ACIM Mentor

“When I was 10 my grandmother passed away. The music playing was Ave Maria and it made me cry. My mother tried to comfort me by saying, Your grammy's soul is in heaven now". I was miffed and said rather loudly, "Where was her "soul" before she died? And before she was born!" My mother had no answers.  Now 6 decades later, I look back on that event within the perspective of ACIM and the Holy Spirit. I wonder about the Course's position in that only the mind is real, there is no birth, life, or death of the illusory body. Are the terms "soul" and "mind" similar in these situations? e.g. does ACIM use the term "soul" to mean the same thing as "mind"?  Could the experience at the funeral mass have been an indicator of my mind being in touch with Truth at a time when I believed my body to be 10 years of age?”  – J When most people use the word “soul” they are referring to the ego without the body. They are t...

“…If one has read ACIM and experienced a number of shifts in identity, do the following statements/questions make sense to you? 1.  IT is what we Are (MIND and mind) = ONE Mind 2.  Is the above statement what Jesus (a figure within the mind to point us to the MIND) meant when he said "when two become One, it shall be done".  I had experience where the two parts (seemingly) merged or crossed over.  3.  Once one realizes that all is Mind, is there a natural merging back into the mind? Or is that still the conditioned mind (ego) demanding attention.  It feels like mind wandering again.  The running of different fantasy about a personal life and I know that I am hurting myself because at some place I again fulfill the wish (live, die, repeat ??) 4.  What stage would this fall into?  Once having realized being the Mind, the seeker within (so I don’t study like I use to) faded and now I just pay attention to my thoughts.  I want to...

“I was wondering lately how the Course would describe or define Maslow’s “Peak Experience” occurrence? I didn’t know that I had two distinct Peak Experiences before I took a psychology course in college… Nothing since then! Would a “peak experience” be something like the Holy Instant? Thanks.” – CS             What Maslow describes seems to take in many kinds of experiences. So I would say that his descriptions of peak experiences would include, but are not limited to, the Holy Instant.             The Holy Instant is an experience of God (True Being). The ultimate Holy Instant would be a direct Revelation of God in which you experience only God . In this experience the world does not exist for you at all, not even as an idea. It is an experience of pure, joyous Being extending infinitely. This is very rare. Most never have this experience. And those of us who do expe...

“I would like to know how ACIM deals with Alzheimer's, dementia and mental illness. These illnesses seem different from say from cancer, paralysis or heart issues. The latter seem to leave room to make decisions with the Holy Spirit. But what about diseases such as the ‘brain’ related ones mentioned above. How can these patients choose again for Spirit?” – J A Course in Miracles does not address specific illnesses because from the perspective of Truth all illusion is illusion. The specific form of an illusion does not make it any less an illusion. The mind is not in the brain but as long as you identify with a body you will allow your thinking to be affected by the brain as though it is. However, the Truth in your mind goes on untouched in any way by anything that seems to happen in the illusion. Your awareness or lack of awareness of Truth has no effect whatsoever on the Truth in your mind. So if a person’s identification with a body keeps them from being consc...

“I understand time is an illusion but we still need to deal with the "world" where we find ourselves. I'd like to know if the Course says anything about the future.” – J The future is not here and it never will be. It is only a concept in your mind right now. A Course in Miracle s points out that the ego (personal thought system) uses this concept to perpetuate guilt: “By the notion of paying for the past in the future, the past becomes the determiner of the future, making them continuous without an intervening present.” (T-13.IV.4) The Holy Spirit (the awareness of Truth in your mind) knows that you are only right here, right now in the present. So It conceives of the “future” as an extension of the present: “Healing cannot be accomplished in the past. It must be accomplished in the present to release the future. This interpretation ties the future to the present, and extends the present rather than the past.” (T-13.IV.9) Because the future is on...