A universal assembly for true discernment
Please read and contemplate quotes #753-756 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
In the infinite and unmodified or unconditioned consciousness modification is impossible; the conditioning is but a false notion. Therefore, it melts away in the heart of one who has Self-knowledge and who is free from delusion and ego-sense.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Review instructions: Spend at least 15 minutes in the morning and evening contemplating today’s lesson. Repeat today’s idea at least hourly. Use today’s idea throughout the day.
Today’s review idea:
I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
Love is the way I walk in gratitude.
Lesson 195 tells us you would have to be insane to refuse to take the steps that would allow you to escape from the imprisoned mind.
I’m grateful for awareness-life-presence. Being grateful for awareness-life-presence is simply being grateful for what we really are, our isness, our beingness, our life force. It is the truth of us. This gratitude has been called right gratitude.
When we slip into comparisons, we have slipped into wrong minded perception because, as Lesson 195 pointed out, “Love makes no comparisons. And gratitude can only be sincere if it is joined in love.”
Who hasn’t repeated the famous quote, “But by the grace of God, there go I”? When we think this way, we have slipped out of gratitude into judgement without even realizing it.
Judgement means to make unequal by comparison. If we compare our state of perception, a luckier life than the life of others, we have, according to the original lesson, “split them [our brothers] off in our awareness from the unity we share with them, as they must share with us.”
So thank God we are separate from no living thing” because unless we are thankful for every living thing then, “we offer thanks for nothing.”
In our practice today, then, we want to look at the previous hour and see if in that hour we had any wrong minded perceptions. Should we find any, we are encouraged to pause and replace it with right gratitude by focusing our appreciative attention on truth (awareness-life-presence) and bypassing our judgements.
Regina Dawn Akers guides a group of committed students who would like to make consistent, gentle progress toward genuine peace, joy and love.
Facilitated by Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert & Connie Poole
Homework for next week:
Anne Blanchard guides a group of committed students through year 2 of Gentle Healing who would like to make consistent, gentle progress toward genuine peace, joy and love. This group meets weekly and all members are committed to specific assignments and practices between group meetings.
Everyone who has completed year 1 Gentle Healing and is willing to make a commitment to deepening even further into healing/awakening is invited to join this group.
The AT Shuttle picks and drops off at the Colorado Springs airport. If you are traveling into and out of the Denver airport, there is a public shuttle that you can use to get between the Denver and Colorado Springs airports. You’ll find more information about that public shuttle at the bottom of this page.
Only shuttle this day: Pick up at Colorado Springs Airport at 6pm (Arrive La Veta about 7:45pm)
The cost of the AT Shuttle is $60 each way, $120 round-trip.
Reservations are Required:
If you are interested in using the AT Shuttle to attend a retreat, please Contact Us. Let us know the date(s) you’d like to reserve for and the shuttle that you will take for each date. We will send you a link for payment.
If you fly into/out of Denver:
If you are flying into and out of Denver, you can get to the Colorado Springs airport via the Groome Transportation Shuttle, and then take the AT Shuttle from there. Be sure to reserve a Groome shuttle that will get you to the Colorado Springs airport in time to catch the AT Shuttle on arrival, and reserve a Groome shuttle that will depart Colorado Springs after the AT Shuttle drops you off. Careful coordination of flight times with shuttle schedules will be required.
Please read and contemplate quotes #749-752 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
The abandonment of ego-sense is the cessation of ignorance; this and nothing else is liberation.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Review instructions: Spend at least 15 minutes in the morning and evening contemplating today’s lesson. Repeat today’s idea at least hourly. Use today’s idea throughout the day.
Today’s review idea:
I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
I place the future in the Hands of God.
In preparing to write today’s tip, I asked Inner Wisdom, “What does it mean to place my future in the hands of God?” This is what came.
It means that you do just this [referring to asking the question]. You ask me how you are to see, and think and respond. If you have no preferred outcomes, what else would you use to navigate but surrender?
[Upon feeling an uneasy feeling in my chest], It means more than ignoring the tug at the heart—the anguish or anxiety that you sometimes feel. It means looking squarely at that pain and asking it what it would show you. For only by knowing why it has come can you learn how it holds you to an imaginary past of your own making.
Imagining the past is no different than imagining the future. In order to imagine the past or the future, you must first imagine “I.” Surrender does not require an “I.” Surrender is the absence of self-will, which is absence of the “I.”
You say that absence of the I is your goal, and yet, you do not practice given the opportunity. You take the opportunity to surrender the I every time you surrender—every time you ask, ‘What am I to do now, how am I to see this, how am I to respond,’ etc.
Placing the future in the hands of God is drawing the road map to where your journey ends. This is the only choice to be made. Today, practice what you really want. Practice placing your future in the hands of God.
This Ted talk was called “The Energy of Thought”. Penny Zenker was the speaker.
Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert led us in this group discussion.
Somewhat like a crescendo, this retreat will build in intensity for the first five days. You’ll experience two days of gradually increasing clarity through group meditation, contemplation and discussion, and then you’ll dive deep into Self awareness with three days of self-inquiry dyads.
What are self-inquiry dyads?
A self-inquiry dyad is when two people practice self-inquiry together, and they share everything they experience with one another as they look within. Psychologists have discovered that people go deeper within themselves in dyads than they do when looking at themselves alone, and we agree. Self-inquiry dyads are surprisingly effective! At this retreat, you’ll have the opportunity to practice self-inquiry dyads in several different dyad pairs.
After dyads, we’ll end the Self Awareness retreat with two days of wrap up, relaxation and fun.
This retreat is planned specifically for you. Between now and the beginning of the retreat, you may submit questions or topics that you’d like addressed at the retreat. Regina Dawn Akers will design an experience-based retreat focused on your submissions, making this retreat participatory instead of lecture-based. In addition, she will plan fun “field trips” to places in and around La Veta, so everyone also has the chance to enjoy one another’s company.
This retreat is called “Satsang and Sangha” because it combines wisdom, clarity and togetherness into one fun and insightful week. Like peanut butter and chocolate, satsang and sangha is the perfect combination for Awakening Together’s annual retreat.
