ACIM Mentor

(For Part I , which discusses money and the Holy Spirit’s guidance, click here .) What isn’t love is fear. Love asks the question, “What part of this is helpful in awakening the Part of God that dreams it is not-God?” It is grateful for what is helpful and it disregards what is not helpful. Fear, however, separates out by making judgments of good/bad, right/wrong, valuable/invaluable. Those who fear must see themselves as on the side of good/right/valuable and others as bad/wrong/invaluable to define their separate selves. Certainly the people who write to tell me I am wrong to make my living mentoring students of A Course in Miracles are coming from fear. Their fear is not about my teaching and guiding students who want to learn faster and easier. Their fear has to do with my asking for money. They have decided that money is bad and that it is therefore wrong to use the Course in any way to make money. Money is not evil. It is nothing. But no one here can live with no illusions, for...

Every now and then someone drops me an email to tell by that I am wrong to charge money for mentoring students of A Course in Miracles . Often they do this anonymously so I cannot respond to them. But if I can, I always let them know that I do not turn anyone away; that I work with many pro bono or at a reduced rate; that several people get informal mentoring by me through email free of charge; that if they want my booklets I will send it to them for free; and that many of their questions can be answered at the extensive blog archive-by-topic at my free website. They are never interested in my services or booklets or blogs. So why, I wondered, do they care that I charge for services they don’t even want? Why would they go out of their way to contact a stranger to voice their disapproval? Their concern is genuine and I have given it a lot of thought. There are three issues here: Preconceptions of how the Holy Spirit works in the world; fear of money; and ultimately, a lack of faith. Man...

A few years ago I led a study group which many brand-new students of A Course in Miracles attended. When they began to grasp the idea in the Course that a Part of God has decided to be not-God and that this world and our seeming selves in it are the not-God, many of them would say, “But that doesn’t make sense! How could Part of God be not-God?” And I would reply, “ Exactly . Now you understand what the Course is saying. It doesn’t make sense .” Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. (T-27.VIII.6) God, being Everything, must contain even Its own opposite. But what is the opposite of everything? Nothing! God cannot have an opposite. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite. This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way: Nothing real can be threate...

When everyone recognizes that he has everything, individual contributions to the Sonship will no longer be necessary. (T-1.V.2) I’ve been asked to respond to the question, “If individuality is an illusion and we do not have individual souls or spirits, why should we bother to awaken individually?” In other words, what is an individual’s motivation for going through the discomfort of giving up individuality -- the ego? And how does a seeming individual’s awakening contribute to anyone else? The individual motivation is always the desire for complete peace. But your individual desire for complete peace is actually our collective desire to be whole again. You cannot be at peace as an individual because being at peace means you recognize that you are not an individual. Making the decision for peace is really all that you have to contribute individually and once you do so, your individuality, though not of God, serves to awaken everyone to God. All that you made can serve salvation easily ...

Your identification is with the Father and with the Son. It cannot be with One and not the Other. If you are part of One you must be part of the Other, because They are One. The Holy Trinity is holy because It is One. (T-8.IV.8) Some students, especially those that do not come from a Christian background, are confused by the dividing up of God into three parts -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit – in A Course in Miracles . Why not just say God ? The Course uses the Trinity of God just as it uses Knowledge and perception -- to distinguish the levels of the mind (see http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2007/08/essential-distinction-knowledge-vs.html ). Without the perception of separation from God it would not be necessary to speak of God in three parts. In God there is only God, Whole and Complete, not in parts but One. But in the perception of separation from God this awareness of Oneness is lost in a mind that thinks it is split between God and not-God (ego). The part of the mind that is sti...

The very real difference between perception and knowledge becomes quite apparent if you consider this: There is nothing partial about knowledge. Every aspect is whole, and therefore no aspect is separate. You are an aspect of knowledge, being in the Mind of God, Who knows you. All knowledge must be yours, for in you is all knowledge. Perception, at its loftiest, is never complete. Even the perception of the Holy Spirit, as perfect as perception can be, is without meaning in Heaven. Perception can reach everywhere under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds everything in light. Yet no perception, however holy, will last forever. (T-13.VIII.2) A Course in Miracles uses a distinction between Knowledge and perception as a means to discuss the seeming levels of the mind -- the level of God and the level of ego. God is. God is pure Being. In God there is only God and what God knows is God. You can experience that level only through revelation, which is a direct experience of God (...

Everyone comes into the world to be separate from God. But you _____ (fill in your name), did not make this choice personally . A part of God seemed to decide to be not-God (ego) and seemed to fragment into many distinct identities (egos) to make it seem that God’s Oneness was overcome. Your seeming individuality is a part of that part that seemed to make the decision to be not-God. But seeming isn’t reality. You are still One and you are still Part of God. The perception of personal or individual is what you are awakening from . In this world, because the mind is split, the Sons of God appear to be separate. Nor do their minds seem to be joined. In this illusory state, the concept of an "individual mind" seems to be meaningful. It is therefore described in the course as if it has two parts; spirit and ego. (C-1.2) There is no “my” ego or “your” ego because all that is not-God is equally unreal. If a blue cup was filled with orange juice and a red cup was filled with ora...

One of the ideas in A Course in Miracles that students seem to latch onto right away is “I need do nothing”. It’s a line that sticks in every student’s mind completely out of the context in which it was written! The ego seems to universally play havoc with it. Some student’s panic (“But I have to work! I have a family to raise! I can’t do nothing !”); others are merely confused (“But if ‘I need do nothing’ am I just supposed to let this situation that is bothering me continue?”) or even facetious (“If ‘I need do nothing’ why are there lessons in the Course to do ? Why am I awakening? Isn’t that ‘doing’ something?”). The ego is obviously very threatened by those four words! If you read the section in the Text called “I Need Do Nothing” (T-18.VII) in context , it is about the holy instant: There is one thing that you have never done; you have not utterly forgotten the body. It has perhaps faded at times from your sight, but it has not yet completely disappeared. You are not asked to let...