ACIM Mentor

My last blog about extending God’s Love has brought up some questions about the mind and healing the mind. Everything is mind. In the world, it seems as though you are a body with a mind of your own. The mind is supposed to exist in the brain. All of this diminishes the importance of the mind because the ego does not want you to know that everything is mind. If you accept this then you can change your mind about the ego. So, the world teaches that your mind is housed in a brain in a body in a world. But actually, the brain, the body and the world all exist in your mind. The separation is not just your belief that your mind is separate from God’s Mind, but also that you are separate from the world and everything the body sees. The first step in healing is accepting that God is within your mind. But that’s only a beginning to undoing the separation. You also have to take back the part of your mind that you have projected onto the world. You cannot return to the Oneness of God’s Mind with...

What does A Course in Miracles mean by “extending”? Notice that this word is contrasted to “projecting”. It is the Law of Mind that mind always sees itself. The ego uses projection to deny this by making it seem as though what you are thinking is caused by something outside of you. For example, “Joe makes me angry” projects blame for the fearful thoughts you are having onto Joe. “Extending” is the true way the Law of Mind works. Your thoughts do not leave your mind. Think of extending your hand for someone to shake. Your arm does not leave your body and by extending your arm you are stretching yourself outward. When you extend God’s Love, you first feel it within, and then you stretch it out -- extend it -- in your awareness by looking at It instead of at the ego’s projections on the world. God extends only God and in God you only extend God. This is another way of saying “God is One.” God’s Extension (you) is God’s “Creation” and your Extension of God is your “Creation”. Again, God i...

One of the areas where students of A Course in Miracles get particularly strapped up is with the Course’s references to relationships. Jesus was speaking to all of us through Helen, but He was also speaking quite specifically to Helen and Bill. For Helen, all those references to “brother” meant Bill specifically and the lessons must be generalized for the rest of us. Helen and Bill were in the unique position of being at the exact same place spiritually and they were both willing to consciously recognize this and to learn from it. These holy relationships are rare, as the Course tells us (M-3.5) and most students do not seem to have the opportunity to experience the holy relationship the way Helen and Bill did. But even if you do have the opportunity to experience the holy relationship with someone who is spiritually ready to experience it when you are, it takes great, conscious willingness to go ride out the threatened ego’s terror. One or both of you may break it off because of th...

My last blog ( You Don’t Need to Save the World ) seems to have confused some students. What am I doing as a spiritual teacher if my goal is not to save the world? Didn’t this blog contradict my own life? Haven’t I written blogs that talk about the part we all play in the Great Awakening? First of all, I don’t look at the world as needing to be fixed or saved. I look at it as – well, nothing. The world is a problem for me when I get caught up in it or get attached to it. Then the problem is not in the world, but in me. My goal is to let go of the world (forgive). I also do not look at students as needing to be fixed or saved. I offer you my experience and you can take it or leave it. That’s not really any of my business. The students I mentor are in charge of our relationship. They can use what I have to offer any way they want to. It’s not about me. It’s not personal. I’m not interested in being some great guru with all the answers. The Answer is within you and if reading what I write...

Many students come to A Course in Miracles from social or religious traditions that have taught them that they are supposed to make a difference in the world, make it a better place, save the world one person at a time. Often they don’t let go of their attachment to the idea of saving the world and they see the Course as a means to attaining their goal. Some even believe that the goal of the Course is to bring heaven to earth, to return us to “Eden”. But anything to do with the world is about separation from God. Let’s take a thorough look at the idea of a perfect world. First of all, what would the perfect world be? Would we all be Democrats or Republican, Greens, or non-partisan? Christians, Muslims, Buddhists? Would monogamy prevail or would there be a return to universal polygamy? What kind of family would be the perfect family? It’s clear to see that we would not be able to agree on what a perfect world would be. But let’s put aside our obvious differences and get idealistic he...

The human race is not going to change because you’ve embarked on a spiritual path. Nor is your perception of the human race going to change. What changes is your attachment to the human race and to the world. And then your perceptions change. Maybe. Here is a totally made up scenario, but it’s very typical of what I often hear from students: Mary is married to George and they have three children. George has always been pretty much about George. When he’s not working, he’s watching TV or playing computer games or hanging out with his friends. George has no real interest in his home and only nominal interest in his children. He’s particularly interested in his children when they share an interest with him, like a computer game or a TV show. Mary lived with George and knew what he was like before they had children, but she thought that having children would change him. It has not. Mary has a different set of values. Though she works too, she puts her marriage and her children and the care...

In the study group I led a few years ago I mentioned how for many years I used A Course in Miracles to abuse myself even though I knew its message was wholly loving. I was reading it through the lens of guilt that I brought with me as a new student. One woman in particular could not understand what I was saying. I don’t know if this is because she didn’t do this at all or if she did it so thoroughly she didn’t want to hear what I was saying! But I come across this with students all the time. Just as the Holy Spirit uses what you have made to teach you to awaken, the ego uses the Course to teach you that you are guilty. Here are some common examples of the ego using the ideas in the Course to attack: You are wrong to enjoy anything with the body. You should not enjoy sex or eating or a massage or working out, etc. You are wrong to be concerned with the health and well-being of your body. You are wrong to use outside healers or remedies to heal the body. You are a failure if you do no...

Many students become interested in A Course in Miracles because they are experiencing a physical illness or pain and they want relief. The Course teaches us that the body exists only in the mind and that therefore all physical symptoms arise in the mind. This is a fact, not an accusation; it is not meant to make you feel guilty, but to remind you that the source of relief from physical symptoms is within you. If you are ill or in pain, I have created at my website a questionnaire to help you look deeper into your illness or injury: http://www.acimmentor.com/areyousickorinpain.html Remember that it is always only your mind that needs healing. For a while, accepting healing in your mind may be more frightening to you than the illness or pain itself. If so, it is always okay to go to outside agents (doctors, healers, medicine, etc) to get relief of physical symptoms. There is no reason to suffer. Remember that miracles always come to us in the form that we can accept at the moment, so b...

This is the last ACIM Mentor Blog of 2007 as I will be on vacation December 22-30. In the new year the ACIM Mentor blog will become a weekly blog. Happy Holidays! ***** Did the miracles Jesus performed that are reported in the Bible really happen or are they metaphors? Did Jesus really heal the sick, make the blind see again, walk on water, still a storm, turn loaves of bread into fish, and turn water into wine? Or are these metaphors for the healing that occurs in the mind when you accept Christ Consciousness – the awareness that you are One with God? The answer is: It doesn’t matter. Let’s talk about calming a storm. What is the difference between Jesus saying, “Peace be still” and a storm calming or a person accepting their Christ Identity as Truth and being calm no matter the storms churning around them? There is no difference. It is the acceptance of peace in either case that is the miracle. Miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that matters is their Source, which is far...

There’s a saying in the world that we love others not for who they are but for who we are when we are with them. When I was young I got a glimpse of this when I noticed that when someone left my life that, yes, I missed them and I missed interacting with them, but what really cut deep was the loss of the part of me that was expressed when I was with them. What I was beginning to learn was that there are no “others”, that we are really always encountering ourselves. Would you recognize a holy encounter if you are merely perceiving it as a meeting with your own past? For you would be meeting no one, and the sharing of salvation, which makes the encounter holy, would be excluded from your sight. The Holy Spirit teaches that you always meet yourself, and the encounter is holy because you are. The ego teaches that you always encounter your past, and because your dreams were not holy, the future cannot be, and the present is without meaning. (T-13.IV.6) Do you know anyone who is always fal...

For the past couple of years I have been building my mentoring practice while continuing with the house cleaning business I’ve had since 1985. My plan has been to taper off house cleaning as my mentoring practice grew and for a while now I have been writing and mentoring Mondays and Tuesdays and cleaning houses Wednesdays thru Fridays. At some point it became very difficult to switch gears in the middle of the week. I felt completely done with house cleaning. It was as though on Wednesdays I was stepping into the past. This was not like burn-out, which I had experienced often before. I wasn’t burnt out; I was done . One Wednesday this past summer as I was heading out to my car in the morning I casually wondered why I was still cleaning houses. Unexpectedly, I got an answer from the still, quiet Voice deep within: “Because you are too afraid not to.” This answer blew me away. I asked the question casually and I wasn’t expecting an answer! What I was being told was that I was the one hol...

I have said you have but two emotions, love and fear. One is changeless but continually exchanged, being offered by the eternal to the eternal. In this exchange it is extended, for it increases as it is given. The other has many forms, for the content of individual illusions differs greatly. Yet they have one thing in common; they are all insane. (T-13.V.1) A Course in Miracles tells us that there are two emotions: Love and fear. Love is the emotion of God; fear is the emotion of ego. Love can also be called joy and peace because love, peace and joy are always experienced together. The experience of love, peace and joy – God -- is boundless. Fear is any experience other than God. Any experience other than God is an experience of lack, which is naturally a fearful state. The obvious manifestations of fear are anxiety, worry, tension, anger and irritation. The not so obvious ways in which fear is manifested are in emotions that seem to mimic love, peace and joy. Lets look at how they d...

After 22 years of house cleaning I’m about to put that business aside to focus fully on writing and mentoring students of A Course in Miracles. I got the signal from the Holy Spirit a few weeks ago to close out my house cleaning business at the end of the year. It took me a couple of weeks to let this sink in and just when I was okay with this the Holy Spirit came up with a project for me that is going to take up a lot of my time next year. I wasn’t expecting this project, but there it was. Basically, the project is a study aid to help clarify the Text for students. The work will be pretty involved. I began it and found I had a lot of resistance to it, so I backed off. This is very different from the way I used to handle ego resistance. I used to tackle it head on, analyze it, try to resolve it and struggle, struggle, struggle. But looking back over 20+ years of spiritual awakening it’s pretty clear that all the misery I experienced was of my own making, and it was just this strugglin...

Sometimes I’ll see literature from one religious institution or another and it will say that it has the answers to life’s big questions. One of those questions, of course, is “What happens when I die?” Often these big life questions are not so easily answered for A Course in Miracles students! The question of what happens to “you” when “you die” is really one of those questions the ego asks to make a statement, not to seek an answer. What the ego is saying is: You are a body . It does not raise that concept to question! And that’s the concept that has to be challenged by you for you to remember you are One with God. Reality is ultimately known without a form, unpictured and unseen. (T-27.III.5) God is formless Being; Eternal and Infinite Life. You are One with God. All form, then, is the negation of God. Identifying with the ego/body is as close to death as you can get because form seems to make God – Life -- unreal. You cannot be both formless and form. The curious belief that there...

“I do therefore I am”, says the ego. When you are ego-identified you are defined by what you do . When you follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance you say, “God is, therefore I AM.” What you do is merely an expression of your relationship with the Holy Spirit and the doing is itself unimportant. The Holy Spirit is not concerned with what you do, but it is natural that your connection with the Holy Spirit will be expressed in the world in some form. As always, your connection to the Holy Spirit is what is important, not the form of the expression of this connection. The ego always emphasizes form; the Holy Spirit content. For example, let’s say you got a job as a construction worker. Depending on its mood or the overall story it has made for you, the ego will use this as a source of pride or shame. It may say, “You are doing valuable work building this city. You are an important contributor to society” or “You are in a lowly, blue collar job. People of real value work in an office”. However, ...

Recently I had a birthday. The way I like to spend my birthday is as a usual day followed by a quiet dinner out at a restaurant of my choice with my partner, Courtney. My family drops off my presents during the day if they have not already given them to me before. On or before my birthday Courtney and I go out and get my present from her, which is usually something I have chosen. That’s it. This year we have a roommate. One of Dean’s favorite forms of entertainment is to go out to dinner and he especially likes to gather up a group to go with him. His funds have been low for a while, and will be for a while more, so for now he does not get to indulge his passion for eating out. So I invited him to join Courtney and I. The week before my birthday Dean started suggesting people to invite along, starting with his best friend, Jack, and moving on to my family. I am not social at all; I am a loner who, if there have to be people, prefer them one or two at a time. Going out in groups is not...

One of the hardest concepts to grasp in A Course in Miracles is what it means by “world”. When we think of the world we think of bodies and their physical environment. When we are ego-identified, it is “my” body and the world is nature, buildings and other physical structures and other bodies. Yet when the Course mentions the “real world” it becomes clear it is not talking about the physical world at all. Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself: "The real world is not like this. It has no buildings and there are no streets where people walk alone and separate. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." The world you see must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. You cannot see both worlds , for each of the...

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-135.13) There is a statement I make when I talk about my relationship to God that when I picked up A Course in Miracles and began reading it that I knew it was the whole reason I came into the world. That and the quote above are examples of figurative language that sometimes confuse students. If God didn’t make the world and individuality isn’t real, how could I feel I had a reason to be here? How could our lives be planned out ahead of time? The idea of a Part of God being not-God was over the instant it was thought. We look at the world as a story unfolding in time, but what is really happening is that instant playing over and over and over again. Each instant you have the choice between separation and Oneness. This is what the Holy Spirit knows. What is planned by the Holy Spirit is to use every instant to tea...

Every now and then a student asks me why they should follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance if the world isn’t real and if it has nothing to do with God. What difference does it make how you live in the world, then? All that you made can serve salvation easily and well. The Son of God can make no choice the Holy Spirit cannot employ on his behalf, and not against himself. (T-25.VI.7) The world is your perception that you are separate from God. Calling on the Holy Spirit to guide you in it corrects this misperception. You are no longer separate from God when you are following the Holy Spirit. What you ask the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Sprit answers is not important. What is important is that you asked and that you accepted an answer . When you follow the Holy Spirit the purpose of every circumstance becomes a means to be with the Holy Spirit. The world that was made to make separation from God real to you becomes a means of remembering you are One with God. It doesn’t matter to God ho...

While meditating a couple of weeks ago I slipped over to the other side for a moment and knew God as Reality and I had this insight: All of this – the world, bodies, egos, etc. – is unnecessary . What I saw was how all this was an attempt to make another reality – to make another God. God already is and there is no need to make anything. All making is what gets in the way of knowing God is . The fact that truth and illusion cannot be reconciled, no matter how you try, what means you use and where you see the problem, must be accepted if you would be saved. Until you have accepted this, you will attempt an endless list of goals you cannot reach; a senseless series of expenditures of time and effort, hopefulness and doubt, each one as futile as the one before, and failing as the next one surely will. (W-96.2) When I experience God, it is an experience completely apart from the world. There is no relationship whatsoever between God and the world. This is liberation! But for years I refu...