ACIM Mentor

            This is an attempt to explain something that perhaps can’t be explained. It is in response to those who are disappointed in teachers they expect to be enlightened and discover them to be just people, moreover, people who sometimes do the crappy things that people do. Expecting an enlightened teacher indicates the person with the expectation does not understand what enlightenment is. It means they would be surprised to find out for themselves what it is if it happened to them. In fact, it often does and they miss it! Often in these pages it is stated that “When truth (peace, love, oneness, etc.) comes to conscious awareness it does not come to the person or ego.” Also, “There is no such thing as an enlightened person.” This is saying the same thing. This is what is hard to describe: When truth (pure consciousness) comes to conscious awareness it comes to, well, conscious awareness, not to the person or ego. The person and ego are only appeara...

           Once upon a time it was mistakenly thought here that the longing one has for fulfillment or love or perpetual happiness or to find oneself is truth longing for truth. But, this cannot be so because truth is whole and it is never not truth, meaning, it is always whole. All lack (need or want) is a false idea, ego, appearing. Ego is a condition of perpetual lack and fear. It is never fulfilled. It is meant to be this because it is the idea of not-truth, or not-wholeness. Some clients and readers will say, “I have this peace with me, I feel I will always be okay, that all is always good, but…I still sometimes doubt, I still get angry, I still get afraid, I sometimes feel lack, etc.” These are two different things in conscious awareness, not one thing slipping from wholeness to lack. The wholeness is real. It is what consciousness is. The doubt and fear and lack are ego; they are the illusion. Wholeness and lack never join, so ego’s sense of lack ...

             For over seven years now, since The Break when the ontological aspect of ego, the experience of ego as a being, the “I”, which was conflated with the person, fell away in a moment, the psychological ego, the ego thought system, has been falling away in a process. This started off as very dark and uncomfortable, disorienting, and unclear. It eventually became obvious that what was occurring was the ego thought system was rising fully to conscious awareness before falling away. It was as though ego was a tree which had been slowly chopped down since the enlightened mind (pure consciousness) came to stay in conscious awareness seven years before The Break, and since The Break what has been occurring is the stump and roots have been pulled out, bringing it all to the surface to be disposed of. In time, the intensity of the darkness and discomfort eased off a bit and later in larger chunks. During that time, there was a curious experience tha...

            Since the shift in consciousness here, there has been a 180-degree turn in understanding what is unfolding in consciousness—what the experience of a person and a world is. It used to be seen as an aspirational journey, an attempt for an “I” (ego) to get somewhere or to attain something, either personally or spiritually. Now it is seen that what is appearing in consciousness is an expression of ideas that have already occurred. What look like personal journeys and attainments are how these ideas are expressed. There is no one here who needs to get anywhere, to make anything, or to attain anything. The idea that that was real is an illusion. What is an expression ? It is a process of revealing , representing or depicting ideas. A painting is an expression of ideas in the painter’s mind. A novel is an expression of ideas in a writer’s mind. A movie is an expression of ideas in the minds of writers, producers, directors, and actors. Ideas oc...

              Last week’s article had this paragraph:   “There is a difference between the illusions of ego and the illusion that is ego. If you become aware that ego is an illusion, you will become aware of ego’s illusions as well. But becoming aware of ego’s illusions does not lead to becoming aware that ego is an illusion. Ego can be taught to see its illusions. But ego cannot be taught to see that it is an illusion. That awareness comes only when truth (pure consciousness) rises to conscious awareness, which it does of itself. This is not something that ego can make happen. And the awareness does not come to ego. Ego only senses that there is something else in consciousness and claims it for itself, which is how it makes its religions and spiritualities.”   Let’s unpack this. What are the illusions of ego that ego can come to see? These illusions are what one faces throughout life to some degree. These are not just opinions and...

          When Liz here was first a student of A Course in Miracles in 1984, no one in the Course community was talking about awakening or enlightenment. If someone had come across Eastern nonduality teachings, they saw the similarity in that they, too, teach the apparent world is an illusion. But no one thought the Course was meant to lead one to enlightenment. Liz here very quickly had mystical experiences that showed the apparent world is not real and she glimpsed what enlightenment could be, but no one she knew seemed to have these experiences themselves. Because of these experiences, when she began to write in 2006, what she taught was different from the typical Course teacher. She read things into the Course that others did not seem to see. She saw that there were two ways to read the Course : A better way to be in the world (dream a better dream) and validation for perception that showed what the Course teaches is forgiveness, the awareness that not...