Note: If desired, watch all of Acts 13 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.

Today’s reading tells us what to expect when we genuinely choose intuitive wisdom as our guide. Some of the things to expect include:

A unique path to follow. No two people follow the exact same path to awakening. One of the greatest mistakes people make is trying to copy another person’s way instead of tuning within to discern the guidance that is given specifically for him or her to follow.

Resistance. When you decide to let intuitive wisdom be your guide, an important decision has been made. However, it is unlikely that all value you’ve placed on thinking will immediately fall away. It will more likely fall away over time as your trust in intuitive wisdom increases. You will experience resistance to the degree that you still value thinking. As your trust and dependence on intuitive wisdom increases, resistance weakens.

To need a strong spiritual aspiration. As we have learned before, our spiritual aspiration is the most important factor on our path of awakening. As we go further along the path, this doesn’t become less true; it becomes truer.

To need trust and patience. The mind has its own expectations about how the spiritual path and guidance should unfold for you, but if the spiritual path and guidance unfolded in the way the mind expected, it would only reinforce the mind. Therefore, you can expect it to be different than what you expect. Because it will not be what you imagine, you will need trust and patience in order to let it unfold in its own way.

To let go of how you see. As you follow guidance, you will at first see things as you have always seen them. For example, you may see other people at fault for something that troubles you. All wrong-minded seeing comes from the wrong-mind, so you will need to learn to turn to guidance when you see with the wrong-mind. Ask guidance to help you see where you still believe the wrong-mind. Ask guidance to help you see with the right-mind. Be willing to journal and practice inquiry on your wrong-minded perceptions.

To let others be as they are. Just as you were free to value thinking as your guide until you changed your mind, others are free to value thinking as their guide. Others are free to believe their wrong-minded perceptions. Others are free to act from ignorance. When you respect their freedom, you respect truth, because our truth is life-awareness-freedom.

This list tells us what we can expect when we choose intuitive wisdom as our authority in the world.

Note: I recommend printing this tip for future reference.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.

Note: If desired, watch all of Acts 12 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.

Yesterday’s reading said:

The words of the Holy Spirit are final. … They are the only authority in a world that seems absent of Authority, and so it is this authority that is given.

Today’s reading says:

The authority of the world is confusion and illusion, which is no authority at all. … This is why you have the Holy Spirit.

The “authority of the world” is thinking. The “Holy Spirit” is intuitive wisdom.

The world values thinking as its guide, but as today’s reading points out, and as it’s been pointed out to us many times before, thinking is the problem, not the answer.

Have you observed your own thinking processes enough to realize that thinking is the cause of your suffering, or do you still think that thinking will resolve your problems and lead you to freedom?

If you think that thinking will resolve your problems and lead you to freedom, intuitive wisdom rests silently within you, so silently that you may not know it is there. It doesn’t interfere with your attraction to thinking as long as thinking is what you value.

However, if you are beginning to see that thinking is the problem, wisdom is ready to replace thinking. It is ready to be your guide.

You have to make the decision.

Do you still value your mind above everything else?

Do you want your spiritual aspiration or do you want to protect your mind’s image of itself?

What do you choose as your authority?

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.

Note: If desired, watch all of Acts 11 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.

Today’s reading is about authority. It is a simple reading, clear and easy to understand, unless you have an “authority problem.” If you do, today’s reading might bring up resistance in you.

It’s interesting that the word “authority” has “author” as its basis. One who feels resistance to authority might be able to see today’s reading differently by focusing on “author” in the word “authority.” Ask, “Which do I want to be the author of my script, ego or Spirit?”

As we learned when we studied The Code, everything is part of a script. Every thought that comes into your mind comes from the script (the code). The only real choice that you have as awareness is the choice regarding what you will give your attention to. Through this choice and the creative principle, more script (code) is written.

If you give attention to the ego thoughts that come into the mind, ego and its script are emphasized and reprocessed by the creative principle. If you give attention to intuitive wisdom, wisdom and its script are emphasized and reprocessed.

What do you want emphasized and reprocessed in your experience?

Choose that as your author-ity. By choosing that as your authority, and by allowing it to be your authority, you will discover where that script leads.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.

Today’s reading says:

Each of your brothers is one with you. And so each of your brothers has one purpose, and that is the purpose given him within the mind.

In this sentence, “mind” is synonymous with consciousness. This sentence is another way of saying that light is spreading within one mind (consciousness). If we use the cake batter analogy, the moment the blue food coloring was put in the cake batter, it became one purpose for all of the cake batter to become blue. In that same way, it is one purpose for all of consciousness to awaken to itself.

Since all of consciousness has the purpose of awakening, awakening is the true purpose of every heart. Of course, it is easy to look at the world and see that not everyone lives by this purpose. In fact, most people don’t. However, our hearts communicate with us all of the time. When a person is, in the moment, in harmony with the true purpose of the heart, that person experiences joy. When a person is not, in the moment, in harmony with the true purpose of the heart, that person experiences some type of suffering.

Let’s look at an example:

Let’s imagine a man who lives in a self-centered way. He is a businessman. His primary objectives in life are to make money and enjoy himself. However, he experiences stress and anger at work regularly. Stress and anger indicate that he is out of harmony with consciousness’ purpose, which is a purpose he hasn’t consciously discovered yet.

One day a friend recommends a book called Busting Loose From the Business Game: Mind-Blowing Strategies for Recreating Yourself, Your Team, Your Business, and Everything in Between, by Robert Scheinfeld. He is motivated to read this book, because of his desire to make money. As he reads the book, he recognizes some of his self-limiting beliefs. Since he sees them as obstacles to success, he uses the process in the book to let them go. As he does, he begins to experience more joy at work.

Why has stress and anger been replaced with joy?

Even though he doesn’t have a conscious goal of awakening, he is beginning to live by the principles of awakening. Through these principles, he is falling into harmony with the true heart, and the effect is joy.

Everyone is joined in one purpose, because it is consciousness’ purpose, and everyone is consciousness. When one is in harmony with the purpose of the heart, one experiences joy. When one isn’t in harmony with it, one suffers.

What about your suffering? You have chosen awakening as your purpose. Doesn’t that mean you are in harmony with consciousness? Shouldn’t you experience joy?

Let’s look at another example:

Let’s imagine a woman who is committed to awakening. She is in Gentle Healing. She contemplates the Thought of Awakening each day, and she reads the daily tip, reads from NTI and meditates for 30 minutes. She feels at peace each morning as she does this. However, when the woman moves away from her morning contemplation and meditation time, and into her day, the peace fades. She begins to experience other emotions, especially worry and annoyance.

The woman experiences peace during contemplation and meditation, because in those moments she is in harmony with the true heart. As she moves into her day, she lets other ideas enter the mind, and she begins listening to them. She worries about her children. She unconsciously believes ideas that indicate she is unworthy if her children’s lives do not look a certain way. She also listens to ideas of blame. She believes the reason she isn’t happy is because of her husband, and so she finds herself annoyed with him freqently.

In other words, the woman experiences worry and annoyance during the exact moments  that she is not in harmony with the true heart.

This can change for her, if she learns to look immediately whenever she is not happy. If she learns to look immediately to see what she believes in that moment, and then learns to let it go because it isn’t joy, she will learn to remain in harmony with the true heart throughout the day, and she will begin to experience joy in her daily life.

Peace, joy, and contentment are the signs that you are presently  in harmony with the purpose of consciousness. All forms of suffering indicate that you are not currently in harmony with consciousness.

How can anyone be out of harmony with consciousness if everyone is consciousness?

Consciousness is life-awareness-freedom. The freedom aspect can never be removed from consciousness, because that is what it is. Therefore, even though awakening is the purpose of consciousness, aspects of consciousness can choose to be mentally  out of harmony with that purpose. This is the hallmark of freedom. Freedom can choose to experience itself any way it chooses, even if that choice is different than its truth.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.

Note:  Before reading today’s tip, read Acts 10:9-22 from the Bible or watch all of Acts 10 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.

Today’s reading is about the undoing that occurs through guidance. Our personal self-identity—our attachment to who we think we are, to the mind-made laws we believe, and to other personal beliefs and values—is undone through guidance. It is important to realize that, or else we may expect guidance to be something it isn’t.

Guidance is not God’s way of meeting our expectations and giving us what we want.

For example, imagine that you work as a professional computer programmer, but your dream is to be an off-the-grid hippie-like farmer. You may hope that God’s guidance will give you the money you need to become financially self-sufficient, so you can buy some land, build a farm and live your dream without worrying about money. However, what you want from guidance comes from your ego—from your idea of who you are, what you want and how you want it done. Guidance will not reinforce your ego.

Peter was raised as a Jew. He was taught to follow Jewish law. He identified with being Jewish. Yet, guidance came to Peter asking him to break Jewish law by eating animals that Jewish law prohibits. He was also guided to associate as an equal with gentiles. All of this guidance was part of undoing Peter’s identification as a Jew.

If you have always dreamed of being an off-the-grid farmer, it is possible you will one day be guided to off-the-grid farming. Sometimes our dreams and our callings are one. However, the way it comes about through guidance will be a path of undoing, not the dream exactly as your ego envisions it.

For example, all my life I dreamed of being a writer and a teacher, but I did not imagine it the way it has worked out through guidance. I thought I would write best-selling novels and teach elementary school children.

I also dreamed of living in Colorado. I gave up that dream years ago, because I realized it was a personal attachment. I settled in North Carolina in a town that I swore I’d never live in. I moved there when guidance took me there. I lived there four years and was prepared to stay in that town happily for the rest of my life when a dream came unexpectedly with guidance to move to Pueblo.

We cannot predict guidance, but we can expect it to be an undoing of who we think we are. It’s best if we take all of our hopes, dreams, desires, values and attachments, and toss them to the wind. If something blows back as the gift of guidance, it is meant to be a part of this unfolding; if it doesn’t, it was merely ego.

It reminds me of a saying that was on a poster that hung in my room when I was a teenager:

If you love something, set it free.
If it comes back, it’s yours.
If it doesn’t, it never was.

Don’t play the game of imagining what guidance might be for you. That imagining will come from ego. Instead, focus on letting go of ego. Let guidance be a surprise, and follow it even if it seems to be different from what you want, just as I followed it to a little town in North Carolina where I had sworn, more than once, I would never live.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.

Note:  Before reading today’s tip, read Acts 9:1-31 from the Bible or watch all of Acts 9 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.

Most people have heard of the Apostle Paul, but many do not know that Paul, previously called Saul, was a leader in the persecution against the Christian sect. When people read the story of Saul’s conversion in the Bible, they may not understand why someone like Saul would be called to become a leading teacher and apostle. If we have trouble understanding, it’s because we are focused on humans instead of consciousness, and we judge some humans as worthy and some humans as not worthy.

As we saw yesterday, consciousness sees only consciousness. Consciousness is not concerned about human stories and what one human has done or has not done. Consciousness is awakening, and the light is spreading within consciousness. That is all that is happening from consciousness’ perspective.

From the human perspective, the way the light moves may not always make sense. For example, we may not understand why some people have spontaneous awakenings and others don’t.

From consciousness’ perspective, the spreading of light is natural within awakening consciousness. It’s just like blue food coloring spreading through white cake batter as it is stirred into the batter.

Some people may ask, “If awakening is random, like blue food coloring mixing with white cake batter, why should I engage in spiritual practice?”

Here’s the answer:

It’s our spiritual practice that stirs up the light. As we engage in sincere spiritual practice, the light extends through consciousness awakening consciousness. We are the batter (consciousness), the food coloring (awakening light) and the spoon (the energy that spreads the light). The spiritual practice that we do benefits all of consciousness. All awakenings come from the spiritual practice of those who are called into spiritual practice.

NTI guides us to trust that the light is spreading within consciousness. Our role is to remain focused on awakening, and let everything else take care of everything else. When we adopt this attitude toward the world and other humans, we are living in trust that everything is consciousness, and consciousness is in the process of awakening to itself.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.

Note:  Before reading today’s tip, read Acts 8:9-25  from the Bible or watch all of Acts 8 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.

On Day 113, we learned how to be with an ego attack. Today’s reading reemphasizes the technique of not giving energy to an ego attack when it arises. There may be a temptation to see ego resistance as a battle—possibly a battle between you and the ego or a battle between you and Spirit. It is not helpful to see resistance as a battle, because then you are tempted to fight the battle or fear the battle. If you fight or fear the ego attack, you feed it with energy. Today’s reading encourages us to see it as a storm, and realize that the storm is passing.

Today’s reading also reinterprets a story about Peter and a man called Simon the Sorcerer. In the Bible story, Peter sees Simon as wicked, bitter and captive to sin. NTI points out that this way of seeing is not how the Holy Spirit sees. Peter’s way of seeing comes from the wrong-mind, not the right-mind. NTI says:

When the Holy Spirit looks at the world, it does not see holy men and men of darkness. It does not see men at all. It does not see men who are right in what they do and men who are wrong. It does not see men at all.

“Holy Spirit” is a symbolic term for spiritual wisdom. Spiritual wisdom is an aspect of the Second Principle of God, consciousness. Consciousness does not see separate people, some good and some bad, some righteous and some ignorant. Consciousness sees consciousness. Consciousness is aware of an awakening within consciousness—NTI calls it “the spreading of Light within an awakening mind”—but consciousness is not aware of separate parts.

To illustrate, imagine a bowl of white cake batter. Now, imagine that we want the cake to be blue, so we add blue food coloring to the batter. As we begin to stir in the food coloring, some of the cake batter is white and some is blue. As we continue to stir, more of the batter becomes blue. We see swirls of blue batter within the white batter. We do not see separate batter—it is all one batter—but we do see the spreading of blue within the batter. That is how consciousness sees awakening.

Just like the white batter will become completely blue, all aspects of consciousness will awaken to itself.

We allow ourselves to be awakened by the light that is spreading through consciousness by surrendering and willingly following intuition. That is how we are stirred. That is how the merging occurs.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.

Note: If desired, watch all of Acts 7 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.

Today’s reading is really wonderful. I recommend reading it at least twice, maybe this morning and again this evening before going to bed. The reading gives a high-level overview of the process of awakening through following guidance. It is an overview of what happens during the merging process.

I have already walked ahead of you on this path, so I have the hindsight to say that everything written in today’s reading is true. You can trust it. I don’t know what surprises and miracles are in store for you as you trust inner spiritual intuition, follow it and let go of your personal sense of self and self-will, but I know there will be surprises and miracles along the way. I know how this works, because I am not different from you, and I have already given my trust and followed the guidance that came to me.

Enjoy today’s reading. Pay attention for the tips that will be most helpful to you as you take this journey. Write those tips down in your journal. Writing them down will help you absorb them, so they will be easy to recall whenever you need to remember them.

Note: Reference the related tips from Day 36 and Day 107.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.

Note: If desired, watch all of Acts 6 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.

In today’s reading, the Holy Spirit invites us to ask it any questions we have as we move through the awakening process. Many of you are already journaling with inner spiritual wisdom and asking it your questions. If you haven’t started this process, now is a good time to begin. If you are afraid, realize that fear comes from guilt or unworthiness, and by listening to fear you continue to believe you are guilty or unworthy.

Place fear aside and ask your questions through journaling. If nothing comes, leave the question open in your mind and go on with your day. You may be surprised to find that the answer will come to you later in the day or the next day. The answer may pop into your mind when you aren’t looking for it. It may come through a song, a teaching that you hear, a book that you read, something a friend says or in any other way. If you ask your question and remain open for the answer, it will come.

Today’s reading also addresses what I used to call “ego attacks.” As we move forward with purification, which is letting go of ideas and beliefs that the ego is attached to, the ego rebels. Although the ego can get quite loud, ego attacks are nothing to be afraid of.

An ego attack is like a child throwing a temper tantrum. When my daughter was about two years old and started throwing temper tantrums, I decided to ignore them. She would lie in the floor screaming, crying, kicking her legs and flailing her arms. I simply continued with my chores, stepping right over her if I needed to. Temper-tantrums didn’t last long with Jasmine, because I didn’t give them energy. She didn’t get anything from me by throwing a temper-tantrum, so she gave up on that tactic.

The same strategy works with the ego. Let it throw its tempter tantrums, but don’t give them any attention. Don’t fear them. Don’t fight them. Don’t believe them. Just go on with your day or get into a resting position and practice rest-accept-trust. The less power you give the ego attack, the less power it has to rebel with.

Note: It may be helpful to review the tip from Day 100.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.