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Showing posts from September, 2015

Unfolding Detachment

One upon a time as this mind’s awareness of Truth grew the natural result was that this mind came to experience that it was “in the world but not of the world”, as the popular phrase goes. This meant that it felt that it was still a self operating in the world but that it had a growing awareness that its interest was really in Truth. It was a lot like being at a party but standing on the edge of the room and watching the party rather than fully participating in it. Then this mind attained an experience of detachment that was “not in the world but aware of the world”. This meant that it no longer lived through the self to fulfill a sense of lack but that there was still a world in its awareness. This was a lot like being outside of the house in which a party was occurring but still being aware that there was a party. Now this mind is attaining an awareness that it is “not in a world but aware of a meaningless idea of a world”. This is like being in a quiet place and remembering

"Separated from God"

A Course in Miracles says that your one problem is that you feel “separated from God” and that you feel guilty for this. But it’s fairly common for students to tell me that they have a hard time getting their minds around this concept. They don’t go around thinking “I’ve separated from God and I’m bad for this” and they even believe in God. The concept is too abstract for them to grasp. The belief in separation from God is largely unconscious and it is the source of all guilt. It is actually the consciousness into which you think that you are born into in your identification with a self. The concept is there at the core of the ego (personal thought system) in your mind. It is the idea that “proves” that the ego is real and that also protects the ego by keeping you from looking inward. You are not meant to see it consciously because then you’d be motivated to undo it and therefore undo the ego. Because the belief in guilt is the consciousness of the world, the world reinforces g

Deal at Your Level of Awareness

Often when I answer in my newsletter/blog a question from someone experiencing an upset in their life they explain that they have tried and failed over and over again to forgive the situation as just a projected image in their mind. This effort would seem to be in line with A Course in Miracles but in practice it is not helpful. If your awareness has not grown to the point where you see something as just a projected image trying to forgive it leads to repression rather than to release (forgiveness). What shows up at the level of form is the result of cause and effect at the level of form. The mind in which this occurs is the one split mind, which ACIM calls the “Son of God” or the “dreamer of the dream”. What you experience as “you” having the upset is a figure in the dream. Your mind is ultimately the one split mind (dreamer), but that is not how you experience it. You experience it as though it is the figure in the dream. And you have to deal with the thoughts in your mind at t

Why It Is Important to Accept the "Dream" As It Is

A Course in Miracles teaches us that Reality is formless, eternal Being extending without limit. It likens our experience of Reality’s opposite - a universe of time-bound, limited form - to a “dream”. It isn’t real but it sure seems real when you think you are in it. Sometimes students ask, “If it’s a dream, why can’t anything be true? Why can’t reincarnation or unicorns or a ten-thousand year old earth or humans with wings or human civilization as the result of beings from other planets, etc. be true in the dream?” What they imply is that since it is a dream it can be anything one wants to dream it is Very simply, the dream cannot be anything but what it is because it is over. The “dream” is what the “dream” was . When ACIM says you are always looking at the past it means this on two levels: As a self you look at the present through the filter of your personal past. But on another level the entire experience of the universe of form is over or “past”. The idea of the opposit

Ask: Accepting What Is and Accepting what is

This week’s article follows up on an earlier article about living in the flow of the universe ( http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2015/03/in-flow-of-universe.html ) as well as last week’s “Ask ACIM Mentor” article ( http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2015/08/ask-any-insights-on-accepting-not.html ). When you accept What is – that only the Truth is true – it follows that you also accept what is at the level of form without resistance or judging the self’s role in the unfolding story of the universe of form. When you find your wholeness in Truth you stop living through the self so you accept it as it is and just watch it unfold. The play/movie “Amadeus” always comes to my mind when I think of an example of how miserable a life is when one does not accept it as it is.  The story is a fictionalization of the relationship between the genius composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the composer Antonio Salieri. In the story Salieri as a young boy is so moved by beautiful music in church that he