Note: If desired, watch all of Acts 24 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.

Yesterday, we saw that cruelty resides in us as a wish. Cruelty is the ultimate divorce from oneness, because it powerfully inflates the sense of separation. We were asked to face the cruelty in the mind so that it can be healed.

There are three ways we can face the cruelty in the mind:

1. We can look at our cruel thoughts, cruel desires and cruel actions. For example, during my purification stage, I noticed that when I put my daughter on timeout, I sent her to her room without her security blanket. As a young child, she loved her security blanket. The reason I sent her to her room without it was because I wanted to make her suffer.

 

2. We can be defenseless when others are cruel to us. I don’t mean that we should allow someone to physically hurt us. In every situation, we should follow intuition, and so I will not presuppose what you should do if physically attacked. When I say that we can be defenseless when others are cruel to us, I am referring to mental or emotional cruelty. For example, when NTI was first published, there was a group of people who wrote cruel things about me on the internet. My guidance was to read what they wrote and rest-accept-trust with any feelings I had without responding or defending myself in any way.

 

3. We can look at the cruelty in the world. For example, I experienced a huge healing around cruelty by watching a news story. I was shocked by the display of cruelty in that story. I couldn’t believe that one human could be that cruel to another human. My heart broke, and I cried for two hours. Interestingly, the spiritual ego told me that I shouldn’t feel the way I felt. I recognized that as ego and let the feelings rise. After two hours, a decision was made in me. The decision was, “I will only love now.” I haven’t seen a shred of cruelty in me since then. I also find that my love is not blocked by the cruelty demonstrated by others.

Today’s reading says:

When you face that which you fear, there is one thing you must remember.

What you look on is not at all real,
and you face it to deny it.

In that excerpt, “deny” means to declare untrue.

What do we declare untrue?

Declare whatever you are feeling in the moment untrue.

When we face cruelty, we can feel any number of feelings including guilt, unworthiness, defensiveness, anger, hatred, victimization, victimizer, rejection, abandonment, betrayal, self-righteousness, fear, sadness and etcetera. Those feelings are what you declare untrue. Rest-accept-trust with them; realize they are misperceptions; remember that the experience is untrue, and so it will pass; declare the truth by noticing constant, changeless awareness.

That’s purification. That’s how darkness is healed. That’s how you perform your function as a healing/awakening point in consciousness.

Note: I recommend printing this tip for future reference.

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

Note: If desired, watch all of Acts 23 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.

Yesterday’s reading was about the third phase of the spiritual path, which is service and merging. As mentioned, the third phase is a very attractive phase, and many people want to jump to the third phase without completing purification. However, purification is necessary in order to intuit spiritual intuition without confusing it with ego.

Since purification is vitally important, today’s reading returns our attention to purification. Today’s reading is a serious reading. It points out that the purification stage can, at times, get “very, very tough.”

That was my experience, and it will most likely be your experience too.

The seriousness of today’s reading isn’t meant to scare anyone. It’s meant to prepare you. To “prepare” is to make someone ready to do or deal with something.

How does today’s reading help prepare you for purification?

If you know there are tough times ahead, when the tough times arrive you can see them as a normal part of the process. Knowing tough times are normal can help you move through them more easily.

Today’s reading also explains why the purification phase gets tough. Resistance makes it tough. We are afraid that the darkness in the mind is the truth about us, and so we resist looking at it. Yet, the darkness needs to be seen so it can be healed.

The reading says:

… cruelty lives in you as a wish. It is important to note that the cruelty is a wish, for a wish is not what you are. A wish is what you are not, but what you may pretend to be.

When we are cruel, we get pleasure from causing pain and suffering in others. That isn’t very pretty to look at, but in one way or another, we’ve all been cruel.

Why do we wish to be cruel?

Cruelty is the ultimate divorce from oneness. When we are cruel, we feel powerfully separate. Cruelty inflates the ego.

Today’s reading encourages us to look at the darkest aspects of the mind. It acknowledges that we may be afraid to look, but it encourages us to overcome that fear with a strong desire for our spiritual aspiration. It is as NTI Luke 22 said:

Great fear is nothing more than great resistance.
And so the means for overcoming great fear is great willingness.
Great willingness comes from remembering what you want.

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

Note: If desired, watch all of Acts 22 from the Visual Bible movie, Acts.

Today’s reading points toward the third stage on the spiritual path, which is service. It is through service that merging occurs.

Earlier this year, we read NTI Mark.  It was a story about the third stage of the spiritual path. As a reminder, here is an excerpt from the tip for NTI Mark 1:

NTI Mark, Chapter 1 is the beginning of the story. Like any beginning, it lays out the details needed to begin the story. Some of the details regarding our role model, Jesus, are:

• Jesus has decided on the purpose for his mortal existence. It is truth realization. This purpose is the leading factor in his life.
• Jesus knows that God is found within, so his focus is within, which includes focus on spontaneous guidance. Jesus lives a surrendered life. He is led. He does not make decisions for himself. …
• Jesus lives from kindness and love. He is the servant of everyone he meets and the servant of Spirit within. Through service, which is not self-will, Jesus of NTI will follow spontaneous guidance to the end of the sense of self.

We enter the third stage of the spiritual path when enough purification has occurred that we are able to more easily  intuit and trust guidance. As we move through the third stage, our ability to intuit and trust guidance is perfected to the point that we no longer feel surrendered. Instead, we feel in tune with our natural Self, which is the invisible power of all things.

Many people want to jump to service without completing phase two, purification. Purification is absolutely necessary in order to clear out enough ego to discern guidance clearly. Without purification, one is less likely to know the difference between ego and spiritual intuition.

However, it’s also true that the first three phases overlap to some degree. When I was in my five year purification phase, I was also in service. During the service phase, some purification continues.

The difference between phase two and phase three is the emphasis. In phase two, the emphasis, and necessarily your primary focus, is purification. Service occurs naturally as you focus on purification. Here is a quote from Nisargadatta about service during phase two:

The right use of mind is in the service of love, of life, of Truth, of beauty. … You must begin in yourself, with yourself – this is the inexorable law. Attend to yourself, set yourself right – mentally and emotionally.

In phase three, enough purification has occurred that the emphasis  can move to intuiting guidance and following it. Again, that is the demonstration we saw from Jesus in NTI Mark.

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