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:
