“If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.” ~ Fred Rogers

Happy Sunday!
Sadhguru gets questioned often about the source of his wisdom. He says he never read scriptures and that he would not follow the teachers’ lessons in school. He says the source of his wisdom comes from ‘knowing this one’ and he will gesture to his heart. He says the form his seeking took was to understand fully his own Life, being, Self. Today I understand better this path of learning from knowing Self.
I gained insight into this today from Richard Rohr. I watched a lesson he was filmed giving on Youtube about ‘the New Mind’. The lesson was about moving into non-dual thinking. Richard said we need to come to the gospels asking ‘what is this teaching me?’ We need the words of the gospels to show us the truth about ourselves instead of letting our minds use the gospels to dictate how others are to be. (He pointed out our cultural blindness to parts of the gospel that don’t fit our beliefs as dictated by our tribe/religion/society.)
I realized that this is how I read the gospels as well as other spiritual teachings, my mind makes up stories about how what I am currently reading would be of use to people close to me to move them along their spiritual journey. For a long time I have told myself it is in this realization that I will build myself into being a teacher.
The insight given to me from Richard made me realize my ego at work being judgmental and blocking me from getting to know ‘this one’, allowing ‘this one’ to be open to receiving the true teachings of Jesus and other masters who spoke for me to hear, understand, and heal myself.
This week I began re-reading the ‘The Manual for Teachers’ (MFT) from ‘A Course in Miracles’ (ACIM). It has been a few years since I originally read ACIM so I knew I would be able to read this text with new eyes and new understanding. It seems the idea of learning to teach has been on my mind and on the mind of my guides as the lesson of today shows.
“The giving up of judgment, the obvious prerequisite for hearing God’s Voice, is usually a fairly slow process, not because it is difficult, but because it is apt to be perceived as personally insulting … the world trains for reliance on judgment … Our curriculum trains for the relinquishment of judgment as the necessary condition of salvation.” ~ ACIM Manual for Teachers
What are to gospels saying to me? What does Jesus have to teach me? What are the lessons all of the masters have for me?
All of these questions seem to be selfish with focus on just what I can receive to learn, to release old beliefs, and to grow. It feels more natural, unselfish, to think first of what I can know to pass onto others instead of giving all my attention to my Self, ‘this one’.
The first paragraph of ACIM MFT states that to ‘teach is to learn’ and that ‘to teach is to demonstrate’.
I have learned over the last few years that when I am feeling in conflict to look at myself, what beliefs or expectations do I hold that bring up my resistance and fight? I wonder why when I am studying scripture, psychology, self-help, that my mind is spinning away thinking about who needs the lessons I am learning.
Oh … I am not my mind.
I have been a full-time spiritual seeker for just about 5 years now. Me: my Self, my soul, my consciousness, is fully engaged in taking in all that comes before me for my growth and well-being. Why is my mind processing how what I am taking in will benefit others?
Guilt.
I still hold a belief to do for others first or I am being selfish. This belief also serves my ego as it promotes judgment, feeding my belief that there is something I must do to change, improve, or help another. I know from the 2015 Mindfullness lecture by Michael Singer that the mind just runs a program (called ego) of calculating how I will be fine and secure. I now recognize that my mind is running a program that for me to be the ‘good girl’ I must think of others and be better than others.
It is time to stop the mind program and bring it into alignment with the rest of me. I am ready to put all of my attention on knowing this one, to keep my attention on the evolution of this one, and to be at peace with knowing this one will grow and thrive to the detriment of no one else.
We are all One therefore All will benefit from this one knowing.
So it is.
Namaste’
“Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.” ~ Lao-Tzu