ACIM Mentor

              After last week’s article about A Course in Miracles and fundamentalism , I heard from some readers and clients about teachers who assert that you should not enjoy anything in the world, that you must give up all attachments, that all personal relationships, especially romantic ones, are special and should be avoided, you shouldn’t take medicine or supplements or treatments for the body, etc. Like fundamentalism, this kind of puritanism is also inevitable when a spiritual text is in the hands of ego. Did the first people to handle A Course in Miracles , Helen Shucman, Bill Theford, or Ken Wapnick, stop enjoying life, give up their relationships and all attachments, and stop using helpful treatments when they were ill or hurt? I mean, if anyone would, you’d think it would have been them because the Course came through Helen, it was for Bill, and Ken was right there as the second student and closely handled the material with Helen. But ...

             Sometimes clients are surprised when I warn them against “ A Course in Miracles fundamentalism”. They say they never thought they would hear that word associated with the Course . But fundamentalism refers to an approach, not a specific religion or spirituality. We are used to the term being applied to the distorters of Islam that have taken over whole swathes of the world or to Christians who took over one of the major political parties in the US in the 1980s and are at this time trying to force their   distorted view of Christianity on the whole country. Anyone paying attention sees little daylight between Islamic and Christian fundamentalism not because they use the same symbols but because they use the same approach to same effect. Google defines fundamentalism as “a strict, literal adherence to sacred texts or traditional ideologies and a rejection of modern secular interpretations”. Fundamentalists interpret their sacred tex...

             Clients and readers who have not had mystical or nonduality experiences want to know if they can still practice forgiveness as A Course in Miracles teaches it since in the Course ultimately forgiveness is coming to recognize that nothing real is occurring. Yes, you can. You can come to see and release (forgive) ego’s illusions, which are projections of meaning and expectations. The Course teaches the source of your pain is your own thoughts, so you don’t need to forgive others or situations but rather your unmet expectations and false projections of meaning. So, if in situations where you are in pain you look for how you contribute to your pain by looking at your expectations and projections of meaning you are practicing forgiveness. Simply acknowledging that you are the source of your upset is stepping into forgiveness.   Zia had an abusive mother. Sometimes the abuse was physical, but the verbal and psychological abuse was ...

             A traveler who has never been in a desert is crossing one. In the distance, they see an oasis of water. They move persistently toward it but never reach it. It is always ahead of them. This is because they do not see water but rather heat shimmering off the sand. They were sure they saw water, but it was a mirage—an illusion. An illusion is something that is taken to be real that is not. For illusions to be illusions, they must be convincing. This is their seeming power and why they can seem hard to overcome. To pure consciousness (truth), ego, the material world, thoughts, and feelings are merely appearances. They are not real. They have no meaning. They have no effect on pure consciousness. But for ego, ego, the material world, thoughts, and feelings are reality. Since they are not true but ego believes they are, for ego they are illusions. Ego is delusional. After The Break, this mind (this conscious awareness) went through a long...

            Every now and then someone asks me why these articles are not about forgiveness. All these articles are about forgiveness! Oh, this may not be spelled out and that word may not be used but every article deliberately contains something to bring relief to at least some readers. In A Course in Miracles , forgiveness is recognizing that a sense of separation from God (the whole) is an illusion. So, anything that appears to cause you to feel autonomous and isolated is an illusion. These feelings are caused by mistaken perceptions that can be changed; therefore, they are not true. Since they are not true, they are not sin. Since there is no sin, there is no justification for guilt. Since there is no sin or guilt, you do not need forgiveness from God, but you need to forgive (release) your own false perceptions that make you feel you have sinned, that you have made yourself separate from God. Only false perceptions lead you to feel you are separate ...

             A discomfort often reported to me by clients and readers is their confusion over why certain spiritual experiences, like shifts in perception and mystical experiences, are not consistent or why these experiences don’t seem to make discernable progress. They may grow through these experiences and in that sense they progress, but the experiences themselves do not seem to grow or develop. For example, someone may have a mystical experience revealing truth beyond ego and the world and never have another. Others feel the nearness of truth often, but it doesn’t break fully into their conscious awareness. Some have reported living in a lovely awareness of truth for months or even years only to have it fade. The problem isn’t truth (pure consciousness), of course, but the nature of ego. Ego thinks everything that happens in consciousness is for it and its person. That is its reality and it knows no other. It makes stories, and in doing so, deve...

              It’s always worth revisiting this modern-day parable now and then. Comments afterward.   ** The Old Man and the Flood   An old man lives in a town where a flood comes through. The water rises to his porch, and a fire truck comes by.   “Get in,” the firemen call to him. “We’ll get you to higher ground.”   “No, thanks,” says the old man. “God will take care of me.”   The next morning the water had risen to his second story. He’s hanging out a window when a rescue boat comes by.   “Get in,” the would-be rescuers call to him. “We’ll take you to higher ground.”   “No, thanks,” says the old man. “God will take care of me.”   The next morning finds the old man on his roof as the water has all but covered his house. A helicopter flies over and drops down a ladder.   “Climb up,” his would-be rescuers call to him. “We’ll take you to higher ground.”   “No, th...

             A  common question clients and readers ask when they begin to see the way to peace is, “How can I be happy when others are unhappy?” Sometimes, the “others” are distant people, in war torn countries, for example. Other times, the “others” are people close to them. They feel it is selfish to choose peace. A Course in Miracles states at least three times that your only responsibility is to “accept the Atonement” for yourself . In the Course , Atonement means “correction of the perception that you are separate from God.” That correction means to lead to your happiness. But in many ways, the Course tells you that your shift in perception away from separation toward unity also helps others. It is not difficult to see how this works if you think in terms of energy. Your joining others in their unhappiness only increases the amount of misery in the room—or in the world. And certainly, if someone cares about you, they don’t want you to ...

              A confusion this mind had as a new student and that Liz here sometimes hears from clients and readers is, “Is A Course in Miracles saying the world is an illusion or how I’m seeing it is an illusion?” This mind loved the idea that the world isn’t real. This was radical, yes, but also completely liberating. However, this made ego uncomfortable, so there were times it asserted that, no, the Course is saying only your perceptions are illusions. This was not as liberating, but ego was a bit more comfortable. Actually, the Course says both are illusions and it all comes together in Lesson 132 in the Workbook, “I loose the world from all I thought it was.” (For those confused by the word loose here, change it to release .) Paragraph 4 begins, “The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning.” This is the awareness that the Workbook of the Course fosters from the start. The world is a neutral appearance, so any meaning ...

            “I would like to see a discussion on: Does God understand our words? Since words have been invented as a communication device in the illusion, does God even know they exist? I have seen people agonize over what words to use in prayer. Does it matter?” – HC   “Strictly speaking, words play no part at all in healing. The motivating factor is prayer, or asking. What you ask for you receive. But this refers to the prayer of the heart, not to the words you use in praying. Sometimes the words and the prayer are contradictory; sometimes they agree. It does not matter. God does not understand words, for they were made by separated minds to keep them in the illusion of separation. Words can be helpful, particularly for the beginner, in helping concentration and facilitating the exclusion, or at least the control, of extraneous thoughts. Let us not forget, however, that words are but symbols of symbols. They are thus twice removed from reality.”...

           “I have noticed a kind of embodiment of something…Holy Spirit, the Heart…not sure how to articulate, but an energetic indwelling…have not seen any reference to this in ACIM…another egoic experience or something aligning with HS, Source, etc.? Have you experienced anything similar?” – MG   “Energetic indwelling” is rather vague, but I know these experiences are hard to describe. I assume you mean that you are experiencing something within that is out of the ordinary. The fact that you initially want to describe it as the embodiment of the Holy Spirit or the Heart, by which I think you mean it feels loving, means that you are pretty sure it is something aligned with truth, but you have your doubts. Here’s how you can tell the difference between an experience of truth or of something new from ego that you think might be truth: Truth is quiet and unmoving. It just is . You use the word “energy”, but many use that word when they want to expr...

             This is about what is labeled God and how sometimes in spiritual teachings contradictory things are labeled God , which leads to confusion. So, here’s some sorting out. There is what is going to happen in your person’s life and there is ego thinking it is autonomous and has free will and that it determines what happens in the person’s life. Even if you cannot accept that everything is predetermined, objectively you can see that your person does not exist in a vacuum. Their life is influenced by others and circumstances, often people and circumstances that are far away. Your person’s life is part of a greater unfolding. Adjusting to this fact is what is called maturing . Spirituality accelerates maturity by fostering acceptance of what is unfolding, often through the idea that what happens is the “will” of a supreme being, often called God . Ego senses things beyond itself and these it tends to label God or a like term. The supreme be...

           “What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good?” (W-135.18) That’s a lovely idea, isn’t it? But some of my clients and readers have a hard time with it. Understandably.   We all know it was true for Bill Thetford, whose life was described in the Manual for Teachers of A Course in Miracles . He went to live in California with groups of friends, “mighty companions”, made up of some of the first Course students. Even his death is described in the Course : He would see the real world and then “God would take the last step.” He saw the real world (“I’m there.”) and passed away. You could leave it there and just read the Course as the story of Helen Shucman’s and Bill Thetford’s “holy relationship” in bringing the Course into the world and take some wisdom and a practice here and there for yourself. You wouldn’t be ...

              When Liz here was young, in any situation in which a decision was required, she would ask herself what she wanted. The answer was not always clear. Most situations had pros and cons and she was conflicted. Eventually, of course, something would happen, seemingly by her decision or not, and she would have to deal with what she felt were the “cons” of the situation. “What do you want?” is a question family and friends and therapists will ask you when you are confronted with a choice. The answer might tell you about yourself but not about what will happen. Everything that unfolds is predetermined. Your person’s life is unfolding as part of a greater unfolding (what most call God ). If you cannot accept this, you can at least see that in any given situation rarely is your choice the only factor in what occurs. Sometimes even when you’ve made a choice you find that choice remade for you. For example, you are conflicted about taking a certa...

          “I would like to see a discussion on what Christianity calls Holy Spirit.  As I see it, Christianity does not have exclusive ownership of it, it's just called something else in other spiritual teachings such as, spirit, consciousness, or presence. As I see it, it's the awareness that we all are…” – HC   You are correct that there are universal experiences, some of which some call the Holy Spirit . I doubt there will ever be agreement on what any term means or to what experience they should be applied. It is up to the beholder to label their experiences. Most of us try to find labels that come close to how the experience is experienced or, if we are part of a tradition, to apply the label to what we think the label is supposed to mean in that context. A Course in Miracles uses the term Holy Spirit for one’s inner teacher. It is the Voice for God in each of us that can reveal to us our part in the plan of the Atonement (correction of th...