Today’s lesson begins by telling us “grace cannot come until the mind prepares itself for true acceptance.” And then it goes on to say, “Grace becomes inevitable instantly in those who have prepared a table” for it.
Yesterday, we looked at Steve Ford’s experience of grace. We saw his readiness demonstrated by how he allowed the experience to complete itself, even when the ego threatened him with madness or death if he were to continue. Even to that he consented. He was fully ready.
What we are doing now is preparing ourselves for the same state of readiness. Each time we see the ego in others or ourselves, we have an opportunity to prepare ourselves. Each time we feel upset, we have an opportunity to prepare ourselves. Each moment of paying attention to awareness is another moment preparing ourselves. We are in the stage of preparing the mind to consent to awakening when grace comes.
There is an interesting paragraph in today’s lesson. Let’s look at it together. It says:
“We have appeared to contradict our statement that the revelation of the Father and the Son as One has been already set. But we have also said the mind determines when that time will be, and has determined it. And yet we urge you to bear witness to the Word of God to hasten the experience of truth, …”
This paragraph appears to make three contradictory statements.
1 – The time for your awakening has already been set and written into the script.
2 – Your soul-mind has decided when your awakening will be.
3 – Through your willingness, the awakening experience can be hastened; it can come sooner rather than later.
Which is true? Can they all three be true?
NTI says, “This play has many endings, like slits cut in the script, where one can choose to step out of the play.” Maybe that is true; maybe there are many possibilities.
To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what’s true. I don’t know anything about how awakening comes about. And this is the perspective I encourage you to accept as your own.
You see, the mind likes to believe ideas. It gets its identity from believing ideas, including believing spiritual ideas. It wants to decide what it believes about awakening, and by doing so, it subtly claims that idea as ‘mine.’ Each idea of ‘mine,’ strengthens the ‘I’ that is the ego. After all, ego is simply identification with thought.
Therefore, I encourage you not to adopt ideas about awakening. I encourage you not to make spiritual beliefs a part of your ego belief system. Instead, prepare your mind to accept the journey into the unknown, which is the journey of awakening, by getting comfortable living with not knowing now. Abstain from all schools of thought.
In fact, today’s lesson seems to encourage our decision to ‘not know’ when it says, “There is no need to further clarify what no one in the world can understand.” And then it lets us know that, “When your revelation to your oneness comes, it will be known and fully understood.”
“Suffice it, then, that you have work to do to play your part. The ending must remain obscure to you until your part is done.”
What is our part? Preparing ourselves to accept awakening. Let that be our only concern. It is the ego that becomes over-concerned with finding ways to be helpful. Helpfulness occurs naturally as we prepare ourselves for awakening.
So then, our part is this:
~ self-inquiry, which is inquiring into the ego thought system in order to see its ideas are not true and in order to see we are not the false-self, which is made through identification with thought.
~ Self-inquiry, which is glimpsing awareness many times throughout the day & spending more concentrated time in awareness-watching-awareness meditation
~ surrender, which is discerning between intuition and ego, and then following intuition instead of ego
