ACIM Mentor

As you perceive more and more common elements in all situations, the transfer of training under the Holy Spirit's guidance increases and becomes generalized. Gradually you learn to apply it to everyone and everything, for its applicability is universal. When this has been accomplished, perception and knowledge have become so similar that they share the unification of the laws of God. (T-12.VI.6) A Course in Miracles tells us that we need to generalize the lessons of the Holy Spirit. This means that we need to take what we learn in a specific situation and learn that that lesson can be applied to every other situation as well. For example, while the first time you see your holiness reflected it is in a specific person, that experience of holiness must be applied to every relationship and situation for you to understand what holiness is. This is generalizing the lesson that holiness is everywhere. If it wasn’t, holiness would be specialness. If you exclude one person or situation f...

The Holy Spirit will answer every specific problem as long as you believe that problems are specific. His answer is both many and one, as long as you believe that the one is many. (T-11.VIII.5) Students will say, “I read the Holy Spirit told him…” or “My friend said the Holy Spirit told her…” If there is a limit to what guidance from the Holy Spirit you should follow it is the specific guidance the Holy Spirit gives others. The Holy Spirit will always give specific answers to specific questions and these answers are meant for the specific person asking the question at the specific time at which they are asking. Though the answers come from Truth, they are not Truth. The world is never your reality. But as long as you believe in it, the Holy Spirit will use it to remind you that you are Part of God by teaching you to trust the Holy Spirit – the Voice for your True Self. When I was a teenager and having a rough time I would write down questions and then the answers that came to me. The ...

If you would keep a little space between you and your brother still, you then would want a little time in which forgiveness is withheld a little while. And this but makes the interval between the time in which forgiveness is withheld from you and given seem dangerous, with terror justified. (T-26.VIII.3) Sometimes students tell me they think the world is going to hell in a hand-basket. They point to various convolutions going on in the world as proof of this. These students often preface their comments about the world with, “I know it’s an illusion, but…” Obviously they don’t know it’s an illusion or they would not be in the least concerned. Their real issue isn’t the world, but their lack of faith in God. The instant the idea of separation entered the mind of God's Son, in that same instant was God's Answer given. In time this happened very long ago. In reality it never happened at all. (M-2.2) The “separation” from God never happened. The instant separation was thought of ...

In my blog of June 9, Learning Not to Judge the Holy Spirit’s Guidance ( http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2007/06/learning-not-to-judge-holy-spirits.html ), I mentioned that both my life-partner and roommate are disabled. Students want to know how I see them and live with them. Some want to know why I haven’t healed them. The mind always sees itself. If I look outward and see a need for healing, what really needs to be healed? My own mind, of course. A healthy body is no more real than an unhealthy body. What would need to be healed is my perception that anything I see “out there” represents something real. What would need to be healed is my belief that appearances need to change for me to be whole and happy. Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see. They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regar...

All questions asked within this world are but a way of looking, not a question asked. A question asked in hate cannot be answered, because it is an answer in itself. A double question asks and answers, both attesting the same thing in different form. The world asks but one question. It is this: "Of these illusions, which of them is true? Which ones establish peace and offer joy? And which can bring escape from all the pain of which this world is made?" Whatever form the question takes, its purpose is the same. It asks but to establish sin is real, and answers in the form of preference. "Which sin do you prefer? That is the one that you should choose. The others are not true. What can the body get that you would want the most of all? It is your servant and also your friend. But tell it what you want, and it will serve you lovingly and well." And this is not a question, for it tells you what you want and where to go for it. It leaves no room to question its beliefs, e...

When you turn over your life to the Holy Spirit you have to let go of judging how you are guided and judging how your life unfolds. Judging only gets in the way and makes you miserable. You have to trust that everything happens for a reason. Often, you won’t see why something has happened until later. Sometimes you won’t see it at all. But your life is no longer your own. You are part of a much larger plan and the One in charge of it can see the whole plan. You can only see a small part at a time. Sometimes students write to tell me they don’t like that I am mentoring students of A Course in Miracles or they are uncomfortable with the way I have set up my mentoring practice. I used to doubt and wonder and question, too. But what was that but ego blather making me unhappy? When I decided to not judge what I was asked to do and let go and let things unfold I became so much more at peace. But it isn’t just with mentoring that I have to get out of the way. It’s my whole life. The Holy Spi...

Some students are confused by seeing others who seem to have true spiritual experiences but who then go into exclusive and restrictive religions that emphasize sin and guilt. They want to know why the Holy Spirit would lead them into these religions. Ego and Spirit cannot know each other because they are mutually exclusive. Ego is the denial of Spirit and its existence is wholly dependent on you. When you listen to Spirit all the ego knows is that your attention went someplace else and it is threatened. It has two means of getting your attention back: Exalting itself; or direct attack on you. When you are still very much identified with ego it will usually try the former, reassuring you that you are “special”. As you begin to detach from ego, exalting your specialness doesn’t work because you recognize it is ego exalting itself and not you, so ego resorts to a more direct attack. Your will is not the ego's, and that is why the ego is against you. (T-9.I.2) When someone who is ver...

Lately, a lot of students have brought up how difficult it is for them to accept that God is within them. Sometimes the issue is that they so believe the ego’s misperception of them that they feel too imperfect or unworthy of God. Sometimes they are so used to God as a parental or authority figure that they have a hard time changing their conception of God. I wrote before about how your concept of God will change over time ( http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2007/03/evolving-concepts-of-god.html ). But if you want to close the gap between yourself and God faster here is an idea you can contemplate in quiet moments to help you do so: I am Part of God . When I want to really get a concept in A Course in Miracles I set aside time to contemplate it. This means I think about it deeper. I’ve done this often with ideas in the Course and this leads to “a-ha” moments where I know I really get the idea. I’ve learned that I need to have this experience several times before it sinks in. This is how...

Here again you see the opposite of the ego's way of looking, for the ego believes the situation brings the experience. The Holy Spirit knows that the situation is as the goal determines it, and is experienced according to the goal. (T-17.6.5) The ego teaches that the external event or thing makes you feel or learn something. The person, the book, the teacher, the situation – all of these somehow conjure up an internal experience in you. You are a passive learner being taught from “out there”. The Holy Spirit teaches that you can learn from everything not because everything has something to teach, but because your teacher is within you. What you learn is not determined by anything “out there” but by your own goal. If you want to learn you are separate from God you will listen to the voice for separation within you – ego. If you want to remember you are One with God, you will listen to the Voice for God within you – the Holy Spirit. Sometimes students are afraid they will be misled ...