A universal assembly for true discernment
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.
These reflections were a time of sharing and listening to inquiries, insights and challenges about the recent experience from attending the In the World but Not of It: Embodying Truth Retreat. In this online retreat, participants learned how to live from the spiritual knowledge that they believe and trust. A big topic was looking at one’s values and seeing how those values align with one’s spiritual aspiration with the aim being to live, act, and speak from these core values. This program was facilitated by Anne Blanchard.Kate shares her experience as she goes about the business of giving up her ideas about herself and the world on her journey toward purification and awakening. Kate shares with wisdom and humor and allows us a glimpse into the beautiful and sometimes messy blossoming of life examined with an eye on Truth.
Weekly Sunday Gathering with Rev. Beverly Toporowski
Title: “The Self Seen though the Veil of Untruth”
Description: Rev. Beverly shared how we can learn how recurrent old patterns can become tools for awakening.
Reading: Christina Layer read from NTI Romans, Chapter 12.
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What is the Second Coming?
Yesterday I wrote of Christ’s Second Coming as the fully integrated state of knowing one’s self as consciousness. I also encouraged you to take part in awakening to consciousness by fulfilling your role within your current stage of awakening. Today, I will write about Grace and the part it fulfills in your awakening.
Recently, I read to you from Chapter 4 in Gina Lake’s book, In the World but Not of It. Here is one paragraph that I read:
Exercising your power to choose silence or any other activity that promotes Presence is a real turning point on the path to spiritual liberation. This marks an acceleration in your spiritual growth which will reverberate in your life in countless ways. Things will change, many of them unexpected. Anything truly begins to be possible. More conscious choosing of Presence lays the groundwork for Grace to be more active in your life. The more sincere you are, the more Grace is bestowed.
This is true because of the Third Principle of God, the ongoing creation principle.
The creation principle is a principle of now. It is as if all of the data in the universe is fed into a creation mechanism, which then creates the current moment of time based on the information received. You learned about this principle through “The Code” and NTI Ephesians.
When you are focused on the world and your thoughts about the world, this is the data that is fed into the creation principle, and so the creation principle responds by giving you world-based thoughts to think. Your life is also filled with circumstances that reflect your desire for the world and its drama.
However, as you begin to want truth, and you back that desire up by acting upon it, you send new data into the creation principle. The creation principle responds by giving you new thoughts to think and by filling your life with circumstances that support your desire to awaken.
In that way, Grace isn’t anything miraculous. It is divine law acting in the way divine law always acts by responding to you. It is as Nisargadatta Maharaj said:
I know nothing about miracles, and I wonder whether nature admits exceptions to her laws, unless we agree that everything is a miracle. To my mind there is no such thing. There is consciousness in which everything happens. It is quite obvious and within the experience of everybody. You just do not look carefully enough. Look well, and see what I see.
Our special theme says, “Forgiveness lights the Second Coming’s way, …” Please contemplate this line from our special theme along with the teaching I just shared about the Third Principle of God. What clarity comes to you?
Let not my world obscure the sight of Christ.
Today’s lesson begins, “I can obscure my holy sight, if I intrude my world upon it. Nor can I behold the holy sights Christ looks upon, unless it is His vision that I use. Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.”
With the teaching about the creative principle in mind, what does this mean? Please write the answer to this question as if you are teaching about the creative principle and its effects to another person.
Meditation Options
Today, we continue looking at the seventh step in the awakening process. That step is to give no meaning to anything the ego may say or anything you may experience as the ego dies its final death. The only way to pass through the seventh step is to purify the beliefs that are part of your conditioned thinking. If those beliefs are not purified, you will interpret the ego’s death fearfully, and you will retreat from the ego’s death, because retreating makes you feel more comfortable.
Yesterday, you may have learned something about your thinking. For example, you may have learned that you perceive some things as good and other things as bad. You may like peace and silence, but detest violence, especially in the name of righteousness.
When you go through the final death of the ego, it’s important that you do not interpret anything you hear, feel or experience as meaningful. Instead, you want to simply be with it, whatever it is. As you be with the ego without giving it believing attention, it can pass away. However, when you give the ego believing attention, it has you (awareness) in its grip, and you will act reactively instead of from clarity.
That means that if you think peace and silence are good, and violence is bad or fearful, the ego can use that against you to extend its apparent existence.
It is much better if you see peace and silence as constant, and if you see violence as a temporary scene that will soon pass away. That is a completely different interpretation than “good” and “bad,” and it is an interpretation that will allow you to pass through the seventh step.
Today’s reading interprets Revelation with the right-mind. It encourages to you to seek out the conditioned beliefs that you are not aware of. It asks you to not be distracted by the “smoke that rises out of the abyss,” but to look “past the smoke, deep into the abyss.”
The “smoke” and “abyss” refer to symbols used in Revelation 9. The “smoke” is the smoke screen of the world, and the “abyss” is the mind. In other words:
Do not believe you are upset because of anyone or anything in the world.
Look in the mind for the cause of your upset.
Whenever you believe you are upset because of someone or something in the world, you are deceived by the smoke screen. Instead, look beyond the situation that appears to have upset you, and look in your mind to find the belief that caused your upset. This process of uncovering and letting go of conditioned beliefs is the purification that will enable you to pass through step seven to final awakening.
Today’s reading points out that purification is not always easy. We have repressed false beliefs because they were uncomfortable to face. However, they aren’t true. They are false beliefs. In order to purify, we need to face them, feel them and let them fade away. That’s how we discover they were never real in the first place.
Sometimes people are afraid to look at their false beliefs. If you are afraid to look, you will not look, and you will remain a robot to your conditioning. However, there is nothing to fear, because you are looking at false beliefs. Looking is the way to freedom.
Please read Revelation 9:1-11, and then read today’s reading in NTI:
Thoughts of Awakening # 278
You are stillness.
You are peace.
You are love.
When you think you are the thinking,
you are only mistaken about what you are.
Ask yourself this:
Is there joy in thinking?
Or does true joy lie
in the bountiful beauty
of stillness?
~From our Holy Spirit
What is the Second Coming?
Our current special theme is about Christ’s Second Coming. That is symbolic language that points to an awakening, which is commonly referred to as awakening to consciousness. In the model I shared yesterday of The Four Principles of God, it is awakening to the Second Principle of God.
Two days ago, I shared four stages of the spiritual path as it is depicted in NTI. Today, let’s look at those four stages to see how they fit with awakening to the Second Principle of God.
Second Principle of God – Consciousness. This is the only direct creation of the Source. In A Course in Miracles it is called “Christ” and “the Son of God.” It is the unaffected, still witness. All things manifest are made of this principle; therefore, all things are consciousness.
Typically, when one begins the spiritual path, that one believes s/he is a person in the world. In other words, one believes the manifest realm is reality. That means that the process of awakening begins in the Fourth Principle of God, manifestation.
The goal of awakening, although the spiritual aspirant may not be aware of the goal yet, is to awaken from belief in manifestation as reality to the Second Principle of God, consciousness. This awakening includes three basic stages: the search, purification, and merging with spiritual intuition.
Some people appear to ‘pop’ into consciousness without going through these three stages. However, those people complete their maturation after awakening by completing the stages they have not yet completed. In some cases people find themselves at the beginning, in the search, after awakening. They experience it as searching for what has happened to them.
Whether one goes through the three stages of awakening and then awakens to consciousness or seems to awaken to consciousness and then complete the stages, one is not fully integrated as consciousness until all three stages have been completed.
Our special theme refers to the Second Coming of Christ as all-inclusive. That means that the Second Coming of Christ is a term that points to the completion and total integration of consciousness as self.
In NTI, the Second Coming of Christ is the fourth stage of the spiritual path. NTI says:
The fourth phase is a glorious phase, upon which your feet shall barely touch the ground. As you walk the earth, you know where you walk, so that the earth is merely a symbol within the mind. You shall not know brothers, but you shall talk to them. You will not need food, but you will eat with joy. Music shall accompany you in your every moment, and yet, you will have no need for your ears. Your sight will be changed from earthly sight to sight that is provided from Heaven. All things shall be new, and you shall have no need for any of them. In this, your joy shall be complete.
Or, as our special theme says:
It is the all-inclusive nature of Christ’s Second Coming that permits it to embrace the world and hold you safe within its gentle advent, which encompasses all living things with you. There is no end to the release the Second Coming brings, as God’s creation must be limitless.
The holy Christ is born in me today.
The prayer from today’s lesson says:
Your Son is welcome, Father. … He is the Self that You have given me. He is but what I really am in truth. … He is my Self as You created me. It is not Christ that can be crucified. Safe in Your Arms let me receive Your Son.
Near the end of our last special theme, I asked you to determine which stage of the spiritual path you are on, and based on that, what your primary function is.
If you are at the first stage, the search for truth, your primary function is reading and listening to spiritual teachings while feeling within for an inner confirmation regarding which teachings are for you.
If you are at the second stage, purification, your primary function is inquiring into your perceptions and thinking, giving willingness to let go of false thinking, learning not to act or speak from false thinking, and allowing repressed emotions to rise and heal.
If you are at the third stage, merging, your primary function is letting go of your personal will, including your thinking and conditioning, and surrendering to spiritual intuition until that surrender is complete, and you no longer experience a separate will.
If you are at the fourth stage, you know yourself as consciousness and the first three stages are completed.
Assuming that you are in the first, second or third stage of the spiritual path, spend today giving welcome to consciousness as your self by practicing your function as fully as you can. We are not here simply to say, “Let me receive Your Son.” We are here to back up that intention by doing our part to fulfill our function.
Tomorrow, I will talk about Grace’s role on the spiritual path. Today, just be aware that you are not alone as you do your part.
Meditation Options
On Day 272, we learned:
We all have ways of finding meaning—ways of interpreting—and whether we realize it or not, we use our conditioned ways of interpreting in order to apply meaning to everything we experience during our daily life.
Our “conditioned ways of interpreting” come from beliefs that we hold on to, because those beliefs are a part of who we think we are or they are a part of how we want to see the world. Conditioned beliefs are not all positive; in fact, the beliefs we treasure most are typically highly negative.
Today we will begin looking at the conditioned beliefs we carry in the mind, beliefs that color our interpretation of everything we perceive.
On Day 275, we looked at six of the seven steps to awakening (as those steps are put forth in NTI). We didn’t look at the seventh step that day. Today, we will begin looking at the seventh step.
The seventh step that one must pass through in order to awaken to truth is this:
Give no meaning to anything the ego says or to any experience you have as the ego dies its final death.
The only way to do this is to purify conditioned beliefs so you are no longer unconsciously subject to them.
The first step in purifying conditioned beliefs is becoming aware of those beliefs. You want to see them in action as part of your interpretation. When you see them, you can let go of them. If you do not see them, they control you.
Today, you will be asked to read a passage from Revelation. As you read, please take notes about the thoughts that flash across your mind. These thoughts will give you insight regarding conditioned beliefs that you still hold onto.
Complete today’s reading this way:
For example, let’s imagine you begin the reading with a peaceful feeling, and you think, “That’s nice.” Write that down. Let’s imagine that as the reading continues, you see an anger thought arise. That thought is, “How could anyone think that is holy?”
You continue reading and continue writing down all of the thoughts you notice.
In this example, after you finish the reading, you look at everything you’ve written down. You notice that you liked the first part of the reading and didn’t like something that came later in the reading. Ask yourself about those thoughts. Why did you think the first part was good and the second was bad? What did your mind see in the first part that it judged as good? What did it see in the second part that it judged as bad? What is underneath those judgments? Practice root cause inquiry to find out why you were upset about the second thing you read.
If you look at your thoughts carefully today, you will learn something about the filter through which you interpret everything you experience.
Thoughts of Awakening # 277
The truth is within.
Look nowhere else.
You are the answer you seek.
Find you,
and you’ve found everything.
~From our Holy Spirit
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 a gently guided Being Aware of Awareness meditation. All are warmly welcome.
Join us at 10:15 am ET/ 8:15 am MT for our Weekly Sunday Gathering with Rev. Beverly ToporowskiThe Power of Pain: The Self Seen through the Veil of Untruth
Learn how recurrent old patterns can become tools for awakening. Christina Layer will read from NTI Romans Chapter 12.
*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 Kate Brennan.
Join us at 1:30 pm ET/ 11:30 am MT for Reflections from the Embodying Truth retreat Facilitated by Anne Blanchard
Join us at 6:00 pm ET/ 4:00 pm MT for Something Genuine with Rev. Jacquelyn EckertRev. 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 AkersRegina 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!
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.
Awakening Together Internet Broadcast: Listen Live on AT Radio
