A universal assembly for true discernment
Please read and contemplate quotes #497-500 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. This is the last quote today:
There is no illusion in the infinite.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Today’s lesson focuses on healing.
It may seem to emphasize sickness, but were we to do that in this tip, we would maintain a misplaced focus on the outer. You have all heard me bemoan the limitations of ACIM and it’s unfortunate language, which seems to encourage us to maintain the belief in ourselves as bodies—at least as body/mind/personalities. In actuality, it’s not the Course that’s hung up there, it’s simply the nature of the thinking mind.
When we read the word ”sickness,” our thoughts go to the body. Thus, even when we read that only the mind can be sick and that only by healing the mind are we able to cure our sickness, somehow, we carry our body delusion into that sentence and interpret it to say that, if my body is sick, I have failed in the healing of my mind. (Most of us go on to conclude that, therefore, I am bad, but that is a lesson for another day).
Today’s lesson referred to healing as a “counter-dream.” It is important to realize that both sickness and health are illusions. Some people make the mistake of putting health above sickness spiritually. They feel sickness is a sign of spiritual weakness or failure, and health is the badge of spiritual success. This is not at all true.
There are some very healthy people who have not even started to move towards spiritual Awakening, and there are enlightened people who have had sick bodies.
This misconception points to a larger misconception. The spiritual path isn’t about replacing bad dreams with good dreams. It is about waking from dreams entirely.
NTI 2 Peter calls this waking from dreams Abundance. “As you reach for true abundance, you accept everything as you. In this, there can be nothing that is missing. Abundance is full awareness of your divine nature.”
ACIM calls sickness “not right-mindedness.” It then tells us, “All forms of not-right-mindedness are the result of refusal to accept the Atonement for yourself.”
We accept the Atonement for ourselves by accepting our own Divinity. We accept our Divinity by removing our believing attention from the thinking mind.
“Without [the thinking] mind you look on illusion and see that it is nothing to affect your smile. In your seeing, you love it. In your loving it, it disappears from what it seemed to be and is only that which it has always been. … Peace is found in the abundance of the Heart, because in the awareness of your truth all other thoughts are laid to rest. There is no truth but You, and so there are no thoughts that have power over you. Rejoice in your abundance! You are everything and everything you see comes from you. This is the truth that sets you free.”
Regina Dawn Akers looked at the final portion of the November 18, 1980 conversation in Consciousness and the Absolute.
Regina Dawn Akers reads from the Tao Te Ching in order to contemplate enlightened leadership.
Anne Blanchard shares her experience of purification and awakening, unfiltered and as it happens. Raw, reflective, brave, and infused with clarity.
Anne’s open honesty inspires us all to dive deep into the spiritual journey instead of simply skimming the surface.
Join us on July 21 at 7:30 pm ET as we join with our guest, Loch Kelly. This is our second Satsang interview with Loch.
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. He served on the New York Insight Teachers Council, studied extensively with Mingyur Rinpoche, and was invited to teach direct realization by Adyashanti.
Loch has just released a new book we will discuss in the Satsang. The practices discussed there should prove to be very helpful to those of us who are practicing awareness watching awareness meditation. Please join us and bring questions for Loch. We look forward to seeing you!
Please read and contemplate quotes #493-496 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. This is the last quote today:
Whatever objects are perceived in this world are the mind only, even as the dream-objects are the mind only.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
This lesson puts forth a similar idea if not the same idea as we experienced in Lesson 134, “Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.” In that lesson we concluded sin can’t be real because sin is only an illusory idea; fantasy in an illusory world. The same can be said about sickness. Sickness is an illusory idea and nothing more than a defense.
Defenses are lies and justifications that we tell ourselves and others. Then we work it out in our mind to make it true. Of course it isn’t really true, in fact it is a defense (justification) against truth. We do this everyday without hardly noticing it. For example, I started writing this tip yesterday. When it got late I decided to go to bed, but before I went to bed I fired off two text messages.
Message one: “I forgot to call you about going to dinner. Too much happening in my life.”
Message two: “Will you call and remind me of our meeting in the morning or I’ll forget. It is hell getting old.”
Both of these messages contain defenses against the truth. Most of us want to believe our defenses are genuine and deny that they were a choice. Defenses are all about finding a way of concealing, but maintaining separation. Also whatever our defense is–sickness, busyness, old age or something else–know that we created these situations that keep us from seeking truth with our whole heart. They keep our minds focused in the world. And yesterday’s lesson taught us that all defenses are attack thoughts.
If we view this train of thought from our right mind, we’ll see that defenses and/or attack thoughts are unreal thoughts. Real thoughts, thoughts that we think with God are called truth. Unreal thoughts come from the ego or deceived mind. The deceived mind can seem to experience the unreal as pain and sickness. But again, we know these are unreal because we know these defenses don’t come from God, Awareness, Divinity or Wholeness.
In ACIM’s Teachers Manual, it says, “The body’s eyes will continue to see differences. But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be ‘sicker’ than others, and the body’s eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal.
It is only when I identify with the egoic or deceived mind that I defend myself. It is only then that I believe I can attack others. It is only then that I believe in such illusions as pain and pleasure and pride and guilt, etc.
Our job is to let go of the interpretations, the mind chattering and the justifications and realize our defense are like attacks. We have the power to delay our own awakening, but our responsibility is to let our minds be healed by recognizing the unreality of our defenses and let them go. Forgiveness confirms we are wholly innocent.
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 and Connie Poole
Homework for next week:
