ACIM Mentor

            As the shift in consciousness approached here, a thought that kept coming up was that the better question is not, “What am I?” but rather “What is real?” And since, what I’ve discovered is when we talk about the “I” or self what we mean is “what is experienced as real”. “I” is a designation that moves from identity to fact, depending on whether ego or truth (pure consciousness) occupies conscious awareness. I’m not talking about the “I” in our casual discourse—the “I” starting this sentence being an example of that. In English, anyway, it would be ridiculously awkward to have a conversation avoiding “I” and “me” and “my”. But when we express our spiritual or nonduality experiences, “I” becomes the designation of what is felt in conscious awareness to be real. For example, as the shift approached here, there were frequent experiences of “I am nonlocal.” This mind (conscious awareness) was everywhere rather than in a specific place. Clearly, the...

           In the past couple of years here in this conscious awareness spirituality has fallen away. It began with The Great Deflation when all spiritual symbols, ideas, and experiences went fooomp as all the bloated air went out of them. This includes ideas like God, Christ, Holy Spirit, divinity, holiness, etc. Mystical experiences, like oneness and episodes of spiritual light filling the mind, were recognized to have been puffed up by ego and granted inappropriate significance. The deflation brought relief that it wasn’t even known here was necessary or possible. What was left was simple, ordinary, lovely consciousness—truth—without puffery or bells or whistles. What this revealed was how ego takes information from truth, or the onlyness that is pure consciousness, coming to conscious awareness and turns it into something it can understand and that validates it. The experiences themselves signal the presence of truth, but the bloat is ego making more...

Recently, I watched a TV show in which a woman through some not-reincarnation-but-previous-life (it was not well done, still don’t quite know what occurred) came to be told by a shaman that she had suffered enough and now could be at peace. She found herself in what she called an “empty peace” that she did not value. She wanted to experience joy, so she knew she also had to accept despair, and she made that choice. Yes, these are the two experiences of existence available, peace and a gamut of feelings ranging from joy to despair. The peace available is not empty, however, except to ego, which values the gamut of feelings because that is its reality. There is one thing here, your conscious awareness (your immediate experience), that can hold these two experiences, but not in the same “place”. Peace is what consciousness, or truth, is, but this is blocked by ego, which sort of “carves out” conscious awareness from consciousness, seeming to individuate it. When ego is not in consciou...

          “Could you please write about the importance (or lack there of) of shadow work sometime? How is it to be done? Anything you know about this will be helpful and appreciated. I am unclear and confused.” –BB   Shadow work refers to addressing the repressed and unconscious parts of your mind that are revealed when you are emotionally triggered, or upset. Shadow refers to both these aspects of your psyche being largely hidden and that much of what is repressed or unconscious is considered “darker” thoughts and feelings, like guilt and shame. The benefits of this work are greater self-awareness and the opportunity to learn to emotionally self-regulate when triggered and perhaps to eventually release (forgive) the source of the triggers. These benefits result in an increased sense of well-being and healthier relationships. You don’t know what is in your “shadow” until you are emotionally triggered. Triggers have beliefs and feelings and stories ...

            “Can you shed some light on the magic trick of the ego that feels/thinks that IT is doing everything and anything…surrendering, taking its will back, praying the Course’s prayers, doing the lessons and so on.  Is it not the case that “I” am literally doing nothing?  That God is simply God being and this little side trip into consciousness is merely unfolding…no agency whatsoever?  That the belief in the reality of this dream, by definition, contains this ever present belief that we are making choices?” –MG   So, here’s what my experience since The Break has shown me, contrary to what I expected as a student of A Course in Miracles : No part of truth, whatever you want to call it, God or pure consciousness (my preference now), entered a “dream” or “side trip”. Ego, it turns out, was an idea playing itself out. The idea is a false reality where an “I” lives as a person in a body in a world. Some see this “I” as also having ...

            Nonduality is not a spiritual path. It is an awareness and experience of one truth. This rises to conscious awareness of itself, so it cannot be attained. The insights garnered from the experience can be shared, but the experience cannot be taught. However, the awareness of one truth may result in ego going on a spiritual journey. Spirituality is what ego does with a dim awareness of truth. It takes the information that truth is beyond it and shapes it to its reality, resulting in duality: Ego and truth are true. This results in other perceived dualities, like good and bad and right and wrong. The end of its spiritual journey is not ego transforming but falling away. There has been among A Course in Miracles students from the start a debate about whether the Course is a nonduality teaching or not. The Course does point to nonduality. It states outright that there is only one truth and ego and its world are not real but are mirages. But most...