In the Real World

           Just a few weeks ago (June 24), I wrote about Seeing Essence, which I said fell somewhere between the real world and Seeing at the material level. I defined the real world as a world of Light and Seeing at the material level to be things like intuiting what is to happen. Essence, I said, fell between. Seeing Essence was Seeing the Unity of the Atonement. But already I want to revamp that. Seeing Essence, I realize, was simply being on the edge of finally Seeing the real world that has surrounded me these last five years.

I’ve been confused by A Course in Miracles’ description of the real world because in some places it says you will see the real world only just before time is over.

 

“The perception of the real world will be so short that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world and have been made ready for Him.” (T-17.II.4)

 

Yet, we all have read descriptions of teachers who have attained the real world and continue in the world for years, even decades. Of course, it is possible time is soon to end for me, but I don’t think so. I See some of what is to come, for one thing. And as I sensed ego death as it approached, I think I will probably sense the end of time. One possible explanation for the discrepancy is that some passages were for Bill Thetford, who helped Helen Schucman scribe the Course, and who famously passed away only hours after attaining the real world.

In any case, I feel what I experience now is the real world. It is the Context I have been in since my shift in consciousness. I knew it was here, but I couldn’t see it clearly, as though I stepped into the real world walking backwards, looking back at where I had been as I came out of the delusion of believing it was real. Finally, I am turning around and seeing where I have arrived.

A question I have had, really since I picked up A Course in Miracles 38 years ago, is if I shifted, would I simply see differently, or would my experience of the material world also reflect the shift?  For decades I thought it was only a change of mind and taught this. Now I know it is both. For example, when I look over the past five years, I see that all the hell was only in my mind as I came out of delusion. My material life has run smoothly and easily, sometimes surprisingly so, beginning with dismantling my former life. As I expressed in my memoir, logistically it went incredibly smoothly. And everything since has. But I was so consumed with what was going on in my mind that I never stopped to consider what this meant and was only grateful each time I felt moved to take some action and it went off without a glitch.

What has taken longer is for my mind to catch up with the real world. I have felt in a hybrid state, neither wholly in ego nor wholly in Spirit-consciousness but moving from one to the other. Now I begin to see the real world I entered years ago, within me, and in my material experience. I felt at the shift, after all, that the boundary between inner and outer had fallen. I only have one dream now, instead of a nightmare and a happy dream, and it is only happy as it reflects the Unity of God.

 

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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.

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