NTI Luke says, “Sickness must rest and be quiet. This is the way to health. Let your sickness rest.”
This is why we want to rest. When our attention is caught up in our mind’s conditioned thought habits, the neural pathways that are related to those habits are well worn and as slippery as water slides. When we rest from our habitual way of thinking, those same neural pathways begin to dry up. Later, we will experience this as the ability to pause and discern before going into a habitual way of reacting. Or a neural pathway may be completely healed through our rest, and we will notice that our happiness is unaffected by a situation that would have upset us before.
When you rest the mind, realize you are allowing time for healing. Rest during meditation, rest when you happen to notice that thought is all wound up and also rest when you feel an upset. Learn to relax attention away from thought. At first you may need to put attention on another thought like the day’s Course lesson, because you are used to having attention on something, but the goal is to learn to rest in openness. Just be open. For me it feels like being general instead of specific. Some might call it being unclenched instead of clenched. Play with resting, and you will get the feel of it. When you feel tight, it is helpful to take a breath, relax, and then relax deeper into rest.
Today might be a good day to do one of this week’s homework assignments. You can rest as you listen to the music playlist or let Adyashanti guide you into a state of rest through this week’s guided meditation.
