ACIM Mentor

            Consciousness arose to play out the idea of the opposite of God (Reality), or not-God. But as God is All and cannot have an opposite, consciousness also contains the Idea of God, or God’s Spirit , canceling out not-God. So, as it unfolds over time, consciousness is the correction of the perception of a reality opposed to God, or what A Course in Miracles calls the Atonement . Consciousness has three parts: Conscious awareness, the subconscious, and the unconscious. Until Spirit rises to conscious awareness, It is in the unconscious or subconscious. The Atonement, then, is the process of the Idea of God (Spirit) rising to conscious awareness, in individuals, and in consciousness as a whole. (Bear in mind, this play of the idea of not-God and the Idea of God that is consciousness/time/the Atonement, is merely symbolic and has no effect on God whatsoever.) As Spirit rises toward conscious awareness to manifest the Atonement, this shows up as someone being drawn toward s

             A Course in Miracles tells us that when we learn that we are projecting guilt outward, ego’s response is to see the guilt within, not undo it. This shows up as what I call the righteous guilt phase where students become hyper-responsible for everything occurring in their person’s life, sometimes to the extent of taking responsibility for other people’s behavior or denying that others are also contributing to problems in their relationships with them. This feels good to ego because, first, you still see guilt as real; second, it feels righteous to take responsibility for it; third, problems don’t get resolved, so ego gets to continue spinning on them. Many spend years in this phase, taking responsibility for everything occurring, and not addressing problems in their relationships, feeling this is the “spiritually correct” thing to do. Upsets are not caused by what is occurring in the material world but by your projection of meaning onto occurrences, making them seem re

             It is not uncommon for me to hear from clients and readers that they are disappointed in A Course in Miracles after a while. They are not getting from it something that they expected. Yet, they still feel compelled to read it and try to practice it. Sometimes, they’ve left it, only to come back, frustrated that they can’t let it go but they can’t get it to work for them, either. If this is happening to you, you have set up a goal for studying and practicing the Course that is not in line with how the Atonement is being expressed through you (your “path”). Your attraction to the Course , despite your discomfort with it, indicates that it is a part of your expression of the Atonement. So, what you need to look at is how your expectations do not line up with your unique expression of the Atonement. Most students begin the Course pretty much the same way, sticking to its theory and suggested practice, often for many years. Some do the Workbook later rather than sooner,

         “In the past decade free will has come under quite a bit of scrutiny as to it being an illusion. Several books have been written regarding this, and of course, the science of the mind is nowhere close to being complete. I have been looking for references in ACIM about this subject. It speaks of course about the world and its illusionary nature as well as the self.  It reminds us that the world was over long ago. It does speak of willingness quite a bit. What are your thoughts on free will?” —ESA   My experience of the concept of free will as it is usually understood—that a person determines their own thoughts, feelings, and actions—is that it is impossible because I now see what unfolds in time and consciousness as a symbolic depiction of the idea of not-God arising in God (Reality) and simultaneously being undone by God’s all-encompassing nature. So, what unfolds in time is an expression of the Atonement, it is not bringing about the Atonement. This is my understanding o

          My mentoring and life-coaching clients run the gamut from those trying to nail down the theory of A Course in Miracles to those who would like guidance dealing with a situation in their life. The latter often express their attempts to forgive a person or situation in their life, personal or at work, that they find painful. They want to know what they are doing wrong because, no matter how willing they are to forgive the situation, nothing has changed. Forgiveness isn’t “working.” They expect either a person or situation to change, or to change themselves and to no longer care that they are being abused or manipulated. When I tell them that perhaps they should leave the painful circumstances in which they find themselves, they are surprised. They seem to expect me to tell them that they are blocked or somehow not truly forgiving the situation. Doesn’t the Course say that they should not run away but stay and forgive? Aren’t they the problem, aren’t they projecting? In the

            Ah, words. Consciousness is just the play of symbols, and words are symbols of symbols. But, oh, what strong ideas and emotions words can evoke, and how hard those can be to overcome! For me, the word Christ evokes experiences of an Eternal Light in my mind, which springs from Reality (God) beyond consciousness.   The sign of Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. See it not outside yourself, but shining in the Heaven within, and accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come. (T-15.XI.2)   I want my clients and readers to know that the Light that was in Jesus’ mind is also in theirs.   Is he the Christ? O yes, along with you . (C-5.5)   But alas, in teaching I have been frustrated in efforts to separate the word Christ from the man Jesus for them. For example, when speaking with a client or writing an article, I may say, “Christ blah blah blah…” and later a client or reader will refer to what I said as, “You said Jesus blah blah blah…” Sigh . “

          “I’m wondering what you would say about the topic of prayer…It would seem that it is always the ego that is praying for “more”, “better”, etc. But to Whom is the ego praying, is it heard, is it answered, or is it a waste of time since “all is written”? If all is in the mind, is it one part of a mind praying to another part of the same mind, or a dream praying to the mind that is dreaming it,  or… ?” —PW If prayer is supplication, it is always ego that prays, as only ego experiences lack. To what exactly it prays depends on the particular ego, I suppose! Perhaps ego prays to a god in its own image which it projects but that does not exist, which would be the dream praying to the dreamer as ego is both dreamer and dream. Or, in true despair, it may be a cry to God (Reality beyond consciousness). Since “the script is written”, praying could never be the cause of bringing something about. This is why it seems only some prayers are answered. When prayers seem to be answered, it

          Many years ago, I had a client who told me that she took LSD in the 1960s and had an experience of expanded consciousness and oceanic love. What she described sounded like some of my mystical experiences and I was dismayed. Although I had heard stories like this before, I did not stop to think about the implications of them until this woman shared her experience. I had thought my experiences were Spirit (Truth), but what she and others before her shared told me that those experiences were effects in the brain . At first, I experienced this as a loss. But I soon realized I lost nothing. I already knew from direct revelations of God (Reality) that nothing in consciousness is like the Glory of God. And I could still have those desirable experiences in consciousness, as they were obviously induced not only by brain altering occurrences like drugs, strokes, tumors, etc. but as I had experienced them, through an awareness of Spirit. They just were not Spirit in themselves. Later,

             It makes far more sense to seek to live with Spirit as your Companion in ego-consciousness than to seek enlightenment, because enlightenment is rare, because it cannot be made to happen, and because it is not what ego wants anyway. Ego seeking enlightenment is like one spending their life studying and training for a position that they can only hope for since they cannot make it happen. Then, if the time comes for the position to be filled, they discover that it belongs to someone else forever and, worst of all, that they must now die for the other to fulfill it. So, all that time studying and practicing was not preparing for a better state, but for death. Ego imagines enlightenment is some sort of glorification of itself. But enlightenment is not a better ego experience. And Spirit is not ego transformed; Spirit is not ego’s True Self. Spirit is an entirely different experience of existence from ego. What you really want is what something like A Course in Miracles of

             In the Manual for Teachers of A Course in Miracles where it discusses how one should approach the Course it says:   “The curriculum is highly individualized, and all aspects are under the Holy Spirit's particular care and guidance.” (M-29.2)   How would you read A Course in Miracles differently if you read it as the highly individualized curriculum of, and description of what was to happen to, someone else? A Course in Miracles lays out the path of its first student, Bill Thetford, and describes what is to happen for him. He is led to work on ego’s grievances as they block his awareness of God. He is told that he will see the real world and soon after God will “take the last step” and he will “put the body aside.” This is what occurred for Dr. Thetford. At the end of his life, he said he had one remaining grievance. Then one day he announced that it fell away, and he said in joy, “I am there. ” A few hours later he died. Ego is the block to Spirit i

It is always important to read a book’s introduction and/or preface because they lay out the context of the book, orienting your mind toward its purpose. When A Course in Miracles was first published, it did not have a preface. This came later, after requests from readers, and was originally a pamphlet one could insert into their copy of the three hard-bound books. It was included, however, in later editions. Over the years of my study of the Course , I sometimes found it helpful to return to the Preface, which lays out what the Course is and what it is about in very simple terms. It cuts to the chase. In the Preface, Helen Schucman states about the Course :   “Its only purpose is to provide a way in which some people will be able to find their own Internal Teacher.”   Notice “only purpose” and “some people” in this statement. The Course may or may not be for you. And if it is, all it is for is to lead you to the Holy Spirit within. How simple and undemanding is that? Mo

        Take this in, it is important, even if you can’t see it. In fact, I’m not sure it can be seen until ego falls away. But it undermines many of the fears ego promotes regarding the person’s continuance if ego falls away.   Ego and the person—the body and personality—are not the same thing.   Ego is the asserted idea in a seemingly individual consciousness that God is not real. Like Spirit, ego is an immaterial, disembodied idea in consciousness. But to seem to be more than an idea, to seem to be a reality apart from God, it projects itself onto material appearances in consciousness, specifically, a person, a neutral expression of consciousness. Here is another thought to take in:   Ego identifies with the person. The person, as a neutral expression of consciousness, does not have the agency to identify with anything.   Ego asserts that the person cannot live without it. But that is ego projecting, because it needs the person to seem to exist. This is why it equate

          “... People get bogged down with their concept of God and never break past it. Meister Eckhart was quoted ‘the ultimate leave-taking  is the leaving of God for God.’  The myriad of mental constructs of God or Truth seems to be a formidable barrier…I know you’ve been addressing this pretty much your whole life, it’s a big stumbling block for most people, and I wonder when you first broke through it yourself.” –ESA   A concept of God, or Reality beyond consciousness, is inevitable in ego-consciousness. A concept is all God can be to ego, which is the denial of God. So, ego uses concepts of God for its own ends, which is to validate its own seeming-reality. These evolve as one’s spirituality evolves, but they are always false and only fall away if ego falls away. There are two aspects of ego’s concepts of God. First, in practice, ego is the god in ego-consciousness. Ego is the arbiter of reality. It determines what is real and does not question this. The second aspect is th

          Recently, I went to Suzanne Segal’s book, Collision With the Infinite , to look up something. I ran into what she said were Transcendental Meditation’s three stages of enlightenment: cosmic, God, and unity consciousness. I was struck before, but more so now, by how they measure enlightenment not by the absence or presence of ego, but rather by what had come to stay in awareness. In fact, even when Ms. Segal finally found someone, a Buddhist, to explain her decade long feeling of the absence of the self and the fear that filled that void, he told her she was in bliss because of her awareness of what she called the Vastness. He dismissed the fear she felt, which clearly indicated ego was still present. So, the TM and Buddhist measurement of enlightenment is not ego’s absence but, the Presence of the Light in conscious awareness. The Light is called many things. I call It Spirit and Ms. Segal called It Vastness. In the TM tradition, the first stage of enlightenment (cosmic) i

            God is All, and being All, God must consider Its Own opposite. But being All, God cannot have an opposite. So, God’s opposite, or not-God, can only ever be an idea . It is an idea that does not extend God, so it does not represent Reality. In fact, the idea of not-God is simultaneously undone as soon as it arises because it represents an impossible idea. There can be no absence of the All in the All. But the idea of God’s opposite, or not-God, is not an intellectual concept. It is not undone through intellectual reasoning. As God is Reality, the idea of not-God believes it, too, is a reality, one that is opposed to God. It seems to have come into existence , in a situation called consciousness , and is full of experiences in a material universe . So, existence , consciousness , experiences, and the material universe are all not-God. They are all illusions. But as God’s Allness simultaneously undoes the impossible idea of God’s opposite, the Idea of God, or God’s Spirit

            “The word, special or specialness comes up in ACIM so many times, and it is key to understanding so much of what the course is about. However, specialness is so much a part of the culture we are living in now that claiming someone or something is not special is considered an insult. Although you surely have in the past I think this would be a good topic to address in an upcoming Mentor letter as a refresher and reminder for the New Year.” –ESA Persons are unique, and everyone has a unique part to play in the Atonement (what is unfolding in consciousness/the world), so in that sense you could say everyone is special. However, A Course in Miracles uses the term specialness to describe ego’s attachment to its unique person and its belief that special people or situations will bring it peace and happiness. This is ego’s reality, and it will never change for ego. So, naturally an ego is offended if you tell them their person is not special. You are attacking their realit

            “How did you get to the break? How do you continue towards the freedom from ego? What did/do you ‘do’?... you said that things happen, no matter what…Yet, you have been a student of ACIM for many years. There is an intense attention towards this continuing process. How does ‘it’ happen? I am curious to read your answer.”. —K   The Break refers to the moment when Spirit took the center of consciousness here, bumping ego off center and leading to it falling away. I felt this approaching for a long time before it occurred. (See my memoir. ) But I did nothing to make it happen. All my years of study and practice of A Course in Miracles and growing my awareness of Spirit perhaps were preparation and indicated that the shift in consciousness would occur, but they did not make it occur. In other words, the cause of the shape of Liz’s former life may have been her eventual shift in consciousness, the shape of her life did not cause the shift to occur. A shift in consciousne