Join us at 10:15 am ET/ 8:15 am MT for our Weekly Sunday Gathering with Rev. George Maddox

Title: “Awareness is a choice; Awareness is curative”

Description: Rev. George will share how you can choose to stay focused on awakening.

Reading:  Susan Bacon will be reading from The Holy Spirit’s Interpretation of the New Testament (NTI), Matthew, chapter 13.

*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 Rev. Dawn Fernandez.

Enter Sanctuary Here

Join us at 2:30 pm ET/ 12:30 pm MT for Qigong “The Movement of Now” with Ian McArthur

In this program we will learn the traditional Mind, Body and Spirit practice of Qigong (Chi Kung). Qi meaning life energy, referring to the energy circulating through the body and Gong meaning cultivation or work. The two words are combined to describe a practice to cultivate and balance life energy. By following movements (forms) and a simple breathing technique, we encourage more Qi to flow which in turn allows us to feel more peaceful and at One with ourselves.

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!

Join us at 9:00 pm ET/ 7:00 pm MT for There is Only One with Sharon Slyter & Michael DeForbes

Sharon will pick a topic to speak on and Michael will do a 40 minute meditation. This is a great way to end the week in perfect brilliant stillness.

Direct links to join us:

Awakening Together Internet Broadcast: Listen Live on AT Radio

Regina’s Tip for Lesson 29

This week’s reading from NTI Colossians says:

“You are the flow that is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the creator of all things within time. You are the heavens and the earth, the bees and the sunshine. You are the process that made all things and is all things, so they live through the process that created them. You are the flow of Life and separate from nothing that is Life, for that which flows through them is the process that you are. You are beyond concepts and difference and form, and within the Life force that is all things.”

Today’s lesson says:

“God is in everything I see. … You will probably find this idea very difficult to grasp at this point. You may find it silly, irreverent, senseless, funny and even objectionable. Certainly God is not in a table, for example, as you see it.”

When NTI says, “You are the process that made all things,” and “You are the flow of Life,” it means you are That which is God.

For some people, it may seem objectionable to say, for example, “God is in that waste basket.” It may be even more objectionable to say, “I am God,” and it may seem ridiculous to say, “I am in that waste basket.” I don’t ask you to say, “I am in that waste basket.” I’d like you to follow the Workbook lesson instructions as they are written. However, I’d like you to contemplate this as you do the workbook lessons:

You’ve seen the video about my experience as an apple, and you’ve seen the video about my experience with the towel rack and floor. The life-awareness and divine love that I experienced in those objects is God. The life-awareness and divine love that I experienced in those objects is in everything that you see. Also, the life-awareness and divine love that I experienced in those objects is what you are.

You are no different than the wastebasket, because it is life-awareness divine love, and so are you.

You are no different than the door, because it is life-awareness divine love, and so are you.

You are no different than another body, because it is life-awareness divine love, and so are you.

You are no different than a lamp, because it is life-awareness divine love, and so are you.

You are not different than a finger, because it is life-awareness divine love, and so are you.

You are no different than a magazine, because it is life-awareness divine love, and so are you.

You are no different than a coat hanger, because it is life-awareness divine love, and so are you.

Homework for this week

1. Homework Assignment A: Acim Workbook lessons 29-35.
2. Homework Assignment B: Read NTI Colossians, p. 355-362.
3. Homework Assignment C: Nondual Awakening Meditation – Who am I? by Gary Weber, which is a video in the Awakening Together Gentle Healing Playlist on YouTube.Note: There is also a meditation called “Where am I?” That is not this week’s assignment.

What Am I?

Our special theme says, “We bring glad tidings to the Son of God, who thought he suffered. Now is he redeemed. And as he sees the gate of Heaven stand open before him, he will enter in and disappear into the Heart of God.”

Our special theme began with the question, “What am I?” and ended with, “disappear into the Heart of God.” In between that beginning and ending, although we were given words to contemplate, we were not given an answer to the question, “What am I?” That answer comes best in those last few words, “disappear into the Heart of God,” especially in the word “disappear.”

I’d like to share something that was written by Floyd Henderson, a student of Nisargadatta Maharaj. In his book, The Final Understanding, Floyd wrote:

Thus, the invitation is (to those ready, and only for those ready) to receive the final understanding…

Go back—follow the trail in order to trace what you think yourself to be. Move back from (8) the conception to (7) a sperm set into motion to spontaneously seek an egg to (6) an act of friction to (5) plant food cells being transformed into sperm and egg cells to (4) plant food being prepared and eaten to (3) plant food being acquired to (2) plants growing to (1) the elements.

Where in that chain—which can be traced back and can be seen to have been repeated for trillions upon trillions of times for millions upon millions of years on this planet—could you possibly claim the existence of any “you-ness” or “You-ness”?

Who would want to make such a claim? Only one motivated by arrogance, … Only one so trapped in one or more ego-states and in so much egotism that one would want to trace his or her lineage back to some “famous, big name people” and beyond that to “God” or “a god” or “a goddess” or some “Supreme Self.”

It may take time for some of you to contemplate the significance of what Floyd points to in this excerpt. It was more quickly apparent to me, because my dad pointed to this on a hike with me in Southern Missouri about 25 years ago, and I have had ample time to contemplate it since then.

I asked my dad what his spiritual beliefs were. My dad has never been a religious man, so I had no idea what he thought when it came to spirituality. He told me that one day he would die and be buried in the ground; his body would turn to dirt and mix with the soil; plants would grow in that soil; birds and animals would eat the plants, and then they would die and mix with the soil, so on. In that way he would live forever.

My dad was communicating truth. He is not my dad. He is not his body, his personality or his mind. He is not his sense of being human. He is not even the sense of “I am.” He is life, which continues as forms come and go. There is no “me” in life. There is no “you” either. And that is the answer to the question, “What am I?”

Each of us needs to come to this answer through our own unique, genuine awakening process. Therefore, the best our special theme could do to answer the question, “What am I?” is give us this word:

Disappear

When “me” disappears—when even the “I am” of consciousness disappears—then and only then is the answer to, “What am I?” known.

No call to God can be unheard nor left Unanswered. And of this I can be sure; His answer is the one I really want.

Please read today’s workbook lesson in full. Notice a phrase, sentence or excerpt that you feel particularly attracted to and go into it more deeply through writing.

Meditation Options

Guided Meditation Audios

YouTube Meditation Playlist

Rev. Dawn Fernandez 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.

Homework for the week:

1. Homework Assignment A: Workbook lessons 29-35. Read Regina’s tips 29-35 that come out on the daily update. Here’s a direct link to Regina’s tips that are on the website: Click Here
2. Homework Assignment B: Read NTI Colossians, p. 355-362.
3. Homework Assignment C: Nondual Awakening Meditation – Who am I? by Gary Weber, which is a video in the Awakening Together Gentle Healing Playlist in YouTube.
   Note: There is also a meditation called “Where am I?” that is not this week’s assignment.

Regina’s Tip for Lesson 28

Today’s workbook lesson says:

“You may wonder why it is important to say, for example, ‘Above all else I want to see this table differently.’ … When you have seen one thing differently, you will see all things differently. The light you will see in any one of them is the same light you will see in them all.”

In the tip for lesson 15, I shared the story of a light episode when my awareness shifted into an apple, and I became the apple. I have seen everything differently since having that experience. Prior to that experience, I saw humans as very distinct and entirely from different fruit. After that experience, I realized that all living things are the same, because they are the same at their essence, which is life-awareness.

Sometime after that, while walking my dog, I looked down and saw a bug. However, I did not see a bug right away. Before my mind could retrieve the information that identified the form I saw as a bug, my awareness connected with that form as life-awareness. I didn’t have a mystical light episode or anything like that, but my essence connected with the essence in that form as the same essence.

That’s how I see now. I can identify a bug as a bug, an apple as an apple and a human as a human, because that learned information is stored in my brain, but at another level there is an intuitive connection with everything I see as life-awareness.

Immediately after the episode with the apple, I knew all living things are life-awareness, but I made a distinction between living things and inanimate objects. I did not see inanimate objects as life-awareness. About a week after the apple experience I had another mystical experience, which led me to see that everything is alive.

Please watch the 2-minute video posted at the following link to hear about that mystical experience: Click here

Homework for this week

1. Homework Assignment A: ACIM Workbook Lessons 22-28
2. Homework Assignment B: Read NTI Luke, Chapter 5 – 6 (p134-140)
3. Homework Assignment C: Listen to Regina Dawn Akers Classic Audio #7, What I think, I see. This audio is found at awakening-together.org under “Regina’s Audios.”