Ask: Why become aware of God if we're going to go back There anyway?

My friend’s friend passed away recently and my friend said, “I am happy he is home in God now and relieved his pain is over.” But the man who passed did not seem to have any interest in spiritual awareness at all. So is it true that he went home to God? If so, then why go through the hassle of becoming aware of God in the world if you are going to go back there in any case?

            There is a faulty premise behind your questions and it is that in you there is some part of God (True Being; Reality) that left God and that will, upon the death of the body, return to God. But God is whole and complete always (eternal now). No part of It ever leaves It or needs to return to It. This idea is how the ego (personal thought system) makes it seem that the illusion has some reality. No part of illusion comes from Truth (God) so no part of it needs to return to Truth. All of not-Truth is wholly illusory.
            Your friend’s friend did not “return” to God and would not have if he was as aware of God as one can be. No aspect of a self is from God. And all that is real, ever, in any seemingly-individual mind is God. And God is here right now untouched by the illusion of an idea in the mind that is unaware of God, is becoming aware of God, or is fully aware of God. What happens in an illusion only affects the illusion.
            You do not have to wait for the body to die to be aware that God is already whole and complete in your mind right now.  There is no “you” to “go on” to become aware of God after the seeming-death of the body. If you want peace now you want to open your awareness to God now (the Holy Instant). The part of your mind that seems to lack or to have an awareness of God is never real. The need for peace is only a temporary, illusory need. Your choice in every moment is to be in the story of lack or in the awareness that you are already whole in God.

Your friend did not need to wait for his or her friend to seem to “die” to be relieved that his or her friend is no longer in pain. Your friend could have come to the realization that only God is real and that all manifestations of pain are not real. Death does not bring this realization. Nothing happens in death. It is just part of the same illusory story that is called “life”.

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Learn about the books The ACIM Mentor Articles, The Plain Language A Course in Miracles, 4 Habits for Inner Peace, and Releasing Guilt for Inner Peace at www.acimmentor.com.
If you have a question the answer to which you think will help others send it to Liz@acimmentor.com and indicate that you want it answered in the ACIM Mentor Newsletter/Blog.

Comments

will said…
It's a good question. So Liz, does the illusion of the dream continue after the body dies. I guess it would as there isn't any reason for it to stop.
7:54 AM
ACIM Mentor said…
An illusion, by definition, has no beginning, no continuing, and no ending. It does not exist.
8:20 AM
will said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
9:34 AM
will said…
It's probably frustration on my part. I'm stuck in the middle. Or something. From what you have said in the past once you can see Reality the illusion looks ridiculous (my words).
12:17 PM
ACIM Mentor said…

Yes, only from Truth can you see that illusion is illusion. It is nothing. It has no more substance than fog.
1:38 PM
Christine said…
Yes, but we can't skip steps, or totally deny or be checked out of our "classrooms". Again, it's like being enrolled in a calculus class then not attending the class or going, but just sitting there and not paying attention to the teacher or doing the homework assignments! It's Level 1 and Level 2 description: level 1 is that it is all an illusion (not-Truth)...but that is not very helpful when there is so much fear and we believe we are here/separate, etc. Level 2 is, since we believe we are separate,hopefully knowing we are in a dream of separation - then what are we trying to learn/teach ourself? Wapnick used to say it's like "going 60 MPH on the highway, you can't just turn around and go the other way without slowing down and turning around". All fear-based. Or guilt-based! I have of late gone through every day more or less noticing what I have presented my self with. I look at everything as "same, same, same", or "not this, not that"...no matter how I seem to see something, I try to process it with a filter of "what is it for?": Love, or fear.I was walking one of my dogs last night and the thought was so clear - once again - that it's all "I forgive you (Love)" or "I hate you (fear/not Truth)" (directed at one's self.). We really do know the difference. We are "here" to discern these two choices. Am I on the right track, Liz?
5:54 AM
ACIM Mentor said…
Yes, Christine.
7:25 AM
Anonymous said…
Form a Course prospective that might be but I don't think that's always the case, people who have had near death experiences always come back having their lives altered by it, it doesn't mean that person's been "damned" in this life/classroom and even so some seek understanding to deepen their relationship with "God" who is a Wholly Loving "Entity" which is The Truth.

Thank you.
9:25 AM
will said…
This part of the Course is always difficult for me. Hard, hard. It is the temptation of it, the wanting to mentally climb on board the story of life. I have duality figured out and want to debate it with someone. Debate the ‘facts.’ I have to step back, remember the pain, remember what that road was really offering me. The pull to go back is like addiction. I have to remember that when I was drinking all those beautiful bottles in the liquor store, the colors and the shapes would seem to sparkle. It was so easy to put aside the knowledge that for me the liquid inside was poison. To say to myself I’ll deal with it tomorrow, today I want the colors and the ride that’s waiting for me in those bottles. The temptations the ego holds out for me to come back to the life I ran from. Not the alcohol but just the life. I can let go of all the mental effort involved in this Course and float downstream relaxed and at peace. It’s the illusion the ego holds out that was never remotely true in this lifetime.
12:05 PM
will said…
It was about 7pm and I needed to get out of the house for a while. Perfect Sedona weather for a sunset drive. So I cranked up the Georgia Satellites who some say were the greatest four chord bar band in the world and they probably were. I am blessed and grateful this evening that the mind has shut up for a while and I can just cruise and watch the sun set below the mesas. 35 mph speed limit from the Village to West Sedona. Five miles of the most beautiful scenery in the world. With a lot of help from above I have been able in this lifetime to hang on through thin and thin and reap the rewards.
7:58 PM
Anonymous said…
My practice for today is to rise above to see the Love. Only what is eternal is true. The rest is dreams of separation which are untrue. It is only when I am willing to step back from the dream of separate bodies that I am brought to the truth that only Love could ever be true. Love’s Oneness is always there for me to see as I am willing to open up to see the eternal truth in everyone.

Today I have another opportunity to practice receiving the thought reversal that the Holy Spirit brings to me when I am willing. The Holy Spirit helps me rise above to see the Love. Here there is peace. Here there is lasting happiness. And I give thanks.


Whenever I choose to judge, everything is a battleground. It can appear in many forms, from as simple as being frustrated by a typo to as seemingly complex as trying to resolve the US government budget crisis. Judgment always brings conflict with it. Happiness cannot be found in conflict. This is why A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 121 tells us, “Forgiveness is the key to happiness.”

Forgiveness means letting go of judgment. Forgiveness is how I rise above the battleground and can see that the appearance of conflict is based on false images. I cannot rise above the battleground without Help from beyond the battleground. I am grateful that I have been given the gift of the Teacher within Who helps me rise above the judgment, see its meaninglessness, and let it go.

Today I choose to get into the Holy Spirit’s hot air balloon of forgiveness, and let it lift me up into the quiet peace of my true Self. From here I can see the Light of Love in everyone and everything.
5:27 AM
MB said…
Liz, Isn't there some truth to the pain of the friend being over? His split-mind that created the illusion of this life is now whole again. Doesn't the end of the story mean the end of the perceived separation which causes all of our perceived pain? Granted it was all an illusion but in his perception here he gave it power to take away his peace. Can you help clarify?
5:52 AM
ACIM Mentor said…
There are no individual minds, MB. That's the illusion. There's actually also no split mind that seems to project all these seemingly-individual split-minds. That, too, is the illusion.
The point is that pain is not overcome through death or any other illusion. It is overcome through the awareness that only God is real.
8:10 AM
MB said…
Thanks, Liz.
8:30 AM
Aleta said…
Anonymous, I love your hot air balloon analogy. I'm going to use that! Thank you!
9:40 AM
Anonymous said…

There is no such thing as "righteous anger" there is ONLY anger. Chose again...choose Love. Jesus never got angry at "Satan"(ego) he just looked upon it as the nothing it was he never even called it "psychotic" the term didn't even exist, he just looked at it and said "I don't know you".

T-30.III.6. Nothing that God knows not exists. 2 And what He knows exists forever, changelessly. 3 For thoughts endure as long as does the mind that thought of them. 4 And in the Mind of God there is no ending, nor a time in which His Thoughts were absent or could suffer change. 5 Thoughts are not born and cannot die. 6 They share the attributes of their creator, nor have they a separate life apart from his. 7 The thoughts you think are in your mind, as you are in the Mind which thought of you. 8 And so there are no separate parts in what exists within God's Mind. 9 It is forever One, eternally united and at peace.

T-30.III.7. Thoughts seem to come and go. 2 Yet all this means is that you are sometimes aware of them, and sometimes not. 3 An unremembered thought is born again to you when it returns to your awareness. 4 Yet it did not die when you forgot it. 5 It was always there, but you were unaware of it. 6 The Thought God holds of you is perfectly unchanged by your forgetting. 7 It will always be exactly as it was before the time when you forgot, and will be just the same when you remember. 8 And it is the same within the interval when you forgot. 
10:02 AM
Anonymous said…
I just finished reading Absence From Felicity, The Story of Helen Schucman and Her Scribing of ACIM, by Kenneth Wapnick. Kenneth says Helen had shared with him on several occasions a thought that always brought her great comfort. Jesus had told her when she died he would come for her personally. She did not practice ACIM as she had huge ego issues. This seems like a contradiction to what you are saying.
4:27 PM
ACIM Mentor said…
I cannot speak to someone else's experience. I write from my own experiences of direct Revelation and higher miracles.
I do know that the Holy Spirit has always met me where I am. The way It answered me 30 years ago is not the way It would answer me now that my awareness of Truth has grown. I can see where for Helen as a new student whose identity was still deeply rooted in individuality this answer was given to her to comfort her.
5:13 PM
Anonymous said…
Thank you for your reply to this question, Liz. I always enjoy your comments, even though I still struggle with the understanding.
This question comes the day after watching an incredibly beautiful and thought-provoking movie directed by Terrance Malik: The Tree of Life, which touches on these issues in a stunning way.
Thanks again, Chris
10:33 AM
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