ACIM Mentor

From The ACIM Mentor Articles, Septem ber 11, 2007: http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2007/09/when-other-believe-differently.html >>>>> Learn about the books The ACIM Mentor Articles, The Plain Language A Course in Miracles, and  4 Habits for Inner Peace  at www.acimmentor.com. If you have a question that you want answered in the ACIM Mentor Newsletter/Blog send it to Liz@acimmentor.com and indicate that you want it answered here.

From The ACIM Mentor Articles,  August, 2007: http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2007/08/there-is-only-one-ego-to-forgive.html >>>>>> Learn about the books The ACIM Mentor Articles, The Plain Language A Course in Miracles, and 4 Habits for Inner Peace  at www.acimmentor.com. If you have a question that you want answered in the ACIM Mentor Newlsetter/Blog send it to Liz @acimmentor.com and indicate that you want it answered here.

I just came across this passage… 26. VI.1.  “Anything in this world that you believe is good and valuable and worth striving for can hurt you, and will do so”…I did some research in blogs and explanations and found that the emphasis is on the "striving."  What is your take and valuable insight on this passage? – KM I agree with the emphasis on the word “striving”. It is your belief in yourself as a personal self (ego) that hurts you. And striving for anything in the world is an expression of the belief that you have to make and maintain a personal identity to exist. Follow-up question: So stop trying to prove myself? The phrase that you quoted from A Course in Miracles is stating a fact, not suggesting a course of action. The need to prove yourself will fall away naturally as your identification with a personal self falls away. This is not something that you can force. You can’t pretend to not identify with a personal self when you do. That leads to repressing,...

From August 4, 2007, an explanation of "I need do nothing" in context: http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2007/08/i-need-do-nothing-and-holy-instant.html >>>>> Learn about the books The ACIM Mentor Articles, The Plain Language A Course in Miracles  and  4 Habits for Inner Peace  at www.acimmentor.com. If you have a question that you want answered in the ACIM Mentor Newsletter/Blog send it to Liz@acimmentor.com and indicate that you want it answered here.

This week we revisit an article from The ACIM Mentor Articles (July 31, 2007) that discusses the distinction between denial, being a Pollyanna, and True Perception: http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2007/07/pollyanna-and-true-perception.html >>>> Learn about the books The ACIM Mentor Articles, The Plain Language A Course in Miracles, and 4 Habits for Inner Peace  at www.acimmentor.com. If you have a question that you want answered in the ACIM Mentor Newsletter/Blog send it to Liz@acimmentor.com and indicate that you want it answered here.

Can you discuss in one of your articles co-dependency in relationships? And also, the basis for intimacy from a spiritual perspective. -LB             “Co-dependency” is a term that describes a lack of healthy boundaries in a relationship. It is the personal thought system’s (ego’s) dysfunctional response to your longing for the Unity (Wholeness) that you experience in Truth (God). It begins by you seeing you and another as incomplete. So you blur the line between where your personal self ends and another’s personal self begins to “join” and try to be whole. In practice this means you take responsibility for the thoughts, feelings, situation, and/or actions of another. Or you ask another to take responsibility for your thoughts, feelings, situation, and/or actions. This is unhealthy because it means you enable another to remain immature, dysfunctional, or in an active disease, like addiction or mental illness. Or someone else...

As a student of and mentor for other students of A Course in Miracles I have both experienced and seen how the ego’s (personal thought system’s) inherent guilt and fear distort its teaching. Some of the ego’s greatest distortions are around the Course’s teachings on metaphysics, or the relationship between mind and the universe of form. Guilt is provoked in particular around its discussion of the body and the manifestation of disorders (illness, injury, misalignments, etc.) in the body. What is stated in the Course as fact is viewed through the ego as condemnation or admonition.            Like most students of the Course I used to feel guilty when I got sick. I felt that I was failing. But this did not stop me from doing what I needed to do to take care of the body and relieve myself of pain or discomfort. So I have been shocked to learn that many students of the Course actually deny themselves relief from suffering, sometimes even refusing to seek...

…Considering the topic of the latest newsletter (revisited on May 4, 2012, http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2007/06/one-limit-to-holy-spirits-guidance.html ) about specific questions being answered by Holy Spirit, and that those 'answers' aren't for anyone else, it's more about the fact that communion with HS is happening for that person regardless of answers:  What makes the Course in Miracles text any different? Were they answers to Helen's request for better ways to relate that were relevant to her and not necessarily to anyone else? Why are people gathering and sometimes almost forming a religion over answers that came just for Helen? Shouldn't we just be celebrating that she had a huge communication with Holy Spirit rather than trying to live by answers meant just for her and just for that specific time in her life? – BJ              A Course in Miracles is different because Helen Shucman kept out anything that was very specific to h...

From June 26, 2007: http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2007/06/one-limit-to-holy-spirits-guidance.html >>>>> Learn about the books The ACIM Mentor Articles, The Plain Language A Course in Miracles, and 4 Habits for Inner Peace  at www.acimmentor.com. If you have a question that you want answered in the ACIM Mentor Newsletter/Blog send it to Liz@acimmentor.com and indicate that you want it answered here.

I have been studying the Course for 3 years now…My life in the world is stressful, I have enough money to sustain myself for a few more months, and then......  Being 70 makes it difficult.  I am distracted by the pressures of survival… I love the Course , it does and has sustained me.  Just wonder where it fits with the fear that is eating me. - CG It sounds like A Course in Miracles is a bunch of nice ideas for you but that you are not really experiencing Truth (God) within you enough to trust It yet. Trust that you will be guided as to how to take care of the personal self will only come when Truth is a real experience for you. So your first object is to develop your awareness of Truth. Your situation is a perfect opportunity to do so. Ask the Teacher of Truth (Holy Spirit) for guidance about money and any other issue bothering you. You will always be answered. You may not accept the answer the moment you ask, but it will come to you when you are open and willing...

…But facing what I feel are the "facts" of the state I find I'm in, I can't do this when I'm driving my car and in heavy traffic on the freeway going 60 mph to simply say : "This is all not reality, it’s not, in Truth, happening and is an illusion.” With that I, simply let go of the wheel. Intentional or not the physical world is what it is for me. Telling the Holy Spirit that I don't know how to resolve this and turn it over to my Teacher I confidently fear such a physical act will harm me and many bodies. Forgive my mistaken thinking. I'm not intending to be argumentative but am truthfully wrangling with what's real, what's illusion and live in it without making things worse. In what I read currently I can't be in both "worlds" and expect the Holy Spirit to fix this… LM Only the ego (personal thought system) would think it was necessary for you to let go of a steering wheel while going at 60mph on the freeway. To do what? ...

Every year I go gung ho and start off doing a lesson each day using index cards to  write the day's lesson down and in a couple of months I falter and stop completely.  Why is that?  How can I make myself more diligent so that I do at least one lesson per day? – DH             If you have been unable to complete the lessons in the Workbook then you need to ask yourself what form of resistance is coming up around the time that you falter and stop. Some students think that they have to do the lessons perfectly each day and when they don’t they give up, feeling like a failure. Others bump into ideas that they find hard to accept and give up. When you find yourself resistant go back and read the introduction to the Workbook. It gives you instructions for doing the lessons and it makes it quite clear that you do not have to accept the ideas in them. Simply do not actively resist them. Each day just do the best tha...

…I was interested when reading your personal story, that you experienced anxiety and panic attacks… there is a lot of talk about "energy therapy" that releases the "trapped" energy in the subconscious mind.  I use it sometimes and it does help to bring me back to a rational state of mind where I can then more clearly ask the Holy Spirit for guidance.  Do you have an opinion on this? If you don't mind sharing, how did you approach dealing with your anxiety and panic attacks?  Were you using the course at the time? You spoke about "processing" time with the Holy Spirit.  How did you go about doing that and were you able to remove subconscious blocks and beliefs by doing that alone? Sometimes, when doing the exercises, I feel a literal "block" almost like a brick wall that makes it very difficult to absorb new thoughts and truths. –SL             Yes, I used to experience anxiety and p...

… is my illusion being impacted by a collective illusion? … if the Voice identified as Jesus broke into Helen's dream, can other spirits or parts of the sonship also influence us while we're dreaming: i.e. so called ascended masters or channeled souls, aliens, demons etc.?... P (March 30, 2012)             There is only one mind that seems split between Truth (God) and not-Truth. A Course in Miracles calls this the “son of God”.  This is the one mind that is “dreaming” of the universe of form, time, and all of the stories in time. And each seemingly-individual mind projected into the dream also projects its own meaning onto the universe of form. So there is an overarching, or collective, dream in which cause and effect applies. This “story” is neutral in that it has no meaning in itself. And then there is also your individual dream, which is your projection of meaning onto the universe of form. For example, if th...

I have a 14 teen year old daughter and her father feels that he shouldn't have to pay child support. I want to file for child support because I really do need his help. But when I bring it up to him he attacks me with his thoughts and then I feel guilty that I am attacking Christ.  Is it attack towards my brother to file for child support? I find my mind justifying my reasons and I get confused. I really want to release all attack thoughts because they bring nothing but hell to my dream. Sometimes I am confused about what is attack. – YH             You “attack” yourself whenever you choose the personal thought system (ego) because it is not you. This is the same as attacking Christ, because Christ is the label given to the universal, eternal Truth in you. So everything that proceeds from your choice for the personal self then perpetuates your attack on yourself. This is not “bad” or “wrong”. Christ is not changed i...

I have a boss who has been undergoing treatment for Bipolar Disorder for over 30 years, and I have all of the typical litany of “I love my job, but I hate my boss because……” issues that many of us have throughout our lives, which could let my ego be obsessed with anger and revenge thoughts, if I let it.  He has several other health issues, which I honestly believe I could help in healing if it were not for the fact that when I look within, and am vigilant of my thoughts, I know that I am not truly forgiving him, but hold some sort of deep seated pleasure at his “justifiable punishment.”  Yes, I realize that if anyone deserves forgiveness “in the world,” it is someone whose inherited and biological issues are the total cause of his hurtful actions. Yes, I realize that we are all worthy, and during or immediately after meditation, I feel I have turned it over to Spirit for healing, but either I am not truly handing it over, or I am not yet seeing the personal healing that migh...

I have been doing the Course since three years ago, and I deeply felt I resonated with its message of Love as the only Truth…After some months of doing it, my life started to change, I felt the calling to change my way of living, to leave behind my career as a lawyer, and I started to get very in touch with "spirituality"...I have made many of the mistakes you point out in your blog...for a long time I resisted the world, tried to force the experience of the Course , and went into spiritual sacrifice, I went deeply in trying to understand my ego and others’ egos…I felt depressed, and kind of elevated from this world... instead of feeling joyfully and lovingly here on earth...I am not sure if what I lived was necessary, but I know that today that I want to choose differently...I am starting to choose what feels light, joyful, and free instead of dense and heavy…But I feel I need a guidance on this matter, because there are times when I feel I am working on something deep, (...

I have been studying the Course for years, and have been through the Manual for Teachers more than a few times. This time I realize that the prose is so much easier to read and understand than in the Text.  It ran through my mind that perhaps there was a different Spirit of the God Head that dictated this part of the Course .  What do you think? – GF             There is only one Spirit, or Truth, Which is called “God” in A Course in Miracles . The part of your seemingly-individual mind that is one with God is called “Christ” in the Course and the teaching aspect of the Christ Mind is called the “Holy Spirit”. Because there is only one Truth It is universal, so Christ is the same in every mind. There are no individual spirits.             It was the Christ Mind that dictated the entire Course and its two supplements to Helen Schucman. (She called Chris...

… Once the ego has been conquered and one is in the state of permanent peace, does the awareness (I am) still perceive individualistically  - i.e.  this is me (peace) I exist in the sea of  peace and  I will always be aware of myself as an individual piece of stillness, in this bodied life and beyond, or is it a case of I dissolve into peace (stillness) where we exist as one but not aware of myself sort of  like an infant’s unknowing “awareness. – PS             Your sense of existence is eternal but your sense of individuality is temporary. In other words, the “I am” that you experience deep within is an experience of the eternal but your projection of your sense of existence onto limited form ceases in time.             So in essence neither one of the scenarios you suggest is accurate. In Truth you do not experience yourself as one among...

...I am constantly praying, asking, seeking and knocking on the door to be opened so that the Holy Spirit speaks to me more frequently and at greater volume than my ego mind. I think that “undoing” the ego mind is not so much a “goal.” To me it seems that communicating and communing with the Holy Spirit will * inherently* undo the ego. Yet in spite of prayers and many efforts, I find “that still small voice” almost inaudible against the din of my ego habits. I have been a long time (30+ years) seeker and Course student for about 8 years. Please help suggest ways to more frequently hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. – AR             You state an obstacle to hearing better the Holy Spirit (Teacher of Truth in your mind) when you say that you think that communing with the Holy Spirit alone will undo the ego (personal though system). Your obstacles to hearing the Holy Spirit are the guilty and fearful thoughts of the ego that y...