We have a practical goal, which is kindness. We will practice kindness to the best of our ability. However, we are not practicing kindness merely for kindness’ sake. We are on a journey toward truth. Kindness is a step in that direction.

NTI says, “If you are to walk the path of righteousness, all things must be done for the reason of the Heart. … Let not actions blind you. It is not the action that matters, but the purpose that is given it.” In other words, if truth is what we seek, then truth must be the reason for our kindness.

Let me give you an example of a common mistake in purpose. Some people will read this teaching or a teaching like it, and then do their best to be kind so they can be good. The purpose of being good is different than seeking truth. If one’s underlying goal is to be good, one has selected a goal that has an opposite. The goal and its opposite are one, since you can’t have one without the other. That means that anyone who wants to see herself as good will also see herself as bad.

Truth has no opposite. By making truth realization your reason for kindness, you set yourself on a path of increasing clarity.

Today’s reading shares tips about how to practice kindness for the purpose of truth realization. In short, it guides us to:

1. Ask for what we want in a heartfelt, prayerful way.
2. Remember our purpose—truth realization—in all things.
3. Surrender to inner guidance. Trust it and follow it in all things without seeking a specific outcome for the self.

There are two comments I’d like to make about today’s reading:

First, today’s reading refers to our “evil thoughts that would trick and blind us to the Light within.” Some people don’t like the word “evil,” probably because they associate it with guilt. As I mentioned in my first tip this year, guilt does not come from the conscience. The conscience is non-judgmental wisdom. Any sense of guilt comes from the mind’s interpretation of you in relationship to your conscience.

One definition of “evil” is “something which is harmful or undesirable.” In other words, evil, as it is used in NTI, is a term of discernment instead of judgment. “Evil thoughts” refers to thoughts that hurt us rather than awaken us. Since we don’t want to be hurt, and we do want to awaken, it serves us well to recognize those thoughts and let them go. Conscience will help us do that, since conscience is our inner knowing.

Secondly, today’s reading makes a comment that I’d like to highlight. It says, “But if you do not trust your Heart [conscience and spiritual intuition] and you try to find your own way to happiness, you shall be lost.”

We have a longtime habit of self-centeredness to the point that we think we want to be self-centered. Therefore, when conscience or spiritual intuition guides us to drop self-centeredness, we can feel threatened.

If you ignore conscience or spiritual intuition because you believe it is threatening, you will not transcend self-centeredness.

Knowing what you want is key. Know what you want, and then make decisions based on what you want. Even if you feel threatened or afraid, keep walking in the direction of what you really want. That is the only way to get there.

Most people do not live according to their conscience, and so the conscience has been repressed. Since the conscience is repressed in most humans, humanity had to create laws, moral codes, and etcetera to tell people how to behave. In order to enforce these laws, humanity also created consequences for breaking its laws. Of course, these consequences have often been extreme and just as out of harmony with conscience as the crime itself.

Ego is responsible for the repression of conscience. When we believe our egotistical self-centered thoughts, we ignore conscience. Since conscience is not self-centered, we believe it is against our will, which is self-centeredness. In other words, we literally choose self-centeredness over unity.

Practicing kindness in our relationships with others reverses this process.

Today’s reading provides guidance about how to practice kindness, which it calls love. It also addresses some common confusion about this practice. I encourage you to read slowly and digest this guidance.

Many spiritual people ignore the guidance for kindness. Sometimes they use excuses to justify unkindness like, “the world is not real,” “the script is written,” “I am not the doer,” “there are no others,” or “I’m just a mirror of your state of mind.” Two traveling spiritual friends of mine used to steal from people who invited them into their homes. They claimed that by stealing, they gave their hosts the opportunity to forgive. They even coined a term for it: stealing for forgiveness.

Self-centeredness is what repressed conscience in the first place, and self-centeredness will confuse spiritual teachings in order to keep it repressed, if you let it. However, that’s not necessary, because you do have conscience.

Conscience comes from the latin verb, conscire. “Con” means “with,” and “scire” means “know.” Therefore, conscience literally means ‘with knowing.’ Since this knowing is built into you, you can know when confusion is trying to confuse you; you can know when you are trying to ignore conscience; you can know when you are attempting to justify being out-of-harmony with conscience; and you can know how to be in harmony with conscience. It’s all a matter of wanting to choose unity consciousness over separation (self-centered) consciousness.

This is a song that a friend wrote based on NTI Matthew, Chapter 5. It might be fun to listen to it as you contemplate your choice regarding kindness.

Rise Up by Esther Danmeri

In the story that I shared from the Bible yesterday, the Son of God submitted to a baptism by John the Baptist, a symbol of our conscience. When John said, “I need to be baptized by you,” John indicated that spiritual intuition is higher than conscience. However, when Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness,” Jesus indicated that conscience has its place in the totality of wisdom. Conscience is to be respected and followed. It is not to be ignored as less than higher wisdom.

NTI begins on that premise. We begin by following conscience instead of ignoring it, and it is through following conscience that higher spiritual wisdom arises into conscious awareness.

Michael Langford concludes his book, Manonasa: A Spiritual Autobiography, with “Five Steps for the Majority.” These steps encourage us to follow our conscience in relationship with others. Here is what Michael wrote in Manonasa:

For those of you who do not want to attain Manonasa but you would like to know how you can move from darkness to light, follow all 5 steps on this page every day. All of you who do want to attain Manonasa should also follow the suggestions on this page, because these suggestions are for all of the more than 6 billion humans on earth:

1. Every time you speak to a human being either in person or over the phone, make sure the content of what you are saying and the tone of your voice are loving, caring, and kind.
2. Every time you write something to a human being, make sure that what you are writing is loving and kind. Pause before you send someone an email or a text message and make sure that your email or text message is loving, caring and kind.
3. Never do any harm of any kind to any human being or animal.
4. Treat even the people who you think do not deserve your kindness with kindness.
5. Treat even people you only see briefly with great caring and kindness.

When Peace Pilgrim began her spiritual investigation, she noticed that nearly every spiritual culture had a rule similar to “the golden rule.” Jesus taught this rule in the Bible by saying, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

In Jesus’ final teaching to the apostles, just prior to his arrest and crucifixion, he said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34, 35)

Kindness with one another and with all living things (ahimsa) is where we begin our second year of Gentle Healing. When we practice kindness, our goal isn’t to act kind on the outside while judging and carrying on ferociously in our minds (although that may be how it starts). Kindness is a way of being that we want to master through and through. In this way, kindness is a purification technique.

First, we behave kindly with everyone, because to not be kind is to be a slave to the ego, and we don’t want that. Then secondly, if we do not feel kind within, we question our thoughts and feelings. We turn to inquiry and to rest-accept-trust in order to heal every part of us that is not naturally kind.

NTI says, “… the law of the heart is beyond the world. It is like a path that you shall follow to higher ground.”

In other words, as we live by conscience in our relationships with others, it leads to higher and higher levels of wisdom, levels that “lead a man from his manhood to his true Self…”