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In the Company of Truth with Helen Hamilton 1-27-21

January 27, 2021

This bi-monthly program is Awakening Together’s In the Company of Truth with Helen Hamilton that airs on the second and fourth Wednesday monthly from 3-4 pm ET. Helen’s core message is that the Realization of the True Self is possible for everyone, no matter what background you may have as long as you want it more than anything else. After all, we are only returning to our natural state, to what we already are. We are only coming to live as that Truth consciously.

Having reached a place of total peace, love, and joy, Helen has dedicated her life to helping others wake up too. The Truth is here and now and accessible to all. Helen will offer her teachings in this bi-weekly Satsang to help you Realize and BE the Self you already are.

For more information about Helen and to access her teachings, visit her website: www.HelenHamilton.org.

Listen to the Audio

YouTube Video

500 Days with NTI ~ Day 25

January 26, 2021

Day 25 Assignment

This evening (or tomorrow morning):

If you are feeling a negative emotion, practice Leo’s superconductor exercise, which started at 13:25 in this video. If you are feeling negative in any way, do this exercise before doing the reading.
Read NTI Matthew 11 (v20-24) through the end of the chapter.

Tomorrow:
Notice whenever you are upset by anything. Each time, say this to yourself:
I am thankful my Father knows how to heal me.

Gentle Healing Year 1 Tip For Lesson 20

January 26, 2021

Regina’s Tip for Lesson 20

It is genuinely helpful to become more structured in your practice. Some people will find it difficult to remember to practice every half-hour. There are two ways to increase your chances of remembering:

Each time you practice today’s lesson, pause afterward with a heartfelt intention to remember again in 30 minutes. Look at the current time and make a mental note of the next time you will practice the lesson.
Set an alarm to remind yourself to do the lesson every 30 minutes.

If you don’t use the alarm method for reminding yourself to practice, you may find that you sometimes forget to practice the workbook lesson. It’s possible a couple of hours may pass without remembering to practice. If that happens, don’t condemn yourself. Condemning yourself is never helpful. Simply practice the lesson right then, and then set an intention to practice again in 30 minutes or go ahead and set an alarm.

Homework for this week

1. Homework Assignment A: ACIM Workbook Lessons 15-21
  a. Note: Lesson 20 asks us to repeat the lesson to ourselves twice per hour, preferably on the half-hour. One can set an alarm to remind one’s self, but it is generally better if one remembers because of the desire to remember. Recommend ending each 30-minute practice with a heartfelt intention to remember again in 30 minutes. Whenever you notice that you forgot, remind yourself how important this is to you and begin again in that moment.
2. Homework Assignment B: Read NTI Ephesians (p. 339-347).

Gentle Healing Year 1 Tip For Lesson 349

January 26, 2021

What Is a Miracle?

Let’s review what we’ve already contemplated about the miracle in order to look at the miracle as a whole.

A miracle is not a correction. In fact, it is not a change at all. It is a shift in perception, which is a shift in our way of seeing and experiencing.
The miracle could be called a shift in meaning. It gently shifts away from the valueless (temporary appearance) and towards the valuable (reality). That means circumstances that we saw as meaningful before gradually have less meaning while awareness, which once had no meaning at all, becomes more present and centrally meaningful.
The core shift that occurs with the miracle is a shift from a self-centered existence and way of perceiving to existence that is not centered in the self. Existence not centered in the self is called true perception, because perception is not colored by self’s personal biases. This core shift may be dramatic or it may be gradual, the culmination of many smaller shifts.
Because the self-centered self will attempt to cling to its self-centered nature, it is important for the individual to have a desire to go beyond the self-centered self and faith that existence beyond the self-centered self is more valuable than existence as a self-centered self.
The way to enable the miracle is to abide, to the best of one’s ability, as the unaffected self. Being unaffected is synonymous with not being self-centered or not believing self-centered thoughts, perceptions and feelings. The Loving All Method is a simple, gentle and clear method for abiding as the unaffected self. When we abide as the unaffected self, we do not cling to the self-centered self. This enables the miracle, because we are no longer fighting against the miracle.
The miracle is both personal and impersonal. It is personal, because the medium of the miracle is the only one who experiences the shift directly. It is impersonal because the shift in perception causes material effects through the creative principle. The one who experienced the miracle may or may not witness the material effects.
People often confuse a material effect with the miracle by thinking the material effect is the miracle. The miracle is the shift in perception. It is permanent and irreversible. The effect of the shift is not the miracle; it is a temporary appearance.
The spiritual aspirant helps in the process of shifting from self-centered existence to existence that is not self-centered by being aware of his own process, participating in it fully, and prayerfully asking for clarity, guidance, and shifts.
To continually seek advancement on a journey from the known to the unknown takes faith. If one will have faith and take the journey, miracles and their effects will reinforce faith. This results in confidence, which enables one to go further into the unknown.

Today I let Christ’s vision look upon all things for me and judge them not, but give each one a miracle of love instead.

Today we give the freedom that we seek by practicing the Loving All Method instead of judgment.

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. I have demonstrated this practice repeatedly by selecting an excerpt from the special theme and writing based on that excerpt. Increased clarity can come through this type of focused contemplation. The clarity that is perfect for you will come through the selection you are attracted to. You can open up to this clarity by asking to see what is most helpful for you to see, and then begin writing with faith that this prayer will be answered.

Meditation Options

Guided Meditation Audios

YouTube Meditation Playlist

Gentle Healing 2 ~ Day 323 -The Only Choice is Where

January 26, 2021

In NTI Romans 2, we learned that a curiosity arose:

What if nothing was as it is?
What if I could make something completely different?

When this original idea was infused with believing-attention, two options arose. The first option was a reminder of truth—the reminder that reality is reality, and it cannot change. The second option was the belief that something different had been made.

“What if nothing was as it is?” is the first sense of ‘I.’ It was the sense of an ‘I’ that can cause an effect. Out of that idea, two thoughts arose. One was a correction to the original thought; it pointed directly to truth. The other option was more thought, which led into a dream.

Today’s reading opens by saying:

The truth is that all thought rises out of the sense of “I” or because of the sense of “I,” as a correction to this thought.

Without the original error of an ‘I’ presence that can cause an effect, thought would not be. That includes right-minded thought, because right-minded thought is a correction to error-thought.

If we consider that our sense of self, our sense of others, our values, our ethics and our world are all thought, we may realize that we do not know who we are or what anything is without thought. Thought is our form of understanding; it is our form of knowing. And yet, if thought blocks reality, our form of knowing is entirely wrong. It is ignorance masquerading as knowing.

Thought is story. It is an ongoing storyline that creates fantasy. When the story comes into our mind as thought, and we believe it, we believe a story, a falsehood. Some things may be true in the storyline, but “true” in a made-up fantasy is not truth. When we search the story for what’s true in the story, we are simply engaging untruth more.

The story is in motion, and the storyline does come into your mind as thought. However, you are not the story character. You are life-awareness. You can abide as life-awareness and see the entire story as nothing but story. You have the ability to be the detached observer, regardless of what occurs in the story.

Detached observation leads to freedom from the story.

As pointed out on Day 314, the body-mind will continue to play its part in the story even when you pull attention out of the story and abide fully in the Heart. Nothing that is to be done by the body-mind will go undone. As Ramana Maharshi said, “A yogi who is in this state is inactive even while engaged in activity.” The script continues, and the body acts according to its vibrational level in the script, but you live beyond the script and have no part in it.

For one who is not completely detached from the script, the best way to “be in the world but not of the world” is to abide in a constant state of devotion. Devotion is living from within, instead of from thought. When you live from within, you return attention within. Through devotion, attention learns to stay at home in the Heart. It learns to abide there, until a natural transition occurs and it no longer goes out. It stays in.

Devotion is retraining attention to stay in.

With that said, please listen to this song very carefully now:

Thoughts of Awakening # 323

Surrender to the inner light
takes away all attachment to ideas,
for ideas are outer
and surrender is devotion to inner.

Surrender to the inner light
takes away all pain and suffering,
for pain and suffering are outer.
Pain and suffering is focus on outer ideas,
ideas of form and ideas of body.

Surrender is devotion to the inner light.
When one is consumed by the inner,
the outer disappears.

Ideas are distraction from the inner light.
When one is distracted,
return yourself to devotion.

This is true practice.

From our Holy Spirit

Homework for this week

Practice daily meditation for 30-60 minutes each day.
Practice the “Loving All” Method.
Thoughts of Awakening, 323-329, including the Commentary on Discovering False Identity (Day 325).
Read the following messages from The Teaching of Inner Ramana: Moving from Resistor to Abiding in Self, The Missing Ramana Message.

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

500 Days with NTI Discussion Forum

January 25, 2021

500 Days with NTI

Discussion Forum now Open

We have added a Discussion Forum for those of you participating in this new spiritual curriculum. While the course is intended as a self-study course, many of you may find that you would like to discuss what you are learning and its application in your daily life with other students.

If you are interested in discussing 500 Days with NTI with other students, you may find the 500 Days discussion forum at this link: 500 Days with NTI Forum.

Please be aware that only registered forum members have access to this section of our discussion forum. If you have not already registered as an Awakening Together Forum participant, you may do so at this link: AT Forum Registration.

500 Days with NTI ~ Day 24

January 25, 2021

Day 24 Assignment

This evening (or tomorrow morning):

If you are feeling a negative emotion, practice Leo’s superconductor exercise, which started at 13:25 in this video. If you are feeling negative in any way, do this exercise before doing the reading.
Read NTI Matthew 11 (v1-6) thru (v16-19).

Tomorrow:
Notice whenever you are upset by something in the world. Each time, say this to yourself:
There is no truth in the world. I give willingness to find out what truth is.

Gentle Healing Year 1 Tip For Lesson 19

January 25, 2021

Regina’s Tip for Lesson 19

Today’s workbook lessons says:

“Today we are again emphasizing the fact that minds are joined. This is rarely a wholly welcome idea at first since it seems to carry with it an enormous sense of responsibility, … Despite your initial resistance to this idea, you will yet understand that it must be true if salvation is possible at all. And salvation must be possible because it is the Will of God.”

I once saw a movie about Helen Keller called The Miracle Worker. Helen Keller was both deaf and blind. Since she could not hear and she could not see, she didn’t know how to talk or communicate with others. This created great frustration in her, and sometimes she threw outrageous temper tantrums.

Her parents hired a teacher, who tried to teach Helen sign language by signing against her hand, so she could feel the signs. However, Helen didn’t understand and nothing changed.

One day, Helen threw a temper tantrum at the dinner table. She threw a pitcher of water. Her teacher forcibly took her out to the well to refill the pitcher with water. As she pumped the well, she continually stuck Helen’s hand under the water and signed water against the palm of Helen’s hand. She did this over and over and then as if by some miracle, Helen understood. For the first time ever, she understood that what her teacher had been teaching was a way of communicating with others. Before, she hadn’t understood the concept of communication. When the concept of communication dawned on her mind, she became eager—really eager—to learn the sign for everything. Understanding the possibility of communication opened the world up to her.

I tell you this story now because this is how it was for me when I scribed NTI Ephesians. I had been a student of A Course in Miracles for about 2 years when I received NTI Ephesians. I learned about forgiveness through ACIM. I saw forgiveness as something that made me feel better, but really had no effect beyond that. When NTI Ephesians came, I understood the concept of salvation. I saw that what I give attention to affects me, yes … but beyond that, it affects others. I also saw that what I decide not to give believing-attention to frees me, and it frees others.

That was like my Helen Keller moment at the well!

Suddenly, I wanted to practice not giving believing-attention to every thought that could hurt anyone. I was excited to practice extending salvation to the world by not giving believing-attention to wrong-minded thoughts in my mind!

So yes, I saw, “I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts” as an enormous responsibility, but it was a responsibility I was excited to embrace. Later, when I learned about why Prince Siddhartha left his family’s kingdom to seek enlightenment, I realized he was excited about the possibility of saving the world too. This responsibility can be highly motivating because we realize we are not practicing spirituality for ‘me’ alone. We practice spirituality for everyone. It is as Ramana Maharshi said:

“Your own Self-Realization is the greatest service you can render the world.”

Note: If you’d like to see Helen Keller’s realization at the well, search YouTube for ‘Water scene from The Miracle Worker,’ or for full context, watch the entire movie, The Miracle Worker.

Homework for this week

1. Homework Assignment A: ACIM Workbook Lessons 15-21
  a. Note: Lesson 20 asks us to repeat the lesson to ourselves twice per hour, preferably on the half-hour. One can set an alarm to remind one’s self, but it is generally better if one remembers because of the desire to remember. Recommend ending each 30-minute practice with a heartfelt intention to remember again in 30 minutes. Whenever you notice that you forgot, remind yourself how important this is to you and begin again in that moment.
2. Homework Assignment B: Read NTI Ephesians (p. 339-347).

Gentle Healing Year 1 Tip For Lesson 348

January 25, 2021

What Is a Miracle?

Our special theme says, “The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand. Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it, and show it rested on a world more real than what you saw before; a world redeemed from what you thought was there.”

When talking about the phases one goes through in the development of trust, A Course in Miracles Manual for Teachers says:

[The teacher of God] thought he learned willingness, but now he sees that he does not know what the willingness is for. … He must learn to lay all judgment aside, and ask only what he really wants in every circumstance. Were not each step in this direction so heavily reinforced, it would be hard indeed!

This paragraph comforted me during many trials along this path. The trials were times that I feared real sacrifice was about to occur. For example, there were times that I feared running out of money, because by following guidance I left a traditional job and began to do what I was guided to do without any direct source of income. I was worried about how I would care for my daughter and myself; my daughter was only a little girl at the time. That paragraph from the Manual for Teachers reminded me to ask only for what I really want, which is awakening, and it promised that the rightness of that choice would be “heavily reinforced.”

My experience has been that this works. It is as Jesus taught, “Seek ye first the kingdom, and all else will be added to you.”

Again today, we are looking at the power of faith and asking, with asking focused on truth and not on conditions in the world. As we stay focused on seeking truth, the creative principle responds by providing the most helpful material circumstances.

When our special theme says, “faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there,” it is pointing to both the shift in perception and its material effects. Both are “witnesses,” which “heavily reinforce” our choice to abide as unaffected.

It is a mistake to expect a specific material outcome as a result of faith. Whenever we expect or desire a specific outcome, we think with ego, and so it is the energy of ego that is fed into the creative principle on our behalf. To feed the energy of the miracle into the creative principle, we must seek only for truth (in whatever way your mind words that aspiration). It is this seeking that brings the miracle, its effects and the positive reinforcement.

I have no cause for anger or for fear, for You surround me. And in every need that I perceive, Your grace suffices me.

Today’s lesson says, “Father, let me remember You are here, and I am not alone. Surrounding me is everlasting Love. I have no cause for anything except the perfect peace and joy I share with You. … God’s grace suffices us in everything that He would have us do. And only that we choose to be our will as well as His.”

Today, let’s notice our concerns.

What material changes do you think you need in order to be happy, feel safe, be relieved of anxiety or to focus on God/Truth? Write them down.
Look at each desired change, one at a time. Notice how willing you are to let go of that specific desire in trust that as you seek truth, everything that is genuinely helpful will be given. Also notice where you do not feel that willingness or trust. (Simply look and notice.)
After looking at yourself in this way, contemplate what you noticed. Just sit and be with what you’ve noticed without judgment or guilt. Our goal is to become more clear regarding ourselves, our fears, our motivations, etc. If you feel guided to write as you contemplate what you noticed, please follow that guidance.
When you feel complete with #3, see if a prayer arises in you. If so, pray the prayer that is in your heart.

Meditation Options

Guided Meditation Audios

YouTube Meditation Playlis

Gentle Healing 2 ~ Day 322 -Commentary on Attachment

January 25, 2021

As part of yesterday’s tip, we contemplated this scripture:

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. ~ Matthew 13:44

Today’s reading tells you exactly how to sell all that you have and buy the field that contains the treasure. Today’s reading provides very specific instructions.

The reading says that Self-realization is the “highest spiritual state.” In this context, a “state” is a particular condition that you are in for a period of time. In other words, it is another milestone on the journey, but it is not the destination. The destination is the absolute, the First Principle of God.

You can see the field as Self-realization. The treasure is the absolute.

Sell everything you have now, and buy the field.

Today’s reading tells you how.

Thoughts of Awakening # 322

Ideas are an obstacle
when ideas are a part
of self-identity.

No idea is a part of your truth.
Your truth is beyond all ideas.

Ideas are used to guide you in this world,
but an idea is best used to guide
when you listen, act
and then let go.

An idea held to
beyond its moment of usefulness
is an idea that forms self-identity.
This idea is an obstacle.

See the obstacle and let it go.
Stay within the flow of ideas
without clinging to any of them.

From our Holy Spirit

Homework for this week

Practice daily meditation for 30-60 minutes each day.
Practice the “Loving All” Method.
Thoughts of Awakening, 316-322 including the Commentary on False Perception (Day 317) and the Commentary on Attachment (Day 321).
Read the following messages from The Teaching of Inner Ramana: The Mind that Thinks it is Lord, A Contract for Awakening, Pain and Purification, The Grace of the Guru, Full-Time Inquiry for Self. There is no reading on days 317 and 321.

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