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Showing posts from April, 2018

The Ego Falling Away is Not Frightening

The belief in guilt fell away from this mind. Then the self-concept fell away. This mind is now in the process of “unlearning” self-identification. Which is to say, the ego is falling away. It is not frightening. I tell you this because all along the way on the path to transcending the ego (personal thought system), the ego says you are dying, you are killing yourself, it is impossible, it is terrifying, you will cease to exist, etc. And it was wrong. Surprise! I knew this intellectually. I knew the ego was always speaking for itself and not for this mind. But now I can report, from experience, that it is not frightening for it to fall away. It is unfamiliar, yet natural. It is fascinating and awe inspiring. It is confusing and disorienting. So it is “unsettling”, as this stage is labeled in the Development of Trust in A Course in Miracles . But there is nothing to fear. It is the ultimate paradigm shift. It feels like a massive undertaking. But, for this mind, anyway, ju

The Mind

When I was a brand new student of A Course in Miracles , I had a hard time understanding what it meant by “turn within”, not in practice, but as a concept. In practice, I turned into my mind: That which contains my beliefs and thoughts. But sometimes I tried to locate this “within” and, being identified with a body, I would become confused. How would I go within the body? This trying to locate “within” eventually dropped away, not because I had a concept that worked, but because all I really needed was the practice. I knew how to “look within” without needing to conceptualize “where”. Mind has no location and we don’t have words for this. I say mind is “everything” and “everywhere”. But not “everything” as in “all forms” or “everywhere” as in “every place ”. It is “everything”, as in, “all that is”, and “everywhere”, as in “formlessness”. (I did not use an uppercase “m” for mind above because what I just wrote is true for mind at all levels). Sometimes I hear from student

Realizing Forgiveness

Since guilt has fallen away from this mind I find it thinking of certain things in the past that apparently need to be released (forgiven). But rather than needing to do anything, I find I am instead realizing forgiveness has occurred. I just watch as something from the past arises, I see it in a new light without effort, and I watch any emotional charge I had around it fall away. For example, one of the big stories I carried around for years had to do with the Holy Relationship that I experienced with E. Over the years I learned many lessons from this experience, primarily that the Holy Relationship was really with the Holy Spirit (Awareness of Truth in my mind) rather than with E. Our relationship was simply the doorway through which I became aware of the Holy Spirit and True Vision. But on the personal side, I still apparently carried around a story about what happened with E, who left my life after being in it for only a few months. In fact, it seemed to have defined much of

True Humility

A few times lately I’ve had the spontaneous experience of true humility and I’ve been asked to write about it. This is difficult because it is hard to characterize what true humility feels like. The nearest I can come is to say I realize this split-mind’s proper relationship to Truth and gratitude for it. True humility only arises for me in the awareness of Truth. I do not try to be humble. If I did, that could only be the ego (personal thought system), and the ego is not at all involved in true humility. As the opposite of Truth it cannot be aware of Truth so it is incapable of true humility. It does, however, distort the idea of humility, and it is easier to write about what true humility is not to understand what it is. The ego uses everything to glorify the self and the ego. Its version of humility is false humility: “Look how humble I am! Doesn’t this make me great?” If the ego feels good about humility, I know I’m not feeling true humility! True humility is also n