Ask: Is choosing to not follow personal thoughts the daily now dream?

“We (I) did not choose separation, still, I , being a personal ‘mind’, choose to believe ego's thought system, now.... although the Course teaches me otherwise . You personal LIZ still experiencing LIZ as LIZ constantly choosing to not follow her personal thoughts:  Is this the daily NOW dream..? I experience the dreamflow as reality with momentary ‘forgiveness’ workouts when things get STUCK because I forget the dream as being a dream...” – ER

A Course in Miracles does not teach that you as a micro split-mind chose “separation from God”. It teaches that the Son of God, or macro split-mind, made that choice. Your (micro split-mind) choice is made only in the present.

You are also not a personal mind, or thought system. Your mind is split between the thought system of the Holy Spirit and a personal thought system (ego).  You are not the thought system but the mind choosing it. And that choice is made so unconsciously that you do not even seem to have a choice. It’s like being aware of only apples so you choose only apples. You don’t know you have a choice until you learn that there are other fruits. There has always been a pear among the apples but you thought it was just a different kind of apple. Before you can choose the pear you must learn to discern it from the apples just as you must learn to discern the Holy Spirit’s Voice from the personal thought system’s many voices. Once you do that, you truly feel that you have a choice.

I don’t know what “Liz” means anymore as the self-concept has fallen away from this mind. I suppose it just refers to this body/personality which represents different things to different minds. This mind also does not “constantly choose” to not follow the personal thought system. It is certainly not constant about anything it does! The personal thought system, however, blathers constantly and sometimes this mind does follow it, just not for long. What has changed is this mind does not care anymore: “That’s the ego. Oh, well.” I do not know if this is what you mean by the “daily NOW dream”.

Here’s the thing about what goes on in the mind: The personal thought system is constantly thinking. Really, it is evaluating constantly. There are also neutral, observational, and taking-care-of-business thoughts that arise in the mind, like “The sky is clear today” or “I need to buy bread.” Those thoughts are just there and are unobtrusive unless the personal thought system uses them to judge (“Dammit! I was hoping it would rain. Why does nothing go my way?” or “You’d better write ‘bread’ on your shopping list or you are a total failure as a human being!”) The Holy Spirit, however, is quiet until It is needed. What changes over time is how much one believes what the ego says. As one’s belief in it diminishes one is less caught up in it and when one does get caught up in it one releases it quicker.

What you describe for yourself is all that’s needed. You are caught up in life in the world until you notice that you have some conflicted thought to which you need to attend. In time, as your awareness of Truth grows, you will become aware that there is a peace with you all the time, no matter what is happening in the world. But even then, the mind will still be busy observing and responding to the world until you pull it back in to rest in Truth again.

>>>>> 

A lot of what I do with my clients is reminding them to not be so hard on themselves. Often, they don’t realize that they are hard on themselves. They are just uncomfortable with what they see as a lack of progress. In other words, I provide perspective. Email me at Liz@acimmentor.com to set up an appointment. Learn more at www.acimmentor.com.

If you have a question the answer to which you think will help others, email it to me at Liz@acimmentor.com and indicate that you want it answered in the newsletter/blog.