ACIM Mentor

              All consciousness does is register the presence of either ego or Spirit. Much like memory foam, it receives the impression of one or the other, but it would bounce back to its original state—emptiness—if no thought system were there. It belongs to neither. What are these thought systems? Ideas. Spirit is the Idea of God. Ego is an idea opposed to God. Registering the presence of these ideas as thought systems is all that is going on in seemingly individual consciousnesses. Thoughts and feelings in consciousness are induced by ego or inspired by Spirit. What consciousness hears and feels as “I” is whichever thought system occupies it at the moment. The “I” feels the same either way, which is why it is confusing and makes it seem consciousness is the ”I”. But consciousness does not have agency. It is a “receptive mechanism”, as A Course in Miracles calls it. So, the experience of “I”, or identity , in consciousness simply means a thoug...

              In ego-consciousness, you can become aware of God within you—Christ. You can grow this awareness. You can learn to trust Christ’s Spirit (Holy Spirit) as your Guide, Teacher, and Therapist and make It your Constant Companion as you go about the world. In fact, you can make being in the world about being with Spirit. You can be a Spirit-centered person. This will help you to detach from ego, to mitigate the pain of ego. In my experience, it was the only way to live in ego-consciousness with any peace and happiness. But what you cannot do is make Spirit take center in consciousness, which causes ego to fall away. This is what is commonly called “awakening.” No amount of spiritual practice can bring this about. At most, it can prepare you for it, if it is to happen. And it is not necessary for it to happen. Ego will fall away, it will “die”, one way or another, either through awakening in consciousness or the death of the body. It is onl...

            Sometimes I am asked, “What do you see with spiritual Sight?” In A Course in Miracles , spiritual Sight is called right or true perception , the perception of the Holy Spirit , or the real world . Some seem to expect to see a different material world or to only see loving actions between bodies in the material world. But spiritual Sight does not involve the body’s eyes or the material world. It is a perception (consciousness) of the mind. Spirit sees Spirit, which can also be called Its Self, Love, or Unity (Oneness). The reason this is hard to understand until you have the experience is because ego obscures the perception of the mind by projecting its perceptions onto material forms seen by the body’s eyes. Spirit extends Spirit. And ego also extends itself but denies it is seeing itself. (Projection = extension + denial) Another way to put this is Spirit’s Seeing is only content —the content of the mind, which in Spirit’s case is only...

            Ego falling away from the center of consciousness allows for ego, consciousness, and Reality (Spirit) to be seen correctly and in their correct orientation to each other. Before this consciousness shifted from ego to Spirit, I said, and taught, “I am mistakenly identified with ego.” This was incorrect. There was no “I” apart from ego to be mistakenly identified with it. Ego is a false identity in itself , not the false identity of something else. Consciousness is a neutral space that registers the presence of ego or Spirit but does not identify with them. When ego held center in consciousness, its “I, I, I”, “me, me, me” was only itself. Ego did make it seem consciousness was an identity by projecting its identification on an appearance in consciousness, a person (body/personality). Ego lived in and as and through the person. It made it seem consciousness was an alternate reality to God. It distorted consciousness into something it was not. ...

          There are two similar experiences in the spiritual process that I think are important to distinguish because I have heard both referred to as “awakening experiences”, yet one occurs at the beginning of ego’s undoing and the other at the end. While they have a lot in common, they are obviously distinct stages. The first one is equivalent to the Period of Undoing in A Course in Miracles . (See the Manual for Teachers, Development of Trust, M-4.I.A). This is when Truth (God) dawns in your conscious awareness, transcending mere intellectual belief, and you know It is real and you know It is within you. You may not yet know It is all that is real, but It is here now in your awareness and will not leave you. This can be a joyous time, though not always wholly as it is often accompanied by a sense of loss, within as well as in your material life. And ego is threatened, although its full resistance to this dawning awareness may not come until later. You ma...