ACIM Mentor

Lately I’ve received some questions about the terms “unconscious” and “subconscious”. Students want to know what we are talking about when we talk about unconscious thoughts and beliefs. Unconscious thoughts and beliefs are thoughts and beliefs in your mind but out of your conscious awareness. We refer to them as being in your “subconscious”, or below your level of conscious awareness. You can only hold a limited amount of what is in your mind in your conscious awareness. The rest is in your subconscious. Some of what is in your mind that you are not conscious of is there through your denial. These are thoughts and beliefs that you find frightening or painful. These include, but are not limited to, memories. Beyond specific memories there are beliefs that you have internalized and find too painful to look at, like the belief in intrinsic guilt, fear of a god outside of you that is going to punish you, unworthiness, the belief that you are “bad”, etc. Some people repress these thou...

I knew my last article was on a loaded topic: reincarnation. I did receive some positive emails. But I felt that many of the comments on the article at my blogsite, via email, and in discussion with clients missed the central points of the article. This is a common phenomenon! I learned a long time ago that everyone reads through their own filters. But I want to clear up some of the issues that came up in the comments and then I’ll be done with it. When I write an article all I can hope is that the readers read it with the Holy Spirit and get something useful out of it for where they are now in their process, even if it’s not what I intend for them to get. The point of the article was how the belief in guilt persists through the concept of reincarnation. As long as you believe in guilt the ego (personal thought system in your mind) will provide stories for your guilt, whether they are from this lifetime or from another. As long as you want to go in search of guilt in your mind i...

“In the ultimate sense, reincarnation is impossible. There is no past or future, and the idea of birth into a body has no meaning either once or many times. Reincarnation cannot, then, be true in any real sense. Our only question should be, ‘Is the concept helpful?’” (M-24.1) The belief in reincarnation is one that bafflingly persists in the A Course in Miracles community. It’s baffling because ACIM states that it cannot be real. And it’s baffling because in the experience of the Holy Instant, the experience central to understanding ACIM, you know that it cannot be real. Yes, ACIM also says it may be a helpful concept if looked at the right way. It goes on to say that if it’s comforting to the believer its helpfulness is obvious. And that you can emphasize the aspect of the concept that leads one to understand that there is more to existence than this passing life. But those are very slim aspects of the concept to find helpful. They could only be temporarily helpful at best. ...

I used to intellectually understand that the ego was insane. Now I experience it as such. I get what I call the “falling down the rabbit hole” sensation of disorientation when I try to understand an ego (personal thought system). This includes the one in my mind. What I experience is the chaos of a multitude of possible interpretations and responses without any criteria to establish which is the best to choose. The mere fact that there is choice indicates that there is no absolute correct interpretation or response except to acknowledge it is insane and not engage with it. Not engaging with the ego is easy now that I experience it as insane. While I still thought it made some sense I couldn’t let it go. “Whoever is saner at the time the threat is perceived should remember how deep is his indebtedness to the other and how much gratitude is due him, and be glad that he can pay his debt by bringing happiness to both. Let him remember this, and say: I desire this holy instant for ...

I have come to a higher vision where I see the universe of form as a tapestry; a unitary, unified story where once I saw it as a collective (macro story) of independent stories (micro stories) all playing on each other. The choices for this self have not been independent choices influenced by and influencing the larger macro story as I thought they were. The choices for this self have all been part of one whole unfolding story . I experienced those choices, and still experience the choices for this self now, as though they were made by a singular independent split-mind among many independent split-minds. But now I know they are simply the singular unfolding of one larger story. Every choice is the effect of only one split mind. And none of the choices have any real effects. The Truth goes on untouched by any of it. It is just a story . I knew back when I studied A Course in Miracles that the “you” it was speaking to was not what I experienced as the individual “me”. For example...