A universal assembly for true discernment
Please read and contemplate quotes #557-560 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
The substratum upon which the false idea of the mind has been superimposed is the Self. When you see the mind, the Self, the underlying substratum, is not seen. It is hidden by a false but persistent idea. And, conversely, when the Self is seen there is no mind.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert interviewed Loch Kelly.
Loch Kelly, M.Div., LCSW, is an author, meditation teacher, psychotherapist, and founder of the 501c3 non-profit, Open-Hearted Awareness Institute. Loch teaches in a non-sectarian human being lineage using an adult education style based in the earliest non-dual wisdom traditions, modern science and psychotherapy. Loch is grateful to all his teachers and shares from his own experience that has given him great joy, freedom and love. Loch’s work is to help people access awakening as the next natural stage of human development. He offers in-person retreats, workshops, and online video and audio courses. His new book is called The Way of Effortless Mindfulness. His website is https://lochkelly.org/
We contemplated Michael Langford’s theatre analogy along with Lesson 151. Today’s workbook lesson looks at a difference between the theatre analogy and our experience with the world. In the theatre analogy, people are born in a theatre and mesmerized by the film, but they have nothing to do with creating the film. As today’s workbook lesson points out, we are each “co-creator of the universe.”
Today’s lesson begins, “No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes he wants. And no one dies without his own consent.” And it continues by saying, “And it is only here salvation is.”
Just like with Lesson 151, today’s lesson is clear that “what is false is false.” That which we co-create through the power of our decision is not true and it does not change truth. However, our decisions are the source of the illusion that we find ourselves so mesmerized with. We learned this when we studied and contemplated The Code.
Lesson 152 says, “Nothing occurs but represents your wish, … You may believe that this position is extreme, and too inclusive to be true.”
Over the next two days, we will look at this lesson in a very practical way. We will watch for decisions that we make that shape our individual experience. Many of these decisions seem unconscious until we watch for them, and then we see that they are made both consciously and repeatedly.
Here are few examples of the types of decisions you may see yourself make as you watch for the decisions that shape your experience.
I don’t want to do this.
I hate … (traffic, this heat, mean people, stupid people, myself, etc.)
I will never be able to …
I don’t have enough …
I’m tired of this.
He/she is … (annoying, wrong, stupid, lazy, etc.)
I’m so … (stupid, lazy, ugly, etc.)
I have too much to do.
They think … about me.
This situation is unacceptable.
I’ll be happy when I get …
I’ll be safe when I get …
I won’t ever … (understand this, be able to do this, get to go there, etc.)
No one ever pays attention to me.
This always happens to me.
This is too good; something bad is going to happen next.
This isn’t fair.
As you watch for the decisions you make, notice both the decisions and how those decisions affect your experience. Ask yourself, “If I made a different decision about this, how would my experience be different?” Look both at the circumstance and your emotional experience to see if you can find at least one way your experience would be different if you made a different decision.
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.
Please read and contemplate quotes #553-556 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
Realization in all its clarity flourished in the form of Self-consciousness, the light of Truth shining in the Heart as the vast expanse in which there is no arising of the contemptible ego.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
I remember when I was young, probably twelve or thirteen, my cousins who seemed to be a bit more radical thinking, would pose questions to me like…’What if when we thought we were sleeping, we were actually awake and when we thought we were awake we we actually sleeping?’ Now that doesn’t seem that radical, but I remember thinking that I didn’t like their theories. I wanted things to be as they seemed. I felt safe believing in reality as I perceived it. My cousins were suggesting chaos. I dismissed their ideas quickly.
When I was thirteen I may not have been willing to question my thoughts. I can understand a child having fear of the unknown, wanting to believe the world is like it presents itself to be, but as I have found myself on this path I can no longer place my faith in what my eyes and ears seem to report. This lesson calls our senses “idle witnesses, which merely bear false witness.” The lesson also says, “You believe to doubt his vassals is to doubt yourself. Yet you must learn to doubt their evidence will clear the way to recognize yourself, and let the Voice of God alone be Judge of what is worthy of your own belief.” The Voice of God is what ACIM calls the Holy Spirit, but we know it as the inner voice, inner wisdom, and intuition.
Today’s lesson says, “Let Him be Judge as well of everything that seems to happen to you in the world. His lessons will enable you to bridge the gap between illusions and the truth. He will remove all faith that you have placed in pain, disaster, suffering and loss. He gives you vision which can look beyond grim appearances….” The pain, disaster, suffering and loss lose their grip as we accept the vision of inner wisdom. The suffering dissipates when we are willing to use self-inquiry to discover what is and is not true.
When we are in our right mind we see that “all things are echoes of the Voice for God.” The Voice for God is our guide. Seeing with our right mind, guided by inner wisdom we can let our perceptions be corrected and our judgements be relinquished. We are learning to look at whatever the body’s eyes see without interpretation. In our studies this has been called Awareness-watching-Awareness (Self-Inquiry).
Please read and contemplate quote #552 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is that quote:
The enlightened state, in which the grace and wisdom of the Self is directly experienced, will not come into being unless we separate ourselves from the illusory world of the divided mind so that it can no longer exist. Therefore we must thoroughly investigate and comprehend our own Self, so that the hostility of the ghost-like ego, that brings with it the torment of an understanding based on differentiation, may cease.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Today’s workbook lesson exposes the falsity of the world we perceive with our senses. It also asks us to look at our willingness to believe our faulty perception. What the thinking mind reports to us of the world and the opinions it forms based on that evidence, do not serve us. Fear, judgment and doubt counsel that we follow their ways, but result only in more fear, judgment and doubt. When we invest belief in what our senses and our thinking report to us, we simply get more of the same.
Now that we are “onto” this ignorant and inept attempt to convince us that we are what we are not, what do we do with that information? What a perfect opportunity to ask ourselves, if I am not that thing I have believed myself to be, what am I?
It is our willingness to look at the question with firm resolve not to go running back to the thinking mind for answers that will guide us to the discovery of the truth. When Eshwar Segobind asked me to describe myself without using concepts, I saw very clearly the discomfort in leaving myself “undefined.” I saw very clearly the desire to know the answer to the question, “Who am I?”
That desire to know the answer has led us to cling to the answers we have made up. But it is our willingness to question our “reality” that leaves empty the space in which we learn the true answer to that question.
At the last Gentle Healing meeting, we listened to Regina read some paragraphs from Chapter 14 of “The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss.” Part of that reading was a story about a planet where people are born and raised in a movie theatre, and they never question if the movie on the screen is reality; they simply assume it is.
Here’s that story again:
“Imagine a planet where all of the people were born and raised and spent their entire lives in a movie theatre. Almost all of them believed the movie they were seeing on the screen was real. Their attention was so fixed on the screen that they never bothered to turn their heads around 180 degrees to see the projector’s light. One of them had the courage to turn his head around 180 degrees and he saw the projector’s light. He did not know what it was, but he followed that light until he found the projector. He went back and told the people that what they were seeing on the screen was not real.
“He told them that to find the projector they would have to turn their heads around 180 degrees. Due to the long habit of always keeping their attention fixed on the movie screen, fear of the unknown, their belief that the movie was real, and their disbelief in what he was telling them, very few bothered to turn their heads around 180 degrees to see the light from the projector. Some of those who did follow his instructions turned their heads immediately back to the screen. They were used to the illusion and afraid of the Truth. Others did not sustain their attempt to find the projector long enough to find it. After all it is difficult to find the projector in the dark. One has to pass through a number of doors to find it. Once in a while someone actually persevered long enough to find the projector.”
Today’s Course lesson is like the one in this story who had the courage to turn his head around 180 degrees and follow the projector’s light until he found the projector, and then “went back and told the people that what they were seeing on the screen was not real.” Today’s Course lesson says:
“You do not seem to doubt the world you see. You do not really question what is shown you through the body’s eyes. Nor do you ask why you believe it …”
We do well to contemplate Michael Langford’s analogy of the movie theatre and today’s Course lesson together. Isn’t it true that ever since we can remember our attention has been focused outward on thought and the world? Isn’t that like the people in the movie theatre who were born and raised with their attention on the movie screen? Isn’t it true that, just as they did not question the reality of the movie, we have not questioned the reality of our thoughts and perceptions? Isn’t it at least possible that what we have always believed to be reality is not reality? Doesn’t this possibility deserve genuine investigation? Isn’t it worth our time to find out what is true?
Today’s lesson calls our senses “idle witnesses, which merely bear false witness…” Do we want to continue to believe them without question, or are we willing to use inquiry (self-inquiry) and awareness-watching-awareness meditation (Self-inquiry) to discover what is and is not true?
