ACIM Mentor

Once I was in conversation with a client and mentioned something about “being present to Truth”. Suddenly he exclaimed, “Ohhhhh. Present to Truth .” He explained that he had read over and over again in spiritual teachings about the importance of being mindful, or present to what he was doing, whatever it was, as a way to peace. He practiced this for years but he did not experience anything remarkable. It had never been explained to him that he needed to make the conscious effort to be open to Truth in the present. He thought that merely being present was supposed to be enough. And once he did practice being present to Truth his experience was transformed. This is another example of how cause and effect in spiritual practice are not always adequately explained (see last week’s article (http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2016/04/theres-no-need-to-put-cart-behavior.html) . Someone has a moment of being present and they experience Truth (a transcendent experience of peace or joy, the awar...

If I was Queen of All Things Spiritual I would decree that no one could have access to spiritual teachings that were more advanced than they were ready to understand, practice, or accept. I say this because students (and this once included me) do so much harm to themselves reading things that they are not ready to understand or attempting practices that do not come naturally to them. In their guilt they judge themselves as failing because they do not measure up to what they study. And what they study they can only try to understand through the limitations of what they’ve already experienced and this leads to distortions. I spend a lot of time reassuring readers and clients that they are not failing because they have not yet attained in understanding or practice what someone more advanced has attained. They are in a process and judge against themselves for being in a process. I also spend a lot of time clarifying experiences that they have not yet had but that the ego has distorted or ...

A reoccurring theme in my work as a mentor is relationships and the need to set boundaries with others who are unhealthy. I came across this and thought it offered a useful guide for determining which relationships need boundaries: Everyone Can’t Be In The Front Row Life is a theater. Invite your audience carefully. Not everyone is healthy enough to have a front row seat in our lives. There are some people in your life that need to be loved from a distance. It is amazing what you can accomplish when you let go, or at least minimize, your time with draining, negative, incompatible, not-going-anywhere relationships/friendships. Observe the relationships around you. Pay attention. Which ones lift and which ones lean? Which ones encourage and which ones discourage? Which ones are on a path of growth uphill and which ones are going downhill? When you leave certain people, do you feel better or feel worse? Which ones always have drama, or don’t understand, know or ap...

Often I laugh with my students over how our inner work chews up time without any outward activity to show for it. There is a lot of vigilance and processing required on the path to peace! So we have a sense of being occupied but we can’t really explain this to others because the work is going on only in our minds. Whenever I hear about theoretical physicists and their “thought experiments” I can identify. They spend a lot of time just thinking about how the universe of form works. They may eventually jot down some formulas, but for much of the time they are conceptualizing. It is the same with this inner work for inner peace. We may eventually write what we learn in a journal but for much of the time we are busy with understanding the workings of our own mind. We are occupied observing, analyzing, and processing what we learn. The deeper you go into this process the more important busy-work for the body becomes to you. Those mundane, repetitive, every-day tasks like washing t...