ACIM Mentor

            As many of you know, over five years ago I experienced what I call The Break , which was the shift to Spirit-consciousness that begins with ego death. (You can read about it in my memoir .) I understand this process to take 10 years, so I am just over halfway through. As the year is ending, I thought I would catch you up on what has gone on in this mind this year. I record and report my experiences and insights for those who may shift and experience ego death themselves, although for no two is it exactly the same. I was told that after an experience like The Break, ego remains but “winds down.” To start, this mind was very dark. After about two and a half years, it slowly began to lighten, and discomfort and difficulty to lessen. This year this mind became significantly lighter. There are still difficult episodes, but these pass much quicker. The power of ego does indeed wind down. This past year began with a review of Liz’s life. This was not a review of major life eve

           God is Formless, Timeless, and Infinite. God is Glorious.                     God is Reality. God is Truth. God is beyond consciousness, a false idea presented as reality (the material universe, the personal experience). Christ is a label for God’s Extension to consciousness. Christ is all one can be aware of God in consciousness. Christmas celebrates Christ coming to conscious awareness. Spirit is the label for God’s, or Christ’s, Extension into consciousness. Spirit represents God’s Everpresence even in the false. Spirit is the Idea that corrects, through thoughts and experiences, the idea that not-God is real (ego). Consciousness is the play of these two ideas, not-God and God, which is the Atonement , the expression of that moment of the idea of not-God arising in God and being simultaneously undone by God’s All-encompassing nature. In a recent article , I wrote about the vacillations of ego and Spirit in consciousness. Ego moves forward, then Spirit moves forward,

“Liz, would you explain why we are doing this review (predetermination)?  Is it about the split mind? Is it about waking the sleeping Son of God? Who is watching this review at the end of the dream?” - Anonymous   God, being All, must contain the idea of Its Own opposite. But, being All, God cannot have an opposite. Not-God is only an idea. And it is over as soon as it arises. It seems to occur because the idea of not-God contains the idea of time , the opposite of Timelessness (Eternity). So, it does not seem to occur to God, but within the idea of not-God, consciousness.   Consciousness—what we think of as life in the world—is an expression of that moment. It is not a review in the sense of going over details again, but in the sense of depicting an idea that, in time, seemed to have occurred in the past.   And as a depiction of an idea that is over, its outcome, and the means to that outcome, are predetermined. “The script is written”, as it says in A Course in Miracles .

             God, being All, must contain the idea of Its Own opposite. But being All, God cannot have an opposite. The idea of not-God is simultaneously undone as soon as it arises because it is impossible. But within the idea of not-God is the idea of time , the opposite of Timelessness. And in time, it seems as though the idea of not-God arose long ago and will be undone in some indefinite future. The “space” in which this moment of undoing is depicted like a story is called consciousness . Everything that appears in consciousness—nonmaterial and material forms, thoughts, feelings—is an expression of consciousness. Within itself, consciousness seems to be split into many expressions of itself, seemingly-individual consciousnesses. In individual consciousnesses, the idea of not-God is represented by ego and the Idea of God is represented by Spirit . An individual consciousness has three parts:   Conscious awareness. This is what appears in immediate awareness. It consists

           “Since duality counts for just about everything here there is no surprise at the ego/spirit split. However, the ego’s dominance in the world remains strong and will always fight for its recognition and position. Spirit stands silently still and waits for recognition. In this world, few souls have recognized it. Do you feel that surrender plays a part in the shift and continuous surrender a precondition to staying there?” – ESA   What I have been trying to convey in my articles lately is that what is occurring in consciousness is this play of dark and Light, of ego and Spirit, and that it is predetermined. It is an expression, a depiction over time, of the moment of the idea of not-God arising and its simultaneous undoing by God’s All-encompassing nature. So, there is nothing here making a choice, there is nothing here to take the posture of “surrender.” All sense of choice is ego’s delusion that the person is occurring apart from the whole of consciousness, is autonomou

             This is how I thought it was: There is an “I” here that has two thought systems it can choose between, ego and Spirit. It vacillates between these two thought systems. This is what I have discovered is how it is: Consciousness here is like a neutral space that holds two “I”s, ego and Spirit. Consciousness does not have an “I” of its own. It does not have agency; it cannot make choices. It registers either ego experiencing ego or Spirit experiencing Spirit. In words, this may sound like a nuanced difference. After all, there is one thing here registering two different experiences. But experientially, it is a huge difference.   Relative to how they feel now, ego and Spirit felt muted before. Now, it is as though two entities or beings—I can’t think of better words to express the presence of these ideas that have taken form—occupy the space here called consciousness. And as each experiences only itself, it is as though there are two diametrically opposed worlds here that

             Since I’ve come to see that what unfolds in consciousness is an expression rather than for an outcome, I see everyone’s story as though it is a bloom in the garden of the Atonement. Whatever it is, is what it is supposed to be. There are no shoulds or shouldn’ts . Sometimes, clients will tell me what they really value over what they think they should value. What they value are “worldly” things like career, relationships, sex, family, money, and various experiential experiences. What they feel they should value is God above these. But the Atonement (consciousness) has two parts, the expression of the idea of not-God (ego) and the expression of the idea of God (Spirit). Ego is not wrong or bad, it is a false experience. Ultimately, so is Spirit because everything in consciousness is not real. Spirit is different from ego in that it reflects Truth, but it is no more real than ego. What is appearing in consciousness is not supposed to be anything other than what it is.

             God, being All, must contain the idea of Its Own opposite. But being All, God cannot have an opposite. So, the idea of not-God is undone even as it arises. But within the idea of not-God is time, the opposite of Timelessness. And in time, it seems that the idea of not-God arose long ago and will be undone in some indefinite future. Consciousness is the space in God’s Mind where these ideas take form and are depicted. As it depicts an idea simultaneously undone, what unfolds in time/consciousness is predetermined. The story of your person expresses the Atonement, or the undoing of the idea of not-God. It is part of the whole of the Atonement and cannot be separated out. There is no individual soul or spirit on a journey, just one consciousness depicting the Atonement through various ideas that take form, nonmaterial and material. So, your person is a singular expression of consciousness, part of the whole of consciousness, and is not a vehicle for individual achieveme

          The first time I had an inkling that everything that happens in consciousness (the experience of being a person in a world) was predetermined was over twenty years ago, after a study group I led. The Secret was big then and there was a lot of talk about how one could manifest what they wanted simply by wanting it enough. I had feelings of incongruity about this idea, but I had not yet sorted it out for myself. An attendee came up to me and said that anything she wanted manifested within a few days. As I walked away from this conversation, I had the thought, “What if she wasn’t manifesting but her desire for something indicated it was about to show up?” In other words, her wanting wasn’t making something happen, she was simply in tune with what was to happen. I noted two things in my life when it came to desire and something showing up. One was that if it was not going to show up, trying to make it do so was a struggle. It felt like swimming upstream. The other was that whe

              A Course in Miracles teaches that consciousness—this experience of being a person in a world—is the Atonement , or the depiction of the correction of the idea of separation from God. This means that there are two parts to consciousness/the Atonement—the false idea, represented by ego, and its correction, represented by Spirit. Therefore, everything that unfolds in consciousness is the Atonement, whether ego or Spirit. But this does not mean that everything that unfolds in consciousness is Spirit . As consciousness depicts a moment that has already occurred—the idea of not-God arising and simultaneously being undone by God’s All-encompassing nature—how it unfolds is already predetermined, or, as the Course puts it, “the script is written.” In that sense, whatever occurs, even ego, is a perfect movement of the Atonement . But only the movement of Spirit is the movement of Spirit . As one develops their awareness of Spirit and advances spiritually, their movement is d

            When I was a new student of A Course in Miracles in 1984, I soon had my first direct revelation of God (Reality). I cannot describe what this was like because It was not in consciousness (this experience as people in a world), and It was wholly unlike consciousness, not just quantitatively, but qualitatively. Nothing in consciousness is anything like God at all. I can share that God is a Wholeness so complete, even the idea of lack is not There. The idea of a world is not There. God’s Glory is indescribable—again, not just in magnitude, but in Its characteristics. It is laughable to think that anything in consciousness, with its characteristic forms of perceptions and ideas and experiences and a material universe, could have anything to do with God or have any effect on God. So, I saw the forgiveness the Course offers, the awareness that nothing in consciousness is real, nothing in consciousness has any effect on God at all. As consciousness is so unlike God, what app

         All meaning and significance granted to the person’s life, even spiritual meaning and significance, is ego, period. Spirit merely coexists with a person acting in a world and makes no judgment on this, nor does it grant it meaning and significance because It knows this is not real. It is totally possible for the person to operate in the world without ego because ego is not the source of the person and does not live the person. The person is a neutral expression of consciousness. What ego does is tell a story about the person and their actions, and that story is to validate itself, to make ego seem to be an alternate reality to Reality (God). It doesn’t seem like the story is about ego, but rather about what is appearing, because ego projects the story to hide itself behind what is appearing. An analogy: You are sitting in a garden and there are birds and insects flying and buzzing around and the wind is blowing about the trees and bushes. You are simply coexisting with these

             God is within you. And this is where you look to find God’s Love. If you look to the world for proof of God’s Love, God will seem to be inconsistent at best and absent at worst. God is within you. And this is where you look to find God’s Love. You will not find God when things go your way, because otherwise where is God when inevitably things do not go your way? Has God abandoned you? Is God punishing you? Is God testing you? Or are you missing how this bad fortune is good for you? You will twist your mind into a pretzel trying to prove to yourself how things going wrong for you is somehow God’s Love. God is within you. And this is where you look to find God’s Love. God is not in synchronicity (coincidences). Because when you don’t see synchronicity, has God abandoned you? Or are you somehow failing to see the synchronicity? You will find yourself falling short more often than not. God is within you. And this is where you look to find God’s Love. God is not in your

  “Our Course group…(is) stumped as to what it says in Chapter 12-3:4…We understand, as Ken says, if someone asks you to jump off the Brooklyn bridge you don’t do that. What if someone is obviously taking advantage of you? Allowing them to is not helpful to them or to you. Examples would be most helpful!” – SB   You refer to T-12.III.4:   “Recognize what does not matter , and if your brothers ask you for something ‘outrageous,’ do it because it does not matter. Refuse, and your opposition establishes that it does matter to you. It is only you, therefore, who have made the request outrageous, and every request of a brother is for you. Why would you insist in denying him? For to do so is to deny yourself and impoverish both. He is asking for salvation, as you are. Poverty is of the ego, and never of God. No ‘outrageous’ requests can be made of one who recognizes what is valuable and wants to accept nothing else.”   A Course in Miracles was first for Helen Schucman and Bill Thet

  “…Was hoping you will consider sharing in the blog your mind’s experiences when right minded and extending love with particular emphasis on how the world of form can seem ‘quite lovely’ since it’s seen with holy vision (cleansed perception).” - RW   The real world , as A Course in Miracles uses the term, is not the material world, but a formless world of perception that extends in consciousness. As such, it is not possible to describe what is “seen” as a perceptual experience rather than a material form. It is an experience of wholeness and love and lighthearted joy. It reveals the material world, and ego’s projections of meaning onto it, to be false. But as the material world is a neutral appearance in consciousness, the perception of the real world extends to it as well, blanketing it with loveliness, much as when you fall in love or have happy news everything in the world suddenly seems lovely. Only, this is a much more intense experience. It is understood in the experience th

            I am often asked if it is possible to be in the world (in consciousness) without ego. It’s a trick question from ego, which can only conceive of its own world (or consciousness). You cannot be in ego’s world without ego, of course. But there is no ego in Spirit’s world (or consciousness), what is called in A Course in Miracles the real world or true perception . But I think what is often truly being asked is if consciousness, expressed as the appearance of a person, goes on without ego. And as you can see from the above paragraph, the answer is yes. However, the answer may come down to how ego is defined. For some, ego and the person mean the same thing. But my experience has shown me to apply these labels to different things. For me, the term person refers to a body and personality, a neutral expression of consciousness. And ego is the asserted experience that ego and consciousness, represented by the person, are the same and are real. So, you can see how ego thi

            “…I've read about painters, dancers, actors, etc., using their talents to discover something higher.  Is any activity, especially art, simply a way to experience Our Source and advance our spiritual progress?  I suspect many of us who read your blog enjoy and/or practice an art form…I know you have also published fiction.” – RL   Nothing in consciousness causes an experience of God. But any activity, including art, can be shared with God’s Spirit (the Holy Spirit) in consciousness and can therefore be used as a means to grow your awareness of Spirit. And an experience of God’s Spirit may inspire creativity. For example, the two works of fiction ( find here ) I published came through in the months preceding the shift in consciousness here from ego- to Spirit-consciousness. It was a time I call The Golden because the golden Light of Christ had come into my mind. This led to a burst of creativity, and although the experience was filled with Light and Love for me, as

            What I see now I cannot adequately express. When I tell others that consciousness (the world) is wholly unlike God (Truth), they often point to wars and lack and personal conflicts. But it’s much more than that. The whole experience of consciousness is completely unlike God. All forms, all thoughts, all feelings…well, everything . Even Spirit is only the Idea of God in consciousness. Although It comes from beyond consciousness, It is shaped to consciousness to function in it. The contrast between consciousness and God is so stark that it’s easy to see how someone who already believed sin and guilt were real would come away from a mystical experience of God feeling those beliefs reinforced. Not because sin and guilt are real, but because the contrast between God and what they are used to is startling that when ego says, “This is so unlike God what could it be but sin?” it seems reasonable. The only way out of the interpretation of consciousness as sin is to come to see

           When the person here, Liz, was seventeen, she came out to herself as a lesbian. She’d had romantic and sexual feelings for girls and women all her life, but she’d developed a heterosexual persona to keep the truth from herself and others until she could handle it. Coming out was an identity crisis, a very difficult psychological and emotional process of personal identity shift from the personally false to the personally true. So, when a couple of years later, she learned that God was within and that her True Identity was in God, that it was already here, and that ego was a false identity that had to fall away, she felt she had an advantage. She felt coming out was a template to follow. But it turned out that the coming out experience was a parallel , not a template for enlightenment. Because where in the coming out experience the “I” of ego stood between a false heterosexual persona and an authentic homosexual orientation and seemed to have a choice between them, there

              A s Spirit has taken center in consciousness here and ego continues to fall away, consciousness, ego, and Spirit have been sorted out. The “I” of ego (yes, this is redundant) seemed concrete, and was in fact projected onto a concrete form, the person called Liz. But Liz’s body, personality, and attributes are only neutral expressions of consciousness, so she and ego are not the same. Although that strong sense of identity belonged only to ego, the “I” stated by consciousness here has never belonged to only ego. Sometimes the term has been used by Spirit. Ego strongly asserts an “I” and seeks constantly for its validation. But Spirit merely observes and sometimes teaches, which is as close as It gets to asserting Itself. The term “I” is used by both ego and Spirit, and can vacillate quickly between them, so it can seem there is only one “I”. For example, a question may arise in consciousness from ego and is answered by Spirit. Often, the Answerer is not recognized as