What is the World?

Our special theme says, “Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him. Here was perception born, for knowledge could not cause such insane thoughts. But eyes deceive, and ears hear falsely. Now mistakes become quite possible, for certainty has gone.”

The primary definition of perception is, “the ability to see, hear or become aware of something through the senses.” A secondary definition is, “a way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something; a mental impression.”

In other words, perception is an outward focused way of acquiring information. When combined with personal thought, which interprets the information received from the senses, perception is also a way of conditioning the mental organism, the brain.

This is very important to see!

Simply put, perception is a means of creating and securing ignorance. In other words, as we remain focused on the world and thought, we are completely ignorant of truth. It is also fair to say we are completely deluded.

Or, as our special theme says, “The mechanisms of illusion have been born instead. And now they go to find what has been given them to seek. Their aim is to fulfill the purpose which the world was made to witness and make real. They see in its illusions but a solid base where truth exists, upheld apart from lies. Yet everything that they report is but illusion which is kept apart from truth.”

I am in danger nowhere in the world.

When we look deeply at the fact that everything we think is true is not true, we can feel very disoriented. We can even feel afraid. However, there is nothing to fear. There is nothing to fear because thought, the body and the world are not real; therefore, we are not at all vulnerable.

Yes, it is true that the imposter self is vulnerable. As we saw in yesterday’s tip, fear is an inherent part of thought, because thought is not a self. That unconscious realization is the cause of fear. But we are not thought. We are not the imposter self or its creation, the body. We are the true Self. We are that which “cannot suffer, be endangered, or experience unhappiness …”

As The Teachings of Inner Ramana says, “Fear comes simply from not knowing reality. Therefore, the only answer to fear is to let go of what is false and to remember reality as true.”

That is our focus today. In addition to practicing awareness-watching-awareness, take short breaks today to notice awareness as what you are. Notice that as awareness, you observe thought. Notice that you observe the body. However, you are prior to both of them. Notice yourself as that which is completely unaffected by anything in the realm of perception.

To help with today’s focus, I am recommending two meditations. If you can, please practice the first meditation early in the day and the second meditation later in the day.

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Recalling Attention

What is the World?

Our special theme says that the world “was made as an attack on God. … Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him.”

However, The Teachings of Inner Ramana says, “The mind creates experience that is not real. It is illusion or fantasy, and it is created for the purpose of enjoyment or pleasure.”

So, which is true? Is the world an attack on God or is it intended for our enjoyment?

If you pay attention to the mind, which is engaged in actively creating the world now, you will see that both are true.

The world is “an attack on God” and “meant to be a place where God could enter not” in that the mind is focused on the thought of separation. The mind wants “me” to be real, this apparent individual entity that is separate from everything else.

At the same time, the mind is constantly seeking “enjoyment or pleasure” for “me” and tries to avoid anything that it defines as pain or displeasure.

Both of these metaphysical stories, the one from A Course in Miracles and the one from The Teachings of Inner Ramana, describe the workings of the mind as it is now. And the world we see today comes from the workings of the mind as it is now.

Also, both A Course in Miracles and The Teachings of Inner Ramana describe the world as a place of fear. The Teachings of Inner Ramana says:

“The mind is afraid because the unnatural is not natural. The mind that has forgotten reality knows that something is wrong, but it does not know what that is. It projects stories in an effort to give itself a reason for its fear, but it cannot find the answer it seeks because it is looking in the wrong direction. Its fear does not come from its own projections, and so solutions to those projections cannot end the fear.

Fear comes simply from not knowing reality. Therefore, the only answer to fear is to let go of what is false and to remember reality as true.”

Or as Michael Langford writes in The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss:

“Thought believes thought is a real entity and thought believes thought is a real self. Thought is not a real entity and thought is not a self. Living from thought instead of living from Awareness is the cause of all human suffering. …

The ego is the cause of all disease, death, war, fear, anger and violence. Although many thousands of years have passed, human beings have made almost no inward progress toward ending suffering, sorrow, war, fear, anger, violence, cheating and lying.

Thousands of years ago humans had suffering, sorrow, war, fear, anger, violence, cheating and lying.

Now, today, currently, humans have suffering, sorrow, war, fear, anger, violence, cheating and lying.

What has kept humans in the same pool of inward unsolved problems?

The ego (the imposter) has kept humans in the same pool of inward unsolved problems.

Inward problems cannot be solved by looking outward. Inward problems can only be solved by looking inward.

The ego knows that if the attention is turned inward, the ego will be found to be a myth, an imposter, an illusion, a delusion, a dream. Therefore, due to the ego’s fear of ending, the ego keeps the attention directed outward.”

If you contemplate “What is the world?” along with these excerpts from The Teachings of Inner Ramana and Michael Langford, you will see that they are all saying the same thing:

The ego (I-thought) is not the truth of what we are.

Since the I-thought is unconsciously aware that it is not truth, fear is inherent in its thought system.

The ego does not want to look inward to find the cause of its fear, because it unconsciously knows that if one looks inward, the I-thought will be found to be unreal.

Therefore, the mind projects problems outward and then tries to resolve its fear by solving those problems. This is the outward seeking mechanism of mind. It seeks pleasure and avoids pain.

Of course, outward seeking will never work, because as each problem is resolved, the fear inherent in the thought system continues. Therefore, another problem is projected by the fear in thought.

This seeking and projection loop continues for as long as the thought of separation continues.

The only answer to the world’s problems is to end the thought of separation (the ego, the I-thought).

Today I will judge nothing that occurs.

Judgment is based on the idea that we know what is good and bad, right and wrong, etcetera. If you look carefully at these ideas, you will see they are part of the outward seeking and projection loop described above. In other words, judgment is a primary function of the ego. Since judgment is an activity of the ego, believing judgment keeps the ego active.

The entire world and all of its problems are a projection of the ego. To believe the ego is to continue the projection. This is very important to see!

When we believe our own ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, etcetera, we think we are going to make things better through judgment, but in fact we are keeping the problem creator, the ego, active. This is very important to see!

In short, by trying to seek pleasure and avoid pain through judgment, we create the very suffering we seek to avoid.

When this is seen, the only reasonable response is to genuinely surrender all judgment and to turn to inner spiritual intuition regarding what to think, how to see, what to say and what to do.

Today, try not to believe judgment. Instead, practice the Loving All Method and practice surrender as it is taught in The Teachings of Inner Ramana. Leave creation to be itself without further complicating it with your individual assessment of what should and should not be.

Please read this tip two or three more times today. It is very important to fully accept what is written in this tip.

If you have 30 minutes for meditation today, I recommend this meditation by Michael Langford and Karen Worth:

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What is the World?

Our special theme says, “When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear …”

I would like to quote from an article by Bentinho Massaro. The article is titled Update on my Graduation from Creation – Part 1.

After several years of practicing resting as Awareness and increasing my lucidity and emptiness of self and bias, 5 years ago I penetrated beyond all that into the Absolute. I directly realized that the Absolute ‘me’ was beyond all perception, beyond all Creation, beyond everything, beyond even Consciousness/Awareness as we know it to be (infused with experience). There is nothing beyond this Absolute. It is Infinitely Absolute. Absolutely Infinite. Absolutely One. Indescribable. Unimaginable. It is Final Completion.

This penetrative ‘experience’ of being beyond all perception/Creation (and I have had several complete absorptions since then) showed me that there was a realization or disappearance possible way beyond what most of us consider to be ‘Enlightenment.’ Penetrating into the Absolute made ‘awakened living’ seem like nothing at all in comparison; just more mind, more illusion. This was true liberation beyond all levels and utterly indescribable. …

There are many levels of ‘Enlightenment’ or rather: there are many degrees of transparency to the One while still associated with I AM (while still partaking in the illusion). However, they are all trumped and rendered irrelevant when the Absolute is realized.

Most levels of awakening simply increase the lucidity of this Illusion, but do not actually wake you up to the point where this illusion of perception or experience disappears entirely.

You can compare this to your dreams at night. You usually dream unconsciously. Let’s say you have one of these usual dreams and you meet a guru in your dreams and this guru is reminding you of the fact that you are dreaming.

You start to ponder this idea in the dream and your experience “I am dreaming” becomes more lucid. You become more awake IN the dream. You may even start to intuit that your actual body is laying in its bed in another reality. You may start to imagine and remember what that other reality is like outside of the dream, and you may even become awake and subtle enough to channel that intuitive experience with other dreamers. But when it comes down to it, your experience is still that you’re in, or part of, the dream to a greater or lesser extent depending on your ‘level of clarity.’

Lucid or not, the dream is an illusion, and as long as we are associating ourselves with a portion of the dream, or even the dream as one, inseparable whole, we are still, nevertheless, dreaming and thus not aware of our true Absolute Self.

And then there may be a time in your dream at night when you are totally ready to part from the dream; you did everything you felt you needed or wanted to do, dropped your attachments to those seeming other-selves within the dream, and even are letting go of your attachment to being ‘alive in the dream’ at all.

You let go completely, intensely desire or will yourself to wake up, and suddenly the dream disappears completely and you awaken in your bed in your ‘real’ body/reality.

What was heretofore your only known reality from which you could only imagine and speculate what waking reality must be like, is suddenly reduced to a vague, intangible memory that seems to lack existence as you wake up into your real self.

Dropping into the Light of Self, but especially and really only upon penetrating into the Absolute beyond even the Universal Presence of Isness-Love-Light, is exactly like that waking up FROM the dream to where even universal Isness (Creation’s substratum) disappears and is woken up from. The Absolute Alone Remains.

Please contemplate what Bentinho has written. Return to what is written above at least two more times during the day to read and be with it. If you have time and feel the calling to do so, you may also read Chapter 5 from The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss again. It might be helpful to read it again just before going to bed.

This day is God’s. It is my gift to Him.

Today is a day of devotion to That which knows so much more  than we know with our limited minds and from our limited experience. Today we drop all ideas that we know anything, because we don’t, and we surrender to something that is far beyond the meager perspective of the false self, and therefore fully capable to lead us back to our truth.

Here are two prayers to contemplate alternatively throughout the day. The first prayer is adapted from today’s workbook lesson. The second prayer is from NTI Acts, Chapter 1. Remember to pause frequently today. Give your full heart, mind and soul to one prayer or the other each time you pause. (If you would like to edit the prayers in order to fit better with your heart, you may.)

From Lesson 242:

I give today to You. I come with a wholly open mind. I do not ask for anything that I may think I want. Give me what You would have me receive. You know all of my desires and wants. And You will give me everything I need that will help me find my way to You. I surrender everything else to you in complete trust. Amen.

From NTI Acts 1:

Father, I do not know what is best for me now, in this time and this place, that I may be led back to You. Because I cannot see the path I am ready to walk, take my hand and send me your Voice to guide me. I shall go where it asks me to go, and I shall do as it asks me to do in joy and peace and certainty. Amen.

If you have 30 minutes for meditation today, I recommend this meditation by Michael Langford and Karen Worth:

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