Yesterday’s reading said:
Choose … to be independent of your experience.
Independent means free and unaffected.
Awakeness is free from the world and unaffected by it. That is why Jesus, as awakeness, said:
These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)
In NTI Romans, we learned about the curiosity that created the creative principle, and via the creative principle, create the world and the ego. That curiosity is:
What if nothing was as it is?
The ego and the world, which are created through and for this curiosity, are necessarily not truth. They are appearances created through the creative principle, and their appearance appears as anything but truth. That’s why they are called “illusion.”
To look at something that is created specifically for the purpose of appearing different from truth and to hope to find evidence of truth in it is foolishness. Yet, that is a mistake that spiritual seekers make all of the time.
For example, one democratic-minded spiritual seeker was thrilled when Barrack Obama was elected president of the United States in 2008. She saw his election as evidence that the world was awakening. Of course, since then Donald Trump has been elected president and has undone many of the policies Barrack Obama put in place. Does that mean the world has fallen asleep again?
What about when a war ends, such as World War II? Is that a victory for awakening? What about the wars and crimes against humanity that have occurred since then?
What about when a personal problem is resolved? Don’t new problems arise to replace it?
The world is an appearance that is made to appear different from truth. One of those differences is change. If you watch the world carefully, you will notice that change is the world’s greatest constant. (Admittedly, it is change within a limited buffet of reoccurring problems.) Sometimes the world changes so that specific situations are temporarily “good” by the mind’s standards, but “good” will always eventually be replaced by “bad.”
Look carefully at the world, regardless of whether your mind judges it as “good” or “bad,” and realize that it’s not truth. It’s not truth, and truth can’t be found in the world.
Let the world be as it is. Don’t seek truth by seeking permanent good in the world. You will eventually be disappointed.
Seek truth by looking within. Find that which is absolutely changeless. See that is what you are, and abide as that. You are the only truth that can be found in the world—and actually, the world is an appearance in you.
Know your Self, and be your Self. Truth is known by being it.
Thoughts of Awakening # 178
Fear says, “I am not love.
I am something bad.”
And so fear
runs and hides
and attacks and defends
and runs and hides some more.
But fear is only an idea in the mind.
It is a story.
It is not truth at all.
To see and realize truth
as it is right now
one must not listen
to the stories of fear.
To not listen
is not to believe.
To not listen
is to remember
that what fear says
isn’t true.
~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, 176-182
- Read NTI 2 Corinthians 1-7
- The reading shared on Tuesday night was from The Transparency of Things by Rupert Spira, 188-191, Consciousness is Self-Luminous
- Exercise:The game this week is to spend some time in mediation. Start being aware, without judgment, just notice what you hear, sensations, smells. Just notice and don’t rush it. Allow your awareness to open up and when your mind quiets, ask, “What is aware?” Become aware of awareness.