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Reminder: The New Self-Study Program, 500 Days with NTI, Begins on January 3

December 28, 2020

500 Days with NTI

A New Way to Study
The Holy Spirit’s Interpretation of the New Testament

Beginning on Sunday, January 3
& lasting for 500 Days

Rev. Regina Dawn Akers has developed a new spiritual curriculum, which will be offered through the Awakening Together Daily Update beginning on January 3, 2021. This curriculum was designed for busy people who don’t have a lot of available time, but who are very serious about spiritual awakening.

How Much Time Does It Take?

500 Days with NTI requires only a minimal amount of formal “sit down” practice. You’ll read approximately 1 page of NTI on most days. Occasionally you’ll read more. You’ll have one spiritual education assignment each weekend, which will typically take about 30 minutes to an hour. Sometimes it may take a little longer. After a certain point in the curriculum, you’ll be asked to meditate briefly on a daily basis (can you do 15 minutes?), and you’ll be asked to write every now and then.

All together, it will take about 30-40 minutes on most days. It’s designed so you can break that up into 15-20 minutes in the evening and 15-20 minutes in the morning, if that suits your schedule best.

If It Doesn’t Take a Lot of Time, How Does it Work?

500 Days provides daily exercises that you can do as you work, socialize, clean house, do yard work, work out, play, etc. It’s a course that goes with you where ever you go!

Regina jokingly calls this curriculum, “super gentle healing.” However, don’t let the nickname fool you. Although 500 Days doesn’t take a lot of time each day, it is incredibly targeted and carefully designed by inspiration to help you achieve clarity and inner peace in this lifetime. You might even wake up to the true Self.

Is It For Me?

500 Days is not recommended for people who are currently in Year 1 or Year 2 of Gentle Healing. It is also not recommended for people who are currently taking MPP. 500 Days could be combined with Year 3 of Gentle Healing if you have time for both.

How Do I Sign Up?

If you or someone you know is interested in the lightest curriculum Regina has ever designed, all you have to do is sign up for the Awakening Together Daily Update email. Of course, you’ll need a copy of NTI too.

The 500 Days curriculum will come out on the Daily Update every day, 500 days in a row, beginning on January 3. It’s self-study. There isn’t a group to join. It’s between you and You and will be powered by your own desire for peace, clarity and truth realization.

Gentle Healing Year 1 Tip For Lesson 320

December 28, 2020

What is the Last Judgment?

Here is a quote from The Garland of Guru’s Sayings, a poetic garland of Ramana Maharshi’s teachings written by Muruganar:

O worldly folk who long for and run after
an endless series of unenduring things,
‘tis wisdom true to seek and know That one thing
on knowing which all other things will cease to be.

That quote sums up the message of our current special theme.

My Father gives all power unto me.

Today’s lesson says:

The Son of God is limitless. … What he wills with his Creator and Redeemer must be done. His holy will can never be denied. … I am he in whom the power of my Father’s Will abides.

Please contemplate this excerpt from today’s lesson along with the previous quote from The Garland of Guru’s Sayings.

Also, read Chapter Five from The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss again today. As you read it, please write down the sentences that strike your heart the most.

And then, at least two times later in the day today, review:

The quote from The Garland of Guru’s Sayings
The previous excerpt from today’s lesson
Anything you may have written while contemplating them together, and
The sentences that you have written down from Chapter 5 of The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss.

Meditation Options

Guided Meditation Audios

YouTube Meditation Playlist

Gentle Healing 2 ~ Day 294 – NTI Revelation 22, (v12,13)-end

December 28, 2020

Today, you will read the final words that NTI has to share.

What are they?

In short, NTI says that you are not who you appear to be. Whenever you find that you have forgotten your Self and acted from conditioning, simply pause and choose again.

It’s okay to stop in midsentence when you see that your sentence is coming from the wrong-mind. Stop, pause, let go of mental chatter’s interpretation, tune into intuition’s guidance, and follow intuition’s guidance (effective immediately).

I’ll share that again.

When you catch yourself acting from the wrong-mind, take these steps to correct yourself:

Step 1: Stop immediately. Do not continue acting with the wrong-mind in the lead.

Step 2: Pause. Take a breath, and remind yourself of your spiritual aspiration.

Step 3: Let go of the interpretation that came from mental chatter.

Step 4: Tune into intuition’s present moment guidance.

Step 5: Follow intuition’s guidance right away and straightaway.

This is our last day with NTI. Tomorrow’s reading will come from The Teachings of Inner Ramana.

You do not need to read from Revelation in the Bible today. You can go directly to the reading in NTI.

Thoughts of Awakening # 294

Stillness has a Voice.
By choosing stillness
you do not abandon reason.

Thinking is not reason.
Thinking is confusion
masked as identity and understanding.

Stillness is reason,
because stillness knows
what truth is.

~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, 288-294
Read NTI Revelation 19-22. Read the Bible excerpt whenever there is a Bible icon next to the verses in NTI Revelation.

Being Aware of Awareness Meditation 12-28-2020

December 28, 2020

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.

Listen to the Recording

The Guiding Light ~ Perfect Brilliant Stillness #24: What is Awake?

December 27, 2020

All there is, is What Is. Just as it is.

Realize there is no separation.
Then there is peace that is beyond understanding.
Perfect Brilliant Stillness.
Beyond the individual self.

Stop focusing on words and concepts.
Look where the pointers point!

Be still.
Realize Perfect Brilliant Stillness.
Just as it is.

This enlightened book study, which isn’t a book study at all, is led by Regina Dawn Akers.

Listen to the Recording

Gentle Healing Year 1 Tip For Lesson 319

December 27, 2020

What is the Last Judgment?

The last paragraph of our special theme is an invitation to make the same decision that Buddha and Jesus made, and to make that decision as completely as they made it. The last paragraph says:

This is God’s Final Judgment: “You are still My holy Son, forever innocent, forever loving and forever loved, as limitless as your Creator, and completely changeless and forever pure. Therefore awaken and return to Me. I am your Father and you are My Son.”

Today, please contemplate what you are. Let your mind reflect on it throughout the day. Here are the words used to describe you from the last paragraph of our special theme:

“forever innocent”

“as limitless as your Creator”

“completely changeless”

“pure”

If it feels helpful to you—if it feels like it would deepen the experience of realizing what you are—ask a question and then write (or speak into a recorder) to let the answer come. Example questions are:

What am I?

How is it true that I am forever innocent?

How can I see myself as God does?

What can I do differently that will help me realize my changeless nature?

What is the best question for me to ask?

Etcetera.

I came for the salvation of the world.

Anyone who knows the story of Buddha’s life or Jesus’ life accepts that this statement—I came for the salvation of the world—was true for them. This was undoubtedly their purpose, and it is what they are remembered for.

How did they complete their mission?

They completed their mission through ego death. As Jesus put it, “I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Consider this teaching from NTI 2 Corinthians:

As you accept that the world is not real, and therefore can have no effect on you, the mind will begin to awaken by seeing for itself that a dream cannot affect the reality of existence as it is.

This service that you perform of not believing in the world and of not acting as if the world is real, is a service you provide for yourself and for the entirety of the one mind that you are. No part of the mind is left out of the benefits of the service you perform.

Through your service and your true dedication to this service, the mind is awakened to truth through what it learns. Through your faith, you are a teacher. And through your teaching, you are awakened by all that you learn.

Our special theme ends with an invitation—a calling, actually—and that invitation is echoed in today’s workbook lesson. Buddha and Jesus are two well-known examples of accepting this invitation. It’s helpful to have human examples to look to.

Being right where you are right now and seeing as you see, how can you say ‘yes’ to this call?

Buddha’s first step was to start at the beginning with the search.

Jesus’ first step was purification for 40 days and nights in the desert.

Ramana Maharshi went directly to merging through unending meditation.

What is your current step?
And with this in mind, what is your focus today?

If it feels helpful to you—if it feels like it would deepen your realization of the answer to the previous question—ask the question and then write (or speak into a recorder) to let the answer come.

Meditation Options

Guided Meditation Audios

YouTube Meditation Playlist

Something Genuine: “Rethinking Anxiety: Learning to Face Fear” 12/27/20

December 27, 2020

In this program, we watched and discussed a selected TED* talk. TED talks follow a unique format. Speakers at TED events have a maximum of 18 minutes to share their messages, which are delivered in highly polished, succinct speeches. TED talks are delivered by people from all walks of life on a multitude of subjects. A great many of these talks are about the insights gained by ordinary people–insights gained through extraordinary experiences or based on their contemplation of the ordinary events of their lives. Either way, their insights are genuine—not based upon theory or dogma, but experience.

Listen to the Recording

The speaker was Dawn Huebner. The Ted Talk is called: “Rethinking Anxiety: Learning to Face Fear.”

This group was facilitated by Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert.

Gentle Healing 2 ~ Day 293 – NTI Revelation 22, (v1,2)-(v10,11)

December 27, 2020

As we near the end of Revelation, NTI continues to interpret the final symbols in Revelation as the final awakening. In doing so, it makes an important point:

Seek not to change that which you see, for that is to desire that you be different. Accept all that you see in glory and rejoicing, for that which you see is the mark of Heaven.

As we saw on Day 282, Self-judgment is judging anything, since everything is consciousness.

You cannot judge your Self and awaken to your Self too. You either embrace truth as it is, or you choose illusion.

On Day 138, we learned how illusion began. There was a wish for something different than reality, and then believing-attention was given to the wish.

Awakening comes from the opposite action. Love everything exactly as it is. Accept it as consciousness, and ultimately as reality.

It isn’t what it appears to be.
It is what it is.

When we seek truth, we seek to see (know) beyond appearance to reality. When we judge, our eyes are fixed on appearance. Even worse, we don’t see the appearance clearly. We see the appearance as our mental chatter interprets it. That’s seeing an illusion of an illusion, twice removed from truth.

My favorite Bible scripture is a nice summation of today’s lesson, which is one of the final lessons that NTI leaves us with before its interpretation comes to an end.

This is the day the Lord has made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
~ Psalm 118:24

Once again, we are brought to the Loving All Method as an important practice in the awakening process. The Loving All Method is important, because it is the opposite of judgment, which is the “building block of illusion.”

Optional: Review the Loving All Method.

You do not need to read from Revelation in the Bible today. You can go directly to the reading in NTI.

Thoughts of Awakening # 293

Why are you afraid to let go of thought?
Because you think thinking
is what you are.

Question what you think you are.
Ask, “What am I?”

Notice the silence.
Notice it is the truer you.

Identify with silence,
and thinking can slip away.

~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, 288-294
Read NTI Revelation 19-22. Read the Bible excerpt whenever there is a Bible icon next to the verses in NTI Revelation.

12/27/2020 ~ Movie Discussion Group: The Man Who Knew Infinity

December 27, 2020

Listen to Recording

Ron Raitz facilitated this month’s movie group.

A heartening drama about a slow-blooming friendship between two brilliant mathematicians, The Man Who Knew Infinity is a 2015 British biographical drama film about the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, who shows an immense fascination with mathematics, even though he has no formal training in the subject.

He fills notebooks with equations and formulas and explains to his wife that there are beautiful patterns in everything and mathematics is like painting without colors.

It is very edifying to witness the friendship that slowly blooms between two mathematicians: Hardy, played by Jeremy Irons, is a pragmatist and atheist, and Ramanujan, played by Dev Patel, is a Hindu believer who claims that every math equation expresses a “thought of God.”

Dev Patel, who was so marvelous in Slumdog Millionaire, effectively depicts Ramanujan’s Hindu zeal, his passion for mathematics, and his reverence for its beauty. In another richly detailed and nuanced performance, Jeremy Irons reveals the admirable efforts of a cerebral scholar who finds the courage to stand up for the mind-blowing work of his friend in the face of steep opposition and racial prejudice. Both men would no doubt agree with Henry David Thoreau who said: “The language of friendship is not words but meanings.”

Click for the playsheet: The Man Who Knew Infinity Playsheet

12-27-20 Weekly Gathering: “Reflecting with Love and Honesty”

December 27, 2020

Weekly Sunday Gathering with Rev. Kelly Barber

Title: “Reflecting with Love and Honesty”

Description: The beginning of a new year naturally offers a beautiful opportunity to look back in order to let go of old patterns and habits. Rev. Kelly reminded us to do so with compassion and love by sharing in a deeply vulnerable way in her homily.

Reading: Rev. Jaquelyn Eckert read from the Way of Mastery, Lesson 22.

Listen to the Recording

YouTube Video