A tip about lesson 38:
The workbook lesson, “There is nothing my holiness cannot do,” may give the impression that the mind can pick a problem or form of suffering and then decide to ‘heal’ it miraculously. This is not the best way to understand the lesson. There is too much ‘me’ and what ‘I perceive as wrong’ in that.
A better way to understand the lesson is along with the teachings from NTI Ephesians, Colossians and Luke 9: As we contemplate our truth, the clean energy of our truth goes into the world as grace. As grace, it will do what it does to correct misperceptions and miscreation. However, we are not to select the miracles or even look for their evidence. We simply continue our role of contemplating our truth, and we let grace take care of the miracles.
One thing is for sure: Since you receive what you give, you will experience corrected perception if you contemplate truth instead of focusing on false perception and its stories.
Tips about workbook lesson 39:
Yay!!!!! Here we go!
If this was an aerobics class, lessons 1-38 were the aerobic warmup; we were increasing intensity to get our heart rate up into the aerobic zone. Now our heart rate is up there, and it’s time to throw ourselves whole-heartedly into this activity.
Of course, we aren’t here to burn off fat or calories. We are here to burn off ego.
As you begin exercise 39, My holiness is my salvation, start by remembering how important healing/awakening is to you. Find your motivation. Realize your excitement about giving yourself fully to today’s workbook lesson. Feel your inner motivation. (That will come from the heart, not the mind.)
Once you are aware of how valuable this goal and its means (the workbook lesson) are to you, create a plan for accomplishing the longer practice periods. Set a stretch goal … aim to do more than the minimum … but stay with wisdom and do not set a goal that is beyond what is reasonable for you (and therefore possibly self-defeating.)
Jacquelyn and I are roommates now in Tiruvannamalai, India, so we are doing the practices together. We feel that seven 10-minute meditations fit our schedule well today. We have preplanned when we will take a break for each of the meditations, and we’ve written our plan on a piece of paper, which we will carry with us as we wander around Tiruvannamalai today. That way, as we complete one meditation, we can look at our schedule to remind ourselves when our next meditation will be.
Also, take advantage of the flexibility in the instructions for today’s longer practice periods to rest with the lesson, allow related thoughts into the mind and to sit quietly paying attention to awareness. At your next Gentle Healing meeting, Ken will read the awareness-watching-awareness instructions to you. I’d like to see you putting at least a little awareness-watching-awareness into each practice session, either starting today or next week after Ken reads the instructions to you. When the instructions allow flexibility, like today, it can be interspersed anywhere during the practice session. If the instructions are more specific, you can linger a little longer after the practice session for a bit of awareness-watching-awareness. If you decide to include it in today’s practice, a few seconds to 2 minutes of awareness-watching-awareness is enough. Longer is also okay if awareness-watching-awareness is comfortable for you.
This week I have found myself coining a new term, “divine greediness.” Be divinely greedy by being excited to practice the day’s lesson. Be excited to say it to yourself 4 or more times per hour today, like someone was handing you a gold coin 4 times per hour and all you had to do was remember to stick your hand out to receive it. The longer practice periods are worth a one ounce bar of gold!!
Be divinely greedy and love today’s lesson. We only have this lesson for today, and then it is gone. Eat it up while it is here!!!
Love from Tiru.
Tip for Lesson 41, God goes with me where ever I go.
In this workbook lesson, Jesus begins to teach awareness-watching-awareness meditation (beyond thought). He also says that we will go into more detail about this kind of practice as we go along, and we will. At your next Gentle Healing group, Ken will read very specific (very helpful) instructions for this type of practice. Next week, we will spend 3 days with Lesson 44 and two days with Lesson 45 in order to slow down and put extra emphasis on brief periods of awareness-watching-awareness practice.
However, you don’t have to wait.
In addition to the 5 minute practice for Lesson 41, which is awareness-watching-awareness practice, you will say the lesson with eyes closed as often as you remember throughout the day, hopefully several times an hour. Jesus asks you to contemplate what “God goes with me where ever I go” means. One way to do that is to close your eyes, say the lesson to yourself, and then spend 3-5 seconds noticing present awareness.
This is great practice!!!!!
If you aren’t sure what awareness is, try this week’s Gary Weber meditation again. He starts by having us watch the breath, which calms and quiets the mind, and then he asks us to look to see what is watching the breath. That is awareness. Awareness is aware of the breath.
Awareness is different than the mind. The mind can think about the breath, but awareness is aware of it.
Being aware of awareness is a primary (direct) path of awakening, so it will be emphasized as part of our practice as we move forward. With Lesson 41, you can begin to experiment with noticing awareness for brief periods of time (3-5 seconds) throughout the day.
