ACIM Mentor

              Only God is Real. This has been, for me, the central teaching of A Course in Miracles . It was also my experience of direct Revelation of God. Yet, lately I have explained consciousness and time as the Atonement (correction of the perception of separation from God) in my writing and mentoring. The risk of writing and talking about an illusion is that it can seem to reinforce it as reality rather than as something that is not really here. But even in the illusion, we talk about things that are not there but seem to be all the time, don’t we? Once at a holiday gathering, my (now) ex-wife was passionately telling a friend what he needed to do with a character in a role-playing game they were in together. My father overheard this in passing and said, “Wow, she’s bossy! Listen to her tell him how to live his life.” I had to explain to him they were only discussing a game. An illusion is something that seems real but is not. If you were...

            God, being All, must include the idea of Its Own opposite. But being All, God cannot have an opposite. So, the idea of not-God is simultaneously undone as it arises. It is impossible. But, as the idea of not-God includes time, within the idea of not-God , but not in God, it seems as if the idea began long ago and will be undone in come indefinite future. The experience of time is what we call consciousness or existence . It is the experience of being a person in a body in a world. As an expression of that moment of the idea of not-God arising and being undone, consciousness is always split between the idea of not-God and its undoing, or ego and Spirit. This ongoing and inevitable undoing is what A Course in Miracles calls the Atonement . As an individual expression of consciousness, your mind in consciousness is split between ego and Spirit and expresses the Atonement at one stage or another, at any given moment, as well as throughout it...

            I’ve written a great deal lately about how every thought, feeling, and action that occurs is predetermined, as consciousness is simply the expression as time of the moment of the idea of God’s opposite arising and simultaneously being undone. It’s as though someone said, “The theme is undoing . Now write a story…” So, I understand now that consciousness is what A Course in Miracles calls the Atonement. It is already accomplished and simply passes through this mind, much like when I watch a film, the action depicted has already occurred. (I do not mean that what unfolds before me in consciousness has occurred before. The idea it represents—the idea of not-God arising and simultaneously being undone—is over. What is cancelled as it arises never occurs.) Some have found comfort in the awareness of predetermination, as they see now why guilt is impossible. They also feel release from pressure to attain awakening, or frankly anything else. They ca...

            “…In the first paragraph are you saying, you felt guilty in thinking that free will is a thing when it is not? …What do you mean you never made special relationships? Was it until you realized that all relationships are special/valuable that you now feel that you’ve made many special relationships over your lifetime? Or special=romantic but that is a thing you are allowed to miss because it exists as another opportunity to be the only thing that exists, love.”  – AD             Yes, I meant in the first paragraph of last week’s article that I found hidden guilt in the idea of free will. I was using the term free will as it is commonly used—freedom to choose to oppose or align with Truth (God)—not as it is, an extension of God’s Will. As A Course in Miracles points out, will can only truly be free as it is . So, I could only ever have an illusion of free will, in which state the Course addressed me. ...