You are not the mind. You are that which you know now as the inner teacher.

The inner teacher is your Self. When you sit and commune with the inner teacher, you are temporarily disengaging from the mind and communing with your own true wisdom. When you are able to stay with your Self, and your attention no longer drifts back to the mind as ‘me’, you won’t need an inner teacher anymore. Until then, the apparent relationship with the inner teacher is the most important relationship  you have. Please treasure it as such. It will awaken you to the degree that you value it as the most important thing in your life.

For contemplation:

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

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link

Today’s message cannot be understood by the mind, so if you are identified with mind when you read today’s message, you will not be able to follow its clarity. It might be helpful to practice awareness-watching-awareness before reading today’s message in order to break the attachment to mind and read from a place of Self-realization.

The Self does not experience pain. It does not experience mental pain, emotional pain or physical pain. It is completely beyond pain. The only thing that experiences pain is the mind (attention on thought).

When you believe that you experience pain, you are identified with the mind. Awareness as attention has projected itself into thought and imagines itself to be thought. It is like watching virtual reality from what appears to be within  virtual reality; therefore, appearing to experience virtual reality, although virtual reality can never be actually experienced, and you can’t actually be in a virtual reality.

When Ramana Maharshi’s body was being eaten up by sarcoma prior to his death, the body was filled with pain. Ramana asked his devotees to move his body carefully, because of the pain. When asked about his experience of pain, he explained that the jnani (enlightened one) experiences pain as if it is a dream.

Today’s reading explains the same phenomenon this way:

You are the true Self, who is constant and changeless and sees the passing of all experience from a deep abidance within itself.

In other words, Ramana saw  the pain in the body and asked his devotees to move it carefully in the same way that you may be aware of the pain in a hurt kitten’s body and ask a person who is moving the kitten to move it carefully. You do not experience the kitten’s pain, but you have compassion for it. Ramama did not experience the body’s pain, but he had compassion for it.

Ramana’s compassion for the body wasn’t any different than his compassion for the world. He saw the pain and understood that it was experienced as real, but he did not experience pain from his place of abidance.

Just as the Self does not experience pain, the Self does not require purification. It has never been anything but pure, so the idea of purifying the Self is ridiculous. Also, the mind cannot  be purified. The mind is the illusion that it is. All one can do is see that the mind does not exist and that s/he is not the mind.

So, what is the purpose of purification?

Purification is not the process of changing or improving the mind, which is what many people mistake it for. Purification is the process of seeing that the mind is not real and the mind is not what I am. When one awakens from the delusion that the mind is me, purification is no longer necessary, because one has awakened to purity (pure truth). The false isn’t believed anymore.

In the apparent process of awakening, one may feel like s/he is changing or improving the mind. However, what is really happening is this:

One is starting to see, “I am not the mind.” Therefore, one is starting to disregard the mind’s chatter and act based on wisdom instead of mind. That is not changing or improving the mind. The mind remains the same. That is disengaging from  the mind.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link

Today you will read another conversation between a student and her awake teacher. In today’s message, the teacher asks the student for a commitment. The teacher asks:

Do you agree to follow me and to do as I ask?

At some point, every student must make this commitment to his/her teacher. Without this commitment, the ego will never allow the student to awaken; the student will continue to listen to the mind that thinks it knows best, and the mind that thinks it knows best will keep the student’s attention firmly attached to it.

It’s interesting to note that in today’s message, the teacher points out that he isn’t asking the student to put the mind aside. He’s asking her “to see that it is nothing.”

What’s the difference between putting something aside and seeing that it’s nothing?

I can decide to put a cup of coffee aside. I can’t decide to put Santa Claus aside, because there is nothing there to put aside. If I think I have a relationship with Santa Claus, I am deluded. A counselor wouldn’t help me heal from that delusion if he said, “Put Santa aside. Stop talking to him. He’s not good for you,” because the idea of putting Santa aside reemphasizes that there is a Santa. A counselor would be most helpful to me by helping me to see that Santa doesn’t exist.

Our teachings have been teaching us that the mind doesn’t exist. What we experience as mind is consciousness appearing as thought and world, but it isn’t thought or world. It is consciousness. It appears as thought and world through our believing-attention and the loop of experience. In other words, delusion breeds more delusion.

We aren’t being asked to put some thing aside. We are asked to see that a delusion isn’t true. It isn’t real. It’s false. It doesn’t exist.

We are being asked to stop giving attention to the false and to give attention to the true.

Today, consider if you are ready and willing to make a contract of awakening with your inner teacher. Consider this decision with heartfelt seriousness.

As we go into Gentle Healing Year 3, you will have more opportunity to commune with your inner teacher than you’ve had in Year 1 and Year 2. I will step away from the teaching role, which I temporarily accepted during Year 1 and Year 2. I will step into a supportive role in Year 3. I won’t provide daily tips anymore. Instead, you will contemplate four quotes from The Seven Steps to Awakening  each day, and through contemplation, you will commune with your inner teacher daily. The awake inner teacher will guide you as clearly and as consistently as the tips have guided for the last two years.

The last year of consistent gentle healing will come from your relationship with your inner teacher.

What you receive from your relationship with your inner teacher will be extremely helpful. However, if you receive it, and then walk away and forget what you have received, it will not awaken you. In order to awaken, you must be fully committed to your inner teacher. You must give yourself to the inner teacher with complete trust and devotion.

As Nisargadatta Maharaj said:

Your own Self is your ultimate teacher. The outer teacher is merely a milestone.* It is only your inner teacher that will walk with you to the goal, for [it] is the goal.

* A milestone is a significant point on a journey, but it is not the destination.

Note: The next tip will be available tomorrow morning after 3:50am ET at this link