NTI Hebrews asks you to be the leader of your own awakening. Yesterday we saw that you lead yourself to awakening through faith in truth, because whatever you have faith in is extended to you through the creative principle.

Today’s reading is a summary of tips written to one who has decided to lead his/her way to awakening. I recommend taking notes as you read today. Taking notes will help you remember today’s tips. You can also review your notes, which will further aid in remembering the tips.

There is one tip I would like to highlight from today’s reading. It says:

Have compassion for yourself,
and be firm in your [true] desire.

The ego does not know how to be firm for something and have compassion when you “fail” in your intentions too. The ego either chooses not to be firm, because if it doesn’t make the decision to be firm it doesn’t have to worry about failing, or the ego makes a firm decision and then judges harshly each time you do not meet your own expectations.

The heart is naturally firm for truth and always compassionate regarding errors. In this context, the heart can be defined as “awareness with natural intention.”

For example, when a baby is learning to walk, that baby is awareness with the natural intention to walk. It is firm in its intention to walk. It also does not harshly judge its falls as failures. Interestingly, the baby’s heart is so perfectly set on the intention to walk, the baby doesn’t need to have compassion when it falls. There is absolutely no judgment in the baby’s pure intended-awareness, so there is no need for compassion. However, in your case there may be judgment when you slip or fall. When there is judgment, be compassionate (forgiving) with yourself.

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

Here is an excerpt from conversation #14 of I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:

Questioner: My own feeling is that my spiritual development is not in my hands. Making one’s own plans and carrying them out leads no where. I just run in circles around myself. When God considers the fruit to be ripe, He will pluck it and eat it. Whichever fruit seems green to Him will remain on the world’s tree for another day.

Nisargadatta Maharaj: You think God knows you? Even the world He does not know.

In this conversation, Nisargadatta points to the First Principle of God when he says, “Even the world He does not know.” From the point of view of the First Principle of God, the First Principle is all that exists.  The “everything” that we see in perception, is one thing—reality, life-awareness—from the perspective of the First Principle. From that perspective there is nothing different from truth, so there is nothing to fix, change or awaken.

The perspective from the Fourth Principle of God is different, since the Fourth Principle is the expression of the wish for something different from truth. From this perspective, awakening is the mission of consciousness.

To see from the perspective of the Fourth Principle, but to say, “There is nothing to do,” which is the perspective of the First Principle, is what A Course in Miracles  calls “level confusion.” Rupert Spira says it is disingenuous to say, “There is nothing to do,” when you still believe you are a person.

It is as NTI Hebrews teaches:

You are the leader of your own awakening.

So, how the heck do we awaken ourselves?

You know that the desire to awaken is very important.

You are aware of the practices, such as mind-watching, inquiry, discernment, rest-accept-trust, awareness-watching-awareness, loving all, and surrender.

Another important ingredient is faith.

Today’s reading defines faith as “what you accept as true.”

Faith is believing-attention and the action that comes from believing-attention. One who believes thought, emotion and perception place’s attention and takes action based on that belief, while one who trusts truth teachings places attention and takes action in another way. Both have faith. Both live according to their faith.

Faith, or believing-attention, feeds into the creative process. Faith based on the world continues the experience of something different from truth. Faith based on truth creates the experience of awakening. Some call that grace. Grace is not a gift from a benevolent or discerning God-being. Grace is the natural output of the creative principle when faith in truth was the input.

In other words, you lead yourself to awakening by having faith in truth, which also means your attention and actions are guided by your faith in truth instead of by faith in the world.

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

For some people, NTI Hebrews may seem harsh, because it asks them to let go of people, things and circumstances that they love and enjoy. Others may feel guilty, because they aren’t ready to let go of those things. If you judge NTI Hebrews as harsh or if you judge yourself as guilty, you are looking at a form of the “I am bad” thought. Whenever this thought is seen, whether it is projected onto someone or something else or felt as a “fact” about you, it is rising into consciousness so that you can let go of it.

If you experience judgment or guilt as you read and contemplate NTI Hebrews, consider reviewing NTI 2 Thessalonians.

Today’s reading says:

The one sacrifice that ends sin and guilt forever is not a sacrifice at all. It is but the remembrance and acceptance of all that has always been true. It is the release of what isn’t and the re-acceptance of what is. It is a return to the realization of the truth of what you are.

Many of us go through a phase when we feel like we are asked to sacrifice something (or many things) for truth realization. That’s because the mind believes it gets happiness or love from the objects it is attached to in the world. However, as has already been pointed out, those things are passing—shifting and changing—anyway. Nothing in manifestation stays the same or lasts. To believe that manifestation is the source of our happiness is the cause of suffering.

True happiness comes from Self-realization, because our true nature is  happiness. In this realization there is no loss at all.

Why?

Because once you realize the Self, happiness is natural, and  manifestation continues as it did before. Manifestation doesn’t die away when you realize the Self. As long as the body lasts, it continues in manifestation and it experiences manifestation. Yet, you see with clarity. You know what everything really is, and you are able to appreciate its temporary appearance too. There is no sacrifice in that.

Today’s reading says:

God is Love. … Rest yourself within your Heart. Here your true desire is known, because here the truth of God is known. Then rise up and practice in joy.

If you feel that NTI Hebrews is asking you to sacrifice something you love or enjoy, take time to go within. Get in touch with your Heart. Let it reassure you about the truth, and then, only when you feel genuinely revitalized toward your spiritual aspiration, continue the practice of letting go of dreams.

Allow letting go to come from the heart, not from a sense of obligation. Remember, motive matters. (Ref: Day 177)

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

If you read Hebrews 9:1-10 in the Bible, you will see that Jewish people once followed very strict rules regarding worship. In fact, the Jewish people were given very strict rules to follow about everything in their lives, including food, relationships, how to settle disputes and more. These rules are called “the covenant of the first order” because they represent a phase in maturity.

Without realizing it, every person follows a “covenant of the first order,” which I have referred to in the past as “mind-made laws.” (Ref: Day 99)

We have rules about everything including food, how to worship (or how to be spiritual), relationships, clothing, and more. There’s a funny commercial on TV about a man who is being helpful by making the bed, and his wife responds by saying, “The big pillows go in the back.” ~ha ha~ That is one of her mind-made laws, a law he apparently did not have in his mind.

NTI points out that mind-made laws have their place at a certain stage in our maturity. For example, if we agree on how beds should be made, we feel a sense of sameness through that agreement. If you look around, you will notice we do have an agreement about how beds are made. We might not all agree that the big pillows go in back, but we do agree to put the pillows near the headboard instead of the footboard or under the bed during the day. These subtle “laws” that we all follow give us a sense of sameness, but that sense of sameness is very flimsy.

NTI says that a new covenant has come to replace the old covenant. The new covenant is the knowledge that we are one and all manifestations are created through the creative principle. That means mind-made laws are meaningless. If I believe that the big pillows go in back and you believe that the big pillows go in front, one is not more right than the other. Both are simply how the creative principle is manifesting as thought and action through a temporary body-mind-personality. Your way and my way are both story, and therefore equally meaningless. What we are beyond the story is one consciousness. Meaning lies in our reality.

Jasmine has a story about how she and a college roommate got in a tiff, because Jasmine started cooking ground beef without heating the pan first. Apparently the roommate felt that a pan should always be preheated before you put the ground beef in.

Have you ever paused to realize that if you hold onto your mind-made laws—your ideas about how food should be prepared, how friends should be treated or how houses should be decorated, and etcetera—you are holding onto the body-personality-mind as you?

By believing you are right about your mind-made laws, you cling to a temporary manifestation as you.

By seeing your mind-made laws as story, you see the body-personality-mind as story too.

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

Yesterday’s reading said:

Look within the mind at the thoughts that make you proud and make you happy at the thought of being you. Look at those thoughts, which you judge as good, which make you feel better or luckier than someone else you know. Look at those thoughts, and listen clearly to what I say:

Those thoughts have no value.
Those thoughts are nothing but the dust of dreams.

We have spent a lot of time letting go of negative self-judgment, but now, in our maturity, we are also asked to let go of positive self-judgment.

Why?

Because any judgment, negative or positive, says, “I am the body-mind-personality.”

Today’s reading continues in the same vein. It asks us to look at everything we like about our life-experience in the world, and envision letting go of it.

Again, this is significant, because if anything is important to “me,” it reemphasizes “me.”

But how do we let go of things like our children? Our pets? Our spouses?

In my experience, the easiest way to let go of them is to notice the fact that in every moment they are changing. The exact form of the one I love now is already changing and leaving. I can’t hold onto it anyway, so why try to hold onto it?

Let me give you an example. I used to have this really cute little 6-year old daughter. She was happy and easy to be with. Her toothless smile was so cute. We spent weekends doing arts and crafts together, playing games and cooking foods from different countries. But that is gone now. My daughter naturally grew out of being 6-years old. She will never be that cute little 6-year old again. She’s in college now, but she isn’t going to be the college kid forever either. She will mature and change, and then she will mature and change again.

If you look at anyone (or anything) you love with clarity, you will see that it is here now, but it is already passing away. Everything in form is constantly being recreated by the creative principle. Nothing in manifestation lasts.

When we cling to anything in manifestation, all we really cling to is an idea of that thing. By clinging to an idea, we refuse to notice what the thing really is.

What is it?

It’s life appearing temporarily as this appearance now.

We can embrace everything as a precious momentary appearance. We can love it fully now, while it is here. But as it passes—as it shifts and changes into a new appearance—wisdom lets it go, because it is gone. Wisdom lets go of what has passed and loves what is here.

Jasmine came home from college this past weekend, and we had a really lovely time together. We kayaked, went to the state fair, hiked, played board games, and cleaned my car together. Now the weekend is over. Jasmine has gone back to college. If I sat here longing for her—wishing she was still here or that it was still last weekend—I would be clinging to thought only, and through clinging to thought, I would also cling to my identity as ‘mom’ and the ideas I think ‘mom’ needs to be happy. Those ideas and that identity are “nothing but the dust of dreams.”

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

NTI Hebrews teaches that you have matured on the path of awakening. Yesterday’s reading was a review of some of what you have learned as you have matured through your study and practice of NTI. Today’s reading asks you to acknowledge your maturity by living your life from maturity instead of living as if you are a beginner on the path of awakening.

Melchizedek was a king and a priest during Abraham’s lifetime. He is first mentioned in the Bible at Genesis 14. Abraham had just won a battle through which he rescued his nephew, Lot, from a group of kings who took him while attacking Sodom, which is where Lot lived. After Abraham won this battle, two kings came to visit Abraham. One was the king of Sodom, who came to retrieve what he had lost when the group of kings attacked his city. The other king was Melchizedek, who is described later in Psalm 110 as “a priest forever.”

Melchizedek blessed Abraham. After receiving the blessing, Abraham was moved by the heart to give him one tenth of the possessions he had recovered in the battle.

The king of Sodom asked Abraham for the people he’d rescued, but offered to let him keep the remaining possessions recovered in the battle.

Abraham refused the remaining possessions, saying, “With raised hand I have sworn an oath to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth, that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the strap of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, ‘I made Abram rich.’”

The king of Sodom represents the ego. Abraham chose to accept nothing from him, which symbolizes the decision to stop giving belief and attention to the ego.

Melchizedek represents the Holy Spirit, which is the wisdom of awake consciousness. As the Bible says at Hebrews 7:1-3:

This Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High. He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him, and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, the name Melchizedek means “king of righteousness”; then also, “king of Salem” means “king of peace.” Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.

Today’s reading points out that we have given 1/10^th of our attention to the Holy Spirit, which means we still live 90% from ego. Ego is our attachment to the body-mind-personality as “me.”

Today’s reading says:

But one tenth of your mind given to awakening is only one tenth of everything, which means everything is not focused on who you are. I ask you to be willing to accept the Holy Spirit as the Voice of your truth. Be willing to give everything to the Voice that represents all that you truly are.

We demonstrate what we think we are by what we listen to and follow. As we learned on Day 135, there are two scripts that we can listen to and live from as we have this bodily experience. One is the ego script, which teaches that I am a body-mind-personality living in a very real world. The other is the script that comes from awake consciousness. It leads us to see temporary appearances as temporary appearances while embracing reality as truth and as what we are.

It’s fair to say that NTI Hebrews 7 asks you to increase your commitment to truth while decreasing your attachment to manifestation as reality.

Please read today’s reading slowly and contemplatively. The reading asks several questions. Take the time to consider those questions deeply as you read.

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

NTI Hebrews teaches that you have matured on the path of awakening, and it encourages you to live from that maturity now. It also acknowledges that your stage of awakening is a stage in which you will sometimes slip back into ego habits. It says:

When you notice that you have awakened again from another period of slumber and dozing, go back to your practice. Do that which is natural by the maturity of your faith. Practice the state of awakening with joy.

How can you practice the state of awakening?

Reference Day 179 and Day 218 for suggestions.

Today’s reading mentions God’s promise to Abraham. We first learned about God’s promise to Abraham while reading NTI Galatians. Today is a good day to review that teaching. Reference Day 191 for that review.

Today’s reading also says:

Forgive the scenarios of your dreams. … They are images of the past.

In NTI Ephesians, we learned to see our current circumstances as a manifestation of past believing attention, and we were asked to be with current circumstances differently now. Reference Day 200 for a review of that teaching.

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

NTI Hebrews sees you as the leader of your own awakening, and it teaches you how to be a great leader as opposed to a weak leader or an overly forceful leader. It encourages you to be a great leader by:

1. 1. Having compassion when you fall short of your hopes or expectations for yourself.
   2. Gently encouraging yourself to listen to clarity and let go of ego impulses.
   3. Strengthening your spiritual aspiration with heartfelt, devotional prayer.
   4. Living from clarity as much as you can.

Today is a good day to ask inner wisdom for specific guidance about how you can be an effective leader in your awakening process.

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

NTI Hebrews is written to you, one who is awakened enough to step forward and take a leadership role in your own awakening. NTI Hebrews tells you how to lead yourself to full awakening:

1. Have gratitude for each moment of clarity.
2. Rest the ego mind.
3. Act based on clarity.
4. Let go of every impulse that does not come from clarity.
5. Live from your spiritual aspiration.

Today’s reading says:

Today is now. The mistake you make is thinking that today is tomorrow, and so you see your true desire, but you put it off until another time.

That’s something worth looking at to see if it’s true.

Do you agree with the Thoughts of Awakening, the readings and the tips, but wait to begin living from them sometime in the future?

If so, why?

What do you want?

What is most important to you?

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