ACIM Mentor

Whenever something dramatic happens in the world I hear from students who read something into it indicating the “Son of God’s” regression from or progression toward God, and they share with me their own despair or hope because of it. Lately students have been interpreting the world economy and the U.S. elections. What these students are seeing is the judgment of the ego within themselves that something in the world is “good” or “bad”, and they are deciding that what they think is “good” means that the “Son of God” is moving toward God, and what they think is “bad” is a sign that the “Son of God” is moving away from God. Whenever you “read the signs” out there in the world – or even in just your own life - you are simply seeing the ego’s interpretation that the world is real and meaningful. You are perceiving nothing and interpreting it as something. The Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the world is always the same: The world is not real, so you do not have to interpret it, or give it me...

Sometimes when students of A Course in Miracles talk to me about the Holy relationship I realize that they are confusing it with the idea of “soul mate”. In fact, if I hadn’t had both experiences I think I would have a hard time understanding the distinction myself. They are completely opposite experiences. “Soul mates”, as an experience of the special relationship, is about individuality, ego, and limitation. The Holy relationship, though a special circumstance with one other that you once perceived as separate from you, extends your awareness of yourself beyond individuality to the One Spirit That is Everywhere. In the soul mate experience you feel as though you have found your other half, or someone who completes you. You may feel that you knew them before, maybe in another life. But it’s limited to the two of you, even if it’s limited to your “souls” or spirits. What happens in the "soul mate" experience is you and another unconsciously find in each other similarities to...

I’ve always loved the use of the idea of “temptation” in A Course in Miracles : You cannot make yourself separate from God, so listening to ego is only a “temptation” to be separate from God. Your separation from God can never be real; it is never more than a temptation. There is only One Mind, and it is yours. There is no “God’s” Mind, “my” mind, “their” mind. There is only One Spirit, and there is only one ego, too. There is no “my” ego or “their” ego. What you perceive is in your mind, and it is either an extension of Love, or a projection of ego/separation. Those are your only choices. The great deception of ego is the many forms it takes, but it is all the same because all illusion is illusion. So when you are affected by appearances of separation in any form you are seeing your own temptation to make separation from God real to you. It does not matter where you think the idea of separation is coming from; if it affects you, you are seeing your own temptation. When you are bothere...

I have offered my Four Habits for Inner Peace to help students stay centered in God, but many report to me that they are confused as to how to apply them on a daily basis. (The Four Habits should come after you have completed the lessons in the Workbook). Understand that if you find it difficult to have only one thing to do each day – stay centered in God – that this is just your resistance because you have other goals. In fact, one of the benefits of using the Four Habits is that they make you bump up against your obstacles to Peace sooner, and one of those obstacles is your having other goals besides Peace. So if you are resistant to centering your life in God this resistance is the first obstacle you must overcome. You do this through persistence, and in time, the rewards of practicing the Four Habits will motivate you to keep doing them, and you will overcome this obstacle. Practically, keeping yourself centered throughout the day using the Four Habits looks like this: As soon as ...

Though it makes the ego in me squirm when I admit this to myself, the truth is that none of the considerable (though not complete) Peace I experience, nor any of my awareness of God, nor my knowledge of A Course in Miracles is due to anything that I have done. The Holy Spirit has really done it all. In my last article I mentioned the arrogance of me thinking that I know what I need to learn. Unfortunately, this has characterized much of my spiritual path. I would work and work on myself in a certain direction only to find the Holy Spirit causing a shift in me that had nothing to do with what I was working on! In other words, I am where I am not because of anything I have done, but in spite of what I have done. All the Holy Spirit has really needed all along is my little willingness, just as the Course says. Truly, I need do nothing. So I’ve learned to do nothing but to be open to God so that the Holy Spirit can do the rest. I do not need to judge what I am asked to do, or not asked ...

A couple of weeks ago I watched a movie that left me contemplating loss. The movie had a happily-ever-after ending but I got to thinking about how the characters’ relationships would change over the years, how nothing stays the same, people leave, people die, etc. I was getting depressed so, in my arrogant belief that I know what I need to be learning, I started thinking about loss in a way to get myself to stop valuing the world. I was trying to use the temporary nature of everything in the world to loosen even further any hold that I still give it over me. Then I thought that if I’m going to think about this I should do so with the Holy Spirit. So I turned to the Holy Spirit in my mind and the Holy Spirit brought me up short by saying, “I don’t want you to give up the world because it’s painful; I want you to give it up because it’s not true.” Wow. Once again I’m slapped upside the head with the awareness of how easy it is to fall into the ego-trap of making the world real to me. The...

"Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated." (T-26.X.4) Years ago, after taking a total break from A Course in Miracles for a couple of years, I returned to studying it and joined a local study group to get back into the groove. At that point I had almost totally forgotten the core teachings of the Course . One day at the study group a gentleman who was involved in a lawsuit (I cannot remember if he was suing or being sued) started talking about “justice”. He felt that the Course somehow supported his cause because he was certain he was “just”. This didn’t feel quite accurate to me, but I had gotten so far away from the Course that I wasn’t sure what was meant by “justice” in the Course. And since then I sometimes run into students who feel that something is their just due, or that they have been unfairly deprived by another, and they will say, “I know God wants me to have what is rightfully mine” or “Why would God deprive me of this?” In essence you...

Once upon a time when separation from God was more real to me than God I had to have a story for the separation. I had a narrative for the separation, and I have even offered it in my articles. But as I practice the Holy Instant more and more, and I spend my time living present to the Presence of the Holy Spirit, I find that all stories for the separation simply crumble as I try to grasp them. I literally become disoriented because there is no story for the separation because the separation isn’t real. Any story about it is totally made up, and I can see that now. Sometimes students ask me about how the separation works: Is reincarnation real, what happens when they die, is the story of Jesus real, how will the Great Awakening unfold, what is their part in it, etc. And over the years students have shared various stories with me that they brought with them to their study of A Course in Miracles , and that they feel the Course justifies. The Course itself offers a narrative for the sep...

A Course in Miracles makes it very clear that Truth and illusion cannot be reconciled. If there is any illusion in Truth, then Truth isn’t Truth. And if you bring illusion to Truth illusion disappears because unreality is dissolved by Reality. For many years I tried to bring the two together. Every now and then I’d sit myself down and try to come up with some sort of philosophy to live by that was based on my experiences of Oneness in direct revelations with God, and in the Holy relationship. I struggled to come up with a way to live, the appropriate attitudes to strike, and the politics to adopt in light of my experiences. But there was no relationship between my experience of the world and my experiences of Oneness, and I couldn’t make them come together at all. I’d always reach a point of relief when I saw the contrast between the two experiences clearly, but I didn’t really want to understand that, either. So I’d wander off, only to come back again and again to try to ...

Occasionally a student writes to tell me that the way that I interpret A Course in Miracles is wrong. Sometimes they say this outright, sometimes they couch this statement in more subtle terms. This is fine with me because what students think of me or what I write is about them, not about me. But I used to feel trapped because I didn’t want to get into dueling interpretations. If I just say “you’re right” when what they are saying contradicts what I just wrote, then they’ll think I’m lying. If I defend what I wrote – which I don’t even feel is required - I’m making them wrong, and I don’t believe this. There is no one “right” way to read the Course – there are only helpful and unhelpful ways to read it. And this evolves over time. What is a helpful interpretation for you now might not have been so before, and it might not be so in the future. Your Teacher is within you, and your Teacher knows what you need to hear now, and what you can understand now. So I asked the Holy Spirit how I ...

A student has asked me to write about the use of “you” in A Course in Miracles , some of which makes him uncomfortable in his ego-identification. In the world, you have three experiences of “you”: “You” in your identification with ego; “you” as the neutral decision-maker who can choose ego or Holy Spirit; “you” as Part of God (Christ Mind; Holy Spirit). The Real “you” is Part of God. The decision-maker “you” is, like the ego, your separated mind, but it has stepped back from the active separation-seeking of the ego, and so is neutralized enough to be able to choose either further separation (ego), or healing (Holy Spirit). A Course in Miracles addresses “you” in each of these experiences at different times. But the Course is a conversation between Helen Schucman and our Christ Mind (represented to her by Jesus), and the “you” in the Course is quite specific to Dr. Schucman and her experiences as she took down the Course (for example, for her “your brother” referred specifically to ...

So often I hear from students who are deliberately staying in a painful situation because they think that they “should”, they think that they are still in the situation because they haven’t forgiven “enough”, they are waiting for the “miracle” that will transform the situation. They will say they have tried and tried to forgive the person/people/situation but he/she/they/it has not changed. But forgiving means letting go, and that often shows up as you moving on. To deliberately stay in a bad situation is not forgiveness, or waiting for forgiveness; it’s self-flagellation. A situation that they recognized they needed to forgive is now being used by the ego in their mind to point out how they have “failed” to forgive. I hear about this form of self-flagellation often in regard to relationships. You change when you become a student of A Course in Miracles , and your relationships with others around you may no longer reflect your new values. Sometimes others fall away from you; sometimes ...

There comes a time when you find that you are losing interest in the world around you. You find it harder and harder to find common ground with others. You have little interest in social gatherings, and when you are with friends and family you find it hard to be interested in what interests them. You find yourself listening more, and sharing less. This is a natural part of the process of detaching from the world. A true spiritual path is a quiet sinking inward. As your mind grows quieter you lose interest in the clamoring world. You want your life in the world to be simple so that you don’t have to think too much about it. People fall away, or your relationships transform into simpler arrangements. You happily spend a lot more time alone, or with simpler creatures – children, animals, nature; those who know how to just “be”. When you do have to be with others you still take an interest in them, but not in what they find interesting. Some people will be drawn to your peace; others will...

Sometimes students will say to me: “I want to be a (gentle, strong, wise, happy, etc.) person.” Sometimes they say: “I want to be a person who (is looked up to, makes others laugh, is there for others, etc.).” These are all ego self-images, and they are all equally meaningless. For a long time I struggled with how to see myself, and with how I was “supposed” to be as a spiritual person. Was I supposed to have strong boundaries with others, or was I supposed to be there for everyone? Was I supposed to be peaceful or fun-loving or serious? Was I supposed to be wise and distant, or goofy and friendly? My values, I realized, were all over the place. Sometimes I valued strength, other times vulnerability. Sometimes I valued detachment, other times closeness with others. Finally I would get so confused as to how I should be I’d ask the Holy Spirit and the answer was always: “It doesn’t matter. You’re not a person.” Of course I’d immediately feel relief that I didn’t have to make myself, and ...

A student has asked me to write about the body as a communication device that the Holy Spirit can use. From the Holy Spirit’s perspective the world that you perceive has only one purpose – forgiveness of your perception of separation from God. This is the one purpose for every thing, every relationship, and every situation. The body’s purpose, then, is to be used for forgiveness. A Course in Miracles calls the body a “communication device”, but as is often the case with familiar words in the Course “communication” is used differently. There is only one mind, so you can only communicate with yourself. In the Course “communion” and “communication” refer to Oneness – to the Oneness of your Mind, and to your Oneness with God. So the body is a means for you to teach yourself that your mind is One – that there is no separation between “you” and what your mind perceives. When you have learned this your mind is healed, and it is ready to wholly remember God. The body s...

A question students of A Course in Miracles often ask is if the Holy Spirit makes things happen in the world for them. How could this be so if the world is in your mind, and the Holy Spirit and the world are opposed and cannot meet? The world that you perceive is an effect of your mind. The Holy Spirit is also in your mind, but the Holy Spirit does not go into the world to make things happen for you. When you are centered in God what you need in the world that you perceive manifests as a reflection of the Wholeness of your mind. When you first learn this the ego may tempt you to use this awareness to get what it wants. Sometimes student’s get lost trying to manifest or - to use today’s popular term - “attract” a better illusion of separation from God. However, this does not make any sense. If you really understand that the world is only an effect of your mind, why would you care what was showing up in it? If what happens in the world is important to you then yo...

Ultimately, a Holy Instant is a direct revelation of God. Ultimately, a miracle is an experience of Oneness. Ultimately, a Holy relationship, which is a miracle, is also an experience of Oneness with what seems like another outside of you. But many students haven’t yet experienced Oneness, and there is a difference between the experience of actual Oneness, and the everyday practice of the Holy Instant, the miracle, and the Holy relationship. The practice is to prepare and open you for the actual experience of Oneness with God (revelation), or with the part of your mind that seems “out there” as a world (miracle). As A Course in Miracles says, God is in charge of revelations, and your Christ Mind is in charge of miracles. Only God and your Christ Mind can recognize when you are open to experiencing Oneness, either through a revelation or through a miracle. You cannot force the experience of Oneness. But by practicing the Holy Instant, by extending God’s Love in your aw...

The ego uses physical illness and pain to make the body real to you. That is its primary goal for illness and pain. This shows up as using them for many reasons: To get attention, to punish you, to avoid situations, to make others guilty, etc. But of course no matter how physical symptoms show up their origin is in your mind. Ultimately all healing is the result of you accepting healing in your mind, either directly in your mind, or through “agents” like medicines, doctors, and treatments that seem outside of you and that remove the symptoms in a way that your mind can accept. Using external agents is what A Course in Miracles calls “magical thinking”, but it is necessary until you can accept healing directly. “The miracle is useless if you learn but that the body can be healed, for this is not the lesson it was sent to teach. The lesson is the mind was sick that thought the body could be sick; projecting out its guilt caused nothing, and had no effects.” (T-28.II.11) Oft...

There is a lot of discussion in A Course in Miracles around the Holy relationship in which it says that you can “trust your brother”. What it really means is that you can trust the Holy Spirit within you to guide you in the relationship. It must be understood that much of the Course specifically addresses Helen Schucman’s experience, and this is most apparent in its discussion of the Holy relationship. Helen was in a unique position with Bill Thetford in that they had a specific task to do together. They learned about the practice of the Holy relationship as they scribed the Course together. But most students do not have the privilege of having a Holy relationship with another who is also a student of the Course , and who is willing to go through the experience with them. The experience of the Holy relationship is not like anything in this world. It is an experience of Oneness with another that completely wipes out of your mind any separation between you and another. ...

In A Course in Miracles you are told that you are always teaching, and that you are always teaching only yourself. What you are teaching yourself is what you believe that you are. Come from ego and you teach yourself that you are ego. Come from Spirit and you teach yourself that you are Spirit - you are being what the Course calls a “teacher of God”. This is occurring within you every moment. You never really learn from others; you learn from the teacher within you that you choose at any given moment. Read a book, or listen to someone speak, and you will read and hear what you have chosen to learn about yourself. The world thinks of teaching as something you do for others. You may accept that what you teach you learn, but if you are a teacher you are supposed to see yourself helping others in some way. But the Course shows us that there are no “others” to help. Everything is your mind. You do not live in a world, but in your thoughts about a world. You are always only rela...