ACIM Mentor

             Last week I wrote about how a spiritual ego is the inevitable result of Spirit rising to conscious awareness. I want to make a distinction between a spiritual, spiritualized, or spirit-centered ego, and a “holy ego.” Spirit is in every consciousness. And in many, as a manifestation of the Atonement, or undoing of the idea of not-God, Spirit rises toward conscious awareness, or the level of consciousness of which one is immediately aware. For most among the many, the shifts are subtle and unfold over a lifetime, perhaps coming about through reading a spiritual teaching or hearing someone speak. For a few among the many, Spirit does not just rise toward but rises temporarily to conscious awareness in a dramatic experience, like a mystical experience or near-death experience. This dawning of Truth on one’s consciousness leads to a “honeymoon” period of months to years where Spirit is in or very near conscious awareness but eventually rece...

             Sometimes I hear from clients or readers that they do not want a “spiritual ego.” Well, I’m sorry, but that is inevitable as Spirit rises toward conscious awareness while ego is still the center of your consciousness. It is, in fact, what teachings like A Course in Miracles are for. Any sense of meaning, purpose, significance, value, learning, journey, or mission about the person’s life and world is ego. And as the Course says, Spirit will not take these away from you, but transform them. What happens after an experience when Truth dawns on your mind spontaneously, through a near death experience, or through a teaching is a shift in what you see the personal experience—consciousness—is for. It now has a spiritual purpose, which will vary from person to person. It may be about morality, loving each other, forgiving, learning about the Truth within you, or some combination of these. It may evolve over time.   Ego does not fall away ...

            As the shift in consciousness approached here, two related experiences kept occurring. One was the awareness that it did not matter at all what this person was experiencing. A while before, I had become aware that for much of Liz’s spiritual life I’d been merely managing moods. When Liz was in a good mood, I judged I was spiritually centered. When Liz was in a bad mood, I thought I was spiritually off and had something to look at. But even after I’d sorted that out, I was still concerned with Liz’s experience until I came to realize that what Liz was experiencing had nothing to do with reality! So how could it matter? Related to this was that whenever something occurred that led to a “What am I?” kind of experience it would come to me that the more appropriate question was, “What is real?” Ego was still here and interpreted this to mean that only what is real could be called the true “I”. But now I understand that Spirit was exposing the ident...

            Questions about a direct occurrence of God (Reality beyond consciousness) that I’ve described have been coming up with clients and readers lately, so I will write about it again here. The first direct occurrence of God here was when I was first a student of A Course in Miracles forty years ago. (It’s possible I had one as a child—something happened that was profound and shocking and to which ego had a powerful opposing reaction.)   It was shattering and it took about a week for this mind to go back together. And it was months before I could even acknowledge it happened. My last was in 2007. Each time one occurred, however, I was better able to tolerate it. In the past, I have mistakenly called a direct occurrence of God a revelation thinking this was the word the Course used to describe it, but it turns out it defines a revelation as a direct communication with God, which means something that happens in consciousness. I don’t know ...