In this member meeting, Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert shared information about:
- Member Board of Trustees nominees
- Update on the Retreat House Campaign
- Open teaching slots
- 2017 Awakening Together Fall Retreat
A universal assembly for true discernment
In this member meeting, Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert shared information about:
Kathy Smith explores the quotes from Experience Your Perfect Soul and shares from her contemplation of them.
Listen to the audio
Rev. Jane Polly-Bass discussed her experiences with surrendering to what is.
The reading was from “The Untethered Soul” by Michael Singer, beginning Ch 2 . Her reader was Rev. Rebecca Gibson.
“My mind holds only what I think with God.” It is lack of forgiveness that blocks this realization from our awareness.
The review instructions ask us to notice “the many forms in which the lack of true forgiveness may be carefully concealed.” In other words, the review instructions ask us to put some effort into finding our own defenses against the truth, our own self-deceptions.
With this request in mind, I contemplate today’s review lessons.
Beyond this world there is a world I want. I close my eyes and go into contemplation of this fact. I go beyond all of the thoughts that offer me something to think about. They are each defenses against the truth.
It is impossible to see two worlds. Attention will either go out towards the world and thought or it will go in towards awareness. It cannot go in two directions at once. Anything that keeps me from being aware of myself as awareness or as the watcher is a defense against truth for me.
The central theme that we are contemplating during this review period is:
My mind holds only what I think with God.
The workbook instructions for the review period say, “It is this thought that fully guarantees salvation to the Son. For in his mind no thoughts can dwell but those his Father shares. Lack of forgiveness blocks this thought from his awareness. Yet it is forever true.”
This means that when we let our attention dwell with any thought, emotion or desire that is inevitably temporary, or when we let our attention dwell with anything that it cannot dwell on eternally, we block our realization of truth.
With this thought in mind, I contemplate today’s review lessons.
There is no love but God’s. What, then, is love? To discover what love is I must compare human feelings of love, which do not last, to that which is always present. For example, sometimes I think I love something because it brings me pleasure, but pleasure is not constant. Therefore that is not love. Yet I notice beingness or isness is always present. That must be love.
The world I see holds nothing that I want. That’s because the world I see holds nothing. It all comes and goes. Whether I perceive it as grand or totally undesirable, it has the same quality. It is not eternal; it is not held. I seek that which is eternal, that which is held, and I let the temporary be as it is.
The instructions for this review period give us a central theme to contemplate each day. That theme is:
My mind holds only what I think with God.
The instructions go on to say, “That is a fact, and represents the truth of what you are and What your Father is.”
This means that what our mind holds is what we are, and what our mind holds is what God is. So if we want to find our Self, and if we want to find God, we must look for what our mind holds. What our mind holds is always present. Therefore, our search for God is also the search for what is always present.
Here is my contemplation of today’s review lessons with that thought in mind:
In quiet I receive God’s Word today. All of the thoughts that come and go in my consciousness are not God’s Word, because God’s Word is the Word, that which is before everything. In order to know God’s Word, I must look beyond all of the words that distract from it. I must enter into the quiet, where God’s Word is known; not heard, but known. God’s Word is not other than my Self. In quiet, I realize that today.
All that I give is given to myself. Why do my thoughts appear so mesmerizing, those words that are temporary and are not the eternal Word of God? If I close my eyes and look, I find only one power that infuses thought with power. That power is my attention. I am the power that infuses thought with apparent power. All that I give attention to, I give to myself. The question then becomes, what do I want to give attention to? That is the same as asking, what do I want to have power over me?