Today’s reading opens with, “Now you must choose where you will decide to look. Your decision will show you what you will see.”

Judas is a symbol of one who believed his thoughts and then saw what his thoughts told him to see. According to NTI, Judas turned Jesus in for arrest simply because he did not have the wisdom to see his thoughts as meaningless.

How often do we act from belief in our thoughts? Are we ready to learn from our brother’s mistake? Are we willing to let Judas’ mistake be a precious gift that leads us to make a different choice?

When I was the scribe of NTI Matthew, I was not able to see Judas as giving us a gift by showing us what not to do. I saw Judas as the evil betrayer. I still believed in betrayal at that time, so my scribing of this section is not as pure as it could have been. You’ll notice that inner wisdom coaches the scribe directly by saying, “… it is attack and hatred you see and feel through this scripture. Remember what I have told you. Fear will keep you from Me. Trust that these feelings of anger are intended only to hide your fear of Me. …. Choose now to let your anger, attack and hatred go. They serve you not. Rest with Me in faith instead.”

After reading verse 25 in the Bible—which reads, “Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, ‘Surely you don’t mean me, Rabbi?’”—I got it. I saw that in that very moment, I believed my thoughts just as Judas had believed his. I hated Judas for the same reason that Judas distrusted Jesus; we believed our thoughts.

This was a ‘eureka’ moment for me, and I have been madly in love with Judas ever since. I now see his ‘betrayal’ of Jesus as a great gift to us. He demonstrated just how bad things can get when we believe our thoughts, and that provides us with the opportunity not to make the same mistake.

Here is one of my favorite songs. I have listened to it many, many times over the years. It reminds me not to believe my thinking. I listen to it with gratitude and with love for our brother, Judas. I think it’s funny that the song begins with Judas singing, “My mind is clearer now.” It shows that we can be deeply deceived by our own thinking.

If you are not familiar with the story of Judas’ betrayal, please read it in the Bible.

Thoughts of Awakening # 24

You are perfect.

Whenever you think that you are not, you are listening to the voice of the ego.

It is a voice of denial, and what it denies is your truth.

You are perfect, and you can never not be perfect, because you can never not be whole and just as God created you.

You are perfect.

~From our Holy Spirit

Today’s reading interprets three Bible stories. I recommend reading the stories in the Bible before reading the interpretation in NTI. Each story provides an opportunity for self-examination and self-honesty.

Jesus did not tell these stories so that we would chastise ourselves and decide that we are not good enough. There would be no forward movement if we understood the stories that way. The stories are provided so we can look, see where we are not in harmony with the calling of our heart, and then make adjustments. These stories are gifts to help us notice where we are still operating based on old conditioning, so we can retune ourselves.

With that said, a question you might ask yourself as you read The Parable of Ten Virgins and its interpretation is, “Where do I look for peace of mind? The marketplace, which is a symbol for the world, or within?”

A question you might ask yourself as you read The Parable of Bags of Gold and its interpretation is, “Do I trust the unknown or fear it?”

A question you might ask yourself as you read The Sheep and the Goats and its interpretation is, “Am I guiding myself towards unity consciousness or am I still interested in self-centeredness?”

It might be helpful to see yourself as a musical instrument. Are you playing the melody you want to play, or are some of your strings out of tune?

I found this comment online about tuning a harp:

There are people who will tell you that one key is “better” or “worse” than another. Like with many harp-related things, it is not so much a matter of right and wrong, but is rather very subjective and individual, and depends on a number of factors, including: what type of harp you have, how much musical experience you have, what style of music you want to play, and how much theory you know. It can even depend on things such as, how much improvising and/or transposing you want to do, and how much you rely on sheet music. So instead of trying to tell you the “right way” to tune a harp, I’ve presented some of the more common tunings, with explanations as to why some people choose them and others don’t.

I thought this comment was helpful, because we can get caught up in ideas of right and wrong whenever we engage in self-examination. It isn’t a matter of right and wrong or good and bad. It’s a matter of, “What do I want?” and “Is my way of being in support of that or hindering it?”

Here is a quote from Nisargadatta Maharaj that we can contemplate along with today’s reading:

You do and undo at every step. You want peace, love, happiness and work hard to create pain, hatred and war. You want longevity and overeat; you want friendship and exploit. See your net as made of such contradictions and remove them — your very seeing them will make them go.

Thoughts of Awakening # 23

Peace is your reality.

It is yours now, a gift given you by God, and so it cannot be taken away.

Accept this gracious gift.

It is yours.

~From our Holy Spirit

Remember, we are in Messiah kindergarten. Remember, “Messiah” means, one in whom God’s plan for humankind is being brought to fruition. It is an evolution, of sorts, and in this evolution we are baby Messiahs. Since Messiah is a very important role, we need to give all of our attention—our whole heart, our whole soul and our whole mind—to the lessons we are learning now. (Ref: Mark 12:30)

Today’s lesson is a key lesson for Messiahs, although it is not the easiest of lessons to learn. In fact, it is a lesson that some students of non-duality deny entirely. They say this teaching isn’t what it appears to be; it means something other than what it says. However, the masters do not deny the teaching. Only some students—those who do not yet know—deny it.

The teaching  I speak of is that the world is not real. It is an illusion.

First, let’s look at the dictionary definition of “illusion”. An illusion is “a thing that is or is likely to be wrongly perceived or interpreted by the senses. It is a deceptive appearance or impression.”

One mistake that we make is not questioning our senses. We believe that if we see it, it is true. But is that entirely correct? We see the sun rise and the sun set everyday. The earth that we are on looks stationary, as we observe the sun moving across the sky. But is that true?

The earth that we walk on seems horizontal. Is that true?

Moonlight lights up the night sky. But is there such a thing as moonlight?

If our senses are not reliable some of the time, can we be sure that they are reliable the rest of the time? Is it possible that we see with our brain, a brain that has been conditioned to see in a self-centered way, a way of seeing that is entirely faulty?

Here are some quotes to consider before beginning today’s reading in NTI:

“Vision consists of your eyes detecting light and converting it to electro-chemical impulses in neurons which are then given meaning by your brain.   Hence, the real ‘seeing’ occurs in the brain with the interpretation of the impulses. ~ Debbie Hampton, author of Beat Depression and Anxiety by Changing your Brain

“… bear in mind that your own sense of vision is carried by nothing but millions of nerve signals that just happen to travel along different cables.  Your brain is encased in absolute blackness in the vault of your skull.  It doesn’t see anything.  All it knows are these little signals and nothing else.  And yet you perceive the world in shades of brightness and colors.  Your brain is in the dark but your mind constructs the light.” ~ David Eagleman, author of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

“What we perceive as our physical material world, is really not physical or material at all, in fact, it is far from it. … Quantum physicists discovered that physical atoms are made up of vortices of energy that are constantly spinning and vibrating, each one radiating its own unique energy signature. Therefore, if we really want to observe ourselves and find out what we are, we are really beings of energy and vibration, radiating our own unique energy signature -this is fact and is what quantum physics has shown us time and time again. We are much more than what we perceive ourselves to be, and it’s time we begin to see ourselves in that light. If you observed the composition of an atom with a microscope you would see a small, invisible tornado-like vortex, with a number of infinitely small energy vortices called quarks and photons. These are what make up the structure of the atom. As you focused in closer and closer on the structure of the atom, you would see nothing, you would observe a physical void. The atom has no physical structure, we have no physical structure, physical things really don’t have any physical structure! Atoms are made out of invisible energy, not tangible matter.” ~ Arjun Walia, author of Nothing Is Solid & Everything Is Energy – Scientists Explain The World Of Quantum Physics, an article published in CE—Collective Evolution (an e-magazine)

“It is because the thoughts you think you think appear as images that you do not recognize them as nothing. You think you think them, and so you think you see them. This is how your ‘seeing’ was made. … It is not seeing. It is image making. It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions.” ~ A Course in Miracles Workbook for Students, Lesson 15

“There is no body, nor a world to contain it; there is only a mental condition, a dream like state, easy to dispel by questioning its reality.” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj, Indian sage.

“If one is able to remove the ego-sense by means of one’s awakened intelligence, he cleanses from his consciousness the impurity known as world-appearance.” ~ The Yoga Vasistha, an ancient Hindu text.

“After Realization, the supposed seeing ends and what is known will be known and what was supposedly ‘seen’ will be ‘seen’ no more.” ~ Floyd Henderson, author of The Advanced Seekers’ Series

Thoughts of Awakening # 22

You are free, for the truth is always true.

In the quiet of your mind, in the stillness, without the voice of self-will, you know the truth.

And that is that you are free.

~From our Holy Spirit