Join us at 10:15 am ET/ 8:15 am MT for Our Weekly Sunday Gathering with Rev. Kelly Barber

Title: “Letting Go of Obligation”

Description: Rev. Kelly will discuss how the joy of living has a better chance of being discovered when we release ourselves from the burden of obligation.

Reading: Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert will read an excerpt from the novel Illusions, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach.

 

*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.

Enter Sanctuary Here

 

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Join us at 1:30 pm ET/ 11:30 am MT for Freedom Practice Sangha

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. This program will be facilitated by Anne Blanchard.

 

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Join us at 5:00 pm ET/ 3:30 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.

 

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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.

 

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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. Look where the pointers point! Be still and realize Perfect Brilliant Stillness just as it is. 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

 

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Join us at 8:00 pm ET/ 6:00 pm MT for Replay of Seven Steps to Awakening Audios with Regina

These hour-long recordings will be played in the Sanctuary on the 1st, 2nd, and 5th Sundays of the month from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. ET / 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. MT.

In this series of teachings, originally airing on Awakening Together beginning in 2012, Regina Dawn Akers shares her contemplation of the quotes compiled by Michael Langford in The Seven Steps to Awakening. The Seven Steps to Awakening is a powerful collection of quotes on the subject of how to directly experience the true Self, whose nature is Infinite-Eternal-Awareness-Love-Bliss, and how to bring the impostor self, its tricks, and all suffering to a final end in this lifetime.

Plan to join us for a rediscovery of timeless wisdom that came through Regina Dawn Akers as she shared her profound journey with this powerful book.

 

*Sanctuary now closes at a new time of 9 pm ET.

Here are direct links to join us in the Sanctuary:

Awakening Together Internet Broadcast: Listen Live on AT Radio

 

Yesterday’s tip ended with:

You do not want Love different than it is, for as it is is  Love, and Love is all you truly want.

What is Love?

There are 21 definitions of “love” on dictionary.com, and none of those definitions define “Love” as it is meant when it refers to reality.

The reason none of the definitions accurately define Love is because nearly all of the definitions in the dictionary are based on duality, the love of one for another, whether that is the love for another person or another thing. The only exception is the definition of “love” as it is used in tennis. In that case, love is “a score of zero; nothing.” Interestingly, that definition comes closest to Love.

The best way to define Love is:

Openness or the all-inclusive nature of emptiness.

Its opposites are judgment and division.

People often ask, “Why does God allow…?” as if there are some circumstances that God should reject.

Today’s reading says:

The reason for all things is Love.

Or said another way, God is the openness or the emptiness that enables and allows all things. As emptiness, it is incapable of rejection. It is as the Tao Te Ching says in verse 11:

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

Emptiness does not reject or obstruct anything.

Emptiness enables and allows all things.

Love enables and allows all things.

The mind judges and divides. The mind cannot know Love.

Only emptiness can know Love. Only emptiness knows emptiness. If it is not empty, it is not Love.

The ego may suggest that emptiness is an uninteresting neutrality—a kind of “blah.” That is not true, which is why emptiness is called Love. However, to know Love you must become Love. Only through the direct experience of being it can you know it.

Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. …

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. (From 1 John 4:7-16)

Love is as the Tao Te Ching describes the master in verse 12:

His heart is open as the sky.

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

Thoughts of Awakening # 172

There is no need to worry,
because that which is true
is true forever.

Whenever you feel the need to worry,
you have forgotten
that the truth is true,
and you have forgotten
that what is true
is you.

You are beyond your worries
and beyond the problems
that seem to plague you now.

Knowing you is peace.
Knowing you is the answer you seek.

~From our Holy Spirit

Today’s reading reminds us that judgment is the tool that makes illusion. It says:

Judgment is the tool of illusion, so as long as you desire illusion, judgment is a tool you will hold dear.

This is a very important point. When we see ourselves as people living in a world that matters, we also feel that judgment is necessary. We feel we need to judge what we see as political injustices. We feel we need to judge crimes against humanity, crimes against animals, crimes against the environment, and etcetera. But what we don’t see is that with each judgment, we engage the creative principle and continue making the illusion that we judge.

Verse 29 of the Tao Te Ching says:

Do you want to improve the world?
I don’t think it can be done.
The world is sacred.
It can’t be improved.
If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it.

The world is “sacred,” because it is consciousness. Even the circumstances of the world are “sacred,” because they are the decision of consciousness through the creative principle. One who sees this, sees the world as it is, and she does not judge what she sees. She accepts the appearance as it is and loves the power that is behind the appearance.

Not seeing the world as it is and judging that it should be different is “tampering” with it. Through tampering, new illusions arise from the same energies as previous illusions. In this way, the world continues to go round and round and round, looking different as specific circumstances change, but caught in a loop, repeating itself, without any meaningful change at all.

It is as Jesus said 2,000 years ago:

“When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.” (Mark 13:7,8)

When Jesus told the apostles, “do not be alarmed,” it was the same as saying, “do not judge; accept the situation as it is.”

When Jesus said, “but the end is still to come,” and “These are the beginning of birth pains,” he taught what today’s reading teaches:

“When you look [at the world] with Me, there is nothing to judge. For everything works for the healing of one mind. There is no error, and there is no mistake. There isn’t one single flaw. There is only one mind listening to itself and recognizing which self is true. It is an awakening, a growing recognition, and it is perfect in every way.”

Or, as NTI Romans 14 said:

“The experience is the experience it was made to be. It is the perfect reflection of a wish. It is everything you asked to see.”

In this way, you may be grateful for everything you have made. You asked a question, and you have discovered the answer. … You do not want Love different than it is, for as it is is  Love, and Love is all you truly want.

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

Thoughts of Awakening # 171

The peace of the Heart
is guidance,
because it speaks to you
of your truth.

When you seek answers
to problems you perceive in the world,
you cannot find an answer
in the peace of the Heart.

This is because
you have not set your fears aside.
You are taking fear with you,
and asking it to be peace.

Fear cannot be peace,
and peace cannot add to fear.
Peace will tell you,
“Let go of your fear.
Come to Me asking nothing.”

Rest in peace,
asking nothing from it for yourself.
Peace and guidance
shall be your reward.

~From our Holy Spirit