Today’s reading says:
I lead you where you want to go. Do not fear that I will ask you to do what you do not want to do. I cannot do that, because I know what you are.
It also says:
I can only want for you that which you do want. This is why you have the freedom to choose dreams of illusion, if that is the experience you desire. I will not take from you that which you desire.
If you ask a human what s/he wants, you might get a list of hopes and dreams. When awake consciousness says, “I lead you where you want to go,” it does not mean that it will lead you to achieve all of those hopes and dreams. Awake consciousness has a different point-of-view. From its point-of-view, there are only two things you could want: truth or illusion. And right now, you desire only one of those two. You desire truth or you desire illusion. If you think you desire both truth and illusion, you desire illusion, because there is no illusion in truth.
When awake consciousness says, “I lead you where you want to go,” it means that it leads us to truth. Yet, if we are not ready for truth, it waits gratefully. It sees us as we are—as consciousness—and it wants for us what we think we want. So if we want the experience of illusion, it is grateful that we experience illusion.
Of course, if we choose illusion, we choose duality. Duality will never be “all good,” because it includes the swings of change. Nothing is constant in illusion. Everything eventually ends. Illusion is never wholly pleasant to the mind that desires it.
Our reading says:
I will never make you suffer, because I know you cannot suffer.
This is not speaking to a person in a world, because a person can suffer. This speaks to our truth. Awake consciousness does not see us as persons. It sees us as we are. It does not arrange the universe to suit the person. It lets the universe unfold as it is created through the creative principle, and it continues to remind us that we are before the world and before the creative principle. We are unaffected, untouched consciousness. The world is meaningless to what we are—meaningless, because the world cannot affect or change what we are—just as a gnat on the back of an elephant is meaningless to the elephant.
Thoughts of Awakening # 170
How does one quiet the mind?
One starts by choosing
not to fear
anything the mind is saying.
One watches each idea and picture
with the intent
to set that idea or picture aside
and be still.
One continues watching
with this intent in place
until the mind has become
empty, quiet and still.
One pauses to listen to the silence.
One feels the Heart
through the emptiness of mind.
One rejoices and has gratitude
that a moment of peace
has been given.
~From our Holy Spirit
Homework for this week
- Practice daily meditation for 30-60 minutes each day.
- Practice the “Loving All” Method.
- Thoughts of Awakening, 169-175
- Read NTI 1 Corinthians 10-16
- The reading shared on Tuesday night was from The Transparency of Things by Rupert Spira, 185-187, The Here and Now of Presence
- Exercise: This week we have two games. The first is to tune into the sense of hereness. Notice that it doesn’t change no matter where you are. You’re always here. That’s consciousness.
The second is everything is happening now. Even thoughts about the past or the future are happening now. The now is stable and constant. Time happens in the now. Notice it’s always now. No matter when you notice, it’s always now. The same now.
The now and the here and consciousness are all the same thing. It is what you are. That’s why it is always here and now.
