Please take time this morning to read, “What is Forgiveness,” to contemplate Lesson 224, 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 D

God is my Father, and He loves His Son.

“Father” and “Son” are symbols. Like all symbols, they can have multiple meanings. For our purposes now, it is helpful to see life-awareness as Father and presence as Son.

Some people make the mistake of seeing the personality-mind as Son. The personality-mind is a temporary effect in presence, but it is not what you are. When one sees the personality-mind as Son, one remains stuck with the misperception that s/he is the personality-mind. In addition, the personality-mind isn’t “wholly beneficent.” When people feel that it should be, it can lead to additional guilt and unworthiness.

Focus your attention on presence (present awareness) now. Notice presence is simply aware without any involvement in the world or in thoughts. Presence is “wholly beneficent and free from guilt.” Presence is the awareness that lights up everything perceived and experienced. Without the awareness of presence, there would not be perception or experience. Said another way, nothing could exist without presence.

Presence is what you are. Presence is the Son of life-awareness.

Now focus your intuitive attention on life-awareness (activating cause), which is the foundation and essence of presence. Notice how life-awareness and presence are one. Life-awareness is the light of presence in the same way that presence is the light of the world. Just as nothing manifest could exist without presence, presence exists because of the loving and ongoing gift of life-awareness.

Today’s lesson says, “I am weary of the world I see.” Does this thought come from presence? Or is presence the silent witness of this thought? Who (or what) are you?

Please take time this morning to read, “What is Forgiveness,” to contemplate Lesson 223, 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 C

God is my life. I have no life but His.

The ego is the thought that I am my own entity. It is the thought that I have life and I have awareness, but I am the entity; the life and awareness that I have are my possessions. They are “my life” and “my awareness.” It is also the thought that life and awareness other than my life and my awareness are separate from the life and awareness in me. It’s as if I have a bottled up source of life and awareness that exists in the body, which is my container.

Self-inquiry questions these basic ego assumptions.

What is the “I” that is its own entity? Of course, there is the appearance of the body. If one does not look deeply one may point at the body and say, “I am my own entity.” But does the body make these claims? What is the “I” that claims to be its own separate entity?

When one pauses to look more deeply, one will find that the mind is the “I” that claims to be its own entity.

Is it true that the mind is its own entity? Does the mind possess life and awareness as it claims or is living-awareness aware of the mind? Does thought possess life and awareness or is living-awareness (as presence) aware of thought?

Once you have distinguished between thought and awareness-life-presence through the previous inquiry, focus attention on presence (present awareness). Is presence what you are? Can you separate yourself from present awareness or is that you? Does presence make any claims of possessing life and awareness or is it simply permeated with life-awareness? Can presence be separated from life-awareness?

Contemplate the life-awareness that permeates presence. This requires intuitive contemplation of that which cannot be seen but can be realized. It has no personality. It has no sense of self. It is before presence, which does have a non-personal sense of “I am,” but life-awareness does not have a sense of “I am.” It is the life-awareness energy of presence, just as electricity is the energy that lights a light bulb.

With contemplative attention on life-awareness, the essence of presence, ask:

Is this life-awareness separate or different from the life-awareness in any other presence? (This is similar to asking, “Is the electricity that lights the bulb in this lamp separate or different from the electricity that lights the bulb in that lamp?)

Do you find that there is one source that permeates presence with life-awareness or are there different sources?

If there is one source that permeates presence with life-awareness, and if presence is life-awareness, and presence is what you are, can you say that you are your own entity? Or, are you the essence of your source, which is also the essence of all things?

Please take time this morning to read, “What is Forgiveness,” to contemplate Lesson 222, 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 B

God is with me. I live and move in Him.

God is the nature of all things, both manifest and unmanifest. Where there is anything, there is God. Where there is nothing, there is God.

The basic essence of God is life-awareness. Life-awareness is before presence and it is the basis of presence. It is before creation and it is the basis of creation. One could say that presence is the extension of God, and creation is the effect of presence.

Contemplate presence today, and notice it is you.

Contemplate life-awareness today. Notice it is inseparable from presence and it is the source of presence. Without life-awareness, presence could not be.

Contemplate anything in creation. Notice it is present. Rest with the idea that life-awareness extends to presence, and in the same way, presence projects to become the manifestation of all things. (Some people use the word consciousness instead of presence.)

As you contemplate these things deeply, notice you are always in the presence of God, in the presence of that which is before presence and is the essence of all things that are present.