Homework for this week

1. 1. Homework Assignment A: ACIM Workbook Lessons 15-21a.  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.

1. Homework Assignment B: Read NTI Ephesians (p. 339-347).

What is a miracle?

Our special theme says, “Forgiveness is the home of miracles.”

I find myself wanting to sit quietly with this sentence. For me, this sentence is like animated glitter, sparkling with aliveness. It is the key—the answer. We abide as our unaffected Self, both during meditation and while living in the world, and this simple abidance ushers in a whole new world.

This brilliant clarity is so obvious to me that I just want to be as silent as silent can be and then whisper, “Do you see it? Do you see how simple it is? Do you see how we can do this all the time until the doing is done?”

If I could give a gift to every single person on the planet, it would be the gift of seeing the simplicity of this statement:

Abiding as your unaffected Self is The Way.

No one, no thing, nor any circumstance can prevent you from making this choice. It is a choice that is always available to you. As NTI Revelation, Chapter 7, says:

You choose the purpose for everything you see,
and the purpose you choose is the one that is given to it.

The purpose of everything can be to get better and better at abiding as the unaffected Self.

How do we abide as unaffected under all circumstances?

The Loving All Method explains the way.

Today I learn the law of love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me.

Two interpretations of today’s lesson immediately come to mind.

1. As I accept the atonement for myself by abiding as the unaffected Self, the service I render is for everyone.
2. As I teach my brother that what he has done has not hurt me, I grow more and more aware of the truth of my unaffectedness.

Today I feel to focus on the second interpretation of this lesson. It’s an extremely practical interpretation, and one that is very good for each of us to practice.

I LOVE to teach others that no matter what they do to me, it’s okay. I am not hurt, and my love for them is totally unaffected. I have practiced this under what some may say are extreme circumstances. For example, one friend became jealous of me and went on an internet tirade spreading lies about me. This tirade lasted about 6 months. During this time, I stayed out of it. I did not respond to her posts or defend myself in any way. When this tirade ended, a few years passed. She did not contact me, and I allowed her to have no contact with me. I did not initiate contact with her, because she did not want contact, not because of a grievance on my part. I allowed her to have her perception and her feelings about it. And then one day something difficult happened in her life, and she called me for help. I responded as if nothing had happened in-between our last friendly conversation and this one. The moment she wanted me to be her close friend, I was her close friend again.

That’s just one example of how I teach that I am not hurt, and you did not hurt me. I am unaffected, and you are innocent. These are two of the most beautiful lessons that can be taught.

Now, there is a difference between teaching this lesson and enabling unwholesome behavior. It’s very difficult to explain the difference with words, because the guidance that explains the difference is a feeling within.

However, as an example, the Awakening Together Sanctuary is a place that has been set-aside as a sanctuary, a place free of disrespect and attack. So, if my friend were to come in there and begin telling lies about me, we would need to follow our etiquette guidelines and remove her from the Sanctuary. At one point, if she were to return and follow our guidelines, all would be forgotten, but for as long as she persisted, she would continue to be banned.

At the same time, my heart would remain open and loving toward my friend, even as the behavior is not being condoned.

Another example was the time I had a stalker. He called and emailed me several times each day. His ideas about our relationship were ideas from a mentally ill mind. The guidance was to ignore him, because whenever I responded to him in any way, I encouraged him deeper into his mental illness. Although I was slow to learn this lesson, I finally learned to ignore him with an open heart. I loved him and had compassion for his illness, but I did not pick up the phone or return his emails.

In other words, you can love an alcoholic without buying him a drink.

Of course, this fine line between enabling and loving is one each person needs to find for himself/herself.

If there is a situation with someone in your life that is confusing for you, please ask a question of inner wisdom, and then begin to write in order to receive more clarity and personal guidance. As you write, remember that you are not guilty and the other person is not guilty. If anything comes into your writing that indicates that either one of you is guilty, realize ego has gotten into the writing. Take a break, get in touch with your desire for truth and healing, and then try writing again.

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.

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Part 1

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Homework for the week:

1. Homework Assignment A: ACIM Workbook Lessons 15-21 and read Regina’s tips 15-21 that come out on the daily update. Here’s a direct link to Regina’s tips that are on the website: Click Here
   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)

Homework for this week

1. Homework Assignment A: ACIM Workbook Lessons 8-14
2. Homework Assignment B: Read NTI Romans Chapters 1-7 (p261-270.)
   1. Do not read all at once. Read a little each day contemplatively. No need to read the Bible.
   2. Explore the reading through journaling. Journal clarity, questions, confusion, resistance, willingness, etc.

What is a miracle?

Our special theme says, “A miracle is a correction. … It undoes error, but does not attempt to go beyond perception, nor exceed the function of forgiveness. Thus it stays within time’s limits. Yet it paves the way for the return of timelessness and love’s awakening, for fear must slip away under the gentle remedy it brings.”

Once again, we see the theme of a gentle awakening from ego consciousness to consciousness, and finally to truth. Forgiveness and its effect, a shift in seeing or knowing, is the medium that prepares us for the final awakening, but the shift that is the miracle is not the final awakening. Many shifts or miracles may occur before the final awakening dawns. (Sometimes these shifts are referred to as awakenings.)

While reading Bernadette Roberts’ book, The Experience of No Self, I noticed she went through a number of shifts. I also noticed that with each shift, she thought she had arrived at the final seeing, and yet months or years later, another shift would occur. Bernadette was not attempting to fool herself, yet each shift in seeing was so dramatically different than the one before it—and she had no idea about what was yet to come—that she perceived each shift as the final shift until the next one came, and the next, and then the next.

She made this observation in retrospect:

One way to look at this journey is to see it as a process of acclimating to an unselfconscious mind, or as a transition from a relative to a non-relative way of knowing.

Ego consciousness is a fully self-conscious and relative mind, meaning that it is always thinking of itself in relationship or comparison to everything that is not it. Truth has no sense of self, so it is fully “unselfconscious.” Also, it only knows its Self, so there isn’t one in relation to or compared to another. Each miracle, or shift in perception, carries us further from the fully self-conscious and relative mind that is ego to the unselfconscious, non-relativeness that is truth.

As our special theme goes on to say, “[The miracle] illustrates the law of truth the world does not obey, because [the world] fails entirely to understand its ways. The miracle inverts perception, which was upside down before, and thus it ends the strange distortions that were manifest. Now is perception open to the truth.“

The miracle moves us, one shift at a time, from the sense of self relative to something else, including relative to God, to the edge of unselfconscious or no sense of self. At this edge, which we gradually acclimate to one shift at a time, we are ready for the final movement beyond any sense of self or other. As our special theme says, “Now is forgiveness seen as justified.”

I’d like to look at that last sentence for a moment before we move to today’s workbook lesson. It says that when we are at that edge, which is sometimes referred to as the edge of a cliff—also referred to as the edge of the bridge in previous tips—“forgiveness is seen as justified.” If we need to get all the way to that edge before we see forgiveness as justified, then prior to that final perception we will sometimes (or often) think forgiveness is not justified. We will think we have a right to feel affected, offended, afraid, hurt, angry, controlling, etcetera. However, if we believe we are fully right about our right to be affected, we refuse the miracle.

That is the purpose of faith. Before we arrive at the edge of perception and see clearly that all forgiveness is justified, we need to have faith that forgiveness is justified. Even if we cannot understand how it is justified, we need the faith to forgive anyway. This faith, followed by a conscious choice, is how we open up to the miracles that usher us gently to the threshold of truth.

I am not asked to make a sacrifice to find the mercy and the peace of God.

As already seen, at times along the way we may feel that we are making a sacrifice by choosing forgiveness over some other option, like fear, anger or control. The ego may even jump up and down screaming, “This isn’t fair; something valuable is being taken away!!”

That isn’t true. That is only the ego’s perspective as it tries to stay in control of you. By practicing the Loving All Method or Rest, Accept and Trust with this idea of sacrifice, you make way for a miracle, which will take you one step closer to truth, eternal awareness-love-bliss.

Today, pay close attention to the mind. Be open to seeing something the mind does not want you to forgive, let go, accept, allow or love. When you find it, you also find the opportunity to take another bite out of the ego by practicing the teachings instead of practicing the ego.

Meditation Options

Guided Meditation Audios

YouTube Meditation Playlist

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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