The Emerging Real World

           I wrote last week about the real world arriving in my conscious awareness as the realization of the Atonement, or correction of the perception of separation from God. Readers and clients ask if I am in the real world all the time. No, but if not every day, most days I experience it at some point. It is never far away.

It was not like this from the beginning of the shift in consciousness from ego-consciousness to Spirit-consciousness. (See A Memoir of Christ: A Student of A Course in Miracles Awakens here.) Almost eight years ago, I began to feel I was in a different dimension, or different experience of existence. I described it at the time as feeling like a “ghost in the world.” I was Elsewhere while still perceiving the world. The world was not my home anymore.

Then, almost four years ago, I experienced what I call The Break, which was when my identification with the person (ego) fell away. From then on, I felt in a new Context even though I could not fully see it. That Context was the real world.

I went through a rough time, which I detailed in my memoir. For a long while I felt comfortless. I no longer recognized anything as me. The personal identity was gone. Ego was nasty, but generic, and lacked any personal flavor. And I knew I was Spirit but did not know how to access that. I went through a spell when it often went through my mind, “You can’t see that you can See.” I knew I was in a new Context and just couldn’t see it. But there was more to it than that. I actually did See but did not trust it. I was afraid it was some new kind of fantasizing because it included what was to unfold in the material world for me. This would have been my comfort if I had understood and trusted it.

I knew ego was essentially gone and described what seemed to continue as the “echo of ego” or like the afterimage that remains on your retina after you have stared at something. I eventually learned from others that for many, if not most, ego does not just fall away and leave one to acclimate to a new experience of existence. It sort of winds down. As it does so, Spirit and Seeing the real world emerges more and more.

I was also helped by reading Suzanne Segal’s Collision With the Infinite. I recognized much of what she experienced after the personal identity fell away for her. In fact, I feel I am still going through what she did for ten years after ego fell away, only I have had the benefit all along of knowing what I was going on. What was difficult was not knowing how long the discomfort would last. I also always knew I had God, even when I could not feel God and when I had nothing I recognized as myself. I trusted there was a good outcome to the process I was in. So, what was pure hell to her was extremely uncomfortable for me for a while but it was never unbearable.

Eventually, Ms. Segal spoke with a Buddhist teacher who was delighted for her and told her she was in bliss and just didn’t know it. I could identify with that! That was the Context I felt all around but could not access. He told her to just stop looking back to how it was. Well, let me tell you, the mind just does that. It scrambles to fill the void left by the fallen familiar thought system. But this does in fact wind down as the old habits of thinking are undone. I have only to ride this out, as it is an automatic process.

During this process, I will glimpse experiences, insights, and realizations, both to do with what has fallen as well as my new state, and then watch as it takes anywhere from three to eighteen months to fully realize what I see. By fully realize, I mean rise fully to conscious awareness. I sense or glimpse what is going on in this mind, but largely out of conscious awareness, and then it takes time to rise to conscious awareness. In fact, often I write about my experiences before they are fully realized in conscious awareness, as I did last week. It seems writing about it is the sign it is becoming realized in conscious awareness.

It has been suggested to me lately that I am in the Period of Achievement, but I do not feel that is so yet. I feel there is still too much winding down. Period of Unsettling still feels apt. Here is what A Course in Miracles says about Achievement:

 

“It is here that learning is consolidated. Now what was seen as merely shadows before become solid gains, to be counted on in all ‘emergencies’ as well as tranquil times. Indeed, the tranquility is their result; the outcome of honest learning, consistency of thought and full transfer.  This is the stage of real peace, for here is Heaven's state fully reflected.” (M-4.I.A.8)

 

I still see only shadows of what’s to come, but I am getting there.

I have written a lot lately about how consciousness is the moment in God’s Mind of the idea of not-God arising and simultaneously being undone unfolding like a story over time. It does not escape my notice that what I have described as my experience with glimpses taking time to unfold in conscious awareness mirrors this. Perhaps my experience does mirror the greater unfolding. Or perhaps I see consciousness the way I do because of how this mind works.

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If you have a question the answer to which you feel may be helpful to others, send it to Liz@acimmentor.com and I will answer it in this newsletter/blog.