ACIM Mentor

Although I have not watched much of Modern Family , besides enjoying the writing and the humor, I always liked the sitcom because of its realistic portrayal of family relationships. There is a lot of tension; a lot of painful history. There is a lot of disappointment, eye rolling, and sighing. But there is also always love.             Painful family relationships are a common theme with my clients. There are two mistaken expectations that often emerge. One is that there is not supposed to be tension in loving relationships. My clients think something is wrong when there is conflict. The other is that as one becomes spiritually aware personal relationships become pain free.             Let’s take the first mistaken expectation. There is no perfection in the world. The personal experience is a relative one so there are no absolutes. We are all unique and therefore different...

I have shared many times that direct Revelation of Truth is indescribable. Truth is so wholly unlike the relative experience of perception that I can no more describe It than I could describe a color to a blind person. There is nothing to which to compare It because it is All-That-is. What I do say is that Truth is Wholeness beyond any experience of wholeness at the relative level because at the relative level wholeness is always experienced in relation to lack. It corrects lack. But Truth does not occur in relation to anything else. Also, Truth is beyond experience . The highest level of awareness (consciousness; perception) that one can attain at the relative level of perception is the Awareness of Truth (Holy Spirit). The effect of this is an experience of Oneness. And, truly, this, too, cannot be adequately described, though many of us have tried! At the level of perception, where all is relative, Oneness “bleeds through” into duality as an experience of “One with” what ...

            Sometimes I feel that what A Course in Miracles teaches is just for this stage. Only now do I get immediate results putting into practice what I have practiced for 35 years. But, of course, I actually always got results. It was just the time between practice and accepting its results has shortened considerably. It took years! Then months, then weeks, then days. Now its hours at the longest; usually minutes, if not instantaneous forgiveness.             When I first became a student of ACIM, which was the start of my spiritual path as well, I had direct Revelation and higher miracles that showed me that what ACIM teaches is true. From that time on, all I was really doing was coming to accept what I had seen, that Truth (God) is true. I made the mistake for the longest time of thinking I had to relearn this and that I had to choose Truth over and over. But Truth had come to my awarenes...

In A Course in Miracles , the path is laid out in what is called in the Manual for Teachers the “Development of Trust” (M-4.I.A) After I undid the guilt in my mind (see my book, Releasing Guilt for Inner Peace ), I was aware of a dark corner in my mind to which forgiveness could not extend. It was not dark as in sinister, but simply unknown. I could see it and feel it, but I couldn’t access it. I knew I would face it someday.             Two years ago the Love rose to my conscious awareness and I became even more aware of that inaccessible corner in my mind to which It could not extend. Nine months later I experienced what I call The Break. This is when I became aware that I had risen in consciousness. But, still, I was aware of something that blocked the extension of spiritual Vision in my conscious awareness. I knew my consciousness had risen; I simply could not always see this.        ...

True forgiveness, as A Course in Miracles teaches, is the recognition that nothing real is occurring in your perception that you are living in a world apart from Truth (God). Lately I’ve written about how two years ago I came to experience the self’s life as a play. The unfolding story before me is an extension of me. I am Author and character; Creator and creation. Well, I’m a little slow, but the other day it dawned on me: This is what “nothing real is occurring” feels like. I am living forgiveness . The belief in guilt is the belief that Truth has been killed or attacked by not-Truth. It is the belief that there are two realities: Truth and Its opposite, not-Truth. To overcome guilt, I remembered my experiences of Truth in direct Revelation and in higher miracles. Both showed me that Truth is untouched by anything that seems to happen at the level of perception, therefore guilt has no basis. (I go into what guilt is, how to recognize it, and how to undo it in my book, Releasi...

Every now and then I get questions about what A Course in Miracles calls the “happy dream” or the “real world”. Most want to know if this means they will have everything they want, which usually is along the lines of a lot of money, and all that money can buy; the perfect life partner, with whom they will have no conflict of any kind; engaging and interesting employment, etc. The happy dream is a shift in perception, not circumstances. It is happy because you are aware of the Source of True Happiness within you and this extends in your awareness; into the “dream”. You know your happiness is not dependent on any circumstance.             Sometimes the question comes as: “Don’t I deserve to be happy?” Yes! But who is the “I” in this question? You will never be happy in a false state because, well, it’s false! You can only be happy in Truth because, well, It’s the Truth! No matter how much you seek for lasting peace and happines...

A few times a year I’ll hear from readers who want to know how they can look at some horror in the world and see Love, so the answer bears repeating. The answer is that the content of what you see never comes from the images appearing before you. By “content” I mean the meaning that you see, which is the same as what you experience. And that is either some form of fear or Love, which always comes from you.             Love is Reality. It is your Being. It is the True Content—meaning, the Real World, as A Course in Miracles calls It. In my translation of ACIM into plain language ( The Message of A Course in Miracles and Practicing A Course in Miracles/The Way of A Course in Miracles ) instead of “Real World” I use “True Perception”. For me, “True Content” and “True Perception” more accurately describe the experience of Spiritual Vision. What you perceive is always your own mind. When you perceive through the personal thoug...

Several years ago—I’m not sure when it began—a new understanding of the nature of everything began to creep into my mind. The insights came slowly over time and eventually formed a whole picture for me. These showed up in my articles over a span of time. It began with me understanding, in A Course in Miracles’ language, that there is only one dream, one dreamer of the dream, and that all of us are dream figures in that dream. There is one will living out through what seems to be individual wills. On a personal level I experience desire and choice and they feel like mine alone, but they are this universal will (“the universe”) living through me. Eventually I understood what was unfolding in time was the moment in the Mind of Truth of the idea of Its opposite arising and being instantly undone by Truth’s all-encompassing nature. This is what ACIM calls the Atonement and I call the Undoing.             What I didn’t realize was th...

I have been experiencing Oneness in a way I did not expect, so for a long while I didn’t label it “Oneness”. I have had experiences of someone, something, and even everything else as me. In the moment of the realization of Oneness, the mind, not the body’s eyes, is the source of my awareness. So appearances do not determine my awareness, but are wrapped up in it. For example, if I’m looking at a tree and I know we are one, its appearance is also mine and vice versa.             This experience of Oneness is how I understood the experience of “creation” or “extension” in A Course in Miracles . God (Truth) “creates” through extension, meaning Its Being extends everywhere, always. So “Creation” in ACIM is not something brought into being by God, like the universe of form. In ACIM “Creation” is God’s Infinite Being. That’s the level that ACIM calls “Knowledge”, which is apart from the level of perception (consciousness, awareness)...

“The body is a limit imposed on the universal communication that is an eternal property of mind. But the communication is internal. Mind reaches to itself. It is not made up of different parts, which reach each other.” (T-18.6.8) “The body is a limit imposed on the Oneness that is an Eternal Property of Mind. Oneness is internal and It reaches to Itself. It is not made up of different parts which reach to each other. ” (MACIM-18.6.8)*             I have learned that detachment evolves into the extension of Oneness (Wholeness).             First, let me explain how I was before detachment. I was pretty much attached to everyone. Another way to say this is I projected my source of wholeness onto everyone, expecting that they had what I needed to be whole. Oh, I didn’t go around saying this, not even to myself. It was just how I related to the world in my identificatio...

“ 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)             In A Course in Miracles , “Oneness” refers to the “only Truth” (nothing outside), to “the same throughout” (nothing else within), and to Wholeness (perfect). As you can see in the quote above, these are the same thing, and being aware of them is Heaven . “Love” is also experienced as Wholeness, or Oneness. So an awareness of perfect Love is Heaven.             Love came for me in August of 2018. Oh, I’d had many experiences of It before, but this Golden Light of Love was different. Its arrival in my conscious awareness signaled a major shift. And what I’ve faced since is that a part of my mind fearfully equated the arrival of Love in my conscious awareness wi...

            The other day I realized I have heard the saying “it’s not the destination; it’s the journey” only one way. I heard it as the saying of ditherers: People who didn’t want to get there, but just play at it. For example, they wanted to remain spiritual seekers and never experience Perfect Peace (the absence of all conflict).             But the other day I heard it in a different way: If you focus on the journey you will reach your destination. The inverse of this is if you focus too much on your destination you miss the steps along the way that will get you there. For example, if you constantly measure your peace (“Am I There yet?”) you’ll miss the opportunity to learn the lesson or remove the obstacle to experience Peace that is in front of you.             It’s okay to take a measurement of progress now and then. It can be helpfu...

            My favorite story about Buddha is where he was out walking one day when a man saw him and noticed something different about him. The man asked him if he was a prince and Buddha said no. So the man asked if he was a magician and Buddha said no. “What are you?” the man finally asked. “I am awake,” Buddha responded.             What does it mean to be “awake”? In the past year I have written about the huge shift in me and in some of my articles I mentioned how I am aware that the ego (personal thought system) has fallen away from all but my conscious awareness . I can’t find its structure in my mind, only its echo—habits of seeing and thinking left in my conscious awareness , which fall away quickly once recognized. My trust in the Awareness (Consciousness/Perception) of Truth (Holy Spirit) grew over the years until the line between me and It began to blur. But I have not sustained this i...

            Really, not enough can be said about how much the belief in guilt is an obstacle to peace. It is what is behind all the sense of “sin” that I hear in clients’ laments about their path: “I’m wrong”, “I’m doing it wrong”, “I’m not enough”, “I’m not doing enough”, “I should be doing it that way”, “I shouldn’t be doing this”, etc. Of course, you can replace any of these “I”s with “they”s, which is how guilt shows up as projection. Turned inward or outward or both, the belief in guilt anywhere is the belief that guilt is real in you. (There’s more on this in my book, Releasing Guilt for Inner Peace ).             This observation came about as I contemplated writing an article on the mistake students of inner peace make comparing themselves to more advanced spiritual teachers. They turn teachers and role models into symbols of standards they fail. Or, they attack those who could be teachers...

263) “…  I am feeling very depressed right now about lack of money and about losing my job, and about trying to just get by.  I am taking an anti-depressant medicine for years now, which has helped.  Now I feel like I don’t feel that I want to go on.  I am trying to bring my ego issues to Jesus/Holy Spirit to look at them with Truth. But my money worries pop up.  Just now I realized that another pipe has broken and I am at my wit’s end. …I see these passages about depression (copied below) and I am in despair.  What is the Text really saying about depression?  I don’t have any hope that I can find my way out. What is the Course saying about depression when it feels real and painful to me like a bad long term illness?  I wonder if ending my life now in this horrible dead-end world would be a solution. Here are passages that confuse me if Jesus/Holy Spirit wants me to look beyond this 3D world. ...

I embarked on this spiritual path because I wanted to know Truth, even if it meant learning something I didn’t like. I assumed that, even if Truth was something I didn’t like, knowing It would bring me a measure of peace because, well, the Truth is true . I figured that it was not knowing Truth that led to conflict so only knowing Truth could bring any real and lasting peace. A Course in Miracles seemed to be the path given me to find this. I spent decades building my awareness of Truth and undoing my obstacles to It. This is what I understood ACIM to teach.             There were certain forgiving (as ACIM teaches forgiveness) thoughts along the way that fostered peace in me. “Only the Truth is true” and, when presented with anything that upset me: “Truth is untouched by any of this”. I felt a shift toward peace anytime I used them. (I still spontaneously take a deep breath of forgiveness as I feel the truth in these thoughts)...

“…Whenever you have faced the rock bottom, did your feelings at the time block out hearing Truth? …” – SS             Yes, sometimes they did. In those times I would remind myself that Truth was still here, whether or not I was aware of It. This gave me perspective and brought me some relief. It reminded me that Truth did not need me to be aware of It, which diminished for me the significance of anything I was going through in a passing moment. If I could continue with my practices of turning to Truth ( 4 Habits for Inner Peace ), I did so. But, often, until I actually hit bottom, I would be in too much resistance to engage in any practice. Then I would wait until I did hit bottom (became more miserable than I was resistant) and became willing to open myself to Truth by engaging in them again. >>>>   If you want to benefit from my experience and lighten your process, email me at Liz@acimmentor.c...

In August of 2017 the Golden Light of Love flowed into my mind and, much to my surprise, with It came a romance novel that I felt compelled to write ( A Good Woman ). I cannot say that I “channeled” it, but it certainly seemed “given” to me. I was immersed in it everywhere I went and I was inspired to put ordinary situations or events that I encountered into it. It was baffling, but enjoyable, and I just went with it.             That book was followed by another novel ( Towing the Moon , currently out to readers for feedback). When I wrote that one, the Golden Light had receded, and I was more settled into the writing process, but still often inspired.             After this, the life of the self (body, personality) with which this mind once identified radically shifted. A Holy Relationship had come and suddenly the life the self had lived became a former life. And this ...

            Last week it came over me that I have chosen everything that has happened to me. I saw that I shaped every part of it. I felt this clearly and felt how empowering seeing this, as with so many of my recent insights, is. And then it hit me: What needs to be empowered? The little will . And in a moment I saw that where others have famously let go of the little will all at once and become egoless, I am still exerting it in this slow-motion release. I am responsible for how long this is taking . And I always have been. I am the one that made what could take an instant into a process. I said, in essence, “Yes, I will go to Truth— but on my terms .” “This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time.” (T-Introduction) Thirty-five years ago I became a student of A ...

Last week I wrote about how fear is simply the experience of what I call the “little will”. I wrote how I used to think I was afraid “of” something, but I’ve discovered that fear is really just another experience. It is the experience that is the opposite of Love.             Love is the condition of Being. It is an experience of abundant wholeness and peace and happiness. Being is effortlessly willed. The little will, however, is a bit of Will exerted in opposition of Being/Will. You can recognize it by the sense of effort it requires.             When I am fearful or feeling any of its many manifestations (anxiety, anger, depression, etc.) I simply remind myself that the feeling is not the point. What’s really going on is I’m exerting the little will. How empowering this is! It helps me to see that there’s really no difference between the experience of Love and the exper...