used if one is to experience this world in any way. Mind is the tool of perception. Perception can only be experienced through mind. But this is not the same as saying that mind controls perception or that one must listen to the chattering or problems and solutions of mind.”

The human mind is an incredible thing. It is also an integral part of the experience of human. This really stood out to me when I saw the movie, Jungle Book. The boy, Mowgli, thought differently than his animal friends did. His mind thought of tools that would help solve everyday challenges, like getting honey from a beehive without being stung. Some of his animal caretakers thought his human contraptions were foolish, until he was able to devise a way to rescue a baby elephant from a large hole that it had fallen into. That’s when the other animals accepted the usefulness of the human mind.

The human mind has value. The problem isn’t the human mind. It’s a neutral tool. The problem is that we’ve forgotten what we are. We aren’t the mind, and we certainly aren’t slaves to the mind’s chatter. We are awareness-life-presence.

It’s just as Michael Langford has written in The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss:

“As an example for clarification, you could view thinking and memory as something like a computer program. Within that computer program is a virus. The virus is called the ‘I thought’. The virus controls the program. The I thought controls all thinking. The virus pretends to be your self. The I thought pretends to be your self. The virus creates tremendous sorrow and suffering. The I thought creates tremendous sorrow and suffering. None of the sorrow or suffering is needed. What is needed is to delete the virus that pretends to be ‘I’. What is needed is to delete the imposter self. “

In other words, we need to remember what we are and what the mind is. It is a tool available for our use, but it is not our ruler.

Reflect frequently today on what you are and what the mind is. Notice when you are using the mind (just like you use a computer), and when you are allowing the mind to use you.

When you notice that you are allowing the mind to use you, step back into your Self. Remember your Self. You are primary to the mind. Abide as your Self.

If you need help shifting from identification with the mind to Self-realization, rest the mind and let help come to you. Help will come from the “Thought of peace” which “was given to God’s Son the instant that his mind had thought of war. There was no need for such a Thought before, … But when the mind is split there is a need of healing. So the Thought that has the power to heal the split became a part of every fragment of the mind that still was one, …”

If you have time for a second meditation today, you might enjoy this meditation:

Respecting Humanness