Note:  Before reading today’s tip, read Acts 10:9-22 from the Bible or watch all of Acts 10 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.

Today’s reading is about the undoing that occurs through guidance. Our personal self-identity—our attachment to who we think we are, to the mind-made laws we believe, and to other personal beliefs and values—is undone through guidance. It is important to realize that, or else we may expect guidance to be something it isn’t.

Guidance is not God’s way of meeting our expectations and giving us what we want.

For example, imagine that you work as a professional computer programmer, but your dream is to be an off-the-grid hippie-like farmer. You may hope that God’s guidance will give you the money you need to become financially self-sufficient, so you can buy some land, build a farm and live your dream without worrying about money. However, what you want from guidance comes from your ego—from your idea of who you are, what you want and how you want it done. Guidance will not reinforce your ego.

Peter was raised as a Jew. He was taught to follow Jewish law. He identified with being Jewish. Yet, guidance came to Peter asking him to break Jewish law by eating animals that Jewish law prohibits. He was also guided to associate as an equal with gentiles. All of this guidance was part of undoing Peter’s identification as a Jew.

If you have always dreamed of being an off-the-grid farmer, it is possible you will one day be guided to off-the-grid farming. Sometimes our dreams and our callings are one. However, the way it comes about through guidance will be a path of undoing, not the dream exactly as your ego envisions it.

For example, all my life I dreamed of being a writer and a teacher, but I did not imagine it the way it has worked out through guidance. I thought I would write best-selling novels and teach elementary school children.

I also dreamed of living in Colorado. I gave up that dream years ago, because I realized it was a personal attachment. I settled in North Carolina in a town that I swore I’d never live in. I moved there when guidance took me there. I lived there four years and was prepared to stay in that town happily for the rest of my life when a dream came unexpectedly with guidance to move to Pueblo.

We cannot predict guidance, but we can expect it to be an undoing of who we think we are. It’s best if we take all of our hopes, dreams, desires, values and attachments, and toss them to the wind. If something blows back as the gift of guidance, it is meant to be a part of this unfolding; if it doesn’t, it was merely ego.

It reminds me of a saying that was on a poster that hung in my room when I was a teenager:

If you love something, set it free.
If it comes back, it’s yours.
If it doesn’t, it never was.

Don’t play the game of imagining what guidance might be for you. That imagining will come from ego. Instead, focus on letting go of ego. Let guidance be a surprise, and follow it even if it seems to be different from what you want, just as I followed it to a little town in North Carolina where I had sworn, more than once, I would never live.

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

Thoughts of Awakening # 117

The story teller is just that…
a story teller.
It tells you stories,
and you may choose to listen and believe,
or you may choose to disregard those stories
and focus your attention elsewhere.

But in order to do this,
you must allow the realization
that you are not the story teller.
You are the chooser.

~From our Holy Spirit

We will not be having a live Satsang for the month of June. Instead, we will be playing an Awakening Together Satsang where Regina Dawn Akers interviewed Brian Tom O’Connor during the Self-Awareness Retreat in La Veta, CO. You are invited to join us in watching this video on Sunday, June 20, 2021, from 7:30-9 pm ET. Even if you have seen this one before, it’s worth watching again!

Brian Tom O’Connor guided us through different Awareness Games. These awareness games have the specific purpose of helping one to turn the mind around from outer focus to inner focus, and through inner focus to find that obscure little passageway to the expanded focus. Also, in this interview, Regina asked Brian quite a few deep questions about his particular awakening journey including how to use the awareness games to really allow us to feel/allow all of our emotions. For Brian, this led to relief from a previous depression that he had felt earlier in his life. He also discusses in-depth how the awareness games came about.

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

Title: “Traveling Lighter”

Description: Rev. Beverly will discuss the topic of discarding what you are not and resting in your inherent ever-present nature as the Self.

Reading: Audrey Whitehead will read Paul Hedderman’s “The Escape to Nowhere”.

*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 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. She also will be acting as admin since this is the time the Sanctuary Director normally takes a break.

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.

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 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.

Note:  Before reading today’s tip, read Acts 9:1-31 from the Bible or watch all of Acts 9 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.

Most people have heard of the Apostle Paul, but many do not know that Paul, previously called Saul, was a leader in the persecution against the Christian sect. When people read the story of Saul’s conversion in the Bible, they may not understand why someone like Saul would be called to become a leading teacher and apostle. If we have trouble understanding, it’s because we are focused on humans instead of consciousness, and we judge some humans as worthy and some humans as not worthy.

As we saw yesterday, consciousness sees only consciousness. Consciousness is not concerned about human stories and what one human has done or has not done. Consciousness is awakening, and the light is spreading within consciousness. That is all that is happening from consciousness’ perspective.

From the human perspective, the way the light moves may not always make sense. For example, we may not understand why some people have spontaneous awakenings and others don’t.

From consciousness’ perspective, the spreading of light is natural within awakening consciousness. It’s just like blue food coloring spreading through white cake batter as it is stirred into the batter.

Some people may ask, “If awakening is random, like blue food coloring mixing with white cake batter, why should I engage in spiritual practice?”

Here’s the answer:

It’s our spiritual practice that stirs up the light. As we engage in sincere spiritual practice, the light extends through consciousness awakening consciousness. We are the batter (consciousness), the food coloring (awakening light) and the spoon (the energy that spreads the light). The spiritual practice that we do benefits all of consciousness. All awakenings come from the spiritual practice of those who are called into spiritual practice.

NTI guides us to trust that the light is spreading within consciousness. Our role is to remain focused on awakening, and let everything else take care of everything else. When we adopt this attitude toward the world and other humans, we are living in trust that everything is consciousness, and consciousness is in the process of awakening to itself.

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

Thoughts of Awakening # 116

Remember that you are not the thinking mind.
That is the same as saying,
you are not the story teller.

You made the story teller
and you give it freedom to tell its stories,
but you are the one who made it.
You are not it itself.

When you observe the story teller,
observe it knowing you are not it.
You are looking at what you made,
but you are not looking at you.

~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 148-152 including the tips. Stay with Lesson 151 for two days and stay with Lesson 152 for two days. 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.  Assignment B: NTI Acts, Chapters 19 – 28, pages 246-260. When there is a bible icon before a paragraph, read the annotated verses from the Bible along with NTI.
3. Assignment C: Practice the 30-minute ‘Recalling Attention’ meditation at least once. You will find it at www.awakening-together.org under AT Audios, Meditation Audios, More Meditation Audios, Other Meditations Audios, Beginning Meditations with Regina Dawn Akers. Scroll down in that list until you find the meditation we are practicing this week. Here is a direct link: https://devwp.awakening-together.org/recalling-attention-meditation-by-rev-regina-dawn-akers/