ACIM Mentor

A few weeks ago I was discussing with a student the stages we go through as students of A Course in Miracles in our relationship with the Holy Spirit. Initially, we simply invite the Holy Spirit into certain situations. We are still in the driver’s seat at this point but we are willing to ask the Holy Spirit for direction when we get lost or in trouble. In time, we realize that we don’t want to wait for a crisis and we call on the Holy Spirit for guidance more and more when decisions have to be made. Then our trust develops to such a point that we realize that we don’t even want to drive anymore and we move over and let the Holy Spirit take the wheel. Our trust is not perfect yet, so at first we sometimes try to take back the wheel but we always give it up before too long because we’ve learned that Peace comes from letting the Holy Spirit lead the way. Finally, we just sit back and enjoy the ride. All of this happens naturally because you cannot force trust. I then mentioned that I’d ...

When I was very young I read about Buddhism and the concept that all pain is caused by having personal desires and that true spiritual awakening came with letting go of personal desires. I instantly understood this and felt joyous liberation! Then terror at the thought of giving up individuality came storming in. I decided it would be impossible to not identify with a personal self. But it was too late. That experience of True Freedom has beckoned me back ever since. No matter the resistance of the personal mind, the call of Limitlessness has been stronger in me. In fact, the experience of joyous liberation from limitations is the sign I seek in my studying of spiritual teachings and in my experiences with the Holy Spirit. I know when I have hit upon the Truth when I feel set free. The other day I was preparing to take a shower when I looked at the body in the mirror and thought, “Not bad for forty-five.” This moment of identification with the body was a reflex and the thought was some...

I get a lot of questions from students of A Course in Miracles about the concept that you manifest or attract everything in your life in the world. Some of the teachers who advocate methods of manifesting or attracting what the personal mind wants are familiar with the Course and feel that the Course validates what they teach. I’ve written about some of this before but, since I get so many questions about this, I’m going to sum it all up here. A Course in Miracles states, explicitly, that everything that happens to you, you have asked for on some level. This is referring to the content of what happens to you, and, sure, you choose the form on some level, too, but the form does not determine your experience; your experience is a choice of your mind. This is simply a fact; at no point does the Course then suggest to you ways of making what the personal mind wants show up. Its emphasis is always on your internal experience, in which you have two choices: Love or fear. This is a choic...

For a long time I have tried to reconcile Truth and illusion, often not seeing that that was what I was doing. I would have a Holy Instant in which I would fully realize with all my being that “there is only God” and then, when I returned to an awareness of the world, I’d wonder what I just experienced meant for my life in the world. In light of this experience how should I live my life? What should I do with my life? What attitudes should I have? What criteria should I use to make decisions in the world? Of course I was instantly undoing with these questions what I had just learned in the Holy Instant because by asking them I was making the world real to myself again! There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. (W-132) I’ve done this over and over and over again until it happened a couple of weeks ago and I finally accepted that I can never bring together what can never be brought together. There are no answers to these questions because it cannot be ...