Click the link below to read the minutes from this meeting.
(To learn more about the Member Board of Trustees, click here.)
500 Days with NTI ~ Day 322
Day 322 Assignment
This evening (or tomorrow morning):
Read NTI Galatians 2 in full.
Tomorrow:
- Meditate with this 30-minute guided meditation, Brain Relaxation.
- When you see a judgment in your mind, regardless of how justified the judgment may seem, relax and shift into unconditional acceptance of what is as it is:
(a) Acceptance is mentally and emotionally allowing it to be as it is.
(b) Acceptance doesn’t mean it can’t be changed, if it is within your power and your role to change it. For example, you can accept that someone doesn’t have the skills needed to do a job and you can provide training.
(c) If you cannot accept what is as it is, accept your resistance or judgment as it is.
Gentle Healing Year 3 ~ Daily Contemplation #244
Please read quotes 794-797 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
Your earnestness will determine the rate of progress.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Tip for Gentle Healing Year 2 – Day 264 – 1st John 4
One key to effective discernment is knowing what to give attention to and what not to give attention to, because it isn’t meaningful; because it isn’t real, because it is temporary instead of eternal.
A second key to effective discernment is letting feeling guide the decision above.
Thinking can be extremely deceptive. You can’t trust thinking to help you discern the wrong-mind from the right-mind, but you can trust feeling.
Whenever you feel content, open, and free, you are in the right-mind. Whenever there is an interruption of any kind to content-open-free, you are giving attention to the wrong-mind.
I chose the word “content” instead of happy or joyous, because sometimes humans are serious, such as when they are looking at a problem that needs to be resolved, and sometimes humans are sad, like when a loved one passes away, etcetera. However, the right-mind is content with seriousness when seriousness is appropriate and content with sadness when sadness is appropriate, etcetera.
Contentment is an underlying permanent feeling. Sometimes other feelings are appropriately present too, but when one is with the right-mind, the other feelings do not cover contentment. They are present with contentment.
If contentment is lost (covered up), attention is with the wrong-mind.
A third key to effective discernment is self-honesty. You can lie to yourself about whether you were content or not while you were swearing at the driver in the car next to you, but lying to yourself will not help you reach the freedom that is called enlightenment. Self-honesty is a very important key.
Today’s reading says:
“When any thought does not feel like Love, you may put it aside as false.”
That is another way of saying, whenever you do not feel content-open-free, attention is with the wrong-mind. You can disregard what you are giving attention to—because isn’t meaningful; because it isn’t real, because it is temporary instead of eternal—and return attention to the right-mind and to truth.
The reading also says:
“Existence cannot be denied, because it is.”
Sometimes, when believing-attention goes deeply into false ideas, we can have deep feelings that are not anything like content-open-free. Sometimes content-open-free can be so far from our current experience that we can’t recall the feeling those words point to. However, there is one intuitive knowing-feeling that is never covered up. It is always present, and we can always turn our attention to it. That is existence.
In any moment, no matter how angry you are, … no matter how guilty you feel, … regardless of how ashamed you feel, and etcetera; in any moment you can notice that you exist. In fact, you couldn’t be angry or feel guilty, etcetera, unless existence was there to feel it. So, in any moment you can turn attention from whatever has captured attention and focus on existence instead. Simply notice that right now you exist, and keep attention there.
Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.
Thoughts of Awakening # 264
Stillness is like a deep well
because it is life everlasting,
eternal.
Illusion is at the surface
in the world of changing,
non-lasting.
When one focuses on illusion,
one is split in many directions
unaware of the constancy
of one’s Self.
When one is focused on stillness,
one is aware of constancy.
Constancy remains peaceful,
even through the appearance
of change.
~From our Holy Spirit
500 Days with NTI ~ Day 321
Day 321 Assignment
This evening (or tomorrow morning):
Read NTI Galatians 1 in full.
Tomorrow:
- Meditate using the stage 1, 2 or 3 meditation technique, whichever suits you best.
- Put your spiritual purpose first today:
(a) Let your spiritual purpose lead in how you think, perceive, experience and act.
(b) If you forget your purpose and find yourself caught up in the world or thought, simply shift back into putting your purpose first and letting it lead.
Sometime this weekend:
Listen to this 47-minute teaching by Regina Dawn Akers from NTI Galatians.
This Sunday in the Sanctuary ~ November 21 , 2021
Join us at 10:15 am ET/ 8:15 am MT for the Weekly Sunday Gathering with Rev. Meghan Reinhart
Title: “You Are Another Me.”
Description: NTI Matthew says, “Blessed are those who see only Love in their brothers, for they know what they have found.” What if our greatest fear is not of death but of Life? When we break down the mental patterns of judgments and expose death as the great reward, is there really anyone else out there but Me? Rev. Meghan will be exploring this inquiry and more this coming Sunday in the Sanctuary.
Reading: Joe Schmitz will be reading an excerpt from The Path to No-Self by Bernadette Roberts.
*Weekly gathering is held every Sunday morning at 10:15 am ET/8:15 am MT in the Awakening Together Sanctuary. Join us after the Gathering for our Fellowship Time, hosted by Rev. George Maddox.
Join us at 1:30 pm ET/ 11:30 am MT for Freedom Practice Sangha – Facilitated by Anne Blanchard
Following the recent Awakening Together online retreats it has become clear that many feel called to dive into intensive follow-up work. While the practice of unearthing and looking directly at our individual beliefs is primarily solitary in nature, we all recognize that the sharing of that work with others who are undergoing the same process can be enormously beneficial and supportive. This will be a time of sharing our inquiries, insights, and challenges, listening to others, or just knowing that we are in community as we find that undefended place within ourselves that longs to be free.
Join us at 5:00 pm ET/ 3:00 pm MT for The Mighty Companions
Revs. Glen Ganaway and Yolanda Mapes, who are interfaith ministers, share a delightful, funny, and inspiring hour of A Course in Miracles. Come join in on the fun, the laughs, and the music while unlearning the ego through the lessons and chapters of ACIM.
Join us at 6:00 pm ET/ 4:00 pm MT for Something Genuine with Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert
Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert facilitates this program, in which Awakening Together members and friends join together to watch and discuss TED talks that reveal the Truth of ourselves and our universe based on the actual experience of ordinary people. Their insights are genuine—not based upon theory or dogma—and give us a “man on the street” perspective on what we are coming to learn through Awakening Together.
Join us at 7:00 pm ET/ 5:00 pm MT for The Guiding Light with Rev. Regina Dawn Akers
Regina Dawn Akers reads selections from the book Perfect Brilliant Stillness by David Carse. The purpose of this inspired book study is to learn to stop focusing on words and concepts. Join Regina as she dives deep into this enlightened book study which isn’t a book study at all! Here’s a link to the book here: Get the book for free
Join us at 7:30 pm ET/ 5:30 pm MT for a Live Satsang with Akilesh Ayyar
Akilesh Ayyar will be interviewed by Rhoda Makled and Anne Blanchard. Akilesh is a spiritual mentor and writer who has been engaged with the Hindu school of Advaita Vedanta (nonduality) for over 20 years. He specializes in a modern interpretation of Sri Ramana Maharshi’s ideas as a path to ultimate truth and liberation. He has written two books on self-realization, How to Find What Isn’t Lost, and, more recently, Spiritual Dialogues with Akilesh: Q&A on Liberation and Truth. He has graduate degrees from Carnegie-Mellon University, the City University of New York, and Harvard Law School. He has taught and has presented at Science and Nonduality, Nothing Conference, InciteSeminars, HealHaus, Maha Rose, the New York Self-Inquiry group, and elsewhere.
You can find out more about Akilesh Ayyar on his website: www.siftingtothetruth.com. He guides seekers one-on-one and in groups. He also has a YouTube Channel, Sifting to the Truth.
*Sanctuary now closes at a new time of 9 pm ET.
Here are direct links to join us in the Sanctuary:
Enter the Sanctuary Here: Click Here
Awakening Together Internet Broadcast: Listen Live on AT Radio
Gentle Healing Year 3 ~ Daily Contemplation #243
Please read quotes 792-793 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
Grace, the Supreme, is rare and unique. There is nothing that resembles it. To make it the object of one’s desire is the most virtuous of desires. As all other desires are quenched through the very desire for it, it will shine in the heart spontaneously.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Tip for Gentle Healing Year 2 – Day 263 – 1st John 3
You cannot read today’s reading from the idea, “I am a person,” and understand it. “I” cannot mean “me and not others.” “I” must mean consciousness, and it must include all things in manifestation as “I,” or the meaning in today’s reading will be lost.
For example, today’s reading says:
“The world that you see comes from the thoughts that you think.”
That doesn’t mean, “Hey, Regina. The world that you see comes from the thoughts you think.”
Regina is a character. That sentence speaks to consciousness, and consciousness experiences itself as each character.
We are one consciousness, and the world appearance comes from us as one consciousness.
Before reading today, take a few minutes to contemplate one consciousness. Realize you are not the character you identify with. You are consciousness. Everyone and everything is one consciousness, and you are that.
Don’t think about this idea. Just be with it. As today’s reading says:
“The thinking mind cannot follow this thought because the thinking mind believes in separation,”
If any part of today’s reading is not clear to you, ask inner wisdom for clarity.
Thoughts of Awakening # 263
Stillness is always present.
It is within and it is without.
It is the one reality,
always constant,
never wavering.
When one is not listening to stillness,
one is focused on illusion.
Illusion is not important.
With desire-stillness,
it can be put aside.
When one is listening to stillness,
one moves and functions within illusion,
but one has not forgotten constant-stillness.
Therefore, one is peaceful, happy, content,
and guided by stillness
as a representative of stillness
within the world.
~From our Holy Spirit
Audio & Homework – Week 44 Gentle Healing Group Year 1 with Saina, 11/18/21
Rev. Saina Fernandez guides a group of committed students through year 1 of Gentle Healing who would like to make consistent, gentle progress toward genuine peace, joy, and love. This group meets weekly on Thursdays at 6-8 pm ET and all members are committed to specific assignments and practices between group meetings.
Please note: it may be necessary to download the audio to listen to it fully.
Homework for the next 2 weeks:
- Homework Assignment A: Workbook lessons 292-298 including the tips. Practice daily awareness-watching-awareness, Loving Consciousness, or Abandon Release Method meditation for 20-30 minutes each day. Practice the “Loving All” Method.
- Homework Assignment B: Read NTI 2 Corinthians, Chapters 7-13, pgs 316-325.
*Remember that the Sanctuary is closed next Thursday, November 25th for Thanksgiving and so there will not be a Gentle Healing Class for next week. We will meet again on December 2, 2021.
You have two weeks to complete the homework assignment. Please use your guidance in determining how you want to complete the homework.
500 Days with NTI ~ Day 320
Day 320 Assignment
This evening (or tomorrow morning):
Read NTI 2 Corinthians 13 in full.
Tomorrow:
- Meditate using the stage 1, 2 or 3 meditation technique, whichever suits you best.
- Put your spiritual purpose first today:
(a) Let your spiritual purpose lead in how you think, perceive, experience and act.
(b) If you forget your purpose and find yourself caught up in the world or thought, simply shift back into putting your purpose first and letting it lead.
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