Reality and Identity

          When I felt a few weeks ago that it was time to drop common concepts and just share experiences and occurrences in the most apt terms, I used only the word Spirit for the Idea of God in the illusion. I didn’t use Christ because I thought one word was simpler and Christ is loaded with more connotations than Spirit. But I do still feel there is a distinction. For me, Christ refers to the Idea of God in the illusion that is still, merely here with the illusion; and Spirit refers to the Idea of God in the illusion that is active, showing up as Answer, Teacher, Guide, etc. when the experiencer turns in the direction of Truth. However, the terms Christ and Spirit are in most cases interchangeable, and I stuck with Spirit for the reasons of simplicity stated.

I vacillated on which term to use because of the occurrence a few years ago (see Liz's memoir) in which I knew I was Christ, followed by the awareness that I was to teach, “I am Christ, as was Jesus, and so are you.” I understood at the time this was to continue to break down the idea that the universal state referred to as Christ refers to Jesus alone.

The realization that the experiencer is not me also made me aware that the awareness “I am Christ” was for Spirit, not the experiencer, which was still dominating my (Spirit’s) awareness at the time. I find this conflation of experiencer and Spirit is ongoing in spiritual teachings. Certainly, it is in A Course in Miracles, which speaks primarily to the experiencer but also says “you are Christ.” This is what led me to expect the experiencer to discover she was Christ, which, as I have shared in recent articles, did not occur. Instead, Spirit emerged in the illusion and the experiencer had to face the delusional idea that she was an autonomous entity and discover she is in fact only an experiencer.

In fact, the experiencer has no identity but only a function. The experiencer’s function is an illusion and did not arise for any real purpose. God, being All, must contain the idea of Its Own opposite. But being All, God cannot have an opposite. The idea of not-God is impossible, therefore illusory. But within the illusory idea a condition arose in which opposition to God could manifest and that condition was multiple experiencers. The oppositional thought system (opposer) in an experiencer makes it seem the experiencer is an autonomous entity, which seems like reality and an identity, which is a delusion because the experiencer only experiences. As the idea of not-God is impossible, the delusion can end, the opposer going dormant, or “falling away”, leaving the experiencer free to experience only what is truly here, God’s Spirit. Spirit is not the experiencer’s reality or identity, only its experience. And Spirit never identifies with an experiencer, but the experiencer and his/her/their experiences fill Spirit’s awareness until it is time for Spirit to emerge.

Liz’s approach to spirituality began with seeking the “ultimate Liz.” Well…here she is! She’s an experiencer. And she’s not real, never was, never will be. Christ/Spirit is all that can be said to be real in the illusion, so It is all that can be called identity. But the concept is redefined, as is the concept of reality, because Liz’s strong sense of identity was an illusion, just as what seemed to her like reality was an illusion.

 

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If you have a question the answer to which you feel may be helpful to others, send it to Liz@acimmentor.com and I will answer it in this newsletter/blog.