E-News

March 2008   Volume 6

NEW Undoing the Ego Workshops

We’ve also extended our program to several two day to five day programs and we look forward to seeing you at one of our workshops. You can check these out at:
http://www.takemetotruth.com/seminars.html#Workshop%20cities%20and%20dates

In our journey of remembering and undoing the ego over 18 years, we were blessed to be guided by A Course In Miracles. For us, there is no other teaching that provides the consistency and clarity nor resonates with us as much as this profound and contemporary teaching does.

It’s wonderful to see the surge of interest in Spirtual Awakening right now. Oprah's ACIM based radio program featuring Marianne Williamson and her current program with Eckhart Tolle are two of the prominent ones that spring to mind.

This month, we have two gifts for you. The first is a wonderful article titled An Epic of Truth from author, Pamela Silberman whose new book is already receiving rave reviews. Her book, 'Simply Being: One Year with Spirit' will be released around October this year. Her website is: http://www.simply-being.blogspot.com

Our second gift is an exclusive article on Spiritual Awakening we've written just for you. We hope you enjoy it and share it with your loved ones.

An Epic of Truth

by Pamela Silberman

Recently, I was reminiscing to some adolescents my memories of the Choose Your Own Adventure book series. In this series of stories, the reader had control as to where the tale progressed. For instance, the story may describe that you have encountered a magical elf who invites you into his cave for a meal. Next, it presents the option for you to join or decline the magical elf’s invitation. If you decide to join with him, the book instructs you to turn to another page and continue that storyline. If you decline, the author would instruct you to another page number, and the story would continue there. However, no matter which choice the reader enacted, most certainly, one choice would lead to destruction and the end of the story (eg. You join the magical elf in his cave and it turns out that YOU are the meal) and another would progress the story to a happier and more peaceful result.

Now, if you look at our daily experiences, they often appear to mirror the Choose Your Own Adventure series. Each day we receive a myriad of choices to decide. Some of these choices appear to lead to perceived experiences of misery, stress, or fear, while others progress to a happier and more peaceful result. For the most part, it appears that we alone are the decision maker, leading ourselves blindly through this story of our lives, hoping and praying that we have made the correct decisions. However, one idea we seem to forget is that, even though we appear to be the main character within this story of our life, the story is already written and we are merely having experiences through the illusion of perception.

Our perception tells us that each choice we make is necessary for our survival and self-validation. In this mistaken identity, we see ourselves in the position of vulnerability and needing ultimate control. Consequently, from this mindset, we struggle with this role of seeming self-author and feel left abandoned to figure out the plot, denouement, and epilogue without assistance or security. In this alignment with self-doubt, we struggle with every circumstance. We think, "Dare say what could happen if I let my brother or the world progress in a manner for which I am not in control or prepared? What then?" Surely, this vulnerable self continues to think, "I will need to correct and define all, in order to keep the correct story on track." However, it is only our perception that believes every life circumstance has the ability to make or break us. In Truth, there is always a way that cannot be threatened. Moreover, in this way, there is a far more peaceful adventure calling to us for Self-discovery.

A Course In Miracles teaches that the cornerstone and foundation for a Teacher of God is trust. This is simply because without trust we are stuck in the pages of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, feeling vulnerable and without control. The Course instructs us specifically to wholly trust that Our Father completely provides all, without any slight chance for threat, because it asks us to remember our True Author and not the mere adventurer of our self-forgetting mind.

Personally, the best manner for which I have realized trust is through surrender. Having recently completed a period of forty days of surrender, truly, I have found, that the more we remember to render over to God what has always been His Own, before a thought of beginning or end could emerge, the more we are yielding over to the True Author of peace and love without end. Sit for a moment and consider how every day would be radiant with perfection if on rising, we could immediately ask Holy Spirit to show us our way. Imagine the peace that could settle across your awareness if you gave this first thought to Holy Spirit even before an inkling of personalized thinking or seeking could arise attempting to choose in desperation its own story. Actually, this is possible and is the best way to read our story. Here we ask to settle within the comforting arms of Our Father, trusting that He is reading us our story with complete knowledge for all we could ever desire to be. As we surrender each judgment, fear, concern, or doubt over to Him, we are clearly asking God to lead the way, remembering His Will is our own.

The ego does not believe that the magnitude of this surrender is possible. It alone believes that without complete control only all hell will break loose. Furthermore, it attempts to convince us that surrender is sacrifice. Catch yourself now thinking this and seek to render over even this thought to Holy Spirit, trusting that He knows exactly the right place each thought belongs. In fact, seek to surrender every moment, trusting in Holy Spirit's guidance, as an infant would cling to his or her mother for comfort. Let yourself settle with relief into His Presence, cozy and peaceful, tucked in and ready for Your Father to tell you the story of your Self. Listen to His words of Love and pure knowing. He will always and all ways lead you to a deeper knowing of Whom He Created. Call yourself to this image as you notice each need to be in control, and as you do, soon you will notice a trust arise from within that knows itself without doubt or fear for what could happen on any progressing page.

Finally, as we ask to hear God’s telling of Our story, in every moment, we are asking to be taught and teach only love. From this point of Vision, there can be no justification for separation, condemnation, or judgment within the world, simply because God's Story realizes the Love within all. With this Love, we come to reveal our plot, setting, process, events and moral without any mistaken identity. Here, even the character we play has the perfect purpose beyond the pages it seems we turn. Seek only to call this awareness into your vision as you walk the world, and as you do, you are enacting a Nobel Prize worthy bestseller dedicated only to the magnificence You are.

You are love.

~ Pamela

Pamela Silberman is the author of Simply Being: One Year with Spirit due for release by O-Books in October 2008. She is also serving as co-sponsor for Be The Love a gathering to live the light of A Course In Miracles on 8-8-08 in Maryland. Please visit www.bethelove.us for more information.

NEW Radio Interviews -

'The Dr. Pat Show' with Dr. Pat Baccilli on KKNW AM, Seattle
Recorded March 3rd 10am PST (Listen Now)

Awakening is a Doing Thing!

by Nouk & Tomas

The more we speak about the subject of Awakening and the more we reflect on our experiences, the more we see that the process of Awakening is very much action based. It demands your attention and focus on a daily, and even minute by minute basis sometimes.

We are not our bodies, emotions or thoughts. All that we see and experience outside of us is but a projection of our mind, made by us. The world is just the effect our mind made up (caused) and so we are not victims of the world we see!
If all that is written above is true, then we can see that great alertness and awareness are required if we are to discover and re-connect with who we truly are.

It begins with baby steps…
We were speaking with our good friends, Robert & Mary Stoelting of Pathways of Light Ministeries the other day about the walk of trust and Robert was saying how the walk of trust is akin to a baby taking it's first steps. The baby must focus all it's attention on taking each step. Eventually it walks without thinking but first it must focus. The trust walk is the same for all of us. It's a new system after all. Trust is letting go of the ego's need to control and embarking on a new system of perception and action, one that is unknown to us. It's really about unlearning our judgments, beliefs and values. Vigilance is required.

Awakening is a doing thing because all the spiritual study in the world will only make you a scholar... if it's not backed up by action. Meditation is great because it can bring us guidance and give us insight but without action, all the guidance we receive remains a mental construct. It's through the doing and practicing of any guidance and insights we receive that we can experience Awakening.

Another thing about Awakening is that apart from acquiring a basic framework of understanding to work from, there is no more information that we need to acquire. The process of Awakening is one of un-doing and un-learning who we thought we were. It's a process of letting go and surrendering the ego-will and hence, developing trust to the point of re-discovery of who we truly are.

Love is Letting Go of Fear, an inspirational classic, written by Gerald Jampolksy is a book title that accurately describes the undoing process and therefore, the awakening process. We must first recognise that the ego is the default system running our lives and that it is based on fear. In fear, we do not know love, in fact, we cannot know love as these two systems are completely opposite, without overlap. To know love we must act consciously and with focus on letting go of fear and undoing the ego.

So what action can we take? It's 'simple but not easy'. Here are two simple steps that, if followed, will change your entire perception allowing you to remember who you are.

Step 1. Choose again. Every time you have a thought or emotion based on fear, choose again. Remember that whoever or whatever is pushing your buttons is really a projection coming from your own mind. Take responsibility for this (no blame/guilt). You are never a victim although the ego would have you believe this. Ask yourself, "What would Love do?"

Step 2. Act as Love would. As with the baby steps, these two steps demand concentration, focus and vigilance primarly on discerning when a thought is based on love or fear. Once you know that you are responding or thinking from fear, you can choose again and act on it. Forgiveness* is the miracle here. Offering your forgiveness helps to undo your own ego... the one cause of all our suffering.

Clues to when you are acting from Fear or Love:
Fear is any thought of scarcity, giving to get, guilt, shame, need to be right, attack or defense.
Love is forgiveness* and extension without limit. We are Love.
Whenever you're tempted to feel anger, victimization, conflict or the need to be 'right', choose to be the right-minded observer. Ask yourself to respond with radical honesty, "What is my intent?" Is your intent based on fear or Love.

*Forgiveness is primary to Awakening because our task is to forgive our projection of this world in it’s entirety so that we can remember that we are, and have always been, home safe, as One! Every time we forgive either personally (someone who seemed to offend/hurt us) or collectively (for climate/war etc), we are remembering that there is only one of us in the room and we are forgiving ourself for our illusion that we are separate and have separated from the Source. In our practice of forgiveness is the memory of who we are restored.

A Note from Nouk and Tomas
Thanks again for your love, encouragement and support. We love you and look forward to meeting you in person at one of our events over the coming year.

Nouk & Tomas.

For more information visit our website - www.takemetotruth.com