A universal assembly for true discernment
Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert shares with honesty and passion about the ups, downs, and all-around of the spiritual journey. Jacquelyn is transparent as she shares about the impersonal awakening process we all experience. She moves us with stories from her own journey, with direct insight from inner wisdom and with guidance from spiritual masters, both contemporary and legendary.
Meg shares her practice of teaching and learning by sharing inspirations and clarity that arise because of purification of the mind and waking the consciousness to the absolute.
Please read quote 1519 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is a portion of that quote:
What is supremely important is to be free from contradictions: the goal and the way must not be on different levels; life and light must not quarrel; behavior must not betray belief.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
When we derive a portion or all of our self-image from the truth teaching that we study, the teaching is hijacked by the ego, and it is no longer effective. Instead, the teaching becomes a tool that is used by the ego to continue the ego and its illusion.
That is the meaning of the story about the vineyard, which you will find in today’s reading. The perfect vineyard is the teaching. However, the one who becomes identified with the teaching turns it into a personal thought system. Once the teaching is reduced to a thought system that ‘I’ identify with, it needs to be defended whenever the thought system appears threatened. At this point, the teaching becomes completely ineffective, and it isn’t used for the purpose that it was originally given, which is truth realization.
A term commonly used for this process of identifying with a teaching, turning it into a personal thought system, and then defending the thought system is, “fundamentalism.” Like ritual, fundamentalism is the husk of truth faith.
Awakening Together’s fourth core value addresses fundamentalism.
We affirm one true Self as the only truth. We live this value by embracing what is helpful on the path of awakening without idolizing any spiritual doctrine as truth.
NTI Revelation, Chapter 1, also addresses the mistake of fundamentalism.
The world is an illusion, and so everything you experience as you let go of the world is illusion also. You are not to believe any of it. But helpful symbols will be given to guide you. Remember that they are only symbols. Follow them, realizing you know not where they lead.
Do not idolize anything within the world or any symbol or any thought that is sent to lead you from the world. Hold to them as they are useful, but let them go when their usefulness has past. You are to keep moving by letting go until you find yourself with nothing left to hold onto.
Twice, today’s reading says, “Jesus understood the confusion within the mind and the thought that gave rise to such confusion.” The confusion is fundamentalism. The thought that gives rise to the confusion is the “I” thought, a thought that constantly seeks for a self-image.
To awaken, we must let go of self-image, including spiritual self-image, and embrace “the oneness of God”—consciousness, the Second Principle of God—as what we are.
Thoughts of Awakening # 50
Let all things
be used for one purpose,
and that is the purpose of peace.
Let no circumstance,
or situation or thought
be separate from
your purpose.
Give it all to peace,
and peace shall be your gift.
~From our Holy Spirit
Regina Dawn Akers guides a group of committed students who would like to make consistent, gentle progress toward genuine peace, joy and love.
Please read quotes 1517-1518 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
You will be a fully awakened witness of the field of consciousness. But there should be no feelings and ideas to stand between you and the field.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
As a reminder, NTI Mark is a fictional story that provides helpful symbols. Our role is to derive meaning from the symbols, and then live from the example provided by those symbols.
I am reminding you of this today, because today’s reading in NTI is quite a bit different from the way the stories are told in the Bible. In the Bible, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey and is hailed as king by crowds of people. The next day, he wakes up hungry. The Bible says:
Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it. ~ Mark 11:12-14, 20-21
That fig tree “withered from the roots” and died.
After cursing the fig tree, Jesus went to Jerusalem. This is what happened next:
On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’ ~ Mark 11:15-17
Why does NTI tell the story differently? Because, NTI Mark is a fictional story that provides helpful symbols. Our role is to derive meaning from the symbols, and then live from the example provided by those symbols. So, NTI changes the story in order to provide us with an example we can follow and model ourselves after.
What about the story as it is told in the Bible?
The morning after Jesus rode into Jerusalem and was hailed as king, the Bible says:
The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. ~ Mark 11:12
As we know, Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights in the desert and refused the ego’s temptation to turn stones into bread. But on this day, Jesus sees a fig tree in the distance and, even though it wasn’t the season for figs, he gets so angry at the tree for not having fruit that he curses it, and it dies. Doesn’t it seem a bit unusual that physical hunger would have such a strong effect on him?
It’s interesting to note that “hungry” has more than one definition. The obvious definition is “feeling the need for food,” but notice some of these other definitions:
Having a strong desire or craving; grasping
Strongly motivated as by ambition; power-hungry
Extremely desirous, avid; hungry for recognition
It’s possible that thoughts of grandiosity entered into Jesus’ mind as he rode into Jerusalem the evening before, and so the next morning he woke up “hungry.” It’s also possible that he was beginning to sense the threat of arrest, and he was upset by thoughts about that. Whatever the case may have been, it appears he was not immediately alert to his thinking. He was temporarily deluded by his thoughts, and that’s what led to the outbursts with the fig tree and in the temple courts.
In NTI, Jesus doesn’t make the same mistakes that he made in the Bible. NTI provides us with a role model that we can emulate when we notice wrong-minded thoughts in our minds. However, the Bible story is helpful too, because it can be helpful to realize that even Jesus made mistakes. That point-of-view can help us forgive ourselves when we are not quickly alert to our thoughts.
Thoughts of Awakening # 49
Your mind is changing
as your Heart rises into awareness.
Listen to your Heart.
Follow your Heart.
It leads you beyond the world
to the truth of what you are.
~From our Holy Spirit
This group was facilitated by Rev. Jacquelyn Eckert.
Join us on Sunday, April 26, 2020 from 8 -9 pm ET/6-7 pm MT for a discussion of the movie called Lucy.
Lucy is described as “an entertaining film with a philosophical point of view.”
Scarlett Johansson stars as Lucy, a young woman who experiences abduction then abuse that leads to a revealing of powers that start developing. As her powers grow the fear diminishes and we witness her own unique evolution. This evolution of expansion came by way of suffering. Lucy’s action-packed journey helps us to understand the greater possibilities of what it means to use one’s full capacities by the shedding of the physical, intellectual and perceptual limitations.
Rev. George Maddox will be facilitating this month’s movie discussion group.
You can watch this movie on Amazon Prime, YouTube, and Google Play. You can also watch the movie on www.onewhowakes.org with John Mark Stroud’s commentary to help you see the movie from Holy Spirit’s perspective.
Here’s a playsheet for the movie Lucy: Read it Here
Please read quotes 1513-1516 in The Seven Steps to Awakening with your inner teacher. Here is the last quote:
Separate the observed from the observer and abandon false identifications.
Note: The next Daily Contemplation will be available tomorrow morning after 2am ET at this link.
