ACIM Mentor

Every now and then someone asks me if I am enlightened or if I have totally let go of ego. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! To me it is funny that anyone could even think to ask this of me. I always point out that if I had completely let go of ego I’d have nothing left to learn so I wouldn’t need the world anymore. An enlightened person does not stay long. Sometimes students tell me of others they have heard of who are enlightened or who are called “master teachers” and are said to have no ego. I’m not sure if these enlightened and ego-less people say these things about themselves or if those around them are labeling them. A truly enlightened person would not feel a need to describe themselves that way and only ego is concerned with ego at all. Perhaps it all comes down to how “enlightened” and “ego” are defined. In A Course in Miracles “ego” refers to your individual personal identity but to many it just means “pride”. You will put pride aside long before you totally give up all atta...

As a student of A Course in Miracles you learn that there is only One Mind and that it always sees only Itself so ultimately all you have to forgive is yourself. Even in the world of separation this Law of Mind that mind always extends Itself cannot be undone. But instead of extending itself the ego projects itself away and blames others and the world for what it is experiencing. Projection is really the Mind’s Law of Extension plus denial. When you are first a student you begin by recognizing how your individual mind projects. For example, you are bothered by seeing someone behaving unfairly and when you look into your own mind you see how you are behaving unfairly in the same or another situation. But this recognizing how an individual ego projects is only the beginning of learning how the mind works. It is not forgiveness to say “my ego is just like yours”. Recognizing that all the forms that ego takes are the same is not what is meant by Oneness! Merely taking back your projection...

Students often express confusion when I tell them that the goal of a true spiritual path is not to improve the ego (become a better person) but to let it go. Likewise, they wonder why, since the world is in our mind, we shouldn’t try to fix it. If not in the traditional ways (charity, politics, etc.) they want to know why using our mind to try and change the world is “magical thinking” and an obstacle to Peace. If you have a splinter in your thumb do you want to heal the splinter or your thumb? What would you accomplish by fixing the splinter? You would not heal your thumb and your thumb would continue to feel worse and worse. From the perspective of your thumb you would not be accomplishing anything by working on fixing the splinter. The splinter is an alien thing in your thumb and its presence not only hurts your thumb but prevents it from healing. To heal your thumb you have to remove the splinter first. And so it is with the ego and its world, which are alien things in ...

Students are always interested in the processes I go through with the Holy Spirit so there have been some questions as to why I am not publishing my translation of the Text of A Course in Miracles in the traditional manner. So here I share the process through which I have been: First, I have to say that I have never really looked at the book as “mine”. It was inspired by the Holy Spirit and it was a collaborative experience for me with the Holy Spirit. So from the beginning I took a “hands off” approach to the translation’s ultimate destiny and left it all to the Holy Spirit. As I was writing it I had a traditional bound book in mind but I did think of selling the book online at my website in Word and PDF format. The latter did not feel right so I looked into publishers. My research showed that most publishers today will only accept manuscripts through agents but one writer of a Course -related book told me about her publisher, who I contacted when I was about halfway through with the...