ACIM Mentor

           Clients and readers often express fear about what they will face on their path to peace based on what they have read of others’ experiences, usually on other paths. It can be helpful to read about others’ experiences when you have those experiences yourself. They can be reassuring and validating. But until you have those experiences, keep in mind reading or hearing about them may lead to not just fear, but distorted expectations all around. As a student of A Course in Miracles , you don’t know what to expect, because you are to follow Spirit, not a well-worn path, such as the contemplatives many read about. Contemplatives remove themselves to varying degrees from life in the world. They meditate for many hours a day and live simplified lives outside of formal meditation to help maintain a meditative attitude. Whether in the East or West, each tradition has discovered the internal process a contemplative can expect. Part of this may be what is c...

            My three recent articles about how transcendent consciousness is not God has led to questions about the difference between consciousness and Spirit, as the descriptions of pure consciousness and Spirit often sound the same. Before I get to those experiences, let me explain the difference between consciousness and Spirit. A Course in Miracles says consciousness was the first split in Mind. So, consciousness is the illusion or dream of separation from God. It is also called the Son of God in the Course , as God cannot be wholly absent from any part of Mind. So, consciousness is split between Spirit, God’s Extension, through Christ, in consciousness, and the idea of not-God, or ego. Here is an analogy to illustrate this: If the sun were God, then sunlight would be Christ (God’s Extension or Creation), Earth would be consciousness (one side in sunlight, the other in darkness), and where sunlight touches Earth would be Spirit. So, very simp...

            P hysicists know that when their formulas to explain something in the material universe are long, detailed, and difficult, they have not yet landed on the answer. When they’ve hit upon the way the material universe works, the formula is elegant and simple. And so it is with Truth. If you want to know Truth, you simply have to invite Spirit into your awareness and let It lead the way. There is no more to it than that, because in the end, Spirit is all that is real in your experience, and everything else but Spirit falls away. You do not have to attain a perfect state of consciousness. You do not even have to attain a perfectly quiet mind when meditating. You do not have to use only right thinking all the time. You do not have to be ego free. None of those things get in Spirit’s way once you are following It. For a long while you will have two thought systems, ego and Spirit, and Spirit will help you learn how to live with ego. If your spiritu...

            Two weeks ago, I began a discussion about why it is important that students of A Course in Miracles , or any other form of nonduality, do not confuse transcendent (pure) consciousness with God. I shared Suzanne Segal’s ( Collision With the Infinite ) story the first week, and last week explained consciousness and the difference between oneness experiences of pure consciousness and the Oneness of God. Now I will explain why it is crucial to not confuse them. The Course calls the fundamental issue blocking one’s awareness of God the authority problem , or the belief that you are what you have made of yourself. This “you” refers to the Son of God in its split-mind, the maker of consciousness, and shows up in your individual mind as your identification with a person in a body in a world. (This identification is ego .) Oh, certainly you do not consciously think you made yourself. You may profess belief in a creator (author), but if you are not in...