What is the World?

Our special theme says, “Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him. Here was perception born, for knowledge could not cause such insane thoughts. … The mechanisms of illusion have been born instead. And now they go to find what has been given them to seek. Their aim is to fulfill the purpose which the world was made to witness and make real. … Yet everything that they report is but illusion which is kept apart from truth.”

Similarly, The Teachings of Inner Ramana says:

“Think of mind as a filter. This filter enables one to see objects where there is light. This filter enables one to distinguish differences where there are none. … Without the mind, one would be unable to experience the world. But this does not mean that one must be subject to the mind.

The mind, when believed and taken seriously, seems to define reality. But as I have just shown, the mind does not define reality. It places a veil of perception over reality so reality can be experienced in a new way. This means that the mind is a trickster or illusionist, and that which it creates is purely illusion. To believe the mind is to believe illusion. To think illusion is reality is to be completely deluded.

Again I emphasize that belief in illusion, or the process of being deluded, comes from believing the mind.

This must mean then, that the process of awakening is also the process of learning not to believe the stories of the mind.

As a filter, the mind can be used to see and experience illusion without believing it. This experience comes from maintaining knowledge that is beyond the mind. It can also be said that this knowledge is before the mind. This knowledge exists now, within the Self, at a depth that is below and at a height that is above the mind. In other words, the knowledge is always accessible and it takes only desire to remember and realize this knowledge.”

Your peace is with me, Father. I am safe.

We practice again today like we practiced yesterday. In addition to practicing awareness-watching-awareness, we take short breaks throughout the day to notice awareness as what we are. Also, we practice surrender as it is taught in The Teachings of Inner Ramana. By asking, “What am I to do now?” we are led by intuition, which comes from truth-knowledge, instead of by thought, which is the source of delusion.

To help with today’s focus, I am recommending two meditations again today. If you can, please practice the first meditation early in the day and the second meditation later in the day.

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Just Be Natural Meditation

What is the World?

Our special theme says, “Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him. Here was perception born, for knowledge could not cause such insane thoughts. But eyes deceive, and ears hear falsely. Now mistakes become quite possible, for certainty has gone.”

The primary definition of perception is, “the ability to see, hear or become aware of something through the senses.” A secondary definition is, “a way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something; a mental impression.”

In other words, perception is an outward focused way of acquiring information. When combined with personal thought, which interprets the information received from the senses, perception is also a way of conditioning the mental organism, the brain.

This is very important to see!

Simply put, perception is a means of creating and securing ignorance. In other words, as we remain focused on the world and thought, we are completely ignorant of truth. It is also fair to say we are completely deluded.

Or, as our special theme says, “The mechanisms of illusion have been born instead. And now they go to find what has been given them to seek. Their aim is to fulfill the purpose which the world was made to witness and make real. They see in its illusions but a solid base where truth exists, upheld apart from lies. Yet everything that they report is but illusion which is kept apart from truth.”

I am in danger nowhere in the world.

When we look deeply at the fact that everything we think is true is not true, we can feel very disoriented. We can even feel afraid. However, there is nothing to fear. There is nothing to fear because thought, the body and the world are not real; therefore, we are not at all vulnerable.

Yes, it is true that the imposter self is vulnerable. As we saw in yesterday’s tip, fear is an inherent part of thought, because thought is not a self. That unconscious realization is the cause of fear. But we are not thought. We are not the imposter self or its creation, the body. We are the true Self. We are that which “cannot suffer, be endangered, or experience unhappiness …”

As The Teachings of Inner Ramana says, “Fear comes simply from not knowing reality. Therefore, the only answer to fear is to let go of what is false and to remember reality as true.”

That is our focus today. In addition to practicing awareness-watching-awareness, take short breaks today to notice awareness as what you are. Notice that as awareness, you observe thought. Notice that you observe the body. However, you are prior to both of them. Notice yourself as that which is completely unaffected by anything in the realm of perception.

To help with today’s focus, I am recommending two meditations. If you can, please practice the first meditation early in the day and the second meditation later in the day.

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Recalling Attention

What is the World?

Our special theme says that the world “was made as an attack on God. … Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him.”

However, The Teachings of Inner Ramana says, “The mind creates experience that is not real. It is illusion or fantasy, and it is created for the purpose of enjoyment or pleasure.”

So, which is true? Is the world an attack on God or is it intended for our enjoyment?

If you pay attention to the mind, which is engaged in actively creating the world now, you will see that both are true.

The world is “an attack on God” and “meant to be a place where God could enter not” in that the mind is focused on the thought of separation. The mind wants “me” to be real, this apparent individual entity that is separate from everything else.

At the same time, the mind is constantly seeking “enjoyment or pleasure” for “me” and tries to avoid anything that it defines as pain or displeasure.

Both of these metaphysical stories, the one from A Course in Miracles and the one from The Teachings of Inner Ramana, describe the workings of the mind as it is now. And the world we see today comes from the workings of the mind as it is now.

Also, both A Course in Miracles and The Teachings of Inner Ramana describe the world as a place of fear. The Teachings of Inner Ramana says:

“The mind is afraid because the unnatural is not natural. The mind that has forgotten reality knows that something is wrong, but it does not know what that is. It projects stories in an effort to give itself a reason for its fear, but it cannot find the answer it seeks because it is looking in the wrong direction. Its fear does not come from its own projections, and so solutions to those projections cannot end the fear.

Fear comes simply from not knowing reality. Therefore, the only answer to fear is to let go of what is false and to remember reality as true.”

Or as Michael Langford writes in The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss:

“Thought believes thought is a real entity and thought believes thought is a real self. Thought is not a real entity and thought is not a self. Living from thought instead of living from Awareness is the cause of all human suffering. …

The ego is the cause of all disease, death, war, fear, anger and violence. Although many thousands of years have passed, human beings have made almost no inward progress toward ending suffering, sorrow, war, fear, anger, violence, cheating and lying.

Thousands of years ago humans had suffering, sorrow, war, fear, anger, violence, cheating and lying.

Now, today, currently, humans have suffering, sorrow, war, fear, anger, violence, cheating and lying.

What has kept humans in the same pool of inward unsolved problems?

The ego (the imposter) has kept humans in the same pool of inward unsolved problems.

Inward problems cannot be solved by looking outward. Inward problems can only be solved by looking inward.

The ego knows that if the attention is turned inward, the ego will be found to be a myth, an imposter, an illusion, a delusion, a dream. Therefore, due to the ego’s fear of ending, the ego keeps the attention directed outward.”

If you contemplate “What is the world?” along with these excerpts from The Teachings of Inner Ramana and Michael Langford, you will see that they are all saying the same thing:

The ego (I-thought) is not the truth of what we are.

Since the I-thought is unconsciously aware that it is not truth, fear is inherent in its thought system.

The ego does not want to look inward to find the cause of its fear, because it unconsciously knows that if one looks inward, the I-thought will be found to be unreal.

Therefore, the mind projects problems outward and then tries to resolve its fear by solving those problems. This is the outward seeking mechanism of mind. It seeks pleasure and avoids pain.

Of course, outward seeking will never work, because as each problem is resolved, the fear inherent in the thought system continues. Therefore, another problem is projected by the fear in thought.

This seeking and projection loop continues for as long as the thought of separation continues.

The only answer to the world’s problems is to end the thought of separation (the ego, the I-thought).

Today I will judge nothing that occurs.

Judgment is based on the idea that we know what is good and bad, right and wrong, etcetera. If you look carefully at these ideas, you will see they are part of the outward seeking and projection loop described above. In other words, judgment is a primary function of the ego. Since judgment is an activity of the ego, believing judgment keeps the ego active.

The entire world and all of its problems are a projection of the ego. To believe the ego is to continue the projection. This is very important to see!

When we believe our own ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, etcetera, we think we are going to make things better through judgment, but in fact we are keeping the problem creator, the ego, active. This is very important to see!

In short, by trying to seek pleasure and avoid pain through judgment, we create the very suffering we seek to avoid.

When this is seen, the only reasonable response is to genuinely surrender all judgment and to turn to inner spiritual intuition regarding what to think, how to see, what to say and what to do.

Today, try not to believe judgment. Instead, practice the Loving All Method and practice surrender as it is taught in The Teachings of Inner Ramana. Leave creation to be itself without further complicating it with your individual assessment of what should and should not be.

Please read this tip two or three more times today. It is very important to fully accept what is written in this tip.

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

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