ACIM Mentor

This mind thought that all it had to do was stop believing in guilt and it would be at peace and any process would be over. Then it found peace, stopped believing in guilt, but found that it was still in a process. And that process is acclimating to peace. When a mind is used to conflict it does not immediately accept peace. A couple of weeks ago ( http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2016/03/sorry-no-incantations-here.html ) I wrote about how a mind used to forms (thoughts, ideas, feelings, material forms) experiences the Formlessness of Truth as emptiness. The contrast between form and Formlessness is jarring at first. Form is boundaries and busyness and contrasts and conflicts. Formlessness is boundlessness and stillness and the same throughout. This is Absolute Peace! What else could be peace but emptiness? It seems so obvious once you experience It. But Absolute Peace is not the first peace to which you have to acclimatize. The first peace you have to get used to is the peace t...

Sometimes students tell me they want to reach a state of bliss or to be joyful all the time. What they do not understand is if they attained these states they would not experience them as bliss or joy because their new state would become the “new normal”. Bliss and joy are really only felt in contrast to unhappiness. Peace is only felt in contrast to conflict. Love, or wholeness, is only felt in contrast to lack. They are all personal experiences. And they are only the flipside of the experiences that they are set up to replace. I could say that Truth is the absence of all feelings and experiences. But really It is not even that. Truth is not defined by an absence of any kind. It cannot be understood in contrast to anything. Truth is beyond all comparisons or contrasts because It is beyond all duality. That which experiences pain and seeks to be out of pain are the same. So to seek to feel “good” is to seek for only the flip-side of feeling “bad”. They are the same coin and noth...

Despite its use of Christian symbols there are many ideas in A Course in Miracles that are radically different from Christianity. In fact, they undo what is traditionally taught in Christianity. It is important for students of ACIM to not only recognize this but to meditate on these differences. Doing so clarifies ACIM and how learning what it teaches can set you free. The betrayal of the Son of God lies only in illusions, and all his "sins" are but his own imagining. His reality is forever sinless. He need not be forgiven but awakened. (T-17.I.1) A major tenet in the ego's insane religion is that sin is not error but truth, and it is innocence that would deceive. Purity is seen as arrogance, and the acceptance of the self as sinful is perceived as holiness. And it is this doctrine that replaces the reality of the Son of God as his Father created him, and willed that he be forever. (T-19.II.4) In a nutshell, the fundamental and radical difference between A...

The experience of Truth is Wholeness. Lack does not exist in Truth even as an idea. But when you are used to identifying with an ego (personal thought system) and you come out of the experience of Truth, Truth strikes you as alarmingly empty because there is no form There. You know you felt whole in Truth but you are frightened because you cannot understand this with the thought system (ego) with which you are used to thinking. How can a thought system that is a form itself and is all about forms understand that Formlessness is an experience of Abundance? If without form there is Wholeness then the reverse of this must be that with form there is lack. When you see this it is so obvious! Of course when Limitless Mind is reduced to limited forms (thoughts, ideas, feelings, actions, material forms) the experience is lack. No wonder that the pursuit of forms to fill a sense of lack only increase one’s sense of lack. If you just stop and be , what is lacking? You may feel an emotio...

Sometimes I sense from my readers or clients that my practical answers to their problems are not what they seek. They want what I call a “woo-woo” answer. They want a transcendent answer that will not involve the tedium of dealing with life in the world on the terms of the world. They want an answer that will not involve the pain of examining their behavior and excavating their motivations. They want the “right thought”, the present day’s equivalent of a magical incantation, to resolve their problems at the level of form. For example, let’s say a client has been told by her lawyer that she needs to file for bankruptcy. She’s upset and wants to know how she “created” this situation in her life. I ask questions about her financial situation, her financial choices, etc. She doesn’t want to go there. She just wants to talk about how she can change her mind to transform her situation. What she doesn’t realize is that her thoughts do not conjure situations at the level of form out of th...

Last week I wrote about how this mind has come to an awareness of the self’s life in the world as an effect and not a cause. It is an effect whose cause passed the instant it was caused, so therefore it is over. This means, in essence, that what you see unfolding in the universe of form has really passed. This does not mean, strictly speaking, that what you see passing in time is predestined. What you see is done, therefore, it is not to be done. You are really looking back at an idea that is over (and therefore cannot be changed), not living in a predetermined idea unfolding. However, since you think that you are in time, and that the idea began long ago and will be undone in some indefinite future, you experience it as though it is unfolding now. The reason this mind used to get stuck on this idea that time is over and what it is seeing is past was that, as a self-starter, it felt so self-directed. The piece that this mind was missing (other than the fact that it is a mind and n...

This mind used to hear others says that “it is all unfolding perfectly” and couldn’t understand their point of view. It understood “the script is written” as “the outcome is inevitable” and yet it still didn’t have the full picture. But it does now. Truth (or God, if you prefer) is Formless Being extending without limit. Being All, Truth must have within It the idea of Its Own opposite. But, being All, Truth cannot have an opposite. The opposite-of-Truth can only ever be an idea, and it is an idea that is undone by Truth’s All-encompassing nature the instant that it is thought. It is as though Truth said, “What is my opposite? Oh, yeah, I cannot have an opposite.” Poof! It was undone. (In A Course in Miracles the part of the Mind of God where this idea is supposed to have occurred is called the “Son of God”). Since Truth is formless, infinite, eternal, and one, or the same, throughout, the idea of the opposite-of-Truth, or not-Truth, is time-bound, limited, diverse forms....

“Last night I watched a riveting documentary on the life and crimes of the notorious millionaire psychopath, Robert Durst. I vaguely remembered hearing about him but actually knew very little. As his Texas murder trial played out in the film, it became clear that he was going to be acquitted. Watching his slick, venal, lawyers manipulate the unsophisticated jury - and then calmly talk about their unscrupulous tactics in later interviews - I felt my stomach tighten with fear and my temples throb with rage. The duplicity of Durst's wealthy family in the cover-up, the unresolved grief of the families of his victims, and of course listening to the vile Durst himself trying to play the world for fools, added to my upset. I tried to detach from the story and contemplate why I felt so threatened for one thing, and how to return to peace (my ultimate goal in all upsets.)  The only thing I could come up with is that this case so rocked my sense of how things SHOULD have played out, I felt ...

A couple of week ago I answered a question about whether or not animals have consciousness ( http://acimmentor.blogspot.com/2016/01/ask-does-each-animal-experience.html ).My answer provoked several emails of questions and comments. They seemed to be about different aspects of my response but I’ve come to see that they were all related. So I am going to respond to the ideas in them here in one fell swoop. First, let me define what I mean by “consciousness” (in other contexts “awareness” or “perception”): A mind that is capable of an awareness of Truth. While one split mind ( what A Course in Miracles calls the “Son of God”) projects the entire universe of form, it projects its split mind onto only one form, the human animal. So while many animals have some degree of intelligence and many experience degrees of emotions, only the human animal suffers the conscious and unconscious psychological conflict of a mind that is split between Truth and not-Truth. Some indicated that I sa...

Sometimes I get comments from students of A Course in Miracles students along these lines: “I have a friend who is always happy and peaceful even though they aren’t spiritual”; “Here I am miserable on this path and I look around at all these people who are content with their lives without working a spiritual path.” Some people just have happy personalities. I used to clean the house of a woman who had such an upbeat disposition that as a child she was given the nickname “Sunny”. But I was in her home and saw that she was just like everyone else with her concerns and worries and judgments, etc. Her sunny disposition was genuine for her personality but it was a superficial trait. She was really no happier than anyone else. A friend of my wife had a large personality that seemed to fill the room when she entered it. She was funny and bubbly and chipper. Her upbeat personality was not a mask; it was genuine. But those close to her also knew of the darkness within her mind. A year...

“What I've been wanting to know about is if we can say definitively whether each animal is experiencing consciousness, and does Jesus say definitively or can we say with certainty whether they suffer or do not suffer? And if each animal can experience its reference point in consciousness, does each one need to have enough lifetimes and/or humans praying for them (since it doesn’t seem they are able to pray themselves) to receive enough prayers so that their next reboot will be as a human so they can discover The Course ?” – M I am not aware of anywhere that Jesus says anything about animals in the context of consciousness. But I’m not too familiar with the Bible so there could be something in there about which I do not know. The understanding to which I have been led (and have come to see for myself) is that the entire universe of form, including all animals and plants, is the projection of one split mind (the “Son of God” in A Course in Miracles ). The split mind project...

“What is your experience with synchronicity?  Have you found meaningful synchronicities occur between your outer and inner experiences as your awareness of Truth has deepened?  Would you have called meeting E and experiencing a Holy Relationship such a synchronicity because you were ready for that Vision at the time?  And do you think that she left your company because you needed that particular trial as well, in order to deepen your understanding?”  - OT This mind has observed that the quieter and slower it has become the more it sees connections, coincidences, patterns, and relationships that are all around at the level of form. Some refer to these connections, coincidences, patterns, and relationships as “synchronicity”. This mind does not see any special meaning in them. It is natural to see them given the interconnectedness of things at the level of form. This mind seeing them also has no meaning. Seeing them is simply the natural result of a quieter, slowe...

“As my awareness of truth grows, I see aspects of my behavior, attitudes etc. in terms of correctable mistakes rather than crimes against humanity. The boogey man becomes smaller and smaller. This of course is a removal of an obstacle to peace. The problem that arises however, is my frustration with those around me who - out of fear - are so dug in to their stuff - unable and unwilling to budge. This results in a feeling of hopelessness, of helplessness, a "missing piece", a lie that must be tolerated. My options are to reject these friends totally; grin and bear it; knock some sense into them; or what? There's gotta be a better way.” – Anonymous On the surface the fact that you no longer see your mistakes as “sins” would seem like a good thing. However, you still see “sins” or you would not be bothered by others. You still project guilt so you still believe that you are guilty. Your shift from seeing “sins” to seeing mistakes is merely a superficial intellectual shi...

In the last article I discussed the difference between the two “visions”: What the body’s eyes report and the meaning (or the awareness of no meaning) that your mind projects or extends. Spiritual Vision is not just a “nicer” way of interpreting the world. It is a wholly different vision that you can invite and welcome, but you cannot make it happen. It comes to you when you are ready and open to It. When I was a new student of A Course in Miracles for a few months I experienced the Vision of the Holy Relationship with another. I saw that we were one and the same, obviously not as bodies and personalities, but in Truth. The inner Vision I had was that the Truth in her was the exact same Truth in me. Even thinking about her brought an experience of deep recognition beyond any human experience. This is the experience that Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford had. I recognized it completely when I read the passages in ACIM about the Holy Relationship. This Vision is what, in ACIM, Helen...

A Course in Miracles talks about two “visions”, “sights”, or “perceptions”. (In my translation into plain language I used only “perception” for clarity). This “seeing” is not done with the body’s eyes. It is an inner seeing. It occurs in the mind from one of two unconnected places in your mind. It is much like these two visions are two different platforms in your mind. One platform, the lower platform, is in the world. On that platform you are very involved with the world. You can move around on that platform and look at the world from different angles, but all of those angles are on the same level. The change in view is not a real change. It is simply a different angle on the same thing. For example, you learn something new about someone and you “see them in a new light”. Outwardly they have not changed, so you do not “see” them in a new physical light. You see them from a new point of view within your mind . Your inner vision of them changed. You stood in a different place on that...

First, this mind believed it was a self in a process toward the goal of peace. Then one day it had an experience while meditating that Truth is right here . It was the Holy Instant and It was breathtaking. This mind realized that in meditation, and in everything else, it always reached for Truth. And in that reaching it over-reached Truth and missed It because Truth is right here . It was like when the self looks for the mustard in the refrigerator but does not see it because the mustard is right in front of it and the self is looking past it to find it. And then the awareness of the immediate Presence of Truth was gone. Each day in meditation this mind tried to be present and experience the Truth again but could not. It could remember the experience but not conjure it. How long did this go on? Months? Years? Then it happened again and this mind would think, “This is it. This is all I need to experience. This is all I need to remember. Stop reaching. It’s here now.” And then…It c...

This mind is grateful that its current stage of awareness of Truth coincided with this body’s peaking in peri-menopause because otherwise it would be a neurotic mess. If peri-menopause had happened earlier in this mind’s developing awareness of Truth this mind would be totally distracted by the physical, psychological, and emotional effects of the wild and unpredictable surges in hormones that are the natural process of this stage of the body’s life.  The body would require hormone replacement therapy at minimum and perhaps anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medicines. This time of life for the body coinciding with this stage of growing awareness of the mind has in fact helped this mind to hone its detachment from the body, the self, and its story. It has helped it to see that there is no real difference between a “good” mood and a “bad” one in that they occur in the same self-identified part of mind. It has helped this mind to see all moods as one single experience – the human exp...

I used to have episodes of panic attacks. After the panic attack subsided I’d remain in a heightened state of anxiety for days in dread of more panic attacks. This heightened state of anxiety led to more panic attacks, more anxiety, more panic attacks, etc. It was a vicious cycle. Eventually I learned that the primary cause of my panic attacks was some small change in my body that I would pick up subconsciously and that would lead to fearful thoughts just below my conscious awareness. These thoughts would lead to the rush of adrenaline that fueled the panic attacks. For example, I noticed I often had panic attacks at the beginning of Fall. When I paid attention I became aware that there was a very slight thickening feeling in my bronchia. I was experiencing a small allergic response. I would subconsciously pick up on this and I’d have thoughts just below my conscious awareness that I was suffocating. But even after I discovered this I felt powerless to do anything about it. I trie...

“…I contacted you almost 4 years ago when my husband of 20 years, and the kindest, most supportive and best friend I've ever had, died suddenly and unexpectedly in his sleep at the age of 43. I contacted you soon after and asked your thoughts about seeing a world famous medium and you said I should do whatever might help. I have received many messages of support from him since then in the form of readings from various mediums, a host of coincidences and even sightings in my daily life. These have been a great help in my embracing our eventually being reunited when I die. That said, I can't apply the Course teachings to everything else and not this. If everything I experience here is what I've asked for that means all of my husband’s messages are coming from me and not him and that is crushing me. Literally. And now, the personal thought system is constantly telling me that if I continue with my Course studies, my husband will disappear from my memory because he was nothi...

“… My question is…does the holy spirit speak quickly and first with lightning speed?  I find I feel this voice may be the correct voice since it sounds definite and inspired. The answer almost seems to come out of nowhere and not even have thinking involved, just a kind of knowing…” – AB The two voices speak for different interpretations of the same thing simultaneously; or almost simultaneously, for the ego always speaks first . – T-5.VI.3 The ego always speaks first…The Holy Spirit does not speak first, but He always answers. – T-6.IV.1,3 As a rule, it is the ego that speaks with lightning speed. This is especially true when you look on a person or situation or you are seeking an answer. But sometimes when your mind is quiet and relaxed you may hear the Holy Spirit spontaneously. You may hear words or you may have unformed thoughts that seem to rise up into your conscious awareness and take form there. It takes a while to sort out the Holy Spirit and the e...