Today’s reading opens by saying:

We proclaim the Word of Life.

A word can be a declaration, so the essence of the statement above is this:

You are Life!
(said with great declaration and emphasis)

Today’s reading also says:

God is an awareness that is pure,
because it looks on only that which is wholly true.

This is God. And God, as an awareness, exists within you.

That means that when you see life and only life, you see with God-awareness.

Here’s an example:

Recently, while traveling in New Mexico, I stopped to go to the bathroom at a truck stop. When I went into the toilet stall, my heart leapt with great joy when I saw a fly resting on the toilet seat. It actually took the mind another second or two to realize it was looking at a fly on a toilet seat in a truck stop. When that was realized, I laughed, because I knew most humans would not understand the great joy I felt.

The joy was natural and spontaneous, prior to thought. It was God-awareness leaping for joy when it recognized its Self. It didn’t see a fly on a toilet seat in a truck stop. It saw life-awareness!

Life-awareness experienced life-awareness and felt great joy being aware of itself.

On Day 254, I gave the example of a tree as a representation of the enlightened mind. I said that the tree does not judge the people who gather under it, and the people who gather under it do not affect the tree. Of course, the tree does not see people gathered under it. In order to see people, the tree would need a brain. However, the tree does see. Actually, it would be more correct to say that the tree knows. The tree knows the life-awareness that is gathered under it as people, and the tree experiences joy. That joy is the joy of life-awareness in the presence of life-awareness.

For more understanding, watch this 3-minute video about my experience as an apple.

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

Please read and contemplate the following commentary in the same way that you read and contemplate the Thought of Awakening. The commentaries are designed to enrich your understanding.

~Commentary on True Practice~

Intellectual knowledge or intellectual spiritual teachings are helpful only to the degree that they lead the one seeking to practice. When one is engaged in practice, one is not so concerned with intellectual understanding. One wants only to practice. This means that one’s heart has become big, or his desire for inner peace or knowledge of Self has become more full.

When one’s desire is not as full, he seeks intellectual teaching. Intellectual teaching can serve two purposes:

Intellectual teaching can be used to water desire so that it grows into more fullness and leads to practice, or …

Intellectual teaching can be used to satisfy the ego’s idea of “I am spiritual” and it can lead to more and more intellectual reading and seeking without many intervals of true practice.

True practice leads to awakening, because true practice is not believing ego. Since belief in ego is the only problem, not believing ego as self is true practice, and true practice is the solution until solution is no longer needed.

~From our Holy Spirit

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

You are abundance now. This has always been true, regardless of your material or experiential situation.

Most people do not realize the power of their abundance. Your abundance brings every experience to you exactly as you experience it. Abundance produces illusory experiences and provides for truth-realization, depending on where you focus attention.

That means that your choice about where to focus attention is very important. Everything that is given in manifestation and the way in which it is experienced is an outcome of attention.

Although it can seem like there are many things to place attention on, there are really only two options. You can place attention with illusion or you can place attention with truth. Your experience comes from that decision.

The good news is that you can change your mind about where you place attention. You can change your mind anytime regardless of current circumstances.

Whenever you realize that you’ve placed attention with illusion, and you want to place attention with truth, simply shift attention now. Your experience will begin to change when you shift attention, because you’ve decided to use abundance differently.

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

On Day 251, we read stories about Job and Peace Pilgrim. Job and Peace Pilgrim were not confused about what abundance is. In the story about Job, the wrong-mind (represented by Satan) was confused about what abundance is. Since the wrong-mind thought that abundance was found in manifestation, it thought Job would curse God when his manifested abundance was taken away, but Job did not curse God when manifested abundance was taken away. Job continued to praise God, because he knew true abundance.

Today’s reading says:

Teach yourself only that your abundance is now,
without any separation from you,
and you teach yourself everything that is true about you.

Another way to say that is:

Teach yourself that you are  abundance now,
and you teach yourself everything that is true about you.

If you were fully enlightened, there would be no confusion about this. Abundance is what the enlightened know, see and feel. However, the mind’s concepts block one’s awareness of abundance with ideas of lack. Ideas of lack can look like this:

• I am not good enough.
• To be good enough, I have to …
• To feel fulfilled, I have to …
• I will be happy when …
• I don’t have enough …
• I can’t be happy because …
• You just don’t understand the burden I live with.
• I need ________ (fill in the blank with a material or experiential idea)
• Things should be different than they are.
• Etcetera

Some spiritual teachers say that unhappiness is caused by our belief in lack (& then go on to teach how to attract what you want). It’s true that unhappiness is caused by our belief in lack, but it isn’t caused by our belief in material or experiential lack. Unhappiness occurs because we are unaware of our true nature. One who is Self-realized does not experience lack; that one is happy regardless of his/her material or experiential situation in form.

Today’s reading says:

It is true that there also seems to be something else within you…something that does not seem to be light, but dark…

Whatever you find inside that feels different than divine abundance is an untrue concept about what you are. You know these ideas are untrue, because when you believe them they block natural happiness.

Remember this:

Whenever you are not happy
or content with what is,
you are touching a false concept.

You touch false concepts with attention. Attention feels and experiences, so when you touch a false concept with attention, you feel and experience that concept. It’s like tasting food. When your tongue touches food, you taste it. In the same way, attention tastes the concepts it touches.

Today’s reading says:

It is okay to stand within it for a moment and feel it. But then remember that I have taught you that the judgment comes only from you. Decide in that moment to choose to see your Self truly. Then reach within your mind, and turn on the Light.

Judgment is the decision or declaration that something is real or true.

If you are the one deciding a specific concept is true, you are the one who can choose to decide differently.

You choose to decide differently by removing attention from the concept and placing attention with your true Self—with awareness or existence.

Some people may wonder if today’s teaching is different than rest-accept-trust. It isn’t.

When today’s reading says, “turn on the Light,” it doesn’t mean that you should stop feeling whatever is being felt. It means:

Notice awareness or existence
as you feel a temporary experience.

When you choose to focus attention on awareness or existence during an emotional experience, you make a decision regarding which is true and meaningful. That decision is made by where you place attention.  When you place attention with awareness or existence, you “turn on the Light,” because by placing attention there, you’ve decided that life-awareness is supreme.

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

NTI 2 Peter is about abundance. Take a few moments to write down what abundance means to you. If you were to live a life of abundance, what would that look like?

Please complete this exercise before reading the rest of this tip.

~ ~ ~

On Day 136 and Day 202, we learned that the law of attraction is a distortion of truth. Today, we will learn that the ego’s ideas of abundance are a distortion of abundance.

Today’s reading defines abundance as “full awareness of your divine nature.” We often call that awakening or enlightenment. The reading also says, “Abundance cannot be defined in any other way.”

Look at your list of abundance. Are there material ideas of abundance on that list? Are there experiential ideas of abundance on the list?

Whenever the mind tries to define abundance, it thinks about material or experiential ideas. For example, for one personality-type, the mind’s list of abundance might look like this:

– Plenty of money so I am financially secure until my death
– A nice house to live in with beautiful furniture and art work
– A swimming pool, a well decorated meditation room, an art studio
– The time and the money to travel all over the world
– Physical health for me and my family

Today’s reading says that abundance “cannot be defined within the limits of the world.” That means the previous list, or any list of material and experiential ideas, is a distortion of abundance.

If you look at the dictionary definitions of abundance, you will see that none of the definitions use the term “unlimited.” They may say, “a large quantity of” or they may say “ample quantity” or “a relative degree of plentifulness,” but the dictionaries do not define abundance as unlimited.

Any material or experiential idea of abundance is a limited idea  of abundance. Therefore, it is not full, complete or unrestricted abundance.

If you look deep within your heart, you will find that your heart is not interested in limited abundance. The mind is interested in limited abundance, because in the pursuit of or the attachment to limited abundance, you maintain identification with the mind.

The heart is only interested in true abundance, which is abundance beyond all limits and beyond all definitions. It is “full awareness of your divine nature.”  It is abundance that transcends the world entirely.

The reading says:

For this reason, quiet the mind whenever it seems to stretch to imagine abundance within the world. When the mind is stretching in this way it is stretching to limit itself even more.

Those who believe that material or experiential abundance will fulfill them are identified with the temporary body-personality-mind as who they are. That is the limit that mind’s ideas of abundance put on you. The mind’s ideas of abundance limit you  to a temporary manifestation.

Do you want to be limited in that way, or do you prefer to know true abundance as what you are?

The reading also says:

It is through witness that you know. That which you taste as witness cannot be forgotten…

In other words, spend time noticing life-awareness. It is through the direct knowing of your Self that you know your Self. You cannot know your Self through the mind’s concepts, no matter how lofty those concepts might be.

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

Today’s reading is another collection of pithy statements for contemplation. Here’s how I recommend reading NTI 1 Peter 5:

1. As you read, write down any statements that stand out to you as especially important or meaningful.
2. After you have finished reading, go back and contemplate the statements you wrote down.
3. Write what comes to you as you contemplate those statements. If you are guided into deeper journaling, follow that prompt.

It’s likely you will have a very insightful experience with today’s reading if you contemplate it as I’ve recommended. Don’t feel like you have to contemplate every sentence in the reading. Ask inner wisdom to help you know which sentences/paragraphs are for you.

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

Today’s reading is about two specific misperceptions: fear, and the belief that you are a person.

The Misperception of Fear

In order to let go of fear, it is helpful to notice what fear really is. Fear is nothing but imagination. It is negative fantasy. Whenever you are afraid, it is because you are imagining what might happen, and “you are imagining fearfully.”

Today’s reading says:

To live without fear is to live without imagining. This is to stay in the now and in the heart of true desire.

Whenever you are in fear, pause and notice what is actually happening. Notice that you are imagining.

We can all imagine many fearful scenarios and live a life of anxiety and fear, but why? Why use our minds and attention that way? Is there a benefit to entertaining fearful imagination?

Look at fear. Question your fears. Are they something you choose to hold on to?

The Misperception that You are a Person

On Day 245, we saw that the idea, “I am a person,” is the mistake of believing that manifestation is primary and life is secondary. Life is seen as belonging to a specific manifestation, so when the manifestation ends, life ends too. The mind believes that life is fragile and temporary. That is the root cause of fear.

Today’s reading says:

You are not a person now, and you have not been a person before. There is no person from this lifetime or any other that you must let go of, because there has never been a person. There has only been the thought of persons, and the thought of persons is not real.

What are you?

Ultimately, you are life-awareness, the First Principle of God, but before you realize that, you will realize that you are consciousness, the Second Principle of God.

Let’s review the four principles again:

First Principle of God– Pure, unmanifest, life-awareness; abstract, unlimited potentiality.

Second Principle of God– Consciousness, also known as I Am or Spirit. It can be called “the thought of spirit” since it is a thought born out of (evolved from) the unlimited potentiality of the First Principle.

Third Principle of God– The ongoing activity of creation, which occurs naturally through the declarative  interaction of consciousness with that which is witnessed. (“Declarative” means that consciousness uses believing attention to maintain what it witnesses as true and meaningful.)

Fourth Principle of God– Manifestation, which is the realm of appearance (experience and images). NTI Romans called it “a picture-thought within the thought of spirit.” (Reference Day 150.)

The Second Principle of God gives believing attention to persons, including the personal dramas (thought, emotion and perception), and believes it is person. However, it is consciousness.

As today’s reading says:

You are not a person now, and you have not been a person before. There is no person from this lifetime or any other…, because there has never been a person.

All there has ever been is the thought of persons combined with believing attention on the resulting appearances, experiences and story thoughts.

What I think, I see. (Persons)
What I see, I experience. (Lifetimes of people)

“I” is consciousness.

It might be helpful to listen to a short audio on reincarnation. This audio may help you see that people are ideas, which are temporarily manifest and experienced by consciousness. People are not actual. Consciousness is actual, and it experiences itself as people.

16 ½-minute audio

Today’s reading says:

What does this mean?

It means that you believe in illusion, but illusion is not the truth of you. It means that you look on misperception (the person), but you are the one that declares  misperception is true.

If you declare that you are a person, you can also reverse that declaration.

How do you do that?

~ Let go of believing the stories that appear in the mind.
~ Live from your knowledge of truth.
~ Practice awareness-watching-awareness.

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

Yesterday’s tip said:

Everything that you see,
and the way in which you see it,
is a reflection of your feelings and your beliefs about you.

The “you” in this sentence is inclusive. It includes the body-mind-personality that you identify with as your self, and it also includes everyone and everything.

Contemplate this:

I am in God.
God is in me.
God is all.
All is God.

You can also substitute “Self,” “Spirit” or “Consciousness” for God in the previous contemplation. For example:

I am in Consciousness.
Consciousness is in me.
Consciousness is all.
All is Consciousness.

There is no separation or differentiation in that. It is a contemplation that points to the essence of truth.

Today’s reading says:

Whatever you see that seems to separate you from others is a misperception, and it has arisen within your awareness, that it may be let go through your decision to be free of it.

Check with your heart. Are you ready to let go of every idea that points out differences among people as if those differences represent who people are?

Don’t misunderstand me. There are differences among people, and to deny those differences would be foolish. For example, some people are very ambitious for their goals and other people don’t seem to want to do anything except drink alcohol and watch TV, but do those differences actually mean anything about who the people are? Aren’t both the ambitious one (rajasic) and the idle one (tamasic) life-awareness? Aren’t they both simply believing the thoughts in their mind, thoughts that are given to them through the script generated by the creative principle? Are there any real differences at all?

Today’s reading says:

There is no judgment in the world. There is only judgment within your mind.

Let’s consider a tree for a moment. Does a tree judge the ambitious character and the idle character as different? As better? As less? As right? As wrong? As needing to change?

The enlightened human mind is more like the tree. Oh, it sees things that the tree cannot see. That’s true. However, it’s way of being with what it sees is the same as the tree. What the enlightened mind sees does not affect the enlightened one’s way of being, and the enlightened one does not project judgments on what it sees.

Are you ready to let go of misperceptions that block the enlightened mind so you can see with freedom and be in joy? It is up to you, because when an unenlightened thought comes into the mind, you are the one who decides to give it value and attention. You can, just as easily, choose to see it as something you do not want.

If you are ready to be free, pay careful attention to today’s reading. Choose to live life with the purpose of healing every misperception that arises for you.

What is healing?

To heal is to correct. In this case, to correct is to remove value (attention) from that which you’ve placed value on, but in reality it is valueless.

What has value?

Your truth has value.

Look to a tree as a representation of truth. The tree is like the enlightened mind. It does not judge the ones who gather under it, and the ones who gather under it do not affect the tree. For the tree, there are no differences at all.

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

I am in God.
God is in me.
God is all.
All is God.

When you fully accept this truth, there is nothing you will not accept in peace.

Job accepted the sores that covered his body from head to toe, because he saw that even the sores are from God.

Peace Pilgrim accepted nearly freezing to death at night on a deserted road in Arizona, because physical death is merely a transition in God.

Job and Peace Pilgrim could not be separated from God. Nothing was a curse for them. Every situation was a reminder of their love for God (truth).

That is true perception.

If that is not how you see, then there are misperceptions in your mind that can be healed.

Today’s reading says:

Everything that you see,
and the way in which you see it,
is a reflection of your feelings and your beliefs about you.

The “you” in this sentence is inclusive. It includes the body-mind-personality that you identify with as your self, and it also includes everyone and everything.

For example, if you see someone in politics as arrogant, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you see your personality as arrogant. You may never have had that thought about yourself. However, it does mean that arrogance is a belief in your mind. You believe some people are better than others, and you believe that some people can see themselves as higher on that scale of better and lesser than they actually are. Without these ideas, you could never see anyone as arrogant. You can only see someone as arrogant if you believe in worthy and unworthy or better and less than.

Every false belief that you carry in your mind is reflected back to you through your way of seeing the world, which includes but is not limited to your way of seeing the body-mind-personality that you identify with.

The entire world, including your body-mind-personality and everything else in the world, is like one big mirror. You are consciousness looking in the mirror. By looking in the mirror and noticing how you feel about what you see, you discover the beliefs and misperceptions that are hidden in your mind.

Today’s reading recommends that you use the mirror of manifestation to uncover every false belief, so it can be healed.

Again, let me emphasize that people often misunderstand this process of uncovering false beliefs. They think, for example, that if I see that person as one who takes advantage of others, that means I (this body-mind-personality) take advantage of others. That may not be true. Taking advantage of others may not be part of the script for the body-mind-personality that you identify with. It may be extremely shy and meek. However, if you feel that someone is taking advantage of others and have some sense of judgment about that, it means there are beliefs in your mind that allow you to see that perception in the way that you do. You believe in separation, autonomy, right, wrong and victimization. Without these core beliefs, you could never see one person taking advantage of another.

In order to discover what you believe, notice how you feel about everything that comes into your awareness in the world. Whenever you are not entirely at peace with what you see, practice inquiry to discover what you believe.

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