ACIM Mentor

          My mentoring and life-coaching clients run the gamut from those trying to nail down the theory of A Course in Miracles to those who would like guidance dealing with a situation in their life. The latter often express their attempts to forgive a person or situation in their life, personal or at work, that they find painful. They want to know what they are doing wrong because, no matter how willing they are to forgive the situation, nothing has changed. Forgiveness isn’t “working.” They expect either a person or situation to change, or to change themselves and to no longer care that they are being abused or manipulated. When I tell them that perhaps they should leave the painful circumstances in which they find themselves, they are surprised. They seem to expect me to tell them that they are blocked or somehow not truly forgiving the situation. Doesn’t the Course say that they should not run away but stay and forgive? Aren’t they the problem, aren’t th...

            Ah, words. Consciousness is just the play of symbols, and words are symbols of symbols. But, oh, what strong ideas and emotions words can evoke, and how hard those can be to overcome! For me, the word Christ evokes experiences of an Eternal Light in my mind, which springs from Reality (God) beyond consciousness.   The sign of Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. See it not outside yourself, but shining in the Heaven within, and accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come. (T-15.XI.2)   I want my clients and readers to know that the Light that was in Jesus’ mind is also in theirs.   Is he the Christ? O yes, along with you . (C-5.5)   But alas, in teaching I have been frustrated in efforts to separate the word Christ from the man Jesus for them. For example, when speaking with a client or writing an article, I may say, “Christ blah blah blah…” and later a client or reader will refer to what I sai...

          “I’m wondering what you would say about the topic of prayer…It would seem that it is always the ego that is praying for “more”, “better”, etc. But to Whom is the ego praying, is it heard, is it answered, or is it a waste of time since “all is written”? If all is in the mind, is it one part of a mind praying to another part of the same mind, or a dream praying to the mind that is dreaming it,  or… ?” —PW If prayer is supplication, it is always ego that prays, as only ego experiences lack. To what exactly it prays depends on the particular ego, I suppose! Perhaps ego prays to a god in its own image which it projects but that does not exist, which would be the dream praying to the dreamer as ego is both dreamer and dream. Or, in true despair, it may be a cry to God (Reality beyond consciousness). Since “the script is written”, praying could never be the cause of bringing something about. This is why it seems only some prayers are answered. When pr...

          Many years ago, I had a client who told me that she took LSD in the 1960s and had an experience of expanded consciousness and oceanic love. What she described sounded like some of my mystical experiences and I was dismayed. Although I had heard stories like this before, I did not stop to think about the implications of them until this woman shared her experience. I had thought my experiences were Spirit (Truth), but what she and others before her shared told me that those experiences were effects in the brain . At first, I experienced this as a loss. But I soon realized I lost nothing. I already knew from direct revelations of God (Reality) that nothing in consciousness is like the Glory of God. And I could still have those desirable experiences in consciousness, as they were obviously induced not only by brain altering occurrences like drugs, strokes, tumors, etc. but as I had experienced them, through an awareness of Spirit. They just were not Spirit...

             It makes far more sense to seek to live with Spirit as your Companion in ego-consciousness than to seek enlightenment, because enlightenment is rare, because it cannot be made to happen, and because it is not what ego wants anyway. Ego seeking enlightenment is like one spending their life studying and training for a position that they can only hope for since they cannot make it happen. Then, if the time comes for the position to be filled, they discover that it belongs to someone else forever and, worst of all, that they must now die for the other to fulfill it. So, all that time studying and practicing was not preparing for a better state, but for death. Ego imagines enlightenment is some sort of glorification of itself. But enlightenment is not a better ego experience. And Spirit is not ego transformed; Spirit is not ego’s True Self. Spirit is an entirely different experience of existence from ego. What you really want is what somet...