Lesson 106:

Let me be still and listen to the truth…

The stillness is true… the listening is as well… The truth reveals itself to the mind prepared to receive. When I began doing the lessons many years ago, sitting in meditation wasn’t enough to both quiet my mind and listen for the truth. For a very long while, much of this time of quiet inward earnestness was fragile and inconsistent. I would return daily to a practice of prayer and meditation, as I understood them, burdened by the belief that there was a ‘right’ way and the awful fear that I didn’t have it.
Yet, there were moments, apparently beyond my ability to deliberately duplicate, where I felt free and loved and loveable. There were moments when I experienced wholeness or oneness with no sense of a separate self. Most often I felt a deep peace and the sense that I was attempting something very holy. Still, I was rarely feeling overly confident that this was the real McCoy, and seemed unable to carry it with me throughout the day.
I developed a building desire, perhaps addiction, to ‘my time in the morning’, a place where even when the judgments came, which they always did, I could relatively easily release them in this consecrated space of mind…
The miracle shifted my perception about what this was and what it was for. It showed me that this space of forgiven peace was right in front of my nose, closer actually that the morning ritual. It began to reveal itself in the people around me. I began to offer forgiveness and innocence, in my mind, whenever I remembered, to those seemingly around me (And I seemed to increasingly remember).
A couple of things that happened over time is that when I did this, I really did feel a fondness for the ‘target’ person of my choice, which was accompanied with underlying peacefulness, even if it was just a remnant, and covered over with judgment again.
Still, as they mounted upon each other, several things occurred. Besides seeing that the experience I was seeking by making ‘special’ time for myself with God in my morning meditation was actually right in front of me all the time, I saw that by releasing my brother from what I had made of him in my mind and letting him be what he was in truth, I was doing the same for myself through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's vision is no idle gift, no plaything to be tossed about a while and laid aside…
I sensed the significance of this practice, which ultimately completely altered the way I saw and experienced the world and my so-called life. Subsequently, I began to desire it, more and more. It just felt so much better. Turns out, not only does one not need to know the particulars of meditation or prayer, but merely a willingness to be still and receive…. For, these are not the gifts particular to intellectual understanding or the strategic mind. The light of understanding looks nothing like intellectual perception and cannot be understood by the strategic mind. It is a resonance with truth, a certainty without ‘some-thing’ to be certain about. It is all in all ~ one mind.
Another thing experienced by way of practicing forgiveness, was the sense that there was no separating out ‘my special time with God’ without reinforcing the idea of separation in my mind (which, of course just has to be forgiven). As a matter of fact, there is no ‘separating out’ from Now; in fact, there’s a conflict of interest in the very idea. Now is… And, Now, cannot be prepared for.
It’s funny; I realized that all these years, I had been using my meditation time and sort of a vehicle to ‘get’ some place… It took some practice from my designed space to see that from within the thought system that designated this ‘special’ place, I join my brother’s mind through forgiveness recognize and receive; there’s no place to ‘get to”, for the only ‘special’ place on earth is within the special function, given me by God, to forgive by seeing no thing and no one apart. This is the homing mechanism which sees that every one and place and time and situation or circumstance, is a holy encounter where the miracle transforms perception into truth.
By accepting this without any reservation or exclusion, one accepts the Atonement, fulfilling the function to be happy by giving it to all. I look within and stillness overcomes me and I see before me the face of Christ, my savior and my Self…
The lesson for today asks we begin the practice periods with this consecration and the willingness to be shown… “I will be still and listen to the truth… What does it mean to give and to receive?” Certainty guides our unified purpose in hearing the truth today…
“Let me be still and listen to the truth… I am the messenger of God today, My voice is His, to give what I receive”.
Thank you for joining in the message of resurrection and rebirth, Joy overflows~