Today, we continue looking at the seventh step in the awakening process. That step is to give no meaning to anything the ego may say or anything you may experience as the ego dies its final death. The only way to pass through the seventh step is to purify the beliefs that are part of your conditioned thinking. If those beliefs are not purified, you will interpret the ego’s death fearfully, and you will retreat from the ego’s death, because retreating makes you feel more comfortable.
Yesterday, you may have learned something about your thinking. For example, you may have learned that you perceive some things as good and other things as bad. You may like peace and silence, but detest violence, especially in the name of righteousness.
When you go through the final death of the ego, it’s important that you do not interpret anything you hear, feel or experience as meaningful. Instead, you want to simply be with it, whatever it is. As you be with the ego without giving it believing attention, it can pass away. However, when you give the ego believing attention, it has you (awareness) in its grip, and you will act reactively instead of from clarity.
That means that if you think peace and silence are good, and violence is bad or fearful, the ego can use that against you to extend its apparent existence.
It is much better if you see peace and silence as constant, and if you see violence as a temporary scene that will soon pass away. That is a completely different interpretation than “good” and “bad,” and it is an interpretation that will allow you to pass through the seventh step.
Today’s reading interprets Revelation with the right-mind. It encourages to you to seek out the conditioned beliefs that you are not aware of. It asks you to not be distracted by the “smoke that rises out of the abyss,” but to look “past the smoke, deep into the abyss.”
The “smoke” and “abyss” refer to symbols used in Revelation 9. The “smoke” is the smoke screen of the world, and the “abyss” is the mind. In other words:
Do not believe you are upset because of anyone or anything in the world.
Look in the mind for the cause of your upset.
Whenever you believe you are upset because of someone or something in the world, you are deceived by the smoke screen. Instead, look beyond the situation that appears to have upset you, and look in your mind to find the belief that caused your upset. This process of uncovering and letting go of conditioned beliefs is the purification that will enable you to pass through step seven to final awakening.
Today’s reading points out that purification is not always easy. We have repressed false beliefs because they were uncomfortable to face. However, they aren’t true. They are false beliefs. In order to purify, we need to face them, feel them and let them fade away. That’s how we discover they were never real in the first place.
Sometimes people are afraid to look at their false beliefs. If you are afraid to look, you will not look, and you will remain a robot to your conditioning. However, there is nothing to fear, because you are looking at false beliefs. Looking is the way to freedom.
Please read Revelation 9:1-11, and then read today’s reading in NTI:
Thoughts of Awakening # 278
You are stillness.
You are peace.
You are love.
When you think you are the thinking,
you are only mistaken about what you are.
Ask yourself this:
Is there joy in thinking?
Or does true joy lie
in the bountiful beauty
of stillness?
~From our Holy Spirit
