ACIM Mentor

             In the past several articles, I’ve been drawing a picture, one that is clear to me now but was not always. As truth rises to conscious awareness it affects ego and the two become blended and it is difficult to sort them out. Especially as ego is not motivated to do so. It will use whatever comes to conscious awareness to validate itself, its reality. Of course it does, it knows nothing else. The spiritualities it finds acceptable always include some version of itself, subtle though that might be. Its idea of heaven, of the “real world” in A Course in Miracles’ terms, is some version of what it wants to be true. To help uncross the wires—sort out ego from truth—I’ve been using the distinction between enlightenment and self-realization because these goals are not the same but are often confused. And what occurs when these goals are confused is spiritual bypassing that does not address dysfunction and/or inevitable disappointment after yea...

             The absolute, being all that is, must contain the idea of its own opposite. But being all, the absolute cannot have an opposite. So, the idea of the opposite of the absolute can only ever be an idea , and one that is simultaneously undone by the onlyness of the absolute. This idea and its simultaneous undoing are represented as consciousness . Consciousness is a symbolic depiction of an idea of a truth (represented by pure consciousness ) being opposed by ideas (represented by ego and its world) that appear in it and that it undoes over time. Pure consciousness (the truth of consciousness) is whole and does not have parts. But ego, as the idea of denial of truth, makes it seem that it does have parts: Conscious awareness (what is in immediate awareness), subconscious (what is just out of conscious awareness), and unconscious (what is out of conscious awareness). Ego’s occupation of conscious awareness pushes truth into the unconscious...

            In ego-consciousness, Liz here was in the first generation of A Course in Miracles students, having come to it in 1984 at the age of 20. Right away she had mystical experiences that revealed to her the nondualistic teaching of the Course —that the one and only truth is beyond appearances. The study group she was in at the time did not discuss the kinds of things she experienced. The members were mostly focused on relationships and giving things to the Holy Spirit. Because of her experiences, Liz felt pulled in another direction and left the group to form a relationship with the Holy Spirit and study the Course on her own. (Back then, I did not use the term nonduality . I said the Course was “Eastern religious philosophy in Christian language.”) From what she heard and read about Course teachers in the years that followed, no one was talking about the kinds of experiences she had. When she returned to a Course study group in 2000 after t...

            There is a difference between self-realization and enlightenment, but these goals are often confused and thought to be the same thing. They are not. Self-realization can be taught and enlightenment cannot. Self-realization can be a deliberate “path” and in fact the journey itself is often the goal. (“The journey is the destination.”) But there is no “path” to enlightenment. It cannot be attained or achieved. It happens if it is to happen. Both are caused by the movement of pure consciousness (truth) toward conscious awareness. But self-realization occurs to ego. It is the effect on it of truth rising, transforming it but not wholly undoing it. So, one’s mind continues split between truth and illusion. Enlightenment, however, occurs when ego falls away because pure consciousness has risen fully to conscious awareness. The split is gone, there is only one reality, one truth, pure consciousness. Anything else remaining is recognized as unreal, m...

            Something that happens after a shift in consciousness is you see how things are in consciousness as opposed to what ego has said is happening. Obviously, it’s a radically different point of view! From ego’s point of view, a spiritual journey can seem integral and deeply meaningful. It is the source of ego’s deepest validation of itself as real, so it is its deepest delusion. But from the point of view of truth, pure consciousness, ego’s spiritual journey is incidental. It is what ego does when it senses truth rising to conscious awareness. Some have glimpses of truth, moments of “awakening” where pure consciousness rises briefly to conscious awareness, like near-death experiences or mystical experiences. As only ego can be said to be in any kind of dream (the illusion that it is real), then “spiritual awakening” can be said to be something that happens to ego. It is ego coming to realize that there is a truth beyond itself and its world. (It...

           One of the first words I understood A Course in Miracles to redefine, as it did with so many, was ego . It clearly referred to something more than just pride or self-centeredness or one part of the human psyche that, along with the id and superego , Sigmund Freud had defined. I understood ego in the Course to mean the whole personal experience. I discovered in time that most students understood this right away, too. If you’ve had more than insights but mystical experiences , then you are aware that pure consciousness is more than just perceiving differently or perceiving something different, it is a different experience of existence. While I referred to ego as a thought system as its mind structures were what I dealt with daily, I was aware that if it fell away, there would be a shift in the experience of existence. However, I didn’t realize these two aspects would not wholly fall away together. The ego thought system , which I have refe...