Being Aware of Awareness Meditation 02-17-2021

February 17, 2021

In this program Anne Blanchard facilitates one of the core practices of the Awakening Together community. This program provides an opportunity to be in community with others who will to find that place of no-place, that attention to our natural attentiveness, that innate humanness that can often be overlooked. Anne Blanchard facilitates this program on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 7:30 – 8:30 am ET/5:30-6:30 am MT by leading participants through gently guided Being Aware of Awareness meditation.

All are warmly welcome.

This meditation was led by Kate Brennan.

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Jacquelyn Eckert ~ As It Is ~ “Love, Death, and the Journey” 02/17/21

February 17, 2021

Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert shares with honesty and passion about the ups, downs, and all-around of the spiritual journey. Jacquelyn is transparent as she shares about the impersonal awakening process we all experience. She moves us with stories from her own journey, with direct insight from inner wisdom, and with guidance from spiritual masters, both contemporary and legendary.

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02-17-21 ~ Life as Love ~ “Conditioned and Unconditioned Love”

February 17, 2021

Rev. Helen Avery is an Awakening Together Ordained Minister. She shares weekly in our Sanctuary with a half-hour of a 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 are 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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Anne Blanchard ~Unfiltered~ “Noticing Discomfort and Turning Toward It” – 2/17/21

February 17, 2021

Anne Blanchard shares her experience of purification and awakening, unfiltered and as it happens. Raw, reflective, brave, and infused with clarity, Anne’s open honesty inspires us all to dive deep into the spiritual journey instead of simply skimming the surface. She continues to share deeply from various non-dual teachings and teachers.

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500 Days with NTI ~ Day 46

February 16, 2021

Day 46 Assignment

This evening (or tomorrow morning):

Practice Leo’s emotion exercise with an emotion that is strong for you now or with this assigned emotion from your past: embarrassed
Click here to read instructions for Leo’s emotion exercise.
Read NTI Matthew 18 (v12-14) through the end.

Tomorrow:

Set a timer for 6 minutes and practice the brain relaxation meditation without the audio.
Notice whenever you judge someone. Notice what the judgment feels like in your body, and then relax your body and practice being the superconductor.

Gentle Healing Year 1 Tip For Lesson 41

February 16, 2021

Regina’s Tip for Lesson 41

Today’s Workbook lesson says:

“Deep within you is everything that is perfect, ready to radiate through you and out into the world. It will cure all sorrow and pain and fear and loss because it will heal the mind that thought these things were real and suffered out of its allegiance to them.”

It also says: “You can never be deprived of your perfect holiness because its Source goes with you wherever you go.”

If we put these two paragraphs together, we see that we are holy because the Source of holiness is deep within us. It goes with us wherever we go because it is within us. Our holiness, or our true Self, is present within the background of our awareness. It is unaffected by the mind, and it cannot be lost. Truth realization occurs when we become consciously aware of the already present Self. The ego is active in the conscious mind, and it has a tendency to protect itself. As we try to bring conscious awareness deep within, to the background of awareness, the ego struggles to hijack attention before it reaches that level. That’s the challenge of meditation.

Today’s Workbook lesson is our first attempt at meditation. It is our first attempt to go beyond “all the idle thoughts of the world” to reach enlightenment, which is already present within us. As you meditate today, see thoughts about the world as the ego’s attempt to hijack your meditation. Do not fear or resist those thoughts; simply see them as unimportant right now. You can give attention to worldly thoughts later when you aren’t meditating. Gently remind yourself, “For these few minutes, I have a different and more important goal.”

Homework for this week

Homework Assignment A: Workbook Lessons 36-42.
Homework Assignment B: Read NTI Luke, Chapter 9 (p 144-146) and NTI Galatians (p 327-338).
Homework Assignment C: Nondual Awakening Meditation – Where am I? by Gary Weber, which is a video in the Gentle Healing Playlist: Click Here to Watch

Tips from Regina for Gentle Healing Year 2 – Day 2 – NTI Matthew 5

February 16, 2021

NTI Matthew 5, (v 3) – (v 25, 26)

In the story that I shared from the Bible yesterday, the Son of God submitted to a baptism by John the Baptist, a symbol of our conscience. When John said, “I need to be baptized by you,” John indicated that spiritual intuition is higher than conscience. However, when Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness,” Jesus indicated that conscience has its place in the totality of wisdom. Conscience is to be respected and followed. It is not to be ignored as less than higher wisdom.

NTI begins on that premise. We begin by following conscience instead of ignoring it, and it is through following conscience that higher spiritual wisdom arises into conscious awareness.

Michael Langford concludes his book, Manonasa: A Spiritual Autobiography, with “Five Steps for the Majority.” These steps encourage us to follow our conscience in relationship with others. Here is what Michael wrote in Manonasa:

For those of you who do not want to attain Manonasa but you would like to know how you can move from darkness to light, follow all 5 steps on this page every day. All of you who do want to attain Manonasa should also follow the suggestions on this page, because these suggestions are for all of the more than 7 billion humans on earth:

Every time you speak to a human being either in person or over the phone, make sure the content of what you are saying and the tone of your voice are loving, caring, and kind.
Every time you write something to a human being, make sure that what you are writing is loving and kind. Pause before you send someone an email or a text message and make sure that your email or text message is loving, caring and kind.
Never do any harm of any kind to any human being or animal.
Treat even the people who you think do not deserve your kindness with kindness.
Treat even people you only see briefly with great caring and kindness.

When Peace Pilgrim began her spiritual investigation, she noticed that nearly every spiritual culture had a rule similar to “the golden rule.” Jesus taught this rule in the Bible by saying, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

In Jesus’ final teaching to the apostles, just prior to his arrest and crucifixion, he said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34, 35)

Kindness with one another and with all living things (ahimsa) is where we begin our second year of Gentle Healing. When we practice kindness, our goal isn’t to act kind on the outside while judging and carrying on ferociously in our minds (although that may be how it starts). Kindness is a way of being that we want to master through and through. In this way, kindness is a purification technique.

First, we behave kindly with everyone, because to not be kind is to be a slave to the ego, and we don’t want that. Then secondly, if we do not feel kind within, we question our thoughts and feelings. We turn to inquiry and to rest-accept-trust in order to heal every part of us that is not naturally kind.

NTI says, “… the law of the heart is beyond the world. It is like a path that you shall follow to higher ground.”

In other words, as we live by conscience in our relationships with others, it leads to higher and higher levels of wisdom, levels that “lead a man from his manhood to his true Self…”

Thoughts of Awakening # 2

You are perfect as you are.
To trust this thought,
is to trust Me.

Rest quietly within this thought today.
When a thought that seems different
crosses your mind,
recognize that you must be perceiving wrongly,
and let that thought go.

You are perfect as you are.
Trust this thought.
Trust Me.

~From our Holy Spirit

Gentle Healing 2 ~ Day 344 – GH Year 2 Review: Looking at the False “I” Thought

February 16, 2021

Please read Looking at the False “I” Thought from The Teachings of Inner Ramana and contemplate it with your inner teacher. Follow inner prompting regarding the best way to contemplate the reading with the inner teacher. If you don’t feel a specific prompt, ask the inner teacher to share whatever is most important for you to know, see or realize regarding this message.

If prompted, review the tip from Day 300.

For the remainder of Year 2, use each day’s Thought of Awakening as a prayer that you return to throughout the day in order to remain in a state of devotion.

~344~

The individual self is strong
when the individual self has been given
attention.

I take this attention away
and place it on the Heart,
yet the individual self remains loud
because I have given it attention.

I can rest now
and wait
while the attention I have given
dies away.

When all that I have given
has run its course,
the individual self
will not seem strong.

I wait in patient knowing,
knowing who I am.

Amen.

~A prayer of awakening

Homework for this week

Practice daily meditation for 30-60 minutes each day.
Practice the “Loving All” Method.
Thoughts of Awakening, 344-350

*If you don’t already have it, order The Seven Steps to Awakening. That will be our text for Year 3.

Mighty Companions ~ 2-14-2021

February 16, 2021

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. You can find out more about the Mighty Companions on their website: www.themightycompanions.com

Live in the Sanctuary Sundays at 5pm ET/3 pm MT.

500 Days with NTI ~ Day 45

February 15, 2021

Day 45 Assignment

This evening (or tomorrow morning):

Practice Leo’s emotion exercise with an emotion that is strong for you now or with this assigned emotion from your past: disappointment
Click here to read instructions for Leo’s emotion exercise.
Read NTI Matthew 18 (v1-4) thru (v10, 11).

Tomorrow:

Set a timer for 6 minutes and practice the brain relaxation meditation without the audio.
Notice whenever you judge someone. The person you judge could be present or it could be someone you are thinking about. Notice what the judgment feels like in your body, and then relax your body and practice being the superconductor.