Day 50: NTI Mark 12 (v1-12) – (v18-27)
When we derive a portion or all of our self-image from the truth teaching that we study, the teaching is hijacked by the ego, and it is no longer effective. Instead, the teaching becomes a tool that is used by the ego to continue the ego and its illusion.
That is the meaning of the story about the vineyard, which you will find in today’s reading. The perfect vineyard is the teaching. However, the one who becomes identified with the teaching turns it into a personal thought system. Once the teaching is reduced to a thought system that ‘I’ identify with, it needs to be defended whenever the thought system appears threatened. At this point, the teaching becomes completely ineffective, and it isn’t used for the purpose that it was originally given, which is truth realization.
A term commonly used for this process of identifying with a teaching, turning it into a personal thought system, and then defending the thought system is, “fundamentalism.” Like ritual, fundamentalism is the husk of truth faith.
Awakening Together’s fourth core value addresses fundamentalism.
We affirm one true Self as the only truth. We live this value by embracing what is helpful on the path of awakening without idolizing any spiritual doctrine as truth.
NTI Revelation, Chapter 1, also addresses the mistake of fundamentalism.
The world is an illusion, and so everything you experience as you let go of the world is illusion also. You are not to believe any of it. But helpful symbols will be given to guide you. Remember that they are only symbols. Follow them, realizing you know not where they lead.
Do not idolize anything within the world or any symbol or any thought that is sent to lead you from the world. Hold to them as they are useful, but let them go when their usefulness has past. You are to keep moving by letting go until you find yourself with nothing left to hold onto.
Twice, today’s reading says, “Jesus understood the confusion within the mind and the thought that gave rise to such confusion.” The confusion is fundamentalism. The thought that gives rise to the confusion is the “I” thought, a thought that constantly seeks for a self-image.
To awaken, we must let go of self-image, including spiritual self-image, and embrace “the oneness of God”—consciousness, the Second Principle of God—as what we are.
