Rev. Helen Avery is an Awakening Together Ordained Minister. She shares weekly in our Sanctuary with a half-hour of heart-felt deep-diving into truth, love, and awareness. This candid sharing is a time when Helen explores different modalities and teachings with various non-dual teachers and how the real-life application of those particular teachings is currently showing up in her life. She shares about experiences from her path of awakening including the demonstration of how to utilize these helpful processes and spiritual tools. In her most recent Awakening journey she discusses radical truth and wisdom from teachers such as Mooji and Helen Hamilton.

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It is time for Awakening Together’s annual Trustee election!

This summer  Awakening-Together will elect two new members to the Member Board of Trustees.

What is the Member Board of Trustees?
The Member Board of Trustees is the leadership team that works with the President-Minister to manage Awakening Together. They are responsible for all aspects of leadership including drafting policies and procedures, leading subcommittees, addressing issues and more. The Member Board of Trustees currently meets via Zoom on the first Monday of each month from 7:45-9:15pm ET. You can find out what they discuss and decide at these meetings by perusing the Trustee Meeting Minutes.

Who can be nominated to the Board of Trustees?
To be a Trustee, one must have been an Awakening Together member for at least 2 years. It is also important that they have a desire to serve Awakening Together as a member of the Board of Trustees.

How do I nominate someone for the Board of Trustees?
You may nominate yourself or someone else to the Member Board of Trustees. If you are nominating someone else, it is a good idea to get his/her permission first. To nominate yourself or another person, send an email via Contact Us.

All nominations received by May 26 will be put on the nominee list. However the earlier a nomination is received the greater the nominee’s chance of making it to the ballot.

Are all nominees put on the ballot?
No. In order for a nominee to be placed on the ballot, 10% of the membership must support the nomination. If there aren’t enough nominees who receive support from 10% of the membership, the Member Board of Trustees will select nominees for the ballot.

How does a nominee get support from the membership?
Each nominee will be listed on the Nominee page of our website under To Read on the menu bar. Members are encouraged to visit that link regularly between today and May 26. When you see a nominee that you want to support, Contact Us and tell us that you want to support that person’s nomination.

How many people can I nominate or support?
Each member may nominate or support up to two nominees since there are two seats available to be filled on the Member Board of Trustees. (For example, if you nominate one person you can support one other. You have a total of two voting credits to use in the nomination/support process.)

How are nominees elected to the Member Board of Trustees?
Each nominee that receives support from 10% of the membership or from the Member Board of Trustees will be placed on the ballot if he/she accepts the nomination. The ballot will be sent to all members via email on June 16. You will have until June 30 to place your vote. The two nominees receiving the most votes during the ballot process will be elected to the Member Board of Trustees.

How can I get to know the nominees before I vote?
Each nominee who accepts the nomination will be asked to provide a photo and biography. These will be posted on our website during the final election process. In addition, there will be a special member meeting to meet the nominees on June 20 at 8pm ET.

Who is currently on the Member Board of Trustees?
You can see the list of current Trustees along with pictures and brief biographies under the About menu on the Awakening Together website. Here is a direct link:
https://devwp.awakening-together.org/about-awakening-together/member-board-trustees/

I still have questions.
If you still have questions, Contact Us.

We have looked at this quote from Nisargadatta Maharaj:

The world you can perceive is a very small world indeed. And it is entirely private. Take it to be a dream and be done with it.

It’s important this quote isn’t misunderstood. It means that we shouldn’t take our life so seriously. We do well to let it come and let it go, as we maintain our true state of constancy.

However, it doesn’t mean that we should deny our experience or avoid our role in life. One who uses teachings such as this quote by Nisargadatta to deny their experience or avoid their role in life is listening to the ego’s interpretation of the teaching. A clear mind faces whatever is here now fully, and then it lets it go as that experience disappears into the past and a new experience comes into the present.

Today’s reading reemphasizes a point made in yesterday’s tip:

The mind resists truth by seeking to understand truth mentally. If you or I are satisfied with mental understanding, the desire to realize truth is quenched. In this satisfaction, the ego wins.

You could say that today’s reading is a call to stop trying to understand truth.

How do we proceed if we let go of trying to understand?

We proceed by following current moment guidance and by practicing the new habits, which purify the mind.

Today’s reading asks us to accept God’s freedom by:

… extending your trust and innocence.

To extend means to spread forth or to enlarge the scope or effect of. It also means to exert oneself to full capacity. So, if we extend our trust and innocence, that means we are making these a bigger part of our way of being.

Trust is “assured reliance on.” In this case, it is assured reliance on the benevolence of the universe and on the current moment’s guidance. Assured means certain and reliance means to be dependent. So, we extend our trust by feeling certain that all is well while being fully dependent on guidance.

Innocence in this case is “lack of knowledge,” which means we do not try to rely on our own thinking. We do not try to understand. We do not try to figure things out. Instead, we are certain that all is well without needing to understand, and we are fully dependent on guidance without trying to figure things out for our self.

Thoughts of Awakening # 86

Look carefully at your thoughts.
Look deeply at your thoughts.
Look honestly at your thoughts.

What are they bringing to you?
What is the experience they give?
Is this the experience you wish to have?

Are you willing to let go of the thoughts that hurt you?

If not, why not?
What are you holding onto?

~From our Holy Spirit

There are two questions that are really the same question:

What is truth?
What am I?

When these two questions burn in us to the point that nothing else is important, we are getting ready for truth realization.

Today’s reading interprets the parable of The Vineyard and the Tenants. When we read this parable in NTI Mark on Day 50, the vineyard was interpreted as the teaching, and stealing the vineyard was interpreted as identifying with the teaching (also known as fundamentalism). Today’s reading interprets the story differently.

Today’s reading interprets the vineyard as:

… a mind that is shared among God and His creations.

Like consciousness, awareness and soul, “mind” is an elusive term. If you look it up using a few different dictionaries, you will find out that it has many meanings. Although there may be a temptation to try and define exactly what “mind” means in the context of today’s reading, it might be better to let it remain an open question.

Why?

We’ve already seen that one type of resistance is seeking answers to metaphysical questions or questions about enlightenment. The mind resists truth by seeking to understand truth mentally. If you or I are satisfied with mental understanding, the desire to realize truth is quenched. In this satisfaction, the ego wins.

The real purpose of today’s reading is three-fold:

1. To help us realize that our sense of guilt and unworthiness stems from an unconscious knowing that our false sense of self is a lie.

2. To help us relax away from the belief in guilt by pointing out that we are free to maintain a false sense of self and world.

3.  To lead us into a penetrating curiosity, where we want to find the answer to “What is the truth?” and “What am I?”

I love the line in today’s reading where the Holy Spirit says, “So whatever I am, you must also be.” Notice the word “whatever” in that sentence. I like to stare at “whatever.” As I look deeply at the word “whatever,” I want to find out what that is—“whatever  I am, you must also be.”

Do you want to find out what that is, or are you satisfied with a lie and a dream?

Thoughts of Awakening # 85

One idea that you are invested in
is the idea of who you are.

Your thoughts speak to you of who you are
and what you need in order to be happy.

And yet,
these thoughts are obstacles,
which blind you to what you are.
And they are ideas that teach you
how to have the experience
of not being happy.

~From our Holy Spirit