ACIM Mentor

A student of A Course in Miracles has asked me to address in a blog my being in a relationship with someone who is not a student. She points out that in my recent blog on the special relationship I refer to my life-partner as a “partner in every way” when she is not a student of the Course . She finds it “less than ideal” that she cannot share the Course with her husband and finds it hard to make decisions with him because they have different perspectives. My primary relationship is with God. Courtney accepts this and she has her own path to God (twelve-step). I never felt she needed to share mine. I really don’t think the Course would work for her even though she sees and accepts that it works for me. I’ve learned to share the Course with her not by directly talking about it, but by seeing Christ in her instead of what makes us different. I share the Course with her by knowing that she is Part of God while she is not remembering it for herself. I share the Course with her throug...

The Holy Spirit does not speak first, but He always answers . Everyone has called upon Him for help at one time or another and in one way or another, and has been answered. Since the Holy Spirit answers truly He answers for all time, which means that everyone has the answer now . (T-6.IV.3) Often students tell me they are not feeling God’s Presence in their life. Perhaps they think they are not because they have an expectation of the experience that is not being met by the actual experience. While a revelation of God is profound, experiencing God in your life in the world – what is called the Holy Spirit – is not. It is far more subtle and can be an ordinary, everyday experience. At first it is often only recognized in retrospect. But with conscious effort you soon begin to feel the Presence around you all the time. You are Part of God so of course you experience God. It is just that this experience is jumbled up with all your ego experiences and it takes a while to sort out what is...

I have said repeatedly that the Holy Spirit would not deprive you of your special relationships, but would transform them. And all that is meant by that is that He will restore to them the function given them by God. (T-17.IV.2) Until I experienced the holy relationship, my sole goal in life was to find Ms. Right and to live happily ever after with her. This special relationship was supposed to be my salvation, though I would not have put it that way. But I did expect it to fulfill me, make me happy and bring me peace – salvation by other names. I’ve written before about my experience with the holy relationship soon after becoming a student of A Course in Miracles when I was 21 years old ( http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2006/02/holy-relationship.html ). The holy relationship was the experience that, like the revelations I wrote about last time, taught me that everything the Course was saying about Oneness was true. Through revelations I experienced Oneness with God; through the mira...

God does not need revelation returned to Him, which would clearly be impossible, but He does want it brought to others. This cannot be done with the actual revelation; its content cannot be expressed, because it is intensely personal to the mind that receives it. It can, however, be returned by that mind to other minds, through the attitudes the knowledge from the revelation brings. (T-4.VII.7) Students ask me how I can be sure about what I teach, how I can speak with such confidence. It is because I have experienced the Oneness of God through revelations. What A Course in Miracles teaches is not theory for me; it is fact. Grasping theology is not transformative but the experience of Truth is. A revelation of God cannot be adequately described. It is simply unlike anything in this world, but far more familiar. The deepest peace and greatest joy experienced in this world, even spiritually, do not compare. Not just because they are lesser than the experience of God; but because they ar...

Most people who become students of A Course in Miracles do not come to it already conceiving of God as the Only Being of Which they are a Part. God is almost always an authority figure of some kind, a parental figure or a supreme being, one which is over you, not one which encompasses you. Few who believe in a tyrannical god would accept the Course at all. So most who become students believe in a God who is probably a tough-love moral authority, a benevolent judge who wants you to measure up to Him/Her/It and is willing to help you do so. And of course, this god made the world and our bodies/egos, as well as our individual spirits/souls. So there is a huge leap to be made in your concept of God as you study and practice the Course. God did not make the world or bodies/egos, not even individual spirits. There is only One Spirit, of Which we are all a Part, and that One Spirit is God. It takes time to accept this intellectually, and even more time to accept this emotionally. After you...

I said before that what you project or extend is up to you, but you must do one or the other, for that is a law of mind, and you must look in before you look out. As you look in, you choose the guide for seeing. And then you look out and behold his witnesses. (T-12.VII.7) It is the law of mind that it always looks within first and then looks outward at a reflection of itself. This is what A Course in Miracles calls “extension” and it is the way that Spirit thinks naturally. Spirit looks within and sees Love and so it sees (extends) Love everywhere. The ego cannot escape this law so it uses denial as a way of dealing with it. It is essential for the ego’s survival that you believe that you are guilty for separating from God. If you looked within and found the guilt there you would seek for a way to undo it. So it “projects” the guilt away from you onto the world or others. This keeps guilt in your mind because projection does not actually get rid of guilt, it only hides it from your a...

Students ask me if they can be in the world without an ego. Of course the ego tells them that they will not exist without it, so you can see where the question is really coming from. And certainly we all make egos not just for ourselves but also for everyone else. If someone is coming from ego they will see ego whether it is there or not. Ego is your identity in separation from God, Who is your True Identity. But a distinct body and a distinct personality with all of its own opinions and preferences is only an obstacle to your awareness that you are Part of God when you think it is you and you feel you have to protect it. When you have to be right and have things your own way; when you are offended or threatened; when you make elaborate plans for your body and for fulfilling your ego; when you are concerned with the past and/or with the future – these are when a body/ego is an obstacle. A Course in Miracles teaches us to give to the Holy Spirit what we have made for separation so It c...

It is impossible to remember God in secret and alone. For remembering Him means you are not alone, and are willing to remember it. (T-14.X.10) If we are One with God how can we talk about “not being alone” as though there is God and us? We think of being alone – and loneliness as well – as being without another body nearby. Yet we’ve all experienced being lonely in a crowd. Aloneness and loneliness are really experiences of feeling unwhole. What we are experiencing in loneliness is the lack of the part of our self that we are denying. What the quote above means is that you cannot remember God in the isolation of your ego. To feel whole is to remember you are Part of God. God has not many Sons, but only One. (T-29.VIII.9) You feel lonely in a crowd when you are in ego looking out at other egos -- separation. You feel empty and incomplete. Loneliness is not healed by the presence of other bodies but by the recognition that there is only God and that God is in everyone and everything you...

In 2001 my brother-in-law died after a sudden, brief illness. He was only in his late forties. In 2003 my mother died suddenly. In the winter of 2005 my life-partner and I had to put down a beloved dog and my father and sister were diagnosed with cancer. My sister had surgery and recovered; in the spring my father passed away. That autumn my life-partner’s mother died. Last year my life-partner’s fibromyalgia became disabling and she has gone on disability. A few weeks ago my parents’ house finally sold after being on the market for a year and a half and the loss of this tangible reminder of them has hit me and some of my siblings like a ton of bricks. It is as though they just died. Yet finally this last loss seems to free me to finish my active grieving and move on. There was a time when a series of years like these would have left me devastated, anxious, depressed and self-pitying. I probably would have viewed the world as a dark, frightening place. I may have felt like a victim of...

Students will report to me that they feel guilty and like they are failing because they have lost their temper, they have been in a bad mood, they became inflated over a compliment or deflated over a setback. So what? The goal is not to be a perfect person or to live a perfect life. The goal of spiritual awakening is to be happy and whole again. All these mood shifts indicate is that you are listening to ego and believing what it says. Feeling guilty or like a failure over these mood shifts indicates you are still listening to the ego. The Holy Spirit never inspires guilt, knowing it is never justified. The Holy Spirit also knows you cannot fail because you are Part of God and this has not changed. You have to be as willing to overlook your own ego – forgive – as you are willing to overlook the ego in others. They are the same thing. Ego is ego not matter where you see it. You want peace and this may be why you are bothered by these mood swings. But you don’t overcome the ego by trying...

You cannot know that your ego and the world are unreal until you experience Reality. A direct revelation of God, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the holy instant and the holy relationship are the experiences that lead you to this awareness. You must experience your Real Self and you must experience Oneness to know that what you have been experiencing is not true. Many students reach a point where they try to accept the intellectual idea that the world is not real without having experienced Reality. They end up deeply conflicted because they still value the world. Sometimes they use this idea as a form of denial so as not to deal with painful issues in their life. They will say things like, “I shouldn’t feel this grief/depression/anger because it’s over something that isn’t real, right?” or “I shouldn’t want a special relationship/money/material objects/recognition because they aren’t real, right?” But you wouldn’t feel these emotions or desires except that they are for things that hav...

Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust implicitly your willingness, whatever else may enter. (T-18.IV.2) In one of my many read-throughs of A Course in Miracles in my first years as a student the line above came to my notice and boy was I upset. Certainly it meant to say “trust your good intentions” – that “not” must be a mistake. But of course the next two lines clearly indicate that the “not” was meant to be there. I wanted peace soooo badly and I had oodles of good intentions. But I didn't have peace and it was clear that wanting and intending weren't enough. What is “willingness”, how is it different from “intending”? When you are willing you are open to receiving what you want now . It is demonstrated by taking some action. Intending implies that at some future time you will accept what you want. Intending is passive. The difference between intending and willing is true for both worldly desires and the desire for inner peace. Think of all the thin...

There are certain things in the world that practically speaking we need or want. Some of them can become idols, however. Money, relationships, material objects, social or business positions, etc. So how do you know when you have turned something into an idol? The most obvious answer is that when you are unwilling to turn something over to the Holy Spirit, it is an idol for you. It has become an end in itself rather than a means of supplying you or supporting you or putting you in a certain place at a certain time so you can fulfill your role as a teacher of God. When something is an end for you rather than a means, you think you need it for your salvation. For example, an ambitious person may turn over everything in their life to the Holy Spirit – except their career goals. They still think they need to attain a certain position to be successful (fulfilled), to have recognition (love), or to make a lot of money (security). In this circumstance, their career is a replacement for God – i...

The role assigned to your own mind in this plan, then, is simply to determine what, other than itself, must change if you are to be saved. According to this insane plan, any perceived source of salvation is acceptable provided that it will not work. This ensures that the fruitless search will continue, for the illusion persists that, although this hope has always failed, there is still grounds for hope in other places and in other things. Another person will yet serve better; another situation will yet offer success. Such is the ego's plan for your salvation. Surely you can see how it is in strict accord with the ego's basic doctrine, "Seek but do not find." For what could more surely guarantee that you will not find salvation than to channelize all your efforts in searching for it where it is not? (W-71.3-4) When I was young I enjoyed seeking and learning. I would haunt new-age bookstores seeking for The Answer – despite being a student of the Course . In time I fou...

To judge means to decide for yourself what something means. To not judge, then, is to keep an open mind, to not decide what any situation means. For example, let’s say you are on your way to work and your car breaks down. Most of us decide in such a situation that it is a “bad” thing. You are going to be late for work; you are probably going to be behind in your work and may have to work late; you are going to have to go through the hassle (and expense, if you don’t have a roadside assistance program) of being towed and finding a way to get to work; and of course you are going to have to pay for repairs. But what if you left your mind open and didn’t decide for yourself what these things meant? What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? (W-135.18) Some students are able to accept right off that everything that happens to them is “good”. For me, if I introduce...

In the ultimate sense, reincarnation is impossible. There is no past or future, and the idea of birth into a body has no meaning either once or many times. Reincarnation cannot, then, be true in any real sense. Our only question should be, "Is the concept helpful?" And that depends, of course, on what it is used for. If it is used to strengthen the recognition of the eternal nature of life, it is helpful indeed. Is any other question about it really useful in lighting up the way? Like many other beliefs, it can be bitterly misused. At least, such misuse offers preoccupation and perhaps pride in the past. At worst, it induces inertia in the present. In between, many kinds of folly are possible. (M-24.1) I always find it funny to read what A Course in Miracles has to say about reincarnation (Manual for Teachers, #24). It says that reincarnation is not real, yet it says you don’t have to give up your belief in it. It says that the only value in the belief in reincarnation is th...

In the Manual for Teachers there is the question, “How Many Teacher’s of God Are Needed to Save the World?” The answer is: The answer to this question is–one. One wholly perfect teacher, whose learning is complete, suffices. This one, sanctified and redeemed, becomes the Self Who is the Son of God. He who was always wholly spirit now no longer sees himself as a body, or even as in a body. Therefore he is limitless. And being limitless, his thoughts are joined with God's forever and ever. His perception of himself is based upon God's Judgment, not his own. Thus does he share God's Will, and bring His Thoughts to still deluded minds. He is forever one, because he is as God created him. He has accepted Christ, and he is saved. (M-12.1) Some students seem to think this refers to Jesus and that he has already done this. Others think there is someone yet to come who will do this. But there is only One Son, one Christ one Spirit; and It is the same in Jesus and in you and in ever...

The other day I was reading a passage in the Course about living in the present and recalled how for many years it was hard for me to read many of the ideas in the Course . I thought it was impossible to accept them and to live by them. It seemed hard, hard, hard. Now my life gets easier and simpler every day. My “work” is communing with God. I have no problems because I always have the Solution with me. I have a Guide Who leads me through the day. I don’t have to worry about anything because I make no decisions by myself. So what changed? Over the years I let go of more and more. I let go of values I thought were important; the need to have things my way; the need to be right; “laws” that were supposed to rule the way the world works; people and money and my business and my “life”. I opened my mind. I cultivated a relationship with the Holy Spirit, Who is now my constant Companion. I put my relationship to God front and center in my life. Each time I let go and let the Holy Spirit in...

God's teachers appear to be many, for that is what is the world's need. Yet being joined in one purpose, and one they share with God, how could they be separate from each other? What does it matter if they then appear in many forms? Their minds are one; their joining is complete. And God works through them now as one, for that is what they are. (M-12.2) Everyone has a role to fill in the Great Awakening. The Course is a specific path for those who are to consciously be teachers of God. Our purpose is the same, but what our role looks like is different for each of us. Some students fear they have to become teachers or mentors or write books or go on speaking tours. Not at all. Generally, the Holy Spirit uses what already comes naturally to you or what interests you. Sometimes you may be given special gifts or be guided to develop in certain ways. In any case, you probably already sense what your role is. It might even be unfolding in your life right now. Whatever it is, it is ...

Heaven is not a place nor a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within. (T-18.VI.1) The other day I was speaking with a relative and she mentioned that she believed that as long as you lived a good life and were a good person you would get into Heaven. She didn’t ask me if I agreed and I didn’t say anything about my experiences of Oneness. In fact, I didn’t think about any of this until I recalled the conversation later. What would she have thought, I wondered, if I had told her that Heaven can be experienced here and now? What if I had said that it doesn’t matter who you are or how you live your life, that Heaven isn’t a reward from God but a choice that you make? Heaven is here. There is nowhere else. Heaven is now. There is no other time. No teaching that does not lead to this is of concern to God's teachers. (M-24.6) When I led a study group the idea that you don’...