Benevolent ACIM

           When Liz here has occasion to read A Course in Miracles, say, with a client or to look something up for these articles, what comes across now is a feeling of benevolence. It was always the case that she felt something lovely when she read the Course. In hindsight, this mind now understands why as an early student she carried all three hardcover books in a backpack with her everywhere, not because of all the mind blowing things it said, but because of how she felt when she read it. For a long time, the only time she felt the Holy Spirit was when she was reading the Course. When the Holy Spirit became her constant companion, her reading tapered off.

This is, of course, the experience for probably everyone who has a distinct “holy book”. The experiences felt while reading whatever teaching it is comes from the reader, not from the book. Liz read the Bible and felt none of what she felt reading the Course. Yet, multitudes feel something lovely when they read the Bible, which defies any critical reading of the Bible.

Ideally, we’d just feel our holy books and leave it at that because no amount of benevolence in the mind behind a teaching or in the mind of the reader will withstand ego nitpicking the details. No book will seem consistent when picked apart, certainly not the Course. It is consistent in its entirety and in its context. Much like the story unfolding in consciousness that is “life in the world”. “Why is there cruelty?” clients ask. Because the story unfolding in the world is of error and its correction. Cruelty is just one idea being expressed in consciousness. Love is another.

Which is what the Course says. It is also benevolent in its teaching. It teaches you to be kind—to yourself. What you give you receive. You want to feel love? Come from love. The Course is all about how you feel. One of the most helpful practices comes from the first part of Chapter 30, Rules for Decision. Your motivation for changing your mind is that you don’t like how you feel. Are you willing to accept that the way you feel is because of how you see a situation? If so, you can change your mind and see it differently and therefore have a different experience.

When it is written in these pages that the Course is for mitigating the worst of ego, this is what it means. It gives you a better way—to feel—by teaching you to change how you think. This is its benevolence in practice. If you feel guilt and fear when you read it, you are reading it with the fearful aspect of ego. Step away and come back later with the Holy Spirit and ask for the correct—benevolent—way to read it. Benevolence is the correct way to read it because the intention of the Course is not to increase fear but to increase your awareness of love. 

>>>> 

If you have a question the answer to which you feel may be helpful to others, send it to Liz@acimmentor.com and indicate that you want it answered in this newsletter/blog.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ask: Any insights on accepting not having the partner and family I want?

“I am 39 and single, childless. I have spent the last 15 years doing everything (and at times letting go) to find a partner (and be the best I can be and absolutely everything under the sun) and have a family. This has not happened. I am a few months shy of 40, and am accepting the painful truth that it hasn’t and probably will not happen (I am not prepared to have a child on my own). It is so hard not to judge this as 'devastating' and 'wrong'.  I can’t even judge it as 'for the best' or 'meant to be'. I can’t seem to connect to the HS in my mind at the lesson or truth of this. There is shock, grief and denial. I’ve been able to accept spiritual understanding with so many things, but not this. In saying that, I am definitely in a process right now, and am quite certain I will come out the other side- I always do. Insights?” - HE             The first thing you need to clarify for yourself is that what does or does not ha...
Read more

Committed to the Spiritual Process

If you’ve been reading my blog/newsletter for the past few weeks then you know significant things have occurred in the life of this mind. Four years ago the ego (personal thought system) fell away. I didn’t realize it fully and I spent three and a half years personally in a rather barren place in this mind, though there was peace in the rest of my mind. I did feel done with the world, but I didn’t know what that meant. I just stayed with the feeling, wondering what would come next. The next thing arrived in this mind last summer with a subtle shift from emptiness to a delicious Spaciousness. This was followed by beautiful Golden Light, Love, and Joy filling the Space. Bewilderingly, an effect of this was a romance novel! From there, the Light and the shifts continued. During this time a client in Australia whom I have called Zelda in these articles, but whose real name is Hannah, became a friend as well. We grew closer over several months and began to experience a lot of sync...
Read more

Why It Is Important to Accept the "Dream" As It Is

A Course in Miracles teaches us that Reality is formless, eternal Being extending without limit. It likens our experience of Reality’s opposite - a universe of time-bound, limited form - to a “dream”. It isn’t real but it sure seems real when you think you are in it. Sometimes students ask, “If it’s a dream, why can’t anything be true? Why can’t reincarnation or unicorns or a ten-thousand year old earth or humans with wings or human civilization as the result of beings from other planets, etc. be true in the dream?” What they imply is that since it is a dream it can be anything one wants to dream it is Very simply, the dream cannot be anything but what it is because it is over. The “dream” is what the “dream” was . When ACIM says you are always looking at the past it means this on two levels: As a self you look at the present through the filter of your personal past. But on another level the entire experience of the universe of form is over or “past”. The idea of the opposit...
Read more