Answers to Questions About Predetermination

            When I write or speak about everything occurring in time and consciousness being predetermined as the depiction of the Atonement, or the moment of the idea of not-God arising and being simultaneously undone, readers and clients present certain questions. I answer a few common ones here.

 

“If everything is predetermined, why should I do anything?”

 

You will find your person doing things (or refraining from doing them), because this is the Atonement being depicted through your person.

Knowing it is predetermined does not change how your expression of consciousness experiences consciousness. You feel desire or not, you feel motivation or not, you feel moved to act or not, you feel moved to make changes or not, you have a particular mood at any given moment, you find choices and decisions are required and you make them. All thoughts, feelings, and actions are the Atonement moving through consciousness.

What you can take away from the awareness it is all predetermined is the awareness that your consciousness and its expression, the person, do not exist in a vacuum and cannot do anything apart from the whole of consciousness. It is one thread in a great tapestry.

Ego’s view is to focus on the details, to separate out parts and moments from the whole. Spirit always looks at the larger picture, the greater unfolding story. So, when you feel that something that did happen should not have happened, or that something that did not happen should have happened, it is an indication you are thinking with ego, pulling against the whole unfolding story as though you are apart from it. You can ask Spirit to help you see the larger picture or at least to come to acceptance of your place in the larger unfolding story. And when you are faced with a choice or decision, ask Spirit for guidance, because Spirit knows what is to happen. It is more harmonious to live with the flow of the unfolding Atonement instead of deciding for yourself what should happen or how it should be.

Of course, if you do not ask or accept, that is also the Atonement unfolding. But it is not the Atonement manifesting.

 

“How do I know if a choice I make is in line with the Atonement?”

 

Any choice, thought, action, feeling, or mood you experience expresses the Atonement. Asking this question expresses the Atonement. Your understanding predetermination now, later, or never expresses the Atonement. No one can go “off script.” You have no independence from the whole.

 

Does predetermination mean there is no free will?

 

That is exactly what it means. Although you may have the experience that you make independent choices and have your own thoughts and feelings apart from the whole, you cannot and do not. In fact, your experience that you are independent from the whole of consciousness is how not-God in the Atonement is depicted through you until that changes, if it is to do so. This is why ego is not wrong or bad but a false experience of consciousness and a false “reality.” It depicts not-God unless or until it is corrected by the awareness of God’s reality.

 

“Since I cannot make anything happen and it’s already predetermined if I will awaken or not, should I continue to study and meditate or have a spiritual practice?”

 

While everything in consciousness is the Atonement because that is what consciousness is, your awareness of God and your spiritual practice manifest the Atonement (correction or undoing) in consciousness.

The Atonement is manifested in consciousness through those with the dimmest awareness that God is real all the way up to those who reach full realization of God in Spirit-consciousness. Obviously, at this time in the unfolding, most who manifest the Atonement fall somewhere between. Everything else in consciousness either manifests the idea of not-God, which the manifestations of the Atonement correct or undo, or are there in support of the Atonement.

So, do as you are moved to do in all things, including your spiritual practice, understanding that it is not happening to bring something about, but rather is an expression or depiction of the Atonement that has already occurred.

 

“If everything is unfolding perfectly, should I not say anything to a friend whose choices and behavior are causing chaos in their life?”

 

Part of everything unfolding perfectly may be you saying something to your friend that gets their attention and starts their journey out of chaos. As such, it may be an expression of the Atonement. It may be your words have an effect on your friend now or later. It’s also possible that they have no effect on them. Someone may overhear what you say and be affected by it in their own life. In fact, you may be the person who hears what you say and be affected by it. In other words, do as you are moved to do, speak or not, without judging it, knowing it is part of the whole unfolding.

 

“I had a horrible childhood. Are you telling me this was predetermined and the abusers were supposed to hurt me?”

 

There are two parts to the Atonement, the idea of not-God (ego) and the idea of God (Spirit), which corrects, or undoes, it. So, both are depicted in consciousness as a whole and often in an individual life. With rare exception, everyone is born into a consciousness of not-God, or ego. And many learn of the reality of God somehow, from within, from another, from a religion or a spiritual path, and they move out of a consciousness of nearly pure not-God to some awareness of God. This is a manifestation of the Atonement.

So, yes, even those things deemed horrible are part of the depiction of the Atonement in consciousness. However, the Atonement is the correction of the perception (awareness, consciousness) of separation from God. This obviously occurs in your mind, or consciousness, and affects how you experience the material universe, and how your person acts in it. Your life in the world does improve as your consciousness manifests the Atonement, but it will never be perfect, because while your individual expression of consciousness may reach perfection, consciousness as a whole is still evolving toward total correction. For example, while you may reach realization, it does not mean your loved ones won’t die or your city won’t be hit by a hurricane. However, you will see these things differently—as not real.

And so, your view of the past, even occurrences deemed terrible, evolve as your consciousness evolves. Even if you do not reach a state of seeing it was not real, as you manifest the Atonement, you will come to see the experiences differently, in ways in which you are not a victim, with compassion for others involved, with understanding that it was an expression of not-God and is being corrected (manifesting the Atonement) in your expression of consciousness.

 

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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 indicate that you want it answered in this newsletter/blog.