Note:  Before reading today’s tip, read Acts 16:16-36 from the Bible or watch all of Acts 16 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.

Many people resist surrendering and following guidance, because they believe freedom is “doing what I want,” and surrender is giving up that freedom.

Today’s reading says:

If you leave all things to Me, I will guide you in all things. You will not need to give thought or care to anything you are to do or not do. … All that you are left to do is to willingly do as I ask and enjoy the freedom that is expressed through you.

If you pay attention to the thinking mind, you will notice it isn’t freedom. It worries. It spins and spins as it tries to figure out solutions to problems. It finds more problems in its solutions to other problems. When things do not go as it expects, it gets angry and blames others, or it decides that you are guilty and unworthy. Thinking is not freedom. It is “the prison you are in.”

When we surrender and follow guidance, we do have to give up “my way,” but what we discover is the freedom of being an empty vessel. Loves moves through and around that vessel, so that what we witness and experience is love.

Knowing love as the benevolent nature of the universe gives us a sense of freedom that we could never know with the thinking mind. It isn’t the mind’s idea of freedom, which is “doing what I want and doing it my way.” That only leads to conflict. True freedom is witnessing love, knowing the universe as love, and realizing, “I am that.”

When Paul and Silas were in prison in Macedonia, a great earthquake came, which opened the prison doors and set them free from the chains that bound them. It appeared that the earthquake set them free, because now they could go their way. Yet, that was not freedom. Their freedom was following the guidance to stay in prison—which freed the jailer from his sense of guilt and unworthiness—and welcoming their jailer into their hearts as a friend.

The freedom of befriending the jailer was greater than escaping and going their own way.

The point of the story is this:

If you go your own way, you may think you know freedom, but if you follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you will discover what freedom really is.

Freedom is being an empty vessel, because an empty vessel is free to know the benevolent heart of consciousness through:

1. Witnessing how the universe cares for us.
2. Directly experiencing free-flowing love for all things.

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

Thoughts of Awakening # 124

Being in stillness…
living in stillness…
is being the respectful observer
of all things.

What is respectful?

Respectful is a mindset
in which you recall and honor
the ultimate Source
of all you see and experience.

To observe in this way
is to be still.

~From our Holy Spirit

We are excited to let you know there is now another Awakening Together podcast entitled “Awakening Together presents Regina Dawn Akers: Classic Audios”!

Audio recordings of Regina’s classic teachings will be posted monthly.  While Regina’s classic audios are still available through the Awakening Together website, they will now also become available on many podcast players. (The classic audios will also continue to be available here on the Awakening Together website.)

If you’re new to podcasts, this article from The Guardian provides a good overview. As it says, all podcasts are free and most are available via many different apps.

How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

The advantage to subscribing to the Awakening Together presents Regina Dawn Akers: Classic Audios podcast on your chosen player is that you can have the latest episodes automatically downloaded to your phone, tablet, computer, or another device.

Our new podcast is already available on the following podcast services:

Anchor

Apple podcasts

Google Podcasts

Pocket Casts

Spotify

We should soon also be available on:

BeyondPod

Castbox

Overcast

Podcast Republic

If you don’t see your app here and can’t find our newest podcast by using your app’s search function, please let us know and we will try to ensure it becomes available. You can contact us with any questions, problems, suggestions, or other feedback you have in  Awakening Together Forum.

We hope you will enjoy this new way of contemplating the wisdom of our Founding Minister.

In this installment of the Roundtable Sangha, participants will share what was most impactful, and helpful from the replay of the Satsang with Brian Tom O’Connor on Sunday, June 20.*

Roundtable Sangha will be facilitated by Rhoda Makled. You are invited to come and share or just listen to others. All are welcome!

We hope you can join us live, but if not, fear not.  The Roundtable Sangha will be recorded for broadcast and replay on Awakening Together’s other platforms including the website, radio, and podcast.

*Note: If you are unable to join us in the Sanctuary for the replay of the Brian Tom O’Connor Satsang, you can access the original recording here.

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

*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 Audrey Whitehead.

Enter Sanctuary Here

Join us at 1:30 pm ET/ 11:30 am MT for Reflections from the Loving Consciousness, Loving All Retreat

Participants in this recent retreat will openly share how the exercises introduced by Regina Dawn Akers help one to master the Loving Consciousness and Loving All practices and thus help one to awaken to Truth in this lifetime. All are welcome to join us and listen in on the rich exploration that is occurring with the deepening of the practice of the Loving Consciousness and the Loving All Methods.

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. 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

Join us at 7:30 pm ET/ 5:30 pm MT for a Replay of Satsang with Brian Tom O’Connor

For this month’s Satsang, we will replay an interview of Brian Tom O’Connor conducted by Regina Dawn Akers during the 2019 Fall Retreat. In this interview, Brian Tom O’Connor guided us through different Awareness Games, whose specific purpose is to help one to turn the mind around from outer focus to inner focus, and through inner focus to find that obscure passageway to expanded focus. Also, in this interview, Brian shared about his particular awakening journey including his use of awareness games as a means of allowing emotion and the importance of that practice to the spiritual journey.

Also, plan to Join Us for Roundtable Sangha Monday, June 21st at 1-2 pm ET where participants will share what was most impactful, and helpful from the replay of the Satsang.

Note: If desired, watch all of Acts 15 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.

On Days 99 & 100, we looked at mind-made laws and how they are obstacles to truth. We learned that mind-made laws vary by individual and serve the ego in two ways:

1. They give us a sense of identity.
2. They provide a basis for judgment and separation.

Although mind-made laws vary by individual, many of the laws we adopt are learned, which means they are part of our culture. Some mind-made laws are religious rules of behavior, some are cultural ethics, and some are the law of the land.

Today’s reading points out that as long as the ego mind’s lower vibrations rule people, laws are needed. Laws are needed, because people are not living by conscience. If people lived by conscience, laws would be unnecessary.

The reading also says something that may be shocking to some people:

When you have opened yourself to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and given your willingness that you should be led by Him, it is also time to lay the laws and rules aside as laws and rules that govern you.

This is true, because mind-made laws were created for the ego. To transcend the ego, you must transcend its vibrational level. Instead of abiding by laws that are intended to keep those at a lower vibration within some semblance of order, you are to follow inner guidance to a higher vibration.

Does that mean you are free to ignore traffic laws, stop paying taxes, steal whatever you want, etcetera?

If you are attracted to unruly living, you are listening to the lower vibration. If you are listening to the lower vibration, laws still apply to you, because you still need them.

It is interesting to note, however, that guidance could lead you to do things that are not in accordance with the law or human morals. For example, let’s look at a story about Ramana Maharshi:

Ramana says of his awakening, which occurred when he was a teenage boy:

It was quite sudden. I was sitting in a room on the first floor of my uncle’s house. I seldom had any sickness and on that day there was nothing wrong with my health, but a sudden, violent fear of death overtook me. …

The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: ‘Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? … The body dies but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. This means I am the deathless Spirit.’

All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truth which I perceived directly, almost without thought-process. ‘I’ was something very real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with my body was centred on that ‘I’. From that moment onwards the ‘I’ or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death had vanished once and for all. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken from that time on. …

Previous to that crisis I had no clear perception of my Self and was not consciously attracted to it. I felt no perceptible or direct interest in it, much less any inclination to dwell permanently in it.”

A few weeks after that, he suddenly realized the futility of his schoolwork. He pushed the papers away, sat cross-legged and entered into deep meditation. His brother, who was observing him, remarked sarcastically, “What use is all this to such a one?” Recognizing the truth in his brother’s criticism, Ramana decided to follow an inner calling and go to the holy hill, Arunachala.

He got up and left, making the excuse that he had to return to school. His brother gave him five rupees and asked him to pay his college fees on the way to school. However, Ramana did not pay his brother’s fees. Instead, he kept three rupees for his journey to Aruncacha and left the remaining two rupees with the following note:

In search of my Father and in obedience to him, I have started from here. This is only embarking on a virtuous enterprise. Therefore, none need grieve over this affair. To trace this out, no money need be spent.

Your college fee has not been paid. Rupees two are enclosed herewith.

Thus,
_ _ _ _ _ _

The note was not signed, because his separate identity had been lost when he discovered his true identity a few weeks prior.

As you read today’s reading, pay close attention to the guidelines NTI gives about following guidance instead of mind-made laws. I recommend taking notes. When we take notes, it helps us absorb the information. Also, if you take notes you will be able to keep them for easy future reference.

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

Thoughts of Awakening # 123

Trust all things.

The universe is a movement,
and regardless of its appearances,
the movement is consistently the same.

The universe is moving toward realization…
toward awakening.

You are helpful to the movement of the universe
by bringing peace to the mind as it moves.

How do you bring peace to the mind?

By remembering that the universe is a movement,
and it is consistently moving toward awakening.

~From our Holy Spirit

Saina 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.

Listen to the Audio

Please note: it may be necessary to download the audio to listen to it fully.

FunPlay for the week:

1. Homework Assignment A: Workbook lessons 153-159 including the tips. Direct link to Regina’s tips: Click Here   Practice daily awareness-watching-awareness meditation for 10-15 minutes each day. Practice the “Loving All” Method.
2. Homework Assignment B: Watch the movie, ‘Little Buddha.’ Here’s a link to watch the movie for free: Click here