A universal assembly for true discernment
Please read quotes 792-793 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
Grace, the Supreme, is rare and unique. There is nothing that resembles it. To make it the object of one’s desire is the most virtuous of desires. As all other desires are quenched through the very desire for it, it will shine in the heart spontaneously.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Please take time this morning to read, “What is Forgiveness,” to contemplate Lesson 227, 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:
This is my holy instant of release.
Our primary practices, awareness-watching-awareness and forgiveness are both ways of removing attention from thought. Removing attention from thought is our holy instant of release. But, why is our primary practice for release removing attention from thought?
First the “What is Forgiveness?” section of ACIM explains, “Forgiveness recognizes what you thought… has not occurred.” Second, our release comes from what ACIM calls perfect communication or what we call awareness-watching-awareness. When we become still and turn within through awareness watching awareness, we bring ourselves into perfect communication with our beingness, which shares its essence with God and our brothers. Thus by removing our believing attention from our thoughts and turning to awareness watching awareness, we transcend private thoughts in favor of perfect communion with everything.
“This is the recognition that all minds are in communication. It therefore seeks to change nothing, but merely to accept everything [forgiveness].” But our “private thoughts break perfect communication.” We justify and defend “private thoughts” and yet “wonder why it is that [we] are not in full communication with those around [us], and with God [truth] who surrounds all of [us] together. It is impossible to recognize perfect communication while breaking communication holds value to you. Ask yourselves honestly, ‘Would I want to have perfect communication, and am I wholly willing to let everything that interferes with it go forever?’”
The willingness to practice forgiveness and awareness-watching-awareness represents the single will that governs all thoughts. As ACIM Chapter 16 advises, “In your practice, then, try only to be vigilant against deception, and seek not to protect the thoughts you would keep unto yourself. Let the Holy Spirit’s [or Inner Wisdom’s] purity shine them away, and bring all your awareness to the readiness for purity…Thus [will you be made] ready to acknowledge that you are host to God [truth], and hostage to no-one and nothing.”
We protect our thoughts by indulging them. We want to ensure that we are vigilant in applying the practices of both forgiveness and awareness-watching-awareness. When you find yourself upset, ask yourself whether you are justifying or defending your thoughts or whether you are engaging in forgiveness through self-inquiry, rest-accept-and-trust, and right reasoning. It is only by practicing forgiveness that we make ourselves ready for perfect communication or clarity when we practice awareness-watching-awareness.
Regina Dawn Akers reads selections from books by Bernadette Roberts. The purpose of this inspired book study is to learn from one who walked through the final doorway to no self, no world, no God–Only Reality.
Kate shares her experience as she goes about the business of giving up her ideas about herself and the world on her journey toward purification and awakening. Kate shares with wisdom and humor and allows us a glimpse into the beautiful and sometimes messy blossoming of life examined with an eye on Truth.
Weekly Gathering with Rev. Regina Dawn Akers
Please read quotes 789-791 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is a portion of the last quote:
In order to qualify as an aspirant, one must have the absolute conviction that happiness, the sole aim of all living beings, can be obtained not from external objects but only from one’s own inmost Self.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Please take time this morning to read, “What is Forgiveness,” to contemplate Lesson 226, 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:
My home awaits me. I will hasten there.
There is no reason for us to hold onto unhappiness of any kind. Only our own ideas and the value we give them create unhappiness.
What ideas are you giving value to that create your unhappiness?
Do you think things should be different than they are? Is there an ideal perfection that is not being met? Is someone acting different than you want him/her to act? Should you have something that you do not have? Is your mind full of self-condemnation, or is it highly critical of another?
When you are unhappy, pause and look. What idea is currently present and currently valued as true? Do you value this idea more than the opportunity to know the freedom of truth realization? Or are you willing to release this idea and any value you’ve given it in order to be one step closer to total freedom?
Please read quotes 786-788 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
Your most important objective must be realizing the Self. If you have not done this, you will spend your time in ignorance and illusion.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Please take time this morning to read, “What is Forgiveness,” to contemplate Lesson 225, 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:
God is my Father, and His Son loves Him.
Today’s tip begins, “Father, I must return Your Love for me.” This, the desire to give God back the love that He gave us, may seem difficult because God can seem to be abstract, but the truth is, God is Love, and as NTI 1 John 4 points out, “Love is everything. The thoughts of everything are these: acceptance, joy, gratitude, peace and welcome.” With these thoughts we can return our mind to God. NTI 1 John 1 says, [This return comes] “in a moment of peace when God is your only desire.” We give love back by giving attention to life-awareness by gratefully spending time in awareness-watching-awareness meditation. God, as awareness, exists within you. Experience that, accept that God is and you are one with that.
NTI 1 John 4 continues, “When any thought does not feel like love, you may put it aside as false. Love is all that there is. Thoughts that are not Love are thoughts such as these: lack, limits, competition, victimhood, personhood, strife, and fighting, sickness, death, rage, and sorrow, helplessness, hopelessness, control and loss. These are thoughts that imply separation, and separateness is illusion.” Next time you believe a brother has hurt you, stop, look and see, has awareness been hurt? We know that we are all a part of Love, or awareness-life-presence, and whether it is apparent or not our brothers’ interests are the same as ours and that is to know ourselves as the awareness-life-presence, or the Love that we truly are.
Please read and contemplate the instructions for Step Four in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is a portion of those instructions:
Increase your desire for liberation. Make your desire for liberation more intense than the energy of a trillion stars. Make your desire for liberation so intense that your entire life is dedicated to awakening.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
