ACIM Mentor

A few weeks ago I wrote about Truth and Its effects and not confusing them. What inspired that article was my reading of Jan Frazier's book, When Fear Falls Away .   While the book was directly useful to me by validating my experience and helping me to delineate the distinction between psychological wholeness and spiritual Wholeness, I felt something was missing from her story. And that was Truth Itself. This is what reminded me to turn inward to Truth. And, as it always does, this caused important shifts for me.             I first wrote about this in March, 2017, after I’d realized, with great relief, that love and peace, and joy were only effects. Like everyone I chased these, but chasing them misses the point. Truth is the point, not Its effects. They are important because they indicate Truth is here, but to seek them for themselves is to lose sight of Truth.          ...

My experience of “I” has changed. I no longer experience my motivations and actions as coming from a limited, personal, autonomous place. I used to feel “I” was an independent thread in a tapestry of other independent threads. Now I experience “I” as the Tapestry expressing Itself through this thread. A Course in Miracles says you cannot know What you are in yourself alone. This means you cannot understand yourself as only one thread in the Tapestry. You are the Tapestry as a whole expressing as a single thread. ACIM speaks in terms of your relationships with others, but, for me, even the way I read that for a long time was limiting. Not yet able to allow the Tapestry to express through me, I tried to understand the Tapestry one thread (relationship) at a time, and it didn’t work. I was relating at the level of the thread rather than at the level of the Tapestry. The mystical Holy Relationship with another has been my way into understanding this. A mystical Holy Relationship i...

Psychological wholeness is not the same as the awareness of inherent Wholeness that is the Awareness of Truth (Holy Spirit/Christ Consciousness). Psychological wholeness results when, through life experience and/or spiritual awareness, you realize that you will be okay no matter what happens. You are aware of your inner strength, be it personal or your awareness of Truth, and you realize you can survive anything. On a worldly level, this is no small thing. It’s a lovely awareness to have in that context. But it is not the Wholeness of the Awareness of Truth. To be in an Awareness of Truth is to be in an entirely different state of mind. It is a state of Abundant Wholeness, or Love. There simply is no lack in the Awareness of Truth. It is an unshakable state. You know it to reflect Truth, so it remains the same no matter what is happening in your life, to those closest to you, and to the world around you. You see that others feel that they are in lack all the time, even when they do...

I recently read Jan Frazier’s, “When Fear Falls Away”. She asked for fear to be removed and woke up the next morning to find the ego (personal thought system) gone. Then she went on to write about the effects of this and all that it taught her about her mind before and after. Reading her experience validated mine, and though my experience is unfolding in a very different way, her story has helped me to understand mine better. I didn’t have a sudden awakening where I consciously recognized what had happened. In fact, some of what she realized after her sudden shift in awareness I have realized slowly over the past few years. For me, the experience of the ego (personal thought system) falling away has been a slow dawning on my conscious mind that this has occurred. It is as if, when it comes to my conscious awareness, what she realized suddenly has been dawning in slow motion. I’ve only realized in the past few months how new things are in this mind and for how long they have bee...

Lately, I have been pulled back inward to the Awareness of Truth (Holy Spirit). I’ve certainly been experiencing It a great deal spontaneously, but this pull inward is something different. It seems to be coming from a conscious recognition of the difference between Truth, the Awareness of Truth, and Its effects. It began with experiencing again Truth’s complete indifference to the experience of not-Truth. Contemplating this I became aware how caught up I’ve been in what are merely the effects of the awareness of Truth. Frankly, my life has transformed so greatly I had to be. The transformation began with the experience I call The Golden, when the Golden Light of Love came into my mind and brought a romance novel with It. During that time, I also reached a point where I recognized that the Light Itself and the love and joy that accompanied It, were really only effects of being aware of Truth. They were not Truth, nor were they the Awareness of Truth, and I didn’t want to lose sight ...

“…What does the Course mean when it says: ideas leave not their source? I just can’t seem to get a true understanding of that.” LDP “Ideas leave not their source, and their effects but seem to be apart from them. Ideas are of the mind. What is projected out, and seems to be external to the mind, is not outside at all, but an effect of what is in, and has not left its source.” (T-26.VII.4) “There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you maintain the world within your mind in thought.” (W-132.10) Your experience of peace or conflict is the effect of thoughts (beliefs) in your mind. You may project the source of your experience outward and feel that someone or something else has caused your experience, but that does not make it so. Your “world” (experience) has its source in your thoughts (beliefs, perceptions), which never actually leave you when you deny them by projecting them away. For example, let’s say a friend has treated...

“ Aldous Huxley wrote ‘Distraction is the original sin of the mind’. Distraction appears to be the ego’s most valued weapon in the world with a vast arsenal and growing steadily. So then it seems that it’s what you give your attention to that will determine the level of inner peace or chaos in your experience in the world. This Distraction/Attention dynamic seems to me to be at the core of Truth/not Truth discovery within. While in this dualistic drama not-Truth claims easy victories distracting personal selves through attention and distraction, Truth on the other hand stands silently and waits for our mighty power of attention to turn towards it. It’s as if Truth knows you will ultimately come back to it. The sound and fury of the ego has no effect on it but it does on you. Why doesn’t Truth pull our attention?” – E St. A Make no mistake: Not-Truth (including the ego/personal thought system) has no power over you. You empower it by valuing it. Truth doesn’t hold your attent...

Whenever I express to others a dramatic shift in my experience I am asked to describe how life is different from the way it was before the shift. Of course I have been asked this since I have shared with others that this mind has attained the ongoing awareness that I am Spirit. Life goes on as usual for the self (body/personality) on the outside. Well, as usual for living in the countryside in south Western Australia, which is wholly unlike the life I lived in a desert city in the southwestern US just a few weeks ago! But I mean the self appears as usual like a person, doing what people normally do every day, and I am experienced as a person by others. The dramatic difference is within. I live so wholly in the moment. I call this experience Hereness . (It could also be called the “Spaciousness” I have referred to before. Or just being wholly present, centered, or in Presence). I am like an island in the stream of time, around which time flows. I am often staring out windows ...

It is not appropriate to exalt or to worship Spirit or anyone who has attained the awareness of Spirit. Of course, when you identify with the self and ego (personal thought system), Spirit seems “other”. It can seem remote, mysterious, and/or magical. It is none of these things. It is What is Real in you, It is always right here and available, and It is miraculous, meaning It is simply True. It is the ego that tells you to exalt and worship Spirit to make Spirit seem foreign, exotic, and unobtainable. And to diminish you. A couple of months ago I experienced myself as Spirit for the first time. I was actually crouched down cleaning the shower door in my former house when it occurred. I don’t remember what I was thinking before the experience. But suddenly I knew I have no beginning and no end. I am Invulnerable; I am Immortal. I am Spirit. Even when I act as a person, I am Spirit. I have had many higher miracles that have shown me the Truth is true or that illusion is il...

“ Please interpret this phrase from the text 4:V:1: ‘All things work together for good. There are no exceptions except in the ego's judgment.’ In the ego-world/battlefield it hardly seems possible that ‘all things works together for good’. I can understand that on a metaphysical level it is possible; however, the world we see with the body’s eyes is a battlefield.” – K.A. The world you see is always an interpretation. You see forms moving about and decide what they mean. In fact, a practice I learned was to sort out fact from my projection of meaning. For example, let’s say you see John shoot George. The facts is one body shot the other body. But, depending on the context, you may interpret that as good or bad. If it is during war and John is on your side and George is the enemy, you will probably see it as good. Or, if George is someone you judge as a “bad guy” you may also see it as good. Maybe John shot George in self-defense and you think it’s regrettable, but justified....

“ I have been staying Present a lot more, but recently saw myself bringing a problem in the illusion to the Truth to resolve rather than the Truth to illusion. Do the answers we receive from HS come in the world abstract for a linear problem? Is that how we can recognize it? Or how can we recognize HS’s answer for an action we need solved?” – MR In fact, you want to bring illusions to Truth rather than Truth to the illusion! To bring illusions to Truth is to correct the illusion. To attempt to bring Truth to the illusion is an attempt to “spiritualize” illusion—to make illusion Truth-like. “You have been told to ask the Holy Spirit for the answer to any specific problem, and that you will receive a specific answer if such is your need. You have also been told that there is only one problem and one answer. In prayer this is not contradictory. There are decisions to make here, and they must be made whether they be illusions or not. You cannot be asked to accept answers wh...

I’ve spent my entire adult life looking into this mind, so it was rather startling when things happened in it that I did not expect. How could I have missed that the self’s life was going to radically change? Looking back now I see shifts that occurred in this mind regarding the self (body/personality) that seem to have been preparation for this major shift. And I also see I missed them because I was not living through the self. I felt and watched the shifts, but I also let them go because I wasn’t living there anymore. I’ve written that in the four years between the ego (personal thought system) falling away and my acknowledging it, I experienced the Awareness of Truth (Holy Spirit) and therefore peace, but also a barren place in my mind. There was also a thread of pain that accompanied the barren feeling which grew as time went on. I now understand that the barren experience was the missing ego. It was what told me to identify with the self. Without it, I was simply experie...

As another Holy relationship has come into my life, several readers have mentioned that they thought the Holy relationship was with the Holy Spirit (Awareness of Truth in your mind) not with another. It is both. It is with another through the Holy Spirit. In A Course in Miracles , the Holy relationship, one of its chief teaching tools (along with the Holy Instant it expresses), is introduced in Chapter 17 (part V) in “The Healed Relationship”. From then on it never lets it go! And it is very clear throughout that it is referring to the relationship between Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford. “A relationship, undertaken by two individuals for their unholy purposes, suddenly has holiness for its goal.” (T-17.V.5) I have experienced the Holy relationship in two ways: mystical and practical. ACIM teaches both, but the labels are mine. The Holy relationship in the Text is clearly mystical. But in the supplement to ACIM, Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice, Helen and Bil...

If you received a post called "The Fact of Spirit" in your email it was sent in error. This post was meant for October 31st and has been deleted so there will be no place to post any comments until then. Sorry for the error. Love and Peace,  Liz

A few weeks ago I wrote about the ego-identifier (read it here ). It was the label I gave to the part of my mind that over-learned the ego (personal thought system). It was the last to let it go. It was the most resistant to it being gone. But I soon dropped the concept. It was useful while it lasted. I learned a lot about this mind. But after seeing into the deepest, darkest depths of its distrust of Truth (boy, that was uncomfortable!) and its valuing of guilt (as the ego taught it that guilt was the “proof” the ego was real), I realized I had no more use for the concept. If I continued to give it attention I would “recreate the beast (ego)”. A client of mine told me about another mentor of hers who dropped the ego. She described the stage afterward as the ego’s momentum winding down. It’s like when you stop peddling a bicycle, the bicycle continues to roll forward on its own until it comes to a full stop. I find this description better describes the wispiness of the remna...

The hardest thing to convey about this huge shift in my mind is how the new life that has come to it and is expressed through the self is not a continuation of the old life that fell away with the ego (personal thought system). It is a whole new life, inward and outward. Sometimes I wonder, “Why Australia?” And the answer is, “Because that’s where this life is.” I might as well ask of the old life, “Why the US?” It’s just where that life was. I have had the sense since this new life broke upon me (which is what it felt like) that I am moving into a life that is already whole and complete. I do not have to make it. I just have to walk into it. It is given , not as in “something is giving it to me”, but as in, “it is already established”. I have a deep sense of recognizing this experience. This is the view in Higher Awareness. Where the Awareness of Truth (Holy Spirit) is found within and is universal (the same in everyone) Higher Awareness is the label I give to the individ...

Thirty-four years ago I experienced my first mystical Holy relationship. I knew then that the Holy relationship, if allowed to become fulfilled, would result in a 180 degree turn in my experience of a personal relationship. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what I was seeing. I couldn’t have said then that it corrected cause and effect. But I did sense it would undo something fundamental to the ego’s (personal thought system’s) way of perceiving. And at that time that was my way of perceiving. In the mystical Holy relationship, instead of seeing another as the source (cause) of Love (effect), you recognize Love is the Source (cause) of your relationship (effect) with the other. Sounds great, doesn’t it? And it is! It is Joyous for a relationship that expresses Love to show up.   But therein lies the threat to the ego: The relationship is simply here, already whole and complete. The ego teaches you to make relationships to get Love and/or to express your personal desires...

A few weeks ago I wrote about the part of my mind that overlearned the ego (personal thought system), was the most attached to it, and was the last part to acknowledge that it was gone. (Click here to read the article). I called this part of my mind the ego-identifier. The ego-identifier still holds the lessons from the ego dear. It thought the self and the ego were its identity; it thought its whole purpose was to identify with the self and ego. But it is really a part of my mind and so it is capable of unlearning those lessons and integrating with the rest of my mind, which is rising to a Higher Awareness. I’ve learned more about the ego watching the ego-identifier being undone than I could when the ego was still a part of my mind. I refer to the time when the ego (personal thought system) dropped but I didn’t know it as the “Mansion and shack” time. The ego fell when I felt, truly, that I was done with pain. It was not a rancorous feeling; just a fact. But I went into shoc...

Last week I wrote how the mystical Holy relationship corrects cause and effect. Instead of seeing another as the source (cause) of Love (effect) for you, you recognize Love is the Source (cause) of your relationship (effect).   Another way to say this is that the mystical Holy relationship’s purpose is not to cause Love, but to express Love. Part of correcting cause and effect is redefining the purpose of everything from cause to expression. What happens in time is not to bring a certain end into existence (salvation, atonement, undoing, etc). That end has already occurred. The moment the idea of not-Truth arose, it was undone by Truth’s all-encompassing nature. So time does not bring about the Undoing (Atonement). It expresses it. In time, it seems like the idea of not-Truth arose long ago and its undoing is in some indefinite future. Time takes an idea that was over in a moment and tells it as an unfolding story. So the Undoing is always happening, only in slooooooow motion...

In my first mystical Holy relationship with E thirty-four years ago, I experienced great joy, but I also sensed the “cost” of the Holy relationship. The cost was the special relationship. The cost was the ego (personal thought system). I couldn’t characterize then the shift that the Holy relationship would bring. I could only sense it. But I now know that the Holy relationship corrects the confusion of cause and effect, completely undoing the special relationship. The special relationship is the ego’s greatest deception. The experience of the ego is lack, and the special relationship is supposed to supply that lack. Mostly, we don’t think in those terms. But we do feel that the special relationship will save or fix us or make us whole somehow. The idea is that this other person, be it parent, sibling, friend, lover, or partner will supply our lack. We are drawn to them because we see them as the source of Love, Which is an experience of Wholeness. In the special relationsh...