ACIM Mentor

             The title of this article is from the section “I Need Do Nothing” in A Course in Miracles (T-18.VII.1) That title is itself often misused in a classic ego pout, “Well, if ‘I need do nothing’, why am I doing anything at all!” In fact, that section is about the realization you have in a holy instant: You are whole and complete in God now. You do not have to do anything to make yourself so. You do not need time to realize this. As that section points out (I suggest reading it again if you have not in a while), you do not have to spend years fighting against your experience of the body or in meditation. Those means work because of their goal. (It’s all an expression, after all.) But the Holy Spirit, the holy instant, and its expression, the holy relationship, are the Course’s means to inner peace. And they save time. The Course is not for contemplatives who go off to live apart from the world and spend their days in meditation. It is me...

             Last week I had what felt like a breakthrough. It had to do with the fear of God arising from an incident in this person’s childhood. Following this, I saw many representations of the fear of God throughout Liz’s former life. That occurred one evening. The following morning, it all collapsed and disintegrated. It made no sense. How could an effect be a cause? What happened when Liz was a child was an expression of the fear of God. The cause could not be in the expression but had to be there before the expression. Liz’s former life depicted the idea of opposition to God, nothing in it caused that opposition. But that was not the end of the undoing. Because then I saw that none of that happened. They are only ideas in my mind now . There is no past; there is no time. So, I saw, not in theory, but practically, that the story of time is that single instant of the idea of not-God arising and simultaneously being undone. And that instant is...

           “…I have read your comments on ACIM as compared to other teachers or students of other nondual teachings and I… feel that there is a difference and wonder if the ‘result’ is different? As in, real world and/or a total enlightenment versus maybe partial? I know a lot of ACIM students are moving towards other paths.           I think you have said that ACIM points to an awakening to spirit and others something different. If you could say more to your understanding of comparisons between ACIM and other nondual focus I would greatly appreciate it. As I see differences and similarities and frankly it confuses me though I do know that only ego could possibly be confused and ask these questions...” – KL     Actually, listening to ego may be the cause of your confusion, but it is only a thought system you may or may not use, it does not think for itself. You (a mind) however, may be confused because you listen t...

  The idea that you can merely observe your mind and experiences was first suggested in the A Course in Miracles community by Ken Wapnick and has become popular as students branch out and study other nondual teachings. So, let me address some confusion about these ideas. This suggestion is often put forth as observing , watching , or witnessing your thoughts and feelings to get some distance from them. But I hear things from students like, “I don’t want to watch these thoughts. They’re terrible!” Or, “What am I watching for? What’s supposed to happen?” The word witnessing especially has connotations of watching for a purpose. But what these words mean is that you can learn to let your thoughts and feelings be, without engaging with them, resisting them, or judging them. You are not asked to watch them for any reason, but when you let something be, all you end up doing is watching it. In other words, watching is an effect of not engaging with, judging, or resisting thoughts ...

           I cannot give the real world to you. I cannot help you attain it because it is not attained. But I will tell you this: Nothing you are concerned about in the false world, even in your spiritual life, is in the real world. There is no need to find the correct spiritual approach or for getting concepts right. In fact, there is no parsing the experience into concepts. There is no concern with care of the body or how the body is used or ideas like idols or special relationships. There is no guilt here. There is no dividing things into Truth and illusion because those are understood, manifestly apparent. Everything is accepted as it is. Sometimes I am in the real world and negative, judgmental thoughts go through my mind and they are dissolved. So, there is no need to purify to prepare yourself for the real world. It does the purifying. Therefore, there is no reason to aim for purity in the false world. It will not bring you the real world and the r...