ACIM Mentor

In my experience, the Holy Spirit does not think in terms of right/wrong or good/bad. When it comes to things in the world, the Holy Spirit asks one question: “What part of this is helpful for awakening?” And It lets go of everything else. For example, I often have students who comment to me about books they have read that reference A Course in Miracles , but that they have found are not strictly in line with the Course . Last November I decided to address this issue in a blog, The Better Dream Teachers ( http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2006/11/better-dream-teachers.html ). There were a lot of ways I could have looked at the writers of these books. My ego doesn’t like it when someone reads the Course differently from me or when they do something with the Course with which I don’t agree. But the Holy Spirit pointed out that many students who complained about these teachers were often led to the Course through their books. I also know that many people have used these books to help the...

For a long time one of my obstacles to accepting what A Course in Miracles was teaching was that I thought it was trying to make us all into goody-two-shoes. I thought what it is saying is that we are supposed to look at “bad” situations and simply choose to see them in a “nice” way. I couldn’t see that in every situation I was interpreting what was occurring. I thought the way I saw the world was fact and that changing how I see the world was repression, when in fact the world itself and the events in it are neutral. I learned that the world is neutral through my absorption in politics and by watching the talking heads on television (see How I Overcame My Addiction to Politics, http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-i-overcame-my-addiction-to-politics.html ). At first I noticed how an event was interpreted differently by different people depending on their political point of view, each claiming that the way they saw things was the truth. Then I saw the “spin doctors” after poli...

The first time I heard the Voice for God and consciously knew what It was, was at the moment I came out to myself as a lesbian. I was seventeen years old, three months out of high school and infatuated – once again – with a woman. I said to myself, “You know this means you are a lesbian” and a still, quiet Voice in my mind said, “I know.” I felt a rush of relief and I felt joy for the first time in my life. It was as though a curtain was pulled back and I allowed myself to see who I really was for the first time. The world is an illusion. Those who choose to come to it are seeking for a place where they can be illusions, and avoid their own reality. (W-155.2) The self I saw then was not my True Self, but my human self, my ego, the illusion of myself. In time, as I learned the Truth that I am Part of God, I wondered about that moment. Why would the Holy Spirit bother to be with me when what I was revealing to myself was not Truth? There is a conflict we all have in the world with our h...

There’s a woman who is a customer of mine in my house cleaning business who I have known for over a decade. I see her almost every week. We remain only acquaintances because she is devoutly LDS (Mormon) and I am a lesbian. She is friendly to me, but only asks general questions about my personal life, and never asks about my life-partner. I know she is uncomfortable with my homosexuality, and while I am always honest and never hold back, I do not bring up my life-partner unless she or someone with us has touched on a topic that makes it natural for me to mention Courtney. While our spiritual beliefs vary greatly and are in some areas diametrically opposed, I respect her consistency. She lives what she believes. She is not a hypocrite. This woman is respected, even revered, in the LDS Church here. She is a teacher in her Church and is often called upon to speak at LDS gatherings. Her specialty seems to be morality and she has a deep belief in right and wrong. Her Church teaches that one’...

Students have asked me what I think about people who are called “master teachers”. Some who are referred to as “master teachers” use A Course in Miracles and some use other teachings. Students seem to want to know two things: Do I believe a person can be a “master teacher”? And how can they know who to trust? The Master Teacher is the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is within you. When looking for external teachers there is always the risk that you will not learn this and will mistake another “person” as having something that you do not have. An advanced teacher of God will always point you inward to God and will teach you that the Truth in you is the same as the Truth in themselves. We are in the world to teach only as long as we need to learn. Therefore, there is no difference between teachers of God, except time, and what is that but an illusion? Really, you are your own teacher because you learn from others what you project or extend – separation from God or Oneness with God. As ...

Few students of A Course in Miracles are happy to find that they have embarked on a process – they want Heaven now ! Sometimes they are in immediate pain somewhere in their life and they want a quick fix. Usually they’ve had at least one tantalizing glimpse of peace and they want it back – all the time ! But their impatience is really a lack of faith that peace is theirs, otherwise they would simply relax into the process of awakening to it. They may think they lack faith in themselves (“How do I know I won’t step off the path?”; “How do I know if I’m following the Holy Spirit?”), but when you are still identified with ego, trying to put your faith in yourself means withdrawing your faith in the Holy Spirit. Either you have turned your life over to the Holy Spirit but don’t trust the Holy Spirit; or you haven’t faith enough in the Holy Spirit to turn your life over yet. It is but the first few steps along the right way that seem hard, for you have chosen, although you still may think ...

When I led a study group a young man new to A Course in Miracles came a few times. He asked, “What is the Holy Spirit? Is it my conscience?” We told him, No . “Is it my good intentions?” Again, we said, No . I don’t remember how we explained it to him at the time. The Course tells us the Holy Spirit is the Voice for God, our Teacher and Guide, etc., but what he wanted to know was, what is the experience of the Holy Spirit? How would he know when he was experiencing the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is the Love of God within you. It is the Love within you that is One with the Love in everyone else and with God. Everyone experiences the Holy Spirit, whether or not they identify It as such. It is just one of many voices in your mind that you are trying to single out. Sometimes the Holy Spirit guides us through our intuition – but not all intuition is the Holy Spirit’s guidance. This is the difficulty in trying to sort out what is the Holy Spirit and what is ego. One of the characteristic...

It seems to me there is some confusion out there as to what happens when you turn a relationship over to the Holy Spirit or choose to see another’s holiness rather than their ego (these are the same thing). Pretty much life goes on as before, only your attitude changes. Your experience of relationships changes and others may change toward you because of this. You really only need to experience your holiness once through another for this to happen. Choose to see your holiness in one relationship and you’ve changed them all because they are all the same – your relationship with your self. I hear a couple of different expectations from students about the practical results of choosing to see holiness in another. The rare one is that if you see holiness in someone they will change to become what you want them to be. Far more often, however, students think that once they turn a relationship over to the Holy Spirit their own personal needs should be ignored. They should only focus on holiness...

I’ve been asked to define an unhealthy relationship. There are many reasons one can become uncomfortable in a relationship, often because of their own projections. So how do you know when it is time to insist on change or to leave? An unhealthy relationship is one where the overriding reason you maintain its form is fear. Relationships are complex and you may stay in a situation for many reasons, but the fear is “overriding” when if you took away the fear you would insist on change or leave. I said maintain its “form” because sometimes we don’t want the relationship to completely end, but to change. For example, you don’t want to stop being a parent to your adult child, but you do want him to get a job and move into his own place. It’s unhealthy if he is using emotional blackmail to make you support him and you give in to this. Fear in the form of guilt is the overriding reason you maintain the form of this relationship. The other reason I said “form” is because all relationships are r...