ACIM Mentor

“When Jesus says in the Text: ‘Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. It is not necessary to seek for what is true, but it is necessary to seek for what is false’ (T.16.IV.6:1,2). What does this mean?  Is Jesus saying that love is our true reality and that we cannot ever lose that true nature?  Yet, our training is incomplete--isn’t it --if we let our fears, misgivings and regrets over our three-dimensional linear existence get in the way of seeing our true inheritance of being eternally one with love? So would the practical application of this Text section be to study what negative thoughts or habits I have?  Any non-loving thoughts or actions are the barriers to knowing oneness with the eternal, right?  I know that you have written in your 4 Habits book that peace can be uncovered or developed by focusing on Truth exclusively, which seems different from ...

“ I am re-reading again your Four Habits for Inner Peace and something struck me. On page 70, you write, “You do not feel a need to change others or the world so that you can be at peace.” Could it be stated that perhaps Hitler, and others like him in history, subconsciously were really seeking inner peace and thought that the only way for him to attain it was to mistreat, control, and kill millions of other people?” – CS             Yes, exactly.  I began 4HIP with the Introduction: … If you pay attention you will notice that you seek for peace all of the time in everything that you direct the personal self to do. Your desire for peace is behind every goal that you set. You believe, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. that in the next thing that you get, in the next place that you go, in the next goal that you attain, or in the next person that you meet you will find the peace that will not leave...

“What is exactly meant in the ACIM introduction that this is a ‘required’ course? Please expand on ‘required’.” – H Your mind is not in its natural state when you identify with a self in a body in a world. So you feel limited, incomplete, and in conflict. If you want peace you “require” correction of your perception that you are not True Being (God). In your unnatural state you look ceaselessly to fill your sense of lack and to resolve your conflict. But you look to correct these through the ego (personal thought system) and its world, which will never work because their purpose is to replace True Being. A Course in Miracles is one form of the “required” lesson plan that you need if you want true, lasting peace because it brings Truth back into your awareness. Only a lesson plan that brings Truth into your awareness will bring you the peace that you seek. It goes on to say that if you want peace your choice is not what you have to learn but when you learn it. Some choose...

“ You describe guilt, the source of our troubles, as being intrinsic which also means inherent ie. we are born with it. This sounds similar to the way Christians accept the concept of Original Sin as an article of faith. Are we too to accept intrinsic guilt within the context of the Course as an article of faith or is there some explanation which thus far eludes me?” - ES             It’s important to understand the distinction between what Christians teach and what A Course in Miracles teaches with regard to guilt. Christian’s teach that you, or a distant ancestor or yours, have defied a god outside of you with power over you. This is a sin and your guilt for it is real and you will be punished for it.  A Course in Miracles teaches that you simply have forgotten True Being (which it labels “God”).  This is not a sin, but a mistake which causes your pain. There is no one and nothing outside of you to punish you fo...