ACIM Mentor

            Since the shift in consciousness here, there has been a 180-degree turn in understanding what is unfolding in consciousness—what the experience of a person and a world is. It used to be seen as an aspirational journey, an attempt for an “I” (ego) to get somewhere or to attain something, either personally or spiritually. Now it is seen that what is appearing in consciousness is an expression of ideas that have already occurred. What look like personal journeys and attainments are how these ideas are expressed. There is no one here who needs to get anywhere, to make anything, or to attain anything. The idea that that was real is an illusion. What is an expression ? It is a process of revealing , representing or depicting ideas. A painting is an expression of ideas in the painter’s mind. A novel is an expression of ideas in a writer’s mind. A movie is an expression of ideas in the minds of writers, producers, directors, and actors. Ideas oc...

              Last week’s article had this paragraph:   “There is a difference between the illusions of ego and the illusion that is ego. If you become aware that ego is an illusion, you will become aware of ego’s illusions as well. But becoming aware of ego’s illusions does not lead to becoming aware that ego is an illusion. Ego can be taught to see its illusions. But ego cannot be taught to see that it is an illusion. That awareness comes only when truth (pure consciousness) rises to conscious awareness, which it does of itself. This is not something that ego can make happen. And the awareness does not come to ego. Ego only senses that there is something else in consciousness and claims it for itself, which is how it makes its religions and spiritualities.”   Let’s unpack this. What are the illusions of ego that ego can come to see? These illusions are what one faces throughout life to some degree. These are not just opinions and...

          When Liz here was first a student of A Course in Miracles in 1984, no one in the Course community was talking about awakening or enlightenment. If someone had come across Eastern nonduality teachings, they saw the similarity in that they, too, teach the apparent world is an illusion. But no one thought the Course was meant to lead one to enlightenment. Liz here very quickly had mystical experiences that showed the apparent world is not real and she glimpsed what enlightenment could be, but no one she knew seemed to have these experiences themselves. Because of these experiences, when she began to write in 2006, what she taught was different from the typical Course teacher. She read things into the Course that others did not seem to see. She saw that there were two ways to read the Course : A better way to be in the world (dream a better dream) and validation for perception that showed what the Course teaches is forgiveness, the awareness that not...

            L ast week the article here was about discovering that power is an illusion. Some have asked what is meant by power . Power refers to the force, the energy behind an experience, or how strong it seems to be. Specifically, the article was about the power of ego and personal experiences in ego, in fact, the whole world ego seems to make. If you’ve ever experienced pure consciousness (truth), then when ego returns it can feel quite powerful—powerful enough to override the experience of pure consciousness, which had been revealed to be truth. The power of ego seems to imply that the experience of truth, which you knew to be true when you experienced it, is not real—even though you know it is. You cannot do anything about this, ego is too strong, it just returns to take over your conscious awareness. For ego, this proves it is real. To ego, power = truth. (Yes, it’s a bully.) A common example with newer students of A Course in Miracles is ho...

             The article two weeks ago was about dealing with fear. An episode of over-the-top fear was passing here and there was a sense that this was more of ego’s conditioning falling away and truth would emerge further from behind it. And this is what happened. This is the pattern that has been observed here for the past few years. Before ego fell away ( The Break ), the pattern was truth would briefly rise to conscious awareness as an insight or an answer or a shift toward peace and this was followed by what Liz here called ego backlash . This would feel like an “ego attack”, meaning darkness, lack, guilt, and fear in their various forms would seem to take over Liz’s mind. Liz learned to deal with this by simply allowing it and letting it pass. Over time, as Liz’s awareness of truth grew, these episodes were shorter and less intense. But they were sure to follow any experience of truth, no matter how brief or mild. Ego seemed powerful, maybe n...

        “How can one differentiate between an egoic experience of what seems to be Truth or Love or Peace and an authentic awareness of Truth? All I can sense is that authentic Love feels so ‘other’, and cannot be described…but if something is ‘experienced’ at all, is this, by definition an egoic interpretation?” – MG   You may have heard that all experiences are illusions. This is ultimately true. The absolute—the absolute truth —is not an experience . There are no words for what it is. All experiences occur in and are registered by consciousness, which is ultimately an illusion, too. But consciousness is all we are dealing with here. And in terms of consciousness, there is pure consciousness, or the truth of consciousness, and there is ego, or illusion appearing in consciousness. So not all experiences are ego. Some are pure consciousness, or the truth of consciousness. What it seems you are trying to sort out here is ego’s versions of love and peace ...

            Last week’s article was about finding that heaven is not an extra-ordinary state but is the everyday ordinary consciousness you are used to. I get asked if now that I see this, do I experience heaven all the time? No, I do not, because ego is still falling away. But I sense heaven here, and have moments and episodes of it. In fact, lately I’ve been dealing with bouts of over-the-top fear when certain things “go wrong” or appear that they may. What changed after The Break, or shift in consciousness, was the covers were pulled from ego, from fear. What I once would’ve felt as a niggle of irritation or discomfort because of something practical I had to deal with I now know was the fear I feel fully now. Fear used to be (mostly) denied or masked or distracted from. I suspect some of Liz’s physical issues are due to years of the fullness of fear being repressed. Fear had to go somewhere, it had to be expressed in some way, and that ended up in the ...

               “Heaven is here. There is nowhere else. Heaven is now. There is no other time.” (M-24.6:4-7)   Lately, there have been articles written here that speak of the ordinariness of truth—pure consciousness—and how it is always here. You may hear or read this in other places, too. Certainly, the everpresence of truth was something that Liz here had often heard and came to experience. But applying the word ordinary to truth was something she came across only relatively recently. So, what was expected was that when ego fell away and truth was fully revealed, it would be remarkable. She expected that the veil of ego covered something different from her usual experience so when it was gone, something different would be exposed. This expectation was largely due to overblown mystical experiences, which Liz thought revealed what A Course in Miracles calls the real world and were indeed out of the ordinary and remarkable. But those tu...

Last week I wrote about truth, or pure consciousness , rising to conscious awareness. I mentioned how the Christian labels (God, Christ, Holy Spirit) used in A Course in Miracles , though never used here (this conscious awareness) in the traditional Christian way ( Christ never meant Jesus , for example) have fallen away as special words are found unnecessary for something so delightfully ordinary and simply present. There has been a long journey here with the word “consciousness”, accepted, rejected, and accepted again, this time because it has been found to be distinctly apt. The word consciousness in the context of spiritual experience and aspiration seemed to have developed in Eastern religious philosophy rather than in the West. While Liz here recognized the truth of nonduality teachings, she was never moved to pursue them. There was an attempt here sometimes to translate what was said about consciousness in those teachings into the Christian symbols of God, Christ, and Holy ...

             When the shift in consciousness (The Break) happened here in 2018, anything that could be called “I” or “me” (ego) fell away. The Holy Spirit as constant companion was gone as well, because there was no longer anything here to connect with the Holy Spirit. However, it was not totally lost. What once was called the Holy Spirit no longer felt beside but surrounding . It had become the context—the space, the field, the “world”—in which everything was occurring. This was one of many experiences at the time that was baffling, largely because it did not fit expectations. But experiences that I could not understand for a few years are now coming together. (The experience of that time can be found in a memoir ). The presence of ego in consciousness seems to block part of consciousness from itself, what we experience as conscious awareness —what is immediately in our awareness. This blocking seems to make an unconscious. So, truth , which is pur...

             Last week, I wrote that acceptance is a universally taught aspect of inner peace across psychology, religions, and spiritualities. You will often hear it as, “Accept what is .” But which “what is”? What is appearing before you and unfolding in your life? Or the what is that is truth , which is the space in which what appears appears and what unfolds unfolds? It depends, of course, on the context of what is being discussed and it can be useful to clarify with the speaker. Because while accepting truth leads to acceptance of what appears and unfolds, it does not work the other way around. No matter how much you accept what appears and unfolds, it will not lead you to an awareness of truth. It is still helpful, however. When you are aware of truth and you see that what is appearing is nothing more than an appearance—an illusion —it naturally follows that you accept it. There is no motivation to work to change an illusion. To say, “Well, ...

            When students read in A Course in Miracles that the entire experience of the person and its world is an illusion, it leads to two common questions: “How can I possibly see my reality as an illusion?” and “Am I to deal with the whole experience as an illusion or only deal with the illusions within the experience?” That the personal experience is an illusion is an awareness that may come to you through mystical experiences or a slow dawning, but it is not something that you can make occur, so there is no point in trying. Practically speaking, you can deal only with the illusions that occur within the experience.   And this is what a teaching like the Course is for. It is a “better way” to be in the personal experience. The person and its experiences have no meaning. Without ego, the person is just a human animal living out its life. The person would have thoughts and feelings and take actions and they would all just pass by if ego was n...

              When I write or talk about truth and how it is peace and “the good” as I did the past two weeks, readers and clients ask why they aren’t experiencing it, why they are having this experience of inevitable pain, lack, and loss? I have explained this often through the ontology that came to me long ago and I will use it here again and elaborate. The absolute (truth), being all, must contain the idea of its own opposite. But as the absolute is all, it cannot have an opposite. So, the opposite-of-the-absolute can only be an idea that is undone by the allness of the absolute as soon as it arises. However, within that idea there is time (the opposite of timelessness) and in time it seems as though the idea of the opposite-of-a-truth arose long ago and will be undone in some indefinite future. This is what is unfolding in consciousness. Pure consciousness before anything arises in it is the truth and ego (“I”, self, identity) and its world...

            Last week, I wrote that you should trust the still, the quiet, and the gentle over dramatic mystical experiences of love and joy. Dramatic mystical experiences do represent truth rising to conscious awareness, but they do not mean anything in themselves. I shared how for ego, though, the drama was what it looked for. In fact, Liz here missed how significant it was when The Enlightened Mind showed up to stay because it didn’t come with any drama at all. It was just quietly and matter-of-factly here. Oh, she knew it was important, but not how important. It was only when reading back in her journal while writing her memoir that she saw that it had been life changing. When you hear or read teachers who have had nonduality experiences (the onlyness of truth) say of truth “it’s so simple” and “it’s right here and always has been”—yes! We miss it because we’re looking for something dramatically different. But the different is actually ego. It is ...