Letting Truth Lead the Way

There are two approaches one can take to a spiritual teaching. In one the teaching is an end in itself. The goal of the student is to master the teaching. The emphasis of study for them is to find the “right way” to understand the material. Therefore, they often engage in arguments with other students over the correct way to interpret the material. They are often unhappy with teachers they feel are not “right” in their interpretation.

In the other approach, the Awareness of Truth (Holy Spirit) is the Goal. And the teaching is seen as an instrument that the Awareness of Truth in the student’s mind uses to help them reach that Goal. So the student does not seek the “right way” to read the material, but rather asks the Awareness of Truth in their mind for the most helpful way to understand it. The student emphasizes their experiences of Truth over the material they study, which they recognize are just symbols on a page. They have no reason to argue with others over the correct interpretation because their goal is not “to be right”. If another is helped by another interpretation, even if they cannot understand how, they know that is between the student and the Awareness of Truth in their mind.

The latter is the path that this mind has taken. Often when it got bogged down by the way that it read A Course in Miracles it would step back and say, “But what have my experiences of Truth shown me?” It would consider what it learned from higher miracles and direct Revelation. For this mind, its own experiences were always more important than what it heard from others or how it read a book. That’s not to say it didn’t experience conflict. It believed in guilt and it read ACIM through guilt for a long time. It didn’t trust its experiences. But, eventually, it did trust them, and this is how it overcame the belief in guilt. (There’s a reason ACIM calls the path “the development of trust”!).

I often say that this path has not unfolded the way this mind expected. How could it, with all of its guilty misreading and  misunderstanding? Steeped in self-identification, it could have no way of properly understanding how that would be dismantled—something it is finally now experiencing with the belief in guilt gone. What is left for a mind to do when the belief in guilt is gone and the self-concept has fallen away is to watch itself unlearn the habits of guilt and self-identification.

This mind still has expectations. They’re automatic. But it has learned to recognize them and to stay open. “This is what I expect, but what the heck do I know?” There have been so many surprises as this mind follows Truth it would be arrogant for it to think it has any idea what is going to happen next.

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If you are interested in learning how to let Truth lead the way, email me at Liz@acimmentor.com to set up an appointment. Learn more at www.acimmentor.com.

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