A universal assembly for true discernment
Please read and contemplate quotes #345-348 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. This is the last quote today:
Some arrive at this understanding soon, others after a very long time.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Note: If desired, watch all of Acts 23 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.
Yesterday’s reading was about the third phase of the spiritual path, which is service and merging. As mentioned, the third phase is a very attractive phase, and many people want to jump to the third phase without completing purification. However, purification is necessary in order to intuit spiritual intuition without confusing it with ego.
Since purification is vitally important, today’s reading returns our attention to purification. Today’s reading is a serious reading. It points out that the purification stage can, at times, get “very, very tough.”
That was my experience, and it will most likely be your experience too.
The seriousness of today’s reading isn’t meant to scare anyone. It’s meant to prepare you. To “prepare” is to make someone ready to do or deal with something.
How does today’s reading help prepare you for purification?
If you know there are tough times ahead, when the tough times arrive you can see them as a normal part of the process. Knowing tough times are normal can help you move through them more easily.
Today’s reading also explains why the purification phase gets tough. Resistance makes it tough. We are afraid that the darkness in the mind is the truth about us, and so we resist looking at it. Yet, the darkness needs to be seen so it can be healed.
The reading says:
“… cruelty lives in you as a wish. It is important to note that the cruelty is a wish, for a wish is not what you are. A wish is what you are not, but what you may pretend to be.”
When we are cruel, we get pleasure from causing pain and suffering in others. That isn’t very pretty to look at, but in one way or another, we’ve all been cruel.
Why do we wish to be cruel?
Cruelty is the ultimate divorce from oneness. When we are cruel, we feel powerfully separate. Cruelty inflates the ego.
Today’s reading encourages us to look at the darkest aspects of the mind. It acknowledges that we may be afraid to look, but it encourages us to overcome that fear with a strong desire for our spiritual aspiration. It is as NTI Luke 22 said:
Great fear is nothing more than great resistance.
And so the means for overcoming great fear is great willingness.
Great willingness comes from remembering what you want.
Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.
Peace be with you.
The ideas that are not peace
are to be looked at,
but not believed.
They are to be recognized
as the stories
that lay a cover over peace.
And it is to be remembered
that beneath the cover
Peace Is.
~From our Holy Spirit
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Day 175 AssignmentThis evening (or tomorrow morning):
Read NTI Luke 21 in full.
Tomorrow:
Please read and contemplate quotes #341-344 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. This is the last quote today:
The seer alone is real, the object being hallucination.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Today’s reading points toward the third stage on the spiritual path, which is service. It is through service that merging occurs.
Earlier this year, we read NTI Mark. It was a story about the third stage of the spiritual path. As a reminder, here is an excerpt from the tip for NTI Mark 1:
NTI Mark, Chapter 1 is the beginning of the story. Like any beginning, it lays out the details needed to begin the story. Some of the details regarding our role model, Jesus, are:
We enter the third stage of the spiritual path when enough purification has occurred that we are able to more easily intuit and trust guidance. As we move through the third stage, our ability to intuit and trust guidance is perfected to the point that we no longer feel surrendered. Instead, we feel in tune with our natural Self, which is the invisible power of all things.
Many people want to jump to service without completing phase two, purification. Purification is absolutely necessary in order to clear out enough ego to discern guidance clearly. Without purification, one is less likely to know the difference between ego and spiritual intuition.
However, it’s also true that the first three phases overlap to some degree. When I was in my five year purification phase, I was also in service. During the service phase, some purification continues.
The difference between phase two and phase three is the emphasis. In phase two, the emphasis, and necessarily your primary focus, is purification. Service occurs naturally as you focus on purification. Here is a quote from Nisargadatta about service during phase two:
The right use of mind is in the service of love, of life, of Truth, of beauty. … You must begin in yourself, with yourself – this is the inexorable law. Attend to yourself, set yourself right – mentally and emotionally.
In phase three, enough purification has occurred that the emphasis can move to intuiting guidance and following it. Again, that is the demonstration we saw from Jesus in NTI Mark.
Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.
The seed of the flower is within you.
Like all seeds, it needs water and light.
With your water and light,
the flower shall grow
and bloom as you.
Without your water
or your light
the seed shall wait,
but it will not die.
Be at peace.
~From our Holy Spirit
There are many tools we can use to bring us back to centeredness or help us to feel relief in moments of chaos, confusion, pain or any kind of upset or unbalance. Self-inquiry is one of those tools that returns to my awareness ever so often and I am reminded of its helpfulness. My first introduction to self-inquiry was with ‘The Work of Byron Katie.’ I have also spent time at Diederik Wolsak’s retreat center in Costa Rica where they use similar processes in questioning beliefs to remember the true Self.
If you’re reading this, you are most likely already familiar, but if not, one of the basic processes of self-inquiry is questioning our thoughts and asking whether or not they are true. Ramana Maharshi states that it is the constant attention to the inner awareness of “I” or “I am.” The last year or more has been difficult for many and I personally found myself avoiding my feelings and thoughts. Isolation while experiencing depression, without self-inquiry, made things very difficult for me. I tend to make things complicated when I forget simple tools. I have known for a long time that my thoughts can make me sick. I once went to a doctor who told me I needed to work on my nervous system to handle my stress. I continued to learn how my thoughts were directly linked to me physically.
Spiritual author Scott Kiloby speaks on how our thoughts connect to our nervous system. He says “To regulate your nervous system using inquiry, keep your attention in your body throughout your day. When you feel anxious, upset or triggered, put the feeling into words, rest and allow (witness) the words.” When I read this, I remembered suddenly to come back to my awareness. Where was my attention? What were my thoughts, especially the repetitive ones? My thoughts become and stem from my beliefs about myself. I notice that I have the same recurring thoughts and beliefs about myself at the core. They usually sound like “I am not good enough,” “I am failing,” “I’m going to lose everything,” “I have done something wrong,” and it goes on and on and on. It is no surprise I have been depressed and exhausted. These thoughts and beliefs are defeating – especially because they are not true.
We can be aware of our thoughts; it is the follow-through that becomes most effective, which is to undo them. Byron Katie uses questions like “Who would I be without this thought?” She also uses ‘turn arounds’ wherein one changes the thought by reversing it thus giving a different perspective. Diederik Wolsak’s process involves bringing one’s awareness to the feeling that overcomes them the most and then to the memory of the first time they felt that way. From there, the person can question the truth of the belief they have about themselves. I worked in circles with others where we helped each other undo false beliefs and remember the truth instead.
For the last few days, as I remember, I have been practicing self-inquiry by trying to have more awareness of my feelings. When I feel tired, when I feel pain, when I feel worry, when I feel tension in my face, I pause for a moment. I ask myself how I feel. I ask myself what the thought is behind that feeling. I then ask if that thought is true. Is this really what I believe? Even without the answer, there is some relief. A space is created in the mind. A grasping of the belief is let go. I can then think of what I would choose to believe instead. What is the real truth? Who am I really? I usually tend towards making a list of things I am grateful for and who and what I appreciate in my life and myself. The truth will surface. Gradually I can see myself go from an unmotivated low energy to feeling okay again and even feel some inspiration.
For anyone who is suffering or upset in the least bit, self-inquiry may be a tool to remember to put into practice. A Course in Miracles says “There are no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind.” It does not matter how small the upset seems to be, self-inquiry can help. I hope that I can remember to use these techniques more frequently to prevent myself from falling deeper into non-truth. My thoughts create beliefs that affect all parts of my life, mentally, physically, emotionally and also affect what actions I take now and in the future. The teachers I listed above are great resources to go deeper into self-inquiry although I am sure most people reading this are familiar. Thank you for reading and wishing you the truest thoughts and relief from belief.
Join us in the Forum for further discussion of this article.
Day 174 AssignmentThis evening (or tomorrow morning):
Tomorrow:
Sometime this weekend:
Listen to this 28-minute teaching by Regina Dawn Akers from NTI Luke.
Please read and contemplate quotes #337-340 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. This is the last quote today:
Even as liquor is able to make one see all sorts of phantasms in the empty sky, mind is able to make one see diversity in unity. Even as a drunkard sees a tree moving, the ignorant one sees movement in this world.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
Note: If desired, watch all of Acts 21 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.
Today’s reading says:
Whenever you are tempted to do anything, question whether it is temptation or prompt. Temptation comes from fear, the ego, and the desire for self-will. A prompt is given by the Holy Spirit through your willingness to listen to Him.
As mentioned yesterday, you are already following spiritual intuition when you use inquiry to discover the author of your thoughts. That is discernment.
On Day 127, I told a story about an experience I had with a specific spiritual teacher. In that experience, I made the decision to leave that teacher, because he wanted me to follow him instead of following my own intuition.
Let’s look at two possible scenarios regarding that story in order to see how root cause inquiry can help us determine the authority of an idea.
Possibility #1:
Let’s imagine I am in relationship with a teacher. He has told me that what I think is my intuition is actually ego, and he wants me to disregard my intuition and follow him without questioning him. When I hear that, I think, “I need to leave.”
I take that thought into root cause inquiry to discover the motivation. I ask:
Why do I want to leave this teacher?
Am I afraid of what will happen if I stay? – Yes.
What am I afraid of? – I am afraid of having to give up everything that is important to me.
Does that mean I am trying to protect myself? – Yes, I feel I have to protect myself. I feel at risk.
Is the desire to protect myself ego or Spirit? – It is ego.
So, who is the author of this idea? – Ego.
So, what am I going to do? – For now, I will stay. I will stay and continue to inquire into my thoughts and motivations so I can get clarity on my authority from moment-to-moment.
Possibility #2:
Again, let’s imagine I am in relationship with a teacher. He has told me that what I think is my intuition is actually ego, and he wants me to disregard my intuition and follow him without questioning him. When I hear that, I think, “I need to leave.”
I take that thought into root cause inquiry to discover the motivation. I ask:
Why do I want to leave this teacher?
Am I afraid of what will happen if I stay? – No.
Do I feel I need to leave to protect myself from something? – No.
Do I feel that I need to trust this feeling to leave? – Yes.
Do I know what will happen if I leave? – No, it is totally unknown.
Am I trying to avoid or escape anything? – No, I don’t feel like that is the case. It just doesn’t feel right for me to stay anymore. It is time to go.
Do I feel that I need to take this step and trust the unknown. – Yes, I need to take this step and trust the unknown.
Does this willingness to trust come from ego or spiritual intuition? – The ego is fear, guilt and defense. This willingness to trust the unknown feels like spiritual intuition.
So, what am I going to do? – I will take this step, leave this teacher, and stay carefully tuned in to guidance.
In phase two, it isn’t the action that’s important. It is the motivation. In Possibility #1, the motivation to leave was ego. In Possibility #2, leaving was the guidance that came from spiritual intuition.
We can’t look at the action and determine if it’s ego or intuition. We have to look deeper and discover the motivation.
Important note: This form of root cause inquiry is always about my motivation. It is never about the storyline in the world. For example, in the possibilities above, there aren’t any questions about whether the teacher is genuine or not. To try and determine that as the basis of my decision would be looking out instead of in. If I look out instead of in, ego (judgment and thinking) will be the authority that guides me.
If you’d like to review the reasoning of ego and the right-reason of Holy Spirit, read NTI Acts 19 from (v23-41) through the end.
Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link.
Peace is bliss,
because peace is no fear,
and no fear is bliss.
One need not choose peace.
Peace is.
One must choose no fear,
by choosing not to listen to it.
The absence of fear is bliss,
because peace is bliss,
and the absence of fear is peace.
~From our Holy Spirit
