Detachment


Have no illusions—when you are uncomfortable thinking about the detachment that comes with the awareness of Truth, it’s not because you will come across as cold and unfeeling. It’s not because you will abandon your loved ones or lose them in some way. This is what the ego (personal thought system) tells you to distract you from what’s really going on. Your discomfort is because when you detach what you really detach from is not some world outside you, but from the ego (personal thought system) and its “world” (perceptions).
            Detachment from the ego is the natural result of being aware of Truth. You experience it at first as not feeling as you are used to about a certain person or situation. “This used to really upset me. It doesn’t anymore.” It seems as though it is the situation you are detached from, but it is actually that you are no longer responding to it from the ego. You’ve chosen to look at it from a different place in your mind. You’ve become aware that you are something other than the ego.
            Detachment is the opposite of attachment. And what you are attached to is the ego. All of your other attachments follow from this, as the ego teaches that they will bring you peace and happiness. So you don’t have to detach from every attachment you have. You only need to detach from the ego and your other attachments will fall away.
            Detachment is not something you have to “do” or make happen. Grow your awareness of Truth and detachment naturally follows because your awareness can only be on Truth or the ego.
You grow your awareness of Truth by asking the Awareness of Truth (Holy Spirit) in your mind to be with you in everything you do. In your relationships, your work, and all of your interests. Use everything as a classroom in which to learn of the Awareness of Truth within you.
You can also practice stepping away from your ego thoughts and feelings and merely observing them without judgment. This makes room for the Awareness of Truth to take their place.

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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

nicci said…
... immeasurably helpful and relevant for my practice this morning. thank you for helping me strengthen my relationship with the Inner Teacher and my willingness to choose to return to His Guidance, as well as be more accepting of the unease that can arise. in gratitude, n
jonart said…
Liz, between your message today on detachment and what I specifically studied today in your ACIM Mentor Articles Volume 2, I feel I have attained another notch of understanding I haven't derstood before. All this helps me reach another level of Trust and understanding. Many thanks for all that you do
Unknown said…
Liz, THANK YOU so much for being so direct and clear with this writing on detachment.
Beyond helpful and practical- every word resonated with me.
Meant to read this today. ❤❤❤
will said…
Over and over again the message of the blog is “Grow your awareness of Truth.” If you are a new student or just struggling in general, it is hard to grab hold of this. Some things to keep in mind:
No one is further along in the Course who has been studying the same amount of time as you. You’re not at the bottom of the list of learners. Everyone is at the exact place they are supposed to be.
Everyone struggles with what is the student’s responsibility and what is the Holy Spirits.
We all have been trained for years in school that everything is up to us and we are going to be graded on it. It is there in your head and it is probably going to stick for quite a while. That isn’t what we are doing here.
All of us have an ego that says we are responsible for our progress in the Course. It isn’t going to stop saying this so get used to it.
Everyone is impatient with their lack of progress. Everyone asks God, “Why do we have to go through all this? Can’t you just fix it now”? Spirit has its own rules and that is what we have to follow. Try to focus on growing a day at a time.
will said…
A Freefall Into Shame

Years ago I would say shame and Liz would say guilt; I would say shame again and she would say guilt.

One of the things that drew me into the Course was the awareness of a solution for my shame. I was drenched in it. Alcoholism and the weird roads it leads you down in your head… “I” was drenched in it. Will was drenched in it. But the Course and what Liz was saying about guilt (which it was some while before I got it) was there is no “I”, there is no Will. There is a personal mind that was insane, and I choose to believe it was me. Not much of a choice really. Speeding ahead, as time went on I began to understand the rudiments of the “Observer.”

The personal mind, the ego, was insane and I was cloaking myself in the shame of identifying with it. I cannot tell you the relief the first time I stepped back in my mind and looked at the mind yammering away. Watching the insanity from a distance in my mind. I am not the insanity, only the identifying with it. The text says as quickly as I create an ego for myself, I do the same for everyone else. So I can judge you just like I judge myself.

One of the very important things Liz is writing about right now is the experience of actually leaving the insane mind. It isn’t just words in a book it is the words become real.
will said…
More on a Freefall

In Alcoholics Anonymous there are 12 steps. They aren’t easy. The toughest is Step Five, “Admitted to God, To Ourselves and to ANOTHER HUMAN BEING (my caps.) the exact nature of our wrongs.”

What they are asking you to do is go over your life history and write down all your character defects; all of the problems they have caused you and others. Then go sit down with someone and tell them all of it. You go to a priest or someone you are not acquainted with to do this. This laying bear of your private self is a “Freefall”. You jump and there is nothing to catch you. You leave yourself completely vulnerable. Here personal humiliations are laid open to another person. For the first time in your life you get Real.
will said…
... Of course, once you have done a few other steps and got right with God you hit Step Nine, "Made direct amends to such people (those we harmed) whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others." Another Freefall of sorts...

And you wonder why alcoholics won't go to AA, Ha!
will said…
I was watching a show on TV and they gave this quote and attributed it to the philosopher Kierkegaard:

“If you name me you negate me. By giving me a name, a label, you negate all the other things I could possibly be.” The host goes on to say, “You lock the person into being a thing, by pinning it down, naming it but at the same time you are creating it, defining it so it will exist.”

One place this always comes to mind, is on the comments on the blog. There is a name associated with the comment. The ego has of course created an ego for the name.

This seemingly inconsequential action lays the foundation for a permanent stay in the dream. All the blogs we have been reading over the past months circle around to this. Liz, on her journey, left her own created ego. Ironically, in her having to have a name and using Liz, our personal minds are free to pretend nothing has happened. It’s just Liz trippin’. Which may be appropriate for Hannah, but probably not for us…
Anonymous said…
Your post is extremely helpfull. I can't seem to get excited about much in the world any more and this has concerned me greatly. I didn't think I was depressed.
hannah said…
will... hahahahahahahaha!! WHAT A TRIP!! it would be so hard to put the last few months into words, but trippy is pretty bloody good! :D
hannah said…
i just spent quite a while trying to put some of this into words, but deleted it all.. suffice to say that from the outside looking in this may have seemed, to many like CRAZY HOUSE for the last few months, on and off.. and thats nothing to what is been like from the inside, haha :D and yet, oh and yet!! the 'crazy' is so clearly an effect of being so close to Present Memory. so much of this time has not played out as i expected. and that shake up has been 'necessary' (all that means is that thats how it played out for us, nothing is actually NECESSARY but that little willingness weve all heard so much about, lol!) to open to a sharper focus, with so much previously helpful 'focus' falling away. ive felt im watching/participating in a play that could be aptly titled 'the sublime and the ridiculous!'
will said…
Hannah, I have thought of you often and wondered what effect PM was having on you. I write about being in the slip stream and the effect that has had but because of the nature of the internet have left most of it out. The PM is a very powerful open channel for the Holy Spirit to use. Your being in close contact is a book waiting to be written.
hannah said…
will - PM?
will said…
Present Memory? Did I misunderstand you? I took PM to be a reference to Liz. Living only in the Now.
hannah said…
ah, your reply just came in now will, as i finished up my first response, which was already too long for a one part reply! no, i wasnt referring to liz by the term present memory, as i dont experience her as living in the present memory either, but as spending ever more time there, in between bouts of what still remains to be cleared rising up to be held in the same space as the Present memory and dissolved into the nothingness which she knows it is. i feel the present memory is SO CLOSE to being a permanent state, rather than being a growing reality, for both liz and myself. ok.. let me see if i can explain this more.. ill add to what ive already written below.

ah, present memory liz tells me. erm.. well.. id nutshell the present memory as moving beyond a personal time based identity to knowing yourself Now. so while im not IN the present memory other than, perhaps, momentary glimpses of reality, i am feeling.. oh how to say that? i feel Its presence almost all the time, to one degree or another. its like Awareness of Truth at the deeper/fuller/unclouded level is shining ever more.. palpably in my awareness, and the contrast of the experience of the awareness of not truth just feels so insane.. i feel intensely threatened and like im in almost constant attack mode, rejecting and attacking liz for what she symbolises and reflects in this mind.. which is dedication to Knowing Reality! i have also experienced attack from Liz as she goes through (what i would say is a) similar process.. its kinda like.. in this safe space the viciousness of that which is being undone is both stark and intense while also fleeting, ephemeral.. makes no sense that those things could appear to co-exist, but hell, i guess thats what the course suggests, innit.. bring these thought systems together and watch what 'happens' to the one that does not reflect reality. one difference in how liz and i are experiencing this similar process (again, of course, as i see it) is that i still fall into sorrow for projecting specialness onto her sometimes, which i dont feel liz does. it gives way sooner or later, ever sooner, to trust in the process. we both just apologise and move on.. the ease with which liz does this is incredibly helpful. a big change in approach we have both just entered into (its not actually -new- but is now more clearly' articulated, recommitted to) is just dropping the habit of personal problem solving and/or clarifying to be understood' -when- it starts to feel in any way like something that -needs- doing, and returning to the awareness of what it is we are actually joining in here.. which is not about perfecting or understanding the self but allowing the light of Truth to emerge in our minds; practising letting go of any vestigial feelings of IMPORTANCE attached to the story of the self as well as any lingering belief that we are making that happen as persons... i have (again, in my view not nec. liz's) more of this dynamic still in mind as WELL AS simply the habit of thinking thusly.. but it ever more FEELS most like an exhausting habit.. despite the self story that how liz and hannah interact and understand each other is important!

hannah said…
something that has become apparent, and one reason ive been less of a presence here, is that liz and i have different ways of viewing/describing much of this 'undoing' journey, though as letting go of the denial of truth is inherently a personalised experience, this does not hinder in the slightest the emerging of the 'Shared' (One) Light beyond the personal. for example, liz's description of the echos of the ego happening in a mind that has dropped ego seems to me like quite a good way of describing the experience of a transition zone, the last stages (mayhap!) of the 'dropping' state, but not an accurate one for describing what is actually (appearing to, lol) happen. liz sees my views on this as black and white thinking, which id agree with but with a different spin on black and white.. id say black and white as in simple; as in that we are in an awakening process until we are actually awake, 'in one world or the other', and the stages where we experience echos is where we still have both thought systems in our mind in operation, only the amount of belief in (or choice for) the erroneous self is WAY more to one side than the other, kinda like an hourglass with only a few grains left in the top section. id describe the having dropped ego but experiencing echos that liz speaks of as having fully intellectually dropped (due to experiences of true being) the belief in ego, but as the course says ingenious thought (understanding) is not the truth that sets you free.. to my mind there is a deeper belief in not truth that full intellectual understanding/acceptance is part of undoing. hmm. a clearer way of saying that is that i feel you are undoing something until it is no longer there! the experience of this process may show up (be experienced) toward the end as mere shadows or habits of being.. ever more fleeting and less 'real' in experience as there is less belief-deeper-than-intellectual in mind for the erroneous identity to cling to.
hannah said…
will, ps.. (oo, three-parter!) ive been less of a presence because it just seemed unnecessary to share here what id already shared with liz, kinda like.. this is the space where she shares her experience and her interpretations, not where i share mine unless im seeking clarity.. i havent felt clouded in my experience of the above, so havent bothered sharing.. its all so unimportant! but it would appear now is the time for adding my perspective/experience to the mix here!
will said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Deb said…
Thank you Hannah for your share. I find a 2nd or 3rd read rings with more clarity. So much it seems is shifting swiftly and your share is in "perfect time" for this mind.

There is so much dropping away in my world and the awareness, "oh I don't need to do that anymore" and specific to what you shared . . ."clarifying to be understood" and "belief I am making that happen as a person", also seen as an ending. A big yes to "trust in the process, it is not about "perfecting or understanding the self." I find that if understanding is helpful, it will be given. I'll even share what came to me yesterday, 2 text messages from an angelic being. . .

1st text with these words. "Listen to this passage 24 "A man's steps are directed by the LORD. How than can anyone understand his own way?"

Then the 2nd text, these words on a dove wrapper, "Don't talk about it, just be about it.". The angel added, "even chocolate will speak if you're willing to listen. God is everywhere."

and Liz, your blog is like a view"finder" of this mind. Every article validating to the I am process. Thank you and everyone for reflecting.

Peace, a heart of gratitude.

hannah said…
deb.. had what shall be henceforth known as the day of fury today... facing head on the pain of hopelessness and projection (cant change 'shit', projecting that pain away). its been building for god knows how long.. we'll see what cometh after...

ps I lolled at 'i find a 2nd or 3rd reading' etc.. i get that feedback a lot :D love it! xx
Deb said…
Hannah, have you read, I Married A Mystic? This book rises up when I read what you and Liz are experiencing. Maybe there will be some validation.

For the past 3 weeks I've been painting again after a long hiatus. Giving it over to Spirit, it has become a way of prayer for another. The being is in my mind and then I paint. I have no idea what will be revealed as I am painted through. I sense you will be in this mind with my next painting.

May the colors on the palette be the flowering of expression, swiftly revealing the masterpeace she is.

hannah said…
deb, i havent read that book. i have a friend who has spent time with kristen and david etc, she has the book but i havent felt drawn to it so far.

such a bunch of mystics here on this blog.. lol i was tempted to write misfits :D the two are so closely related :D
Deb said…
Seeing we are the same, sometimes expressing mystic and sometimes, misfit.

From a bird's view, as the mystic I stay perched on the branch. It's only when I fly off a misfit may emerge.
Deb said…
and what sees the misfit and mystic one may ask? I am reminded of the story of the two birds Mooji tells and what perceives the perceiver?

Blessings of serenity.
hannah said…
it occurs to me too, from whos pov misfit.. one mans mystic is another womans misfit i guess!

yes, now theres an interesting question! in revelation there be no perceiver at all, or so i gather! im reading 'the experience of no self' and once again im fascinated by the descriptions, she seems to more clearly/thoroughly articulate the dream i had when i first started flicking through the course than even the course itself did.. and it took me YEARS to begin to comprehend that dream beyond a surface joyfulness and 'beyondness'. so much that i read lately could be another way of describing my own experiences so far, and yet im aware that those words could describe other experiences also. its happened with liz sometimes. ive been puzzled and then somethings gone click! ah.. she could well be describing 'x'.. or then again not.. theres only so much clarifying that conversation can do beyond a certain point i think.. some things are so hard to explain, maybe just not enough concurrent conscious experience for language to form around it.. maybe also cos words are part of a certain realm of being and simply cant go further than that point. i love bernadettes description of the relative and non-relative mind.. i wonder if thats what that story of moojis is pointing to?

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