Gentle Healing 2 ~ Day 337 – GH Year 2 Review: The 12 Lessons

NTI Revelation 7 lists 12 lessons that were taught in NTI, which prepare you to “choose only that which is true.” It could also be said that these 12 lessons prepare you to fully embrace the true while ignoring the false as completely meaningless.

Here’s a review of the 12 lessons along with some commentary. The lessons are in italics.

1. You are innocent. – One of the most challenging beliefs to transcend is the ‘I am bad’ belief. That may be experienced as ‘I am less than,’ ‘I am guilty,’ ‘I am lacking,’ etcetera. The ‘I am bad’ belief and the belief that others are bad (less than, guilty, lacking, etc.) is the same belief. The glue that makes the ‘I am bad’ belief difficult to transcend is the belief that you are what you say and do. (For example, if you say something mean you are mean.) In other words, the ‘I am bad’ belief is complete identification with body-mind-personality.

The ‘I am bad’ belief is transcended by understanding that thought and circumstances are made through consciousness’ believing-attention, and by responding to that understanding by removing believing-attention from the ‘I am bad’ belief and other judgmental thoughts. Since The Loving All Method is the antidote to this type of judgment (good and bad), it also helps you to transcend the ‘I am bad’ belief.

Another useful practice that transcends the ‘I am bad’ belief is rest-accept-trust, because rest-accept-trust allows thought, emotion and circumstances that were created by previous believing-attention to pass by without giving believing-attention again. In this way, the belief is weakened instead of strengthened. It is just as important to rest-accept-trust with the idea that someone else is bad as it is to rest-accept-trust with the idea that you are bad, since both ideas are the same belief.

Because this belief is so deeply engrained, it is very important to trust that you (and others) are innocent as you practice rest-accept-trust. Alternatively, you can love the experience of thought and emotion while practicing rest-accept-trust (which is The Loving All Method).

2. You are the Son of God, and everything you experience is a gift to yourself.– The ‘Son of God’ is a symbolic term for consciousness, which is the first and only direct creation of the absolute. Everything else is created by consciousness through believing-attention and its desire for experience. Therefore, everything, regardless of what it is, is a gift to one’s self for the purpose of experience.

3. You choose the purpose for everything you see, and the purpose you choose is the one that is given to it. – Since every experience is created by consciousness as a gift to itself, consciousness (you) can decide the purpose of every experience. Consciousness can say to itself, “I gave myself this experience because, ________” and decide what purpose fills that blank.

Although there may seem to be many possible purposes, there are only two. You may choose to have an experience that is different from truth, or you may choose to realize truth. If you decide another purpose, that other purpose is a subset of the choice to have an experience different from truth; therefore, it is the choice to have an experience different from truth. For example, if you believe the purpose of an experience is to get rich, or to get love, or to gain control, etcetera, you’ve decided to have an experience that is different from truth.

4. Purpose is based on desire. Since there is only one true desire, there is only one true purpose. Anything else is illusion. – The reason there are only two purposes is because there are only two desires: the desire for experience that is different from truth and the desire for truth.

When one is immersed in ignorance, he is immersed in experience as if it is reality, and he desires certain types of experience, because he believes those experiences will bring him happiness and safety. In other words, what he really wants is happiness and safety. Since uninterrupted happiness and unaffectedness (safety) comes from knowing one’s truth, even the ignorant unconsciously desire truth.

One who is dedicated to awakening consciously desires truth, so he gives that purpose to every experience he has. He does that by living a life centered on spiritual practice.

5. You are never alone. Separation is false. The Light in the mind lends you its strength, because the Light in the mind is your strength. – Reversing the desire for illusion is not easy, because illusion is a deeply engrained habit throughout consciousness. Most people in the world unconsciously support the choice for illusion (including other spiritual students), as do most of the thoughts that stream into your mind from consciousness.

Since the outer supports illusion, you must rely heavily on inner strength if you want to transcend illusion and realize truth.

6. The illusion of the world is false. It only seems real, because you have given it your belief. But by withholding your belief, its realness must fade. – The realization that believing-attention is the power that fuels illusion is one of the most important insights you can have. One who sees this clearly knows that if she gives believing attention to thought, emotion or perception, illusion is strengthened in her mind. The only way to see beyond illusion to truth is to withhold believing-attention from illusion through faith.

7. Your faith and trust is everything, for that which you put faith in, you will experience. This is because you are the Son of God. – Reference Day 98.

8. Your true desire is Know thy Self. Any other desire is the desire not to Know thy Self, which is to choose lack and fear. You are ready to put aside the temporary experience of lack and fear and to know the completeness of truth once again.

9. Anything that is not truth is illusion. To choose illusion is to choose fantasy, but fantasy cannot change the truth.

10. Fantasy is spun within the thinking mind. By allowing the thinking mind to spin, you choose fantasy. By allowing the thinking mind to rest, you choose truth.– This is a simple, but key teaching. If you learn to rest the thinking mind instead of giving it believing-attention, regardless of what it is saying, the ego will die in you, and only truth will remain.

11. Everything that you experience is Love. There is not one exception to this statement. If you believe you look on that which is not Love, you are misperceiving. To see and to know Love as it is, let go of your misperception. – Other words for Love are consciousness, existence and Self. The mind hides Love as it divides, defines and differentiates. To experience truth directly, disregard the mind’s interpretive chatter.

A good question to continually ask yourself is this: “Will I believe the mind or do I want to find out what I can experience without it?”

12. Oneness is all that is true now. The belief in separation has always been false, so anything that is seen through the lens of that belief must be false also. There is not one exception to this statement.

If you understand these twelve lessons and you are willing to live your life according to them, I recommend progressing to Gentle Healing Year 3. I also recommend printing this page for future reference.