Attention to all Gentle Healing Year 1 participants. Susan Telford will not be able to facilitate her Gentle Healing group for personal reasons. Rev. Saina Fernandez will be your facilitator for this upcoming class that will take place on Thursday, May 20, 2021, from 2-4 pm ET.

For those in Saina’s group, you are invited to join the Gentle group that will be taking place from 2-4 pm ET. If you cannot make the class and attend live, please note that the session will be recorded and posted on the website that evening as usual.

Yesterday’s tip pointed this out:

The wish to be something leads to identification with a specific body-mind-personality as ‘me,’ which leads to a distorted way of seeing—seeing form as primary and life as secondary. When the wish to be something dissolves, the distorted way of seeing dissolves too, and then we see life as primary and form as secondary. With this shift in the way we see, everything changes.

NTI John opens with a focus on light as primary. “Light” is the symbol for eternal, non-changing life, the essence. “Darkness” is the symbol of the ego’s distorted way of seeing form as primary.

The light is truth, so the light is always present. If we see with darkness instead of light, it is because we think we are something. Of course, that is how most humans see. One might wonder why any human ever awakens to the light. Why does anyone desire to know the light when the perspective of darkness is accepted as truth in the world?

The best answer to that question is simply that light is our truth—eternal life is what we are—and a belief that we are something cannot fully block truth. At some point, the truth begins to tug at our heart. If we follow its promptings, that tug grows stronger until we find ourselves driven to rediscover truth. That search is never futile, because everything is that which we seek, and it responds to our desire to see it (and ourselves) as it is.

It is as Michael Langford wrote in The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss:

• • When your desire for freedom becomes very intense, your desire for freedom demands that you take no detours.

• • When the desire for freedom becomes even stronger, the desire for freedom itself will bring you everything you need to succeed in your quest for liberation including the answer to all your questions, finding the Direct Path teachings, the solution to all obstacles, etc.

• • The extremely intense desire for the Direct Experience of the absolute Truth will guide you to your inner Teacher.

• The extremely intense desire for Truth will guide you to the practice that gives the Direct Experience of eternal life.

In other words, the way to truth realization is to follow our desire for truth realization. If we follow our desire, and keep it foremost in our minds, everything else will happen naturally to bring us to awakening.

Thoughts of Awakening # 93

Look at who you think you are,
and realize it isn’t true,
but do not deny it is what you think.

Look at it.
Who do you think you are?
How do you describe that?

Now,
after you have looked,
give willingness to see that you are wrong.

And give willingness
to discover
that being wrong
isn’t fearful.

~From our Holy Spirit

Here is a link to a playsheet designed to facilitate contemplative movie watching:

 Click Here

Sound of Metal is a 2019 American drama film directed and co-written by Darius Marder. The film stars Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci, Lauren Ridloff, and Mathieu Amalric.

The film was critically acclaimed and was listed on 52 film critics’ top-ten lists for 2020. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It was also nominated for and won numerous other awards, particularly for Ahmed’s lead performance.

Keeping at bay his inner demons by devoting himself to art, metal drummer, Ruben, has been living for the moment for the past four years. Then, while on tour with his lead-singer/girlfriend, Lou, Ruben realizes that his hearing is rapidly deteriorating. As this sudden hearing loss turns his world upside down, and numbing fear paired with angry denial take over, Ruben reluctantly accepts to join a small deaf community overseen by Joe, a compassionate Vietnam War veteran. Now, Ruben needs to find some solid ground, understand that being deaf is not a handicap and that deafness isn’t something to fix. But, is Ruben willing to accept his new life and learn how to be deaf? This movie is a beautiful example of how one meets loss which ultimately helps him to uncover who he is on this wild journey.

This movie can be found only on Amazon Prime.

Jackie Greggs will lead the Movie Group’s discussion of this movie on Sunday, May 23 at 8 p.m. ET/6 pm MT.

Today’s reading is the last chapter in NTI Luke. The “voice” of this book leaves us with a summary of Luke’s teaching before it drifts off so that another “voice” can come and teach us from another point-of-view.

NTI Luke has been primarily about purification, and so the summary leaves us with a reminder to practice the new habits we’ve been taught with our every breath  until purification is complete. The next book that we go into will have a different emphasis, so let’s vow now that we will not forget Luke’s teachings as we move forward into a different reading.

Even though NTI Luke was primarily about purification of that which isn’t true, Luke ended its teaching with truth. Since the ego does not like truth, and those who have not yet completed purification are typically still identified with ego, Luke encourages us to continue to seek truth. Today’s reading says:

Bow your head and check your heart’s desire. Do you wish to be deceived? Do you wish to see what you have wished to see, or do you wish to see the truth?

The ego, being mental identification with a specific form, sees life in  form. It sees life in people, life in animals and life in plants. To the ego, which is mental identification with form, form is primary and life is secondary. That’s why there appears to be death. If form is primary and life is secondary, when form ends, life ends.

However, this is ego’s distorted view based on ego’s wish—the wish to be something. Today’s reading promises that when we are free of this wish, we will also be free of ego’s distorted way of seeing. Instead of seeing form as primary and life as secondary, we will see life as primary and form as secondary. With this shift in the way we see, everything changes.

Thoughts of Awakening # 92

Putting fear aside
by not listening to it
is a practice of awakening,
because putting fear aside
by not listening to it
is an action of trust
in the formless.

Trust in the formless
is trust
in the reality of You.

~From our Holy Spirit