ACIM Mentor

              In last week’s article I mentioned that after the shift in consciousness here I could no longer find anything in this mind to call the “Son of God” and struggled to fit my experiences into the ontology and theology of A Course in Miracles . Here I will explain. This is what I thought and expected and taught over three decades as a student, teacher, and mentor of the Course :   I (along with you) am a (the) Son of God. In my pure state I am what is called Christ . I had come to understand “God” or “Father” as Whole and “Christ” or “Son” as Part of that Whole due to the Course making it clear that God and Christ were truly One. The reason for the distinction was that part of the whole had “forgotten to laugh” at the ridiculous idea of being separated from itself and had “fallen asleep”. Thus, the Son, or Part, was looking to get back to its Father, or its Wholeness. Since this was only a dream, this Part had not really left th...

        In her book, The Real Christ , Bernadette Roberts details how Christ , or the awareness of truth, was lost in a cult of Jesus that arose in the early Christian Church. One of the ways this occurred was through a rigid insistence that only certain approved language could be used by writers and teachers, which meant much authentic experience was lost. If someone wrote about their genuine experience in language that was not approved by the Church, they were labeled a heretic and executed. She lamented this when she had begun having experiences that were not described in the contemplative or mystical teachings of her Church ( The Experience of No-Self ), leaving her without validation and support. Eventually, the Church’s power diminished and within and outside the Church there were many contemplatives and mystics who did write about their experience in their own authentic language, but she still could find only one or two teachers who wrote about what she was ex...

          “Could you tell more about the factor of predetermination in one of the upcoming newsletters? Specifically, how we can discern if our longing and drive to wake up comes from the ego or from Spirit?” – D   As truth (pure consciousness) rises to conscious awareness, along with mystical experiences and/or a growing awareness of truth, it shows up as a motivation and sometimes desire for spiritual study and practice in some form. These are effects, not causes, of truth rising to conscious awareness. They may also serve as a form of preparation for changes that will occur as truth rises further in conscious awareness. It sometimes occurs that a desire for something, be it an object or situation, shows up out of the blue before the object or situation shows up. This is not a personal desire; it does not come from a sense of lack. It simply signals an awareness of what is to occur. I’ve heard the longing for greater spiritual awareness described a...

            Perhaps you are aware of Russian nesting dolls—matryoshka—where a larger doll contains a smaller doll which contains an even smaller doll and so on. I’ve discovered that the absolute and consciousness and ego are like this, which is why there is confusion about which experiences are true and what is the ultimate truth, the absolute. Let’s begin with the actual only truth, the absolute . Being all, the absolute must contain the idea of its own opposite. Being all, the absolute cannot have an opposite so its opposite can only ever be an idea . It can never be real. Moreover, as soon as the idea of not-absolute arises it is simultaneously undone by the absolute’s all-encompassing nature. In the absolute, there is only the absolute. So, in the absolute, no opposite actually arises and must be undone. The idea of a truth that must undo its opposite can only be representational . These ideas play out in a “space” we call consciousness . In conscio...

           Ego fell away here, but I did nothing to cause it to fall away. It happened because it was to happen. Before it fell away, ego went through many stages; it went on a “spiritual journey”. This was merely the effect of truth rising to conscious awareness here. The journey did not result in ego falling away. Truth rising to conscious awareness resulted in what looked like ego going on a “spiritual journey”. While an effect of truth, the journey had nothing to do with what truth actually is. In general terms, the journey was symbolic, an indication of truth rising to conscious awareness. But the specifics of the journey were wholly in the context of ego. This is why enlightenment was such a shock. A Course in Miracles is also an effect, not a cause. It was the result of Bill Thetford’s awakening, not the cause of it. Truth was to rise to his conscious awareness and the Course was his “spiritual journey” or “individualized curriculum”—how truth ri...

            When I write articles like the past two where I emphasize the centrality of your awareness of your inner teacher (Holy Spirit) to your sense of inner peace, I hear from those who say they are not aware of their inner teacher. Everyone experiences their inner teacher at some point, but they may not identify it as such. So, let’s look at some obstacles to identifying your inner teacher.   The expectation that your inner teacher will stand out , be something dramatic, lofty, or special in some way. Your inner teacher is always in your mind, and its ordinariness may make it hard for you to pick it out from ego’s many, also familiar experiences. So, it sounds and feels like you, but a quiet, rational, detached you.   Your inner teacher is quiet , so easily lost in ego’s cacophony. However, this quiet can be how you distinguish it from ego—in time. Ego will try to be quiet to mimic it, but you will sort that out in time through othe...

           Years ago, I had a client who had been attending a weekly A Course in Miracles study group for years. In our first session I asked, as I do if it has not already come up, about his relationship with his inner teacher (Holy Spirit). He was surprised. He told me that many of the participants in his study group could quote the Course chapter and verse, but no one discussed their inner teacher. Whatever topic someone brought up, someone else would merely quote what the Course teaches on the topic. Now he understood why he felt stuck. Once I received an email from someone who described herself and her friends as highly educated, but they were struggling to understand certain aspects of the Course . Those were aspects that would only be understood through experience. So, I asked her about her spiritual experiences. “Oh,” she wrote back. “There’s supposed to be an experience ?” Indeed, there is.   “A universal theology is impossible, but a...

            A Course in Miracles is not dogmatic. It is not a doctrine to live by. It is not a prescription , but a suggestion , as it was for, and was written in in the context of, Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford’s relationship. No one must “get it right” or be a “good Course student”. In fact, there are times when it is most loving to yourself to put it aside. The real, lasting value of A Course in Miracles is it leads you to an awareness of, or validates an awareness you already have of, the teacher of truth (Holy Spirit) in your mind. If you get only this from it, it will have done its job in your life. If you do not have this, then the Course’s value will be limited and may not even be there for you. In fact, it might be harmful. Like anything else, the Course is a weapon in ego’s hands. The awareness of ego and how it works, the practices suggested in the Course , and the ontology and theology of the Course are not for everyone, and you do ...

            “Blissninny” was a term coined by Ken Wapnick to describe students of A Course in Miracles who claim everything is lovely, all is love, they see Christ in everyone, etc. without ever having gone through anything difficult to get there. He pointed out that if you are really working the Course as it is intended, it will be difficult. Ego facing itself is not a pleasant stroll in the park. If it seems to be, you are in denial; you are repressing. The way to avoid being a blissninny can be summed up in one phrase: Radical self-honesty . There is no value in denying what you really experience, unless your goal is to deceive yourself. And many do go through life like that, wearing a mask even with themselves. But that is exactly what the Course means to strip away, so why pick it up and pretend to practice it if you are not going to, well, practice it? Of course, appearing to practice it when you really don’t is a mask. Don’t confuse struggling...

          There is a great deal on social media in the A Course in Miracles community about this time of world turmoil, so let me make this clear: The “world” that you live in reflects your mind, yes. This “world”, however, is not the material world, but what your mind chooses to focus on in the material world and the meaning it projects onto what it chooses to focus on. Last week I wrote about selective seeing . Specifically, I wrote about ego selecting what to focus on to justify the fear it induces in you. But the mind, whether ego, neutral consciousness, or perceptions through the lens of truth, is always looking for itself and always finds itself. Ego always finds justifications for fear in the material world. Neutral consciousness merely observes what appears and sees no meaning in it. And truth, in its teaching capacity in ego-consciousness, will lead you to focus on love and unity in the material world, or if you’re more advanced, to   look past ...

            There is a lot going on in the US that has many afraid in this country as well as around the world, as it is affecting, or has the potential to affect, the rest of the world. If you have an advanced awareness of truth, then you can turn to it and know that, in truth, nothing real is occurring and all is eternally okay. You feel this. But most reading this are either almost wholly in ego or have a split mind and must still deal with ego, and fear is a real experience for you. Understand that ego is fear. It, not what is appearing in the world, is the source of fear. Ego projects fear away onto what is appearing in the world to hide that it is the source of fear. This is the meaning of “you are never afraid for the reason you think”. You are afraid because ego is in your mind, period, full stop. There is no other reason . It is not helpful to repress or deny fear (ego). If you do, it will erupt in inappropriate, unhealthy, and sometimes destr...

         “I am understanding that when ego falls away the self-concept or ‘host’ no longer values or feels connection to what seemingly gave it joy before. (?) For those of us not yet at that phase of the journey, could you give us a glimpse of what you do feel? Do you feel the Joy of the Divine? Simple inner peace? As hard as it is to be here in this transitory space at least there are the things (quite a lot of them) that I love. The sense I get from your newsletter is that those dissolve . But what are they replaced with? Some hope, please?” – BB   Wholeness is here instead. I do not know if that gives you hope or not, because it is ego that hopes, and enlightenment does not come to ego. What we call enlightenment occurs because ego is no longer here. So, for ego, enlightenment is a terrible occurrence.   “Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away o...

           In the past few months, I’ve written about how ego felt like an entity or being that was here. I’ve shared how I’ve discovered that ego and Liz were not the same thing. I wrote a few weeks ago about ego as like something that was “inserted” here, something that was foreign and not a part of the fabric of what is. Here is an example that maybe conveys these experiences. Liz loves dogs. This has not changed. Sometimes it comes up when she sees dogs or hears about them, but that is all now. She has no desire to have a dog again, and she no longer has the mechanism—what I call ego —for attachment to a dog or attachment to loving dogs. In fact, without ego, there is no attachment to anything or anyone. Without ego, there is nothing to regret the absence of attachment. When ego was here, Liz’s love of dogs was a key feature of a sense of identity here, but without ego, Liz’s love of dogs is merely a neutral trait of Liz. Without ego, there is no lo...

          In my last few articles, I’ve tried to convey how close truth (love, liberation, wholeness) is, and how, without ego to bloat it into something special, it is wonderfully ordinary. I often tell my clients and readers not to look for a “burning bush” moment, that when you experience truth, it is often subtle and unrecognized. They have often experienced truth but not given it the correct label. These experiences aren’t dramatic but slip in among the myriad experiences of ego and are lost in that cacophony. Truth shows up as the “still, quiet voice”—not necessarily an actual voice , of course, but an inobtrusive experience that stands out in contrast with the rest. It is the quiet child on the playground, the one who doesn’t demand your attention, but who gets it for that reason. But then it is lost again in all the noise, often forgotten. Another way to put this is that truth is different from the usual ongoing experience of ego, but it is also famil...

            Six years ago, as I was getting into bed one night, I became aware that I was going to “receive a download”. I had not had an experience like that before. I didn’t know what it meant, I thought perhaps a new book would come to me. The next day, as I was out walking, suddenly only pure consciousness was here. Jesus was present as well, which I understood to be symbolic, a verification that what I was experiencing was what is called Christ . A few days later, on another walk, I became aware that I was to go forward teaching, “What Jesus was, I am. What I am, you are, too.” Ego was still so present at first there was a freak out. I put an end to the melodrama quickly, but ego was still disturbed by this idea, for obvious reasons. However, ego still had lofty ideas of what this meant and it was still playing itself out. For years I’d been using the term “Truth” for, well, truth. But now I found returning symbols I had not used in years, God , Ch...

             In Buddhism, when Buddha is quoted, it is not the man Siddhartha who is quoted. It is understood that Buddha is a universal consciousness that has been revealed through many teachers through the ages. This stands in stark contrast to how Christians feel that the same truth—pure consciousness—which they call Christ , revealed by the man Jesus, belongs only to that man. All the world’s religions began with someone experiencing pure consciousness. They expressed it in their own way and then ego took over with guilt and fear and bloat so their simple experience, if it can be found at all, is buried in each religion’s mysticism, which is sought only by a few. If you experienced pure consciousness in some form, in a moment, an episode, or maybe now in an ongoing way, you experienced the same truth that Siddhartha and Jesus and all the “master teachers” before and after experienced. Truth came to conscious awareness in you as in them. And as...