ACIM Mentor

             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...

          Six years ago, when this consciousness shifted, I began to see ego as something inserted here in this consciousness, something foreign. I couldn’t quite grasp the bigger picture then and it eventually faded as other things came forward to be seen, experienced, processed. A few months ago, I became strongly aware of ego as an entity or being that lived here, asserting its reality through the person of Liz. I saw more clearly than I had yet that this consciousness and ego were not the same thing. Neither are ego and the person of Liz the same thing. Over the past year, I saw what fell away at the shift, which I call The Break , was what ego is before it takes any shape, the denial of truth ; the denial of pure consciousness. Through denial, ego seems to carve out a being from beingness, an experience of existence at odds with pure existence. Ego’s denial of truth also included denial of its denial, because after all, if you admit you are in denial, you...

             A recovered memory showed up a few years ago, as I was writing the memoir. It took a while to come to fruition, but it turned out to be just a memory of how around the time Liz was seven years old truth (pure consciousness) rose to conscious awareness. There was a brief lovely episode with love in conscious awareness. But ego was exposed, too, because when truth is in conscious awareness ego’s denial of truth becomes apparent. There was a moment when Liz felt that “good and evil” were “fighting over” her—a childish characterization, but it is interesting that at that time I felt I as I do now, merely a neutral consciousness that registers the presence of either ego or pure consciousness. In other words, it was an impersonal experience. There was no sense of choice, either then or now. Liz was merely the “territory” over which the denial of truth (ego) fought its battle against truth (pure consciousness).           ...

             I wrote the article below and then hesitated to send it. It’s nothing new, just a summary of what has been occurring in this mind. But it is dark and I am not out to scare anyone. I do feel, however, that an honest record is useful for those who may go through the same thing. There is also a lot of misunderstanding about the enlightenment process, and some have la-di-da expectations. La-di-da does happen, but after darkness passes through. On the other hand, there are those who think every difficulty they face is the enlightenment process! That is also not the case. Enlightenment is a distinct experience, not the cause of every difficulty one faces.            What I consider enlightenment is when pure consciousness breaks into conscious awareness to stay , causing ego to fall away in what is usually a distinct moment when it is clear that something is gone. For me, there was a long approach to that experienc...

             True love , the love that I wrote about the past two weeks, the love that is right here , the love that simply is what pure consciousness is, is obviously not personal love. Personal love is a form of attachment, basically for the survival of the human animal, no matter what ego does with it to replace pure love. It is not wrong or bad, it is frankly inevitable for a person. But it is not true love, which is also called cosmic , universal , unconditional , or transcendent love to distinguish it from personal love. The reason for the confusion is both experiences cause responses in the brain that make the body feel “good” in a certain way that we label love .             This love is less an emotional feeling than a perception, a way of seeing. Sometimes it inspires subtle nice feelings, occasionally it comes with powerful feelings of joy. Because these feelings are only an effect, it makes no sense to pursue...