Ask: Who is the "I" in the affirmations of your 4HIP book?
“Liz in your book the ‘4 Habits for Inner
Peace’ you state at the beginning of each chapter on the four habits an
affirmation that contains the word ‘I’. Who is the ‘I’ that is making these
affirmations?...” – E
St. A
Well, since you’re reading the book,
hopefully you! You, the mind asking the question. You, the mind that is seeking
an experience other than the one you have had. You, the mind that wants to
remember What it is in Truth.
I suspect that behind your question
is your wondering where your mind fits into the whole Truth and illusion thing.
Or maybe the different levels of mind, blah, blah, blah. You don’t have to
question this. You don’t have to doubt yourself or your experience of yourself.
Just have the experience you’re having without judging it or trying to
understand how it fits in to a bunch of theories. You are you, a mind seeking
to better understand itself. You are you, a mind reading that book. You are
you, a mind with this question.
The Truth will become apparent to you in time as you have new
experiences of yourself. But your mind will always be your mind, though how it
knows itself changes. In other words, you will always feel like you. So you can
trust feeling like you now.
>>>>
NEW BOOK! The ACIM Mentor Articles, Volume 3, covering 2014 thru
2018, is now available in paperback and on Kindle at www.amazon.com.
If you want to benefit from my
experience and lighten your process, email me at Liz@acimmentor.com
to set up an appointment for mentoring. Learn more at www.acimmentor.com.
Comments
I struggled for years trying to make sense of the text with the "I" and "you" and the seeming flipping from personal mind to Christ Mind without warning. I remember years ago complaining to Liz that there should be some indication of what Level was being referred to in a sentence.
The Course teaches about two Levels often in the same paragraph.
I never found a solution for it and if it was all just in my head well it was stuck in there pretty good. I just wanted to validate your question of it was referencing what I had trouble with.
Blessings of Love and Peace.
That Presence is revealing to me the direction i am to take on this journey of return. always there is study. sometimes there is resistance and discomfort. but more and more, the call to deepen my relationship by coming into the Quiet with Him, allowing the forgiving and release to move into and through my mind. building trust one holy instant at a time. the crazy self cannot find me there.
endless L, n
i notice that the seeming complexity of ACIM has fallen away over the years with the practice of its teachings. i am nowhere near to getting all the principles, but am assured i understand enough for the transfer of training to practice. when i am under the Guidance of my Inner Teacher it is so elegant ... simple ... beautiful. without the commitment to practice (and no small amount of patience and effort) i would be lost.
i have often not felt ready for active engagement of the teachings. what has made the difference is not being willing to let that stop me. this is how the "little willingness" has shown up for me. so far.
I lost a girl friend who tired of watching and listening to me struggle with it. She hates the Course with a passion.
I believe Jesus dictated the Course. And there is the crux of the thing. I stumbled onto a book written by Jesus and I believe that every sentence, every meaning that he is teaching has significance.
He is saying "This is what I want you to do." I mean I have a book Jesus wrote!
But that is just me. I know what other people do is their own business but sometimes it gets by me. With this week's question it took me back to the old days...
Jesus says he wrote it and people don't believe that but dedicate huge parts of their life to learning it. But I digress... It ain't none of your business Will.
i do not know who these people you speak of are. in my connections with ACIM students there is general agreement and acceptance of the author's identity.
the Inner Teacher ACIM has awakened in me and the Course author are One. Jesus as an identity is taking on a larger meaning as my relationship with Him develops. a boundary-less one...
and He always brings me back to this holy moment, and opening to His Help.
i'll meet you there. n
Nicci when you say you will meet me there, are you not there yet?
If I can talk plainly without attack. When I read what you are describing I understand what you are referring to. I can be in that state anytime I want to for as long as I want to. I will quiet down in meditation and then stay in that place when I am done. Nothing to it, very easy and comfortable.
When I read Liz documenting what is happening with her I hear about peace and love but I also hear the struggle continuing. The ego not going down without this long protracted fight. That is what I read with the recent comments from Australia. Your posts sound like you have found a way to bypass all this.
Perhaps I misunderstand what you are describing. It sounds so New Age. And that’s fine if that is what is going on. But I don’t understand how you are bypassing this protracted fight with the ego, with the personal mind. The quiet mind I mentioned pushes it out of awareness and will give a sense of being gone but as we see with Liz it is alive and continuing the fight.
The bottom line is I don’t trust it when people present themselves in a state of calm with Jesus all the time. I don’t trust that it is not the ego coming in the back door.
from an earlier comment on this blog: "sometimes there is resistance and discomfort". i am in a state of calm only when i am in the holy Instant with Him. the rest of the time i am in coco puff- ville. and have never intended to give any other impression. i do find my gratitude welling for that little shift into Peace, and find myself expressing it at times. gratitude is a new experience for me.
someone, perhaps liz, or ken wapnick, once said, "If your ego isn't struggling against this Course it is because it has embraced it and made it its own." i keep this quote in my ACIM diary to reassure me the struggle i experience is part of the journey. the ego does object and with increasing volume. i am learning not to take it so seriously. humor is a new experience for me also.
since beginning this path i have discovered that every time i think i am perceiving ego in another, i am inevitably shown, with the greatest of Love, that it is only my own mistaken identity i am perceiving. i can't get away with the slightest assumption any more. and there is relief. this goes on all the time and i welcome it as part of my mind training.
"I will meet you there" (a wonderful line from Rumi) is a statement of acknowledgement for those inner holy encounters with Jesus and others i am experiencing with increasing frequency (the miracle). the rest of the time i am driving with two wheels in the ditch. as i have said before, i am in no way already there. ( i don't even think in those terms.) fortunately, i have determination and the realization i can choose again. and for this i am grateful. and also dear brother, for you, and the Field where we meet.
endless L, n
As a mentor, I use it simply because I see nothing about which to argue. I can accept that others have a different interpretation or POV, so I feel no need to argue. In a personal relationship, however, if I felt the conversation was going off course or somewhere unproductive I'd just state that and ask if we could get back on track or step away for a bit, cool off, center ourselves, and come back to it later (if the conversation was one which needed to continue).
but seriously tho...
these past months have been nothing like i expected, and i had thought i was coming into it pretty expectation free, after my romantic feelings toward Liz fell away (which happened before she had left to come here, but we knew we were experiencing this holy relationship, this joining of minds in one 'goal' so to speak, and that was always at the heart of our coming together anyway). this occurring had brought up for me how much expectation/specialness i had in fact had, and though i knew i still had to grieve the 'loss' of that particular expectation of how this relationship might look, i thought i had dealt with the expectations of what this HR might look like.
but it turns out i also had romanticised views of what the joining of minds in one goal would entail.. i didnt expect a total walk in the park, but what has come up is like.. ok, say you know you have a DEEP well where there is a lot of shit floating on top of the clear, delicious water. (scuse the blunt language!) not a pleasant mix, but the way you normally access it is bucket by bucketload, bit at a time, and the rope youre using doesnt go deep enough to bypass the shit altogether, and even in those rare moments it seems to be longer than usual, you still seem to get a bit of shit bringing the bucket back up. and seeing as this is what youve always brought up from the well, it seems like thats just normal, that mix in varying proportions.
well i feel like the whole well has been upturned 'on' my head.. upturned IN my head lol! so while there are many more experiences of the deep still water, there is also all the shit at once. the inherent Presence of the water makes it 100% clear that the shit is just 'floaty' surface stuff and not the actual deep content of the well, so there is much less angst than you normally felt when you thought the shit was mixed all the way through the well. BUT! its all there at once! it STINKS! its easier and easier to just drop it.. much easier in fact than its ever been before.. but the 'it' you are dropping feels less diluted AT THE SAME TIME as being very apparently less what the well (the Will!) is 'about' at all.
i know that liz, too, came into this 'expectation free', and also discovered there were vestiges (her echos) of specialness, doubt etc clinging, and watching how quickly she passes through them has been so damn helpful. deeply. like.. they are sharp, intense.. and then gone.
Yes, alas, now you will be responsible for your own mistakes. I pity you.
laughed out loud at you hot dog! pity comment.