ACIM Mentor

            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 in my conscious awareness .             My conscious awareness is what I’m aware o

            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 and role models for them for not appearing as they’ve decided the theory they’ve re

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.  My meditation focus words have been lately:  “God is. Nothing else is.”  If depression i

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). The awareness in these thoughts helped me to undo gu