“The losing of identity is a golden gun. It was not easy to hold it against my head and fire, but necessary. I needed great faith in my masters to suffocate myself through their holy bag of full of truth. I needed great courage to go out into the dark, tracking God into the unknown and not panic or get lost in all the startling new scents and sounds and sights or lose my temper tripping over those scheming night and day around me. Losing identity is the emerald dagger you need to plunge deep into yourself upon this path of divine recovery, upon this path to God.” [Hafiz]

This faith, this trust is something that is learned. Everyone has had a relationship with trust in the world. You’ve trusted what you know. You’ve trusted the past. And you’ve been afraid of the future because of what you’ve trusted in the past. You probably don’t look at it as trusting the past because at the same time you trusted the past, you hated the past. And yet, that’s what you believed in and that’s where trust develops.

In the journey of love, you’re being called to trust in something that you forgot. You’re being called to trust and put faith in a journey that, most of the time, seems upside down, inside and out, and that your mind that made a false world can’t…can’t make sense of. It doesn’t make any sense to realize that losing identity is a golden gun. The ego mind says don’t be ridiculous. My purpose here is to win. My purpose is to protect and defend what I already know, and to find the secret ingredient of winning over others. But the journey of love has a different purpose. It’s your true journey. It’s the only reality of the purpose of incarnation to remember your brilliance, your innocence. And even the word “your” is used here…it’s not “yours” as an identity. It is yours as the one heart of God. And this is why it is so essential to learn to offer love because you are offering love to reflections of yourself. As you learn to love without conditions, you’re learning to love your Divine Self, to come home to that reality.

It isn’t easy to hold the golden gun against your own head, but when you come to this place of the realization that you want nothing else and you can’t even stand another day of not meeting the Beloved, you gladly put the golden gun to your head. You no longer want the mind of suspicions and lack and winning. You long for peace. You long for resting in that love because the truth of you is stirring from deep within.

I needed great faith in my master to suffocate myself with his holy bag of truth. And it is that. It is that that you don’t want to listen to any more of the self-proclaimed masters in the world that have nothing to do with anything spiritual but are the loud voices of the ego that say winning is the way. Success is the way. All of those voices need to be turned away from. But, not in condemnation, but in love. To turn away from the voice of the lies of knowing, of getting, of proving, of winning. And instead turning the heart towards all these Beloveds and offering love, offering without conditions, the purity and innocence of who they truly are. To suffocate yourself in truth is a delicious way to go. It’s the only way, actually, to go. To love truth so much that you become a glutton of all the divine teachings that fill your heart with light. When you accept divine teachings, light is pouring into you. Not that you aren’t already the light, but it meets the light that has been hidden within you. All of the mysteries of the universe begin to become revealed. You begin to see light everywhere. You begin to see with your heart all the purity and innocence of everything. How does this occur except through your willingness to suffocate yourself in truth. To drink in so much truth that you’re going to burst. To join with all the divine beings in the forgiveness of all beliefs of limitation and separation.

I needed great courage to go out into the dark, tracking God into the unknown and not to panic or get lost in all the startling new scents and sounds and sights. It does take this great courage to follow the way that the masters have laid. It does take great courage to recognize the scents and the sounds and the vibration of love that is everywhere and is just beyond the old identities that you made in belief of separation. All of those old identities were made with fear and contempt and bitterness. None of them were real. None of them were true. You don’t have to suffer along the way back to love. But, there seems to be an attachment to suffering that convinces everyone that they need to struggle to return home. But as one of my teachers said to me it isn’t your healing that is difficult, it’s your resistance against it. And that resistance was very dominant for what seemed to be a long time until finally the white flag gets raised. Deeper and deeper and deeper you raise the white flag and say “I haven’t got a clue-what I’m doing, how to look at anything or how to make my way back. You have to show me because I don’t have a clue.” And love gladly shows you. And there is a deep place of relaxing, resting in God, as you learn to love. As you learn to take in the divine teachings and want to see only with the heart of love, that you refuse to accept all of the opinions and assessments and judgments of the past that you believed were righteous, you believed that they were authentic and that they made sense. And you even felt a certain satisfaction in their justification. But all of that has to be not only surrendered, but forgiven. To forgive is to let it be washed away, no longer wanted in any way, to let love lead you home.

The loss of identity is the emerald dagger you need to plunge deep into yourself on this path of divine recovery. It is a divine recovery from a world that is insane. It’s important to recognize the insanity that is held in the mind that believes it knows and believes in its ways. Why is it held so tightly? Because everything in your whole system of separation said, if I know enough, I’ll win. I’ll win and I’ll find a way of being safe and getting my due. When you believe that you have been unfairly treated and that you have been denied your worth and you believe that it was done from the outside, everything in you wants a payback. You don’t want to learn to offer love because everything in the back of the unconscious mind says that you need to have a fair exchange. Everything that you offer you need to see a return, an acknowledgement…it doesn’t matter how it shows up. It doesn’t even matter what you give in the world. You can give something that looks like an offering through financial. It doesn’t mean you want the financial back, it means that you want to have it recognized, you want to somehow be acknowledged, you want it to somehow be a feeling within yourself that you are good. This happens very often with donations to churches where the temptation is “I want my name to be known of what I gave” instead of bringing it to the church in the darkness and leaving it anonymously because that is where your healing is: to learn that there is nothing to get, only offering of love.

If you see someone with something in the world that you believe is not evenly distributed, that you believe that that is out of balance or why do they deserve to have when somebody else doesn’t deserve to have. All of these thoughts are being called to be surrendered and let go because love makes no conditions. And the only way that the world will heal is in each Beloved opening their hearts and learning to love without expectations of any kind. To give deeply and fully not out of obligation, never out of obligation, and never out of pity, and never out of guilt. Those three elements cannot ever bring you to peace or teach you the truth of love. There are no obligations with love. There’s a natural state of love, but it has nothing to do with any obligation. You owe me? No. There’s nothing owed, there is no exchange, there is no evenness. It is all absolutely balanced and harmonious. Love is by its very nature all balance and all harmony. But once the mind enters into the game of conflict and the rules that have been made up in the name of separation, love is gone. There is no love offered. So, it can never be through obligation, it can never be through expectation, it can never be through reciprocity, of expectations of getting something in return. And those beliefs of reciprocity of getting are so deeply ingrained that most of them can’t be easily seen. Everybody has felt that place of giving something and wanting others to be aware of it. Or giving something and having a sensation that comes from within…that it’s not a place of peace or joy…it’s a high. It’s a high of pleasure of being recognized for your giving. But, there is absolutely no love in it.

When the ego is involved, it’s all to get. It’s all in a belief that there is only scarcity and not the abundance of love that is actually being called to be awakened from within. And in the world one of the funniest places is what’s known in the world as co-dependency where even in the belief that you want to rescue someone from the idea of being without but in actuality the reason that you want to rescue them is because you believe that they are without and that they need to be rescued, and you join them in the false identity instead of truly bringing to them the strength of love, of their innocence, of their intrinsic perfect Self, and bringing that strength to them through your willingness to love. It’s a deep deep learning.

The belief that to give to someone will change the relationship is another element that the ego loves to use. You see a relationship that disturbs you and instead of bringing love to it and peace and harmony and seeing the Beloved only as their true light…instead you want them to behave differently. You want them to change the way that they behave so that you will feel better. There’s no love there either. It isn’t so that they will be eased out of the pain that they are displaying, and that you bring love to them. It’s so that they will change their behavior so that you will feel better. But there’s no love there. Because love is the offering of the truth that they are the light of God and that their behavior, their call for love, their cry for love…is all that you’re answering. You’re not looking to get something from them or to feel better through them, you’re looking to offer love, and being called to see their divine Self, not so that they will act differently, or if the situation was changed that you will feel safer or better. There’s just no love there. And this is what humanity has used in the name of love.

The urgency and the feeling of wanting to change the circumstances of others so that you will feel better is a desperate place of fear. There’s no love there. It’s seeing the world as a dangerous place that needs repair rather than to see past the beliefs of the past and really see the innocence of each Beloved and offer them that truth, not necessarily in words, but just as the Beloved who came as Jesus showed in every moment…he showed how to love without conditions. He didn’t say to anyone “I want you to be different. I want you to straighten out and change your behaviors so that I can like you again.” He loved without conditions. He had no opinion about all the Beloveds who were so fearful that they condemned him and hated him in that moment. He didn’t join them. He completely saw through their pain to their call for love and gave without limitation. He didn’t have them sign a contract saying “I’ll give you this if you give me back respect”. He saw their pain of their own self-hatred and brought them the truth of their innocence. And this is where all the healing is. This is where the healing is for all humanity, is to love without conditions.

How easy is it to hold a grievance. Especially after you believe that you’ve offered love or you’ve offered something to someone and they don’t either acknowledge it or they don’t reciprocate to your mind. Then a grievance can be held very easily of being believed to be unfairly treated. Well, what happens is that the lessons of learning to love are completely misunderstood, and, all of a sudden you’re going on an off ramp that has no relationship to learning to love. You can use the name of love, but it isn’t really love that you’re offering, because you’re not offering it without conditions. So, it’s a very deep place, a very deep place.

To go out into the dark tracking God. To go out into the dark and track God is to track every Beloved and to see the truth of God in each divine being that’s walking around in a body. Most have no relationship to the journey of remembering. It hasn’t woken up in them yet. It doesn’t matter. You’re there to bring love to them, not with teachings that you’re going to memorize, but with your heart. That you have no expectations of them to acknowledge you in any way, but you are there just to bring peace and harmony and no judgment. Your heart will be expanded as you let go of the belief that judgment has any purpose, because it has absolutely none. The idea that you would be the one that you would bring you into someone’s life and that you would be their judge, that you would be the one who was sent to have an opinion about their being right or wrong or liking their behaviors. There’s a beautiful teaching that actually says it is none of your business how someone else walks their journey. The only call is the call to love. The ego would like it to be the ego’s business of the ones who are more advanced in the ego’s mind to be the ones that would set the world right and have everybody straightened out. But there’s nothing there except the ego wearing a costume.

Imagine that a beloved friend calls you and speaks to you for hours about their beliefs and their pains and the Holy Spirit is whispering in your ear the whole time just keep offering love. Just keep your heart open and make no opinions of anything until I give you the word that will help. And you’re just listening to the Holy Spirit and you’re letting your heart stay open for the hours that this Beloved is in their confusion, in their upsidedowness. And your learning is to have no opinion about what you think of it, but just holding the truth of love with them. And then the Holy Spirit starts speaking the words that the Holy Spirit wants you to speak. And the words are of comfort, and ease, and forgiveness because they’ve done nothing, and they’ve always been the light of God. And you offer those words. There would be nothing in you that would expect a payment back because the words weren’t yours to begin with. The offering wasn’t yours to begin with. You were in the channel of love, learning to offer the love of God. And you are blessed by those words that came from God and you pass them on. There’s nothing in you that gave anything that you manufactured or you made. It’s the love of God that you are offering. It has to be passed on. It has to be extended. It has to be expanded. It’s how we learn of the universe and its magnificence and its fullness by offering that love without conditions.

The spirit of transformation…if you accept and ask for the help, the spirit of transformation will take you into the careful searching of your own mind that made the distortions of trying to get. Let the spirit of transformation take you into an honesty within to illuminate all the beliefs of trying to get anything, and opening that doorway so that they can all be released. So you can be freed from the pain and the poison of the belief that there is something to get. But, in order to be willing to open those channels of healing and letting the spirit of transformation actually transform your own mind, you’re accepting that beneath those beliefs of trying to get is the wholeness of your heart, where you’re willing to recognize that you have everything, that you are everything, that nothing of love has been damaged. And the more that you offer that love, the more you recognize it. You’re blessed in the same moment, but not because you’re trying to get anything, just because blessings occur all the time.

How many times have you worried about somebody else’s journey? When you worry about somebody else’s journey and what it looks like, you’re saying I know something. I know how things should look. I know how things should go. But you’re not recognizing that you’re only calling is to put that Beloved into the hands of God and recognize that their journey is with God and you’re there just to offer love. You’re not there to criticize or have an opinion about what their journey should look like, but to keep offering love and strength to each Beloved that they are the light of God. That they don’t have to worry about their journey. It’s guaranteed. Every Beloved’s journey is guaranteed that they’re going to remember the truth of love. That’s the journey. To go honestly and to keep letting the illumination of God reveal the way to walk on this Earth.

Show me how to love. I’m willing. I’m willing to learn the way of love, pure, without any expectations of acknowledgement or return. Nothing to get. To have a clean and pure relationship with the truth that there is nothing to get is a calling to be willing to be in honesty within. To be honestly searching…am I trying to get something? Is there something that I want in return? Acknowledgement. What is it? Anything? I want to be open and clean and without reservation. Offer love without conditions.

I want to learn. I want to learn the way that the masters came to show me. I want to remember. To put my faith in the masters that were sent to me. And I want to suffocate myself in their bag of truth. I want to cleanse and I want the mind to be cleansed by the truth so that there is nothing left of all the rules I made up in the belief of separation. I want to be freed from the rules that I made about giving and taking and getting. I want it all cleansed.

Let that be your power prayer. I want to be cleansed and learn to love.

This path to God. Have your intention just cleanse everything that I made up and only the love will remain. Easily and effortlessly the spirit of love, the spirit of transformation will cleanse everything. And the only thing that is really necessary for cleansing is just what’s been made up. It’s not reality. It’s just the past identity saying…I am without. But we learn that we are never without by actually offering love because as we offer love without conditions, we expand into the universe. Truly. It isn’t a high. It’s a state of being. It isn’t a payoff, a sense of a job well done. It isn’t like getting an A on your report card. It’s that blissful, peaceful resting into the universe of love. And, what you recognize in that is “ahh…this is more like home. This is the garden of love.” It’s just a place of offering love. Every time you experience an irritation, and everyone in the belief of separation recognizes that place…that is the opportunity of refusing that irritation and recognizing if there is an irritation it’s because there was an expectation of getting something that you believe you didn’t get, and it’s the opportunity of healing in that moment. That there is no battle. There’s nothing to fight with and there’s nothing to get from anyone.

YOU ARE the complete light of God and the journey is at the same time directed inward to find your innocent heart with God and at the same time offering love to the expansion of the universe, to everyone that is your reflection. And everything is your reflection. Offer that love. Just the willingness to have your heart open without any reserve. If you have someone that seems to be in conflict with you…more love. More love, more love, more love. More innocence, more blessings and no opinions. And, that becomes your place of peace. That becomes your restful sleep. Your restful lack of guilt, because guilt is waiting constantly to be stirred up. And it always comes from personal opinions and ideas of the past. There’s nothing to get. You have everything. Love is always all that there is.

I needed great courage to go out into the dark tracking God into the unknown and not panic or get lost in all of the startling new scents, sounds and sights or lose my temper tripping on those scheming night and day around me. No one to lose your temper with. Not having any more temper at all, because the temper you thought was natural disappeared in offering love having no expectations, only love. Every teaching is the same…only love, only blessings, only comfort. Only love.

Chris Celine © 2015

Chris’s Website

While listening to Awakening Together’s Sunday service I experienced my heart and soul breaking wide open. There was not a particular moment or person that hit the ‘start’ button but, rather, it was the totality of the service, starting with the opening song, the incredible reading, words spoken by the minister and continuing through the sharing of those in attendance. Halfway through the opening song, the tears began to flow and a sense of Grace filled my very being.

Today is Easter Sunday which, in Judeo-Christian cultures, is the celebration of Jesus rising from the tomb after being betrayed, judged, crucified and then dying. I was raised in this faith-based culture, as well as, in the cultural celebration of the Easter holiday through chocolate bunnies, jelly beans and decorated eggs hidden for the annual scavenger hunts taking place across the nation. I am VERY familiar with the Bible story because I was raised in a fundamental religious environment both knowing the story of the resurrection along with required attendance at the annual sunrise service. I have also followed the traditions of putting together Easter baskets and hiding those colorful eggs. These types of traditions extend and unite family, community and the world. Participating in such traditions bonds me to the past and invigorates my sense of the future. I also hold the belief that ‘it’s not Easter without those yellow marshmallow Peeps! … just sayin!

My eyes and heart were opened today to a totally different interpretation of the Bible story; a different ‘spin’ on the crucifixion, death and ascension of Jesus. As I listened to the words being spoken I could feel the building of deep emotional responses to the Truth that was being shared. Swirling through me was the clear, unmovable knowledge that everything dies and rises back up. This may seem trite and a ‘Duh!’ moment as you read this and I can laugh as I write these words. I have carried with me a notion of exactly what death and life is all about since I was born – ‘DUH!’.

Something today was completely different. As I sat in my chair, enjoying my fresh coffee and the little dog laying on my lap, I was moved to look slowly and deeply at my surroundings – – there were books, magazines, fabric with which to create quilts, partially completed quilts, lamps, a mirror, music CDs, the hardwood floor, area rugs, and so on. As I looked at each item I was struck with a deep understanding that each was created from something (or more than one something); each was there as a result of death (literally or figuratively) and each was re- birthed purposefully for reuse.

In other words, trees died in order for me to have all these printed materials consisting of beautiful words and pictures that provide me with knowledge and inspiration. Fabrics were created from plants and animals; each giving their life so that I would be able to creatively turn them into colorful quilts; quilts carrying the message of ‘I love you’ and ‘you matter’ to the elderly, the child, to the hospice patient. Sperm and eggs join, resulting in their individual
deaths, so that life can continue in a form (animal or human); forms that perpetuate lineages across centuries.

The ‘aha’ moment for me was – – WE, being alive, are part and parcel of this PROCESS. Each and every ‘thing’ at which I looked, no exception, is the result of the same PROCESS. This is the same PROCESS that we know as the transfiguration that Jesus experienced in order for him to become the representative of the Christ Consciousness. There is no difference! The fact that Jesus was a human does not make this process any more special or notable than the transfiguration of trees into printed materials or clay into ceramic dishes. The miracle is the same regardless of the object – – human or not.

I have always had a strong sense of connectedness to people, places and things but there always existed a sense of separation. I could empathize, I could care, I could help, I could be mindful, I could share BUT I always felt like I was standing over here while looking over there. The insight from this morning clearly shows me how there is no here or there. It’s simply the PROCESS – – (death followed by ascension – the miracle of transfiguration) – – in action! I can see that this is the “Isness” of which Regina Dawn Akers speaks. The Christ Consciousness that is offered by Grace to each and every human, along with each and every stone, tree, drop of water, animal, mineral, inert gas, etc., is nothing other than, or more than, this.

My very being died this morning and was reborn with a vision of connectedness. I no longer see separation between me ‘being’ and anything else because there clearly is no separation just as there is nothing else. So, if I am the same miracle as the books in my library or the dogs lounging on the sofa then how can I continue to see anything as separate and different from me? More to ponder…

Today, thanks to many people sharing from their hearts, I got it and I got it good! Please don’t misconstrue what I am saying – – in no way am I feeling I’m ‘enlightened’ or ‘more awake’ (whatever those terms mean) than before. I continue to have no clue as to what anything about my life means all the while having the sense that my life means nothing. But what I do feel is that this morning, through the shared power of love, I have been given a great gift. I am able to see that everything I see, feel, taste, embrace, and hear is only the embodiment of what ascended from death.

Rebecca is an Awakening Together Ordained Minister

In my teachings, I have shared many times that I used “helpful self-talk” in order to move through the purification process and allow healing to occur. I call this self-talk process, “active resting from the mind.” In other words, I didn’t want to listen to or believe the wrong mind, but often the emotions were intense and the mind was promising that it knew the answer. It was easy to slip into listening to and believing the mind. So, I needed an active way of resting from the mind. Self-talk was that active way of resting.

Recently someone asked me to share some of the self-talk that I used when going through purification. Here are some of the self-talk messages that I remember using frequently:

Breathe.

This story in the mind is the cause of my upset. I can let go of listening to this story.

This is coming up now because I want healing. I will stay out of the way and let this feeling/belief arise so it can be healed.

I want truth/awakening more than I want to take control.

This too shall pass.

If I wait and do nothing, this will pass and clarity/willingness will return.

If I act on this fear/guilt/unworthiness, I will only reinforce it. I do not want to reinforce it, so I will not do what mind is telling me to do.

In my defenselessness my safety lies.

If I defend myself, I am defending a false self as if it is me. I want to realize my true Self, so I will not prop up this false self with defense.

If I cling to this personal value, I cling to the personal self. I want to be free of the personal self and know truth, so I will not cling to this value.

If I believe these thoughts I cling to attack/fear/guilt/hate/unworthiness/worry. I do not want to cling to that, so I will let go of these thoughts.

I believe I am guilty but the Holy Spirit says I am innocent. I choose to trust the Holy Spirit more than me.

I believe that fear will kill me, but fear will not kill me. It is just energy in the body. I can watch this energy without interfering, and I will be safe.

I want awakening more than I want safety/to be liked/things my way.

I am willing to let everyone abandon me if that is to happen. Awakening is my priority.

I am willing to let everyone believe false stories about me/misunderstand me if that is how it is going to be. Awakening is my priority.

I want to follow intuition more than I want what I think I want.

Surrendering to this moment as it is, is the highest form of devotion.

Let it be.

Be quiet and be undone.

Etc.

On February 27th I was honored to become an ordained Awakening Together Minister. My certificate says that I completed 72 weeks of classroom study, and I remember somewhere in that long stretch of weeks that we can get attached to concepts that often lead us astray as we travel our spiritual paths. Before I started the Minister Preparation Program (MPP) my concept of being a minister held that I had to somehow maintain a level of purity in the classical sense of being sinless. As I progressed through the course I often ran up against this concept and felt like an outsider that would eventually be discovered and publically scorned for aspiring to become something that I could never be because of my sinful secrets.

Needless to say, and as a great comfort to me, this concept is gone. Why is it gone? It is gone because I learned from my classmates and our teacher that our feeling of unworthiness is a common core belief we all have, and during those 72 weeks the awakening to our reality dissolves the concepts we held when we entered the program.

Upon my signing up for the program I mentioned to Regina I was not necessarily interested in becoming a minister and I can now see where that resistance came from. Now that I have finished the course I am beginning to feel quite proud of my accomplishment and my new title. I am awakening to the understanding that as I minister I am providing the ministered and myself the opportunity to awaken to our reality. The teacher is also the student.

The Minister Preparation Program is clearly a gift to anyone seeking to come to know themselves and I cannot give enough thanks and kudos to Regina for being the instrument that brought this program to fruition. It was extremely interesting, educational, and deeply spiritual.

Have I reached the pinnacle of purity? Hardly. Even as I seek to allow these words to flow from spirit I sit in the suffering of this physical body. Even as I have experienced overwhelming emotions of love during the 72 weeks, I still experience suffering from this defective sack of skin and bones. I have highs and lows, the highs coming from guiding people to the truth of their being to the lows of the constant reminder of physical suffering. Who, therefore is the minister? Can I be both a minister of truth and a suffering human being? Only if I maintain my belief I am this body. It is of course not enough to adopt the belief we are not this body, but quite another to come to know this.

There are more than a few of us that entered the MPP with physical defects that we live with daily or moment to moment. It is probably why we are on this spiritual path as we seek relief from our suffering. All of us come to the realization that books, words on paper, hours of classroom, do not alleviate us from this suffering and we often grow despondent. Where is our refuge, our relief, our healing that is promised if we simply forgive? Our healing comes from our ministering to others, our service to others, which leads us away from self to knowing Self. I know this to be true because when I am in service to others I feel only joy, and when I am not, I feel only suffering.

Be a minister to yourself first and then you will become a true minister to others.

Many years ago a friend of mine introduced me to the book “Stepping Free of Limiting Patterns” written by a wonderful lady named Pat McCallum. What Pat wrote was a discovery of how to identify limiting patterns in one’s life and to re-pattern them to remove the limits imposed by the old patterns. I used her process very successfully for many years and often coached others in how to use it for themselves. I was so pleased with this process and how well it worked for me that I did not realize until this day that I assumed it was pretty much the same as “Root Cause Inquiry” (RCI) presented by Regina Dawn Akers. I was so enamored with Pat’s process that when I was introduced to Regina’s process I simply did not think I needed it and glossed over it as it was presented in the MPP class, True Discernment. As I was looking back at the lesson that presented RCI I found to my astonishment that I hadn’t answered the questions, and basically had never used RCI because I thought Pat McCallum’s process to be sufficient for self-inquiry.

But as things go I felt a need to take another look at RCI today because of something that was triggering in me a sense of failure and an inherent weakness. I found the audio and a handout at Regina’s web site under “A second dozen classics”. As I began to read the print out I began the inquiry by writing the upset I was experiencing. I didn’t get very far because in the printed instructions it says we must first accept an assumption that “If my mind was perfectly healed, nothing would upset me, not even this.” Now I’m sure there are many of you reading this that had no problem with an assumption, but I was stopped in my tracks. Having performed self-inquiry for many years, now I immediately recognized resistance. I reread the sentence many times and could not see what the resistance was. Even though ‘assuming’ was a bad word in the military, I fully understood what Regina was doing using this word in her instructions. Still, there was an underlying resistance but I convinced myself to go forward with trust that it would work out in the end.

I began the question and answer procedure and drilled down to the root cause after a few iterations and sure enough, my resistance floated up into my consciousness and exposed itself in all its shinning glory. The root cause was the very thing causing the resistance. My upset was because I thought a certain behavior (sub-consciously believed to be a sin) on my part needed to be let go in order for me to become of perfect mind. The suggested assumption held that I was already of perfect mind – and there was the resistance. I could not be, nor assume, a perfectly healed mind unless I changed my behavior first. And this was my upset. I held the belief that I was preventing my mind from healing by my behavior, so I couldn’t possibly put the cart before the horse and assume a perfectly healed mind before the behavior was changed. I was experiencing what is described in A Course in Miracles as being caught up in circular reasoning.

Looking back at why it took so long to utilize Root Cause Inquiry and how simple it was to clear away an upset that I have had for many years, I see that Stepping Free of Limiting Patterns is not the same as stepping free from guilt.

~ ~ ~ ~

Hal Seeley serves on the Awakening Together Board of Directors and will be ordained as an Awakening Together Minister on February 28, 2016.

• “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”
• “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
• “Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.”
• “I want to know God’s thoughts; the rest are details.”
• “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
• “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
• “The only real valuable thing is intuition.”
• “A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”
• “I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.”
• “God is subtle but he is not malicious.”
• “Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.”
• “I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.”
• “The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.”
• “Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.”
• “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”
• “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
• “Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.”
• “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
• “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”
• “Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.”
• “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”
• “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”
• “God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.”
• “The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.”
• “Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.”
• “Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.”
• “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.”
• “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
• “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”
• “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
• “Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.”
• “Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity.”
• “If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.”
• “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.”
• “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
• “Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
• “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
• “In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.”
• “The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.”
• “Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.”
• “Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them!”
• “No, this trick won’t work…How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?”
• “My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
• “Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.”
• “The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking…the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.”
• “Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.”
• “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
• “A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”
• “The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.”
• “Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
• “You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.”
• “One had to cram all this stuff into one’s mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.”
• “…one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.”
• “He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
• “A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
• “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” (Sign hanging in Einstein’s office at Princeton)

Copyright: Kevin Harris 1995 (may be freely distributed with this acknowledgement)

I have heard you
And I have heard you say that
I don’t trust you.
But the truth is that
You don’t trust yourself.

You ask where I am
But I am with you.
Just trust that I am not separate from you.
I am part of you
And have always been here.

Just be…
Don’t think so much
And you will realize that
I am with and part of you.
I have just been waiting
For you to believe in me.

When you let go of the things
You hold onto,
You will find me.
For I am not
The past
Or the future.
I exist in the moment.

I don’t know what is best for my life. So how could I know what’s best for anyone else’s?

I’ve had this train of thought for a few weeks now. And I’m really happy to have it because it allows me to love my family no matter what. I’m not in charge of anybody, nor am I the advisor or the judge; I am doing the best that I can and I appreciate that the people around me are doing what they can too.

I’m really not here to pass judgement or make calls. In fact, I think I’m a little arrogant. So, with my own flaws on the plate, I don’t feel like criticizing anybody else. I’m pretty happy to just love my family because they support me and love me. They have to figure out their life just like I have to figure out mine.

On a contrasting note, when I am a teacher I assume the position of life role model. All I can say about this irony, this being the role model while not being perfect, is that I do the best I can.

Sometimes I’m not the best teacher, friend, or person (or co-worker, student, or employee), but I am what I am and these are the lemons that life gives me, and so I make lemonade. Perhaps I follow my gut, or my brain, whichever one I find more convincing, because these are the mediums that I have. But whichever medium I use to manage my life, it never works perfectly every time.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: If you’re somebody who is not doing perfect right now, then I hear you, and I see you, and I’m in the same boat with you.

Love.

David is a 19-year old Sophomore at Oklahoma State University, a student teacher and an Awakening Together Ordained Minister.

First, this mind believed it was a self in a process toward the goal of peace. Then one day it had an experience while meditating that Truth is right here. It was the Holy Instant and It was breathtaking. This mind realized that in meditation, and in everything else, it always reached for Truth. And in that reaching it over-reached Truth and missed It because Truth is right here. It was like when the self looks for the mustard in the refrigerator but does not see it because the mustard is right in front of it and the self is looking past it to find it.

And then the awareness of the immediate Presence of Truth was gone. Each day in meditation this mind tried to be present and experience the Truth again but could not. It could remember the experience but not conjure it. How long did this go on? Months? Years? Then it happened again and this mind would think, “This is it. This is all I need to experience. This is all I need to remember. Stop reaching. It’s here now.” And then…It couldn’t make it happen again. More months, maybe years, before this mind had the experience again. But then, over a long, long time, it began to happen more often. And this mind began to take the awareness that “Truth is here now” into the unfolding of each day. “It’s here,” it would remind itself throughout the day and it would just be with It. If this mind couldn’t experience Truth it still reminded itself that Truth is here. This mind does not need to experience Truth for Truth to be.

Over a long time this mind re-trained itself to stop reaching, to stop thinking in terms of a goal, to just stop and be present to Truth. If this mind reached for peace it missed peace because peace is here. If this mind set up peace as a goal it would obtain in the future it put distance between itself and peace because peace is here now. And, over that long time, all that reaching and goal-setting diminished until it finally ceased. The Truth is here now and so is this mind. This mind no longer has anything for which to reach.

But there is still something in this mind that is in a process and that still seems to be learning. This mind has come to understand that actually time was over for it many, many years ago when it first allowed Truth into its awareness. Since then all it has been doing is accepting this fact. And now that it has accepted it, it can see that the self and its story was only ever an effect. Originally the self’s life in the world was an expression (effect) of the idea of not-Truth. Then, when this mind allowed Truth into its awareness, the story of the self became an expression (effect) of the-undoing-of-the-idea-of-not-Truth. And that part of the story is still going on. But this mind is learning to no longer confuse itself with the story. The unfolding story of the self is just an idea in its mind that it observes while it rests in the present in peace.

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