Please take time this morning to read, “What is Forgiveness,” to contemplate Lesson 223, and to spend time in meditation. If you have 30-minutes for meditation and would like a gentle audio to guide you, I recommend this meditation by Michael Langford and Karen Worth:
God is my life. I have no life but His.
The ego is the thought that I am my own entity. It is the thought that I have life and I have awareness, but I am the entity; the life and awareness that I have are my possessions. They are “my life” and “my awareness.” It is also the thought that life and awareness other than my life and my awareness are separate from the life and awareness in me. It’s as if I have a bottled up source of life and awareness that exists in the body, which is my container.
Self-inquiry questions these basic ego assumptions.
What is the “I” that is its own entity? Of course, there is the appearance of the body. If one does not look deeply one may point at the body and say, “I am my own entity.” But does the body make these claims? What is the “I” that claims to be its own separate entity?
When one pauses to look more deeply, one will find that the mind is the “I” that claims to be its own entity.
Is it true that the mind is its own entity? Does the mind possess life and awareness as it claims or is living-awareness aware of the mind? Does thought possess life and awareness or is living-awareness (as presence) aware of thought?
Once you have distinguished between thought and awareness-life-presence through the previous inquiry, focus attention on presence (present awareness). Is presence what you are? Can you separate yourself from present awareness or is that you? Does presence make any claims of possessing life and awareness or is it simply permeated with life-awareness? Can presence be separated from life-awareness?
Contemplate the life-awareness that permeates presence. This requires intuitive contemplation of that which cannot be seen but can be realized. It has no personality. It has no sense of self. It is before presence, which does have a non-personal sense of “I am,” but life-awareness does not have a sense of “I am.” It is the life-awareness energy of presence, just as electricity is the energy that lights a light bulb.
With contemplative attention on life-awareness, the essence of presence, ask:
Is this life-awareness separate or different from the life-awareness in any other presence? (This is similar to asking, “Is the electricity that lights the bulb in this lamp separate or different from the electricity that lights the bulb in that lamp?)
Do you find that there is one source that permeates presence with life-awareness or are there different sources?
If there is one source that permeates presence with life-awareness, and if presence is life-awareness, and presence is what you are, can you say that you are your own entity? Or, are you the essence of your source, which is also the essence of all things?
