ACIM Mentor

             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