Ask: Does ACIM use the word "soul" to mean the same thing as "mind"?
“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 thinking of the “essence” of the “person”. This is also often what they
mean when they refer to a person’s “spirit”, which they think of as individual
and unique. They think of this soul/spirit as existing before a person was in a
body, that it then went into the body, and that it will leave the body when the
body dies. So “soul”, or an individual spirit, as these terms are usually used,
are concepts for something that does not exist.
A Course in Miracles
avoids the word “soul” because it is a controversial word, as I just described.
It uses “soul” only when referring to Biblical quotations. In those cases, it
is equivalent to “Spirit”, Which in ACIM is the Thought of God (or Idea of God)
in your mind. (You may wish to read “Mind-Spirit” in the Clarification of Terms
after the Manual for Teachers).
You
experienced at ten years old questions that many people have. You were not
necessarily in touch with Truth but those questions may be what led you to
eventually be open to Truth.
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Comments
"Let me give you a visual analogy to illustrate the point I am making. You are walking along a path at night, surrounded by a thick fog. But you have a powerful flashlight that cuts through the fog and creates a narrow, clear space in front of you. The fog is your life situation, which includes past and future; the flashlight is your conscious presence; the clear space is the Now (Holy Instant)."
I find the visual descriptions of spiritual practice very helpful.
The "now" that Will refers to is the still, quiet place within you that is timeless. There is no story There.
You didn't ask for my comment but I have been thinking about what you asked. I think the phrase 'conscious presence' that he uses could be the now of the personal mind. He continues this analogy a page later:
"If your overall situation is unsatisfactory or unpleasant, separate out this instant and surrender to what is. That's the flashlight cutting through the fog. Your state of consciousness then ceases to be controlled by eternal conditions. You are no longer coming from reaction and resistance."
Trying to use the word now for both states may cause confusion.
George was practicing denial not serenity!
I am very visual when I think so when I would think of extension it was as if it was something that I had to do. I kept thinking of it as something the personal mind had to do. So if I am out walking around I am supposed to be mentally extending love or thoughts of Truth to each individual person. I received the email below and what he seems to be saying is if I am present (like when doing meditation) I am extending. Extension is already happening I just need to aline myself with it. Below is part of the email.
"The reason that this work equals extension is simple: we don’t need to learn how to extend love, and we don’t need to practice it. It happens automatically and naturally. It’s like breathing. When we stop projecting guilt and fear, extension of love is already there, already operating."