ACIM Mentor

There has been some confusion and a few questions since my last article, “ Happily Ever After ”. For example, what is the relationship between the experience I wrote about in that article and the Revelation (see Unsettled ) that I had at the end of 2007 where I experienced Complete Joy? This is a good time to bring readers up to date with what I have been going through in the “Period of Unsettling” (see the Manual for Teachers, Development of Trust), since many want to know what each stage is like. If you remember, the Holy Spirit told me I had entered that stage just after that Revelation. I cannot convey the experience of a Revelation, Which is a direct experience of God, but whenever I have one, on my way “back” to a perception of the world I always learn something. After that Revelation I swung from standing just outside of Complete Joy to the stark terror of the personal mind. What I wrote about in “Happily Ever After” was a continuation of that lesson. In fact, since I’ve entered...

I grew up believing in “happily-ever-after.” I was supposed to find it when I was an adult and fell in love and got married. It was a hard belief to shake, and it took many, many years of consciously working at undoing it, which I had to do or get my heart broken over and over again. In small ways the belief persisted, even when it was no longer attached to love and romance. Always, there was something up ahead of me that was going to bring me lasting peace and happiness – salvation - once I found it. Eventually I accepted, at least intellectually, what A Course in Miracles teaches: I can only find Lasting Peace and Happiness in God. I stopped looking in the world for salvation, and I turned within whenever I felt I needed it. Then I had a profound experience a few weeks ago: There is such a thing as Happily-ever-after! In fact, It’s the only Thing that’s Real! And It begins right now! These words do not do justice to this world-shattering experience. It has caused a huge shift i...

Since I’ve written about guilt in the last two articles, it seems only natural now to write about its conjoined twin, fear. There is no guilt without fear and no fear without guilt. You feel guilty for separating from God and you expect to be punished for it. This is the source of all fear. Fear is the symptom, or proof, that you feel guilty. And, of course, it is inherent in your identification with a personal self, which is the “proof” that you have successfully snapped off part of God for yourself. A long while ago I wrote about students who would say to me that they didn’t fear God. I’d ask them if they were 100% at Peace 100% of the time. They’d say no, and I’d ask them why not? What was their obstacle to Peace if not fear of God? If they didn’t fear God, they’d just accept God right now. Fear of God is ultimately the only obstacle to Peace, and if you look deeply enough into your mind, you will always find it when you are not at Peace. Fear of God is why you are resi...

Last week I mentioned that I have entered a phase where I am finally dealing with The Guilt of the split mind. I’ve been asked to share how this shows up, but first let me explain what The Guilt is. The one mind that is the part of God’s Mind in which the idea of God’s opposite seems to exist, and that is the source of all personal minds, believes that it has attacked God and stolen part of God for itself. Every personal mind, being a micro-version of this split mind, takes on this belief for itself. This belief is the source of The Guilt, which leads to fear of God, and an expectation that God will punish you. When you identify with a personal self, attack-guilt-fear is the very core of your identity, and is the source of the hellish world that you project. After you have detached enough from the personal self and have begun to identify with the Holy Spirit, you reach a point where the only obstacles to God left are the guilt/fear-of-God beliefs that you have taken from the personal m...

If the personal mind was a sphere like Earth, and you bore down to its core, you’d find guilt and fear. Guilt and fear are the foundation of the personal mind, not in the sense that they give rise to the personal mind, but in the sense that without guilt and fear the personal mind would cease to exist. Guilt and fear are the personal mind’s self-perpetuating mechanism because they are what keep you from God. Many years ago I walked out my front door on my way to get something out of my car and suddenly the world was washed with Innocence. It was the same world it had been a moment before: the same street, the same cars parked in the street, the same winter-bald trees. The physical world did not change, but my mind did. Or, rather, I changed minds. For whatever reason, at that moment I was open to the Vision of my Christ Mind. The moment passed and I realized that, except for that moment and moments like it, I am perceiving guilt and fear. I didn’t think I felt guilty, but now I und...

A Course in Miracles teaches that you have to retrace your steps back to God. The descent from God began with the idea of God’s opposite that is perceived as real within itself . The part of God’s Mind where this occurs is called the “Son of God” in the Course ; this is the dreamer of the dream of separation from God. This one mind projects the world that you perceive. Part of its projection is billions of seemingly-individual minds (personal selves) that it made in the image of its own split mind. Each of these minds also projects onto the world. Where the one mind provides the “what” of perception (the world), individual minds provide the “how” of perception (interpretation). Retracing your steps, then, means your identity goes in reverse: From a personal self, to the dreamer of the dream, to God. So the first step in returning to God is undoing your personal projections. Though the world was made to be a place of separation from God, it has no meaning in itself. As a personal self,...

It isn’t often we students of A Course in Miracles find something written over sixty years ago that lines up well with the Course’s fundamental teachings. So I want to share with you an allegory written by C. S. Lewis, who was one of the most influential Christian writers of the last century. The little book that I recommend is “The Great Divorce”, which Lewis wrote in response to William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”. I have not read the latter, but judging from Lewis’s response, I’d say that “The Marriage” must, in the Course’s terms, “confuse levels” by trying to make both God and the world real (duality). The “divorce” referred to in Lewis’s title is the divorce of Heaven and hell. Through his allegory, he sorts out Truth from illusion (non-duality), just as the Course does. He even speaks of God as Reality and everything else as a dream! The book is written in the first person, and the main character is never named. He has died and finds himself in a gray place...

“But this has already happened, right?” This idea has come up a few times with students lately, always in relation to their life in the world. I think it’s because of this passage from the Manual for Teachers of A Course in Miracles : “The world of time is the world of illusion. What happened long ago seems to be happening now. Choices made long since appear to be open; yet to be made. What has been learned and understood and long ago passed by is looked upon as a new thought, a fresh idea, a different approach. Because your will is free you can accept what has already happened at any time you choose, and only then will you realize that it was always there.” (M-2.3) I think what throws off students is the “s” in “Choices” in the third sentence; the idea would be clearer in the singular. There is only ever one choice: Truth or illusion. You can phrase this in different ways: God or personal mind; Oneness or separation; Peace or conflict, etc. Read the passage above in context,...

You don’t give up what in the world is considered common sense when you become a student of A Course in Miracles . You don’t throw out what a lifetime of living in the world has taught you about it. The laws of the world hold for the world; the laws of God hold for God. (As the Bible puts it, “Render under Caesar what belongs to Caesar; render unto God what belongs to God”). Trying to cross those laws over into each other is what the Course calls “confusion of levels”, meaning you are confusing the mutually exclusive levels of your mind: God and the personal mind. For example, some students think that since your mind is One in God that you are supposed to change the social and political structure of the world-level of your mind to reflect this Oneness. This is not only unnecessary, since the world is an effect of your mind and changing it is meaningless, but also impossible. Diverse form cannot be One; that is why the world and God are mutually exclusive. In the world, tru...

Since I finished the translation of the Text of A Course in Miracles into plain language I have had the sense of being done with the world. The Holy Spirit says to me, “It’s time to come within now.” I wrote recently about how I see the next phase for me as being where I shift from living with the Holy Spirit to identifying with the Holy Spirit. Last week I wrote about realizing that I can let go of the obligation I have felt to fulfill the personal self’s potential. I now see that all of these things are connected. By letting go of that obligation I change the way that I see myself and my relationship to the world. I am learning how much more I can live present to the Holy Spirit without “potential” pulling me back into the world. Letting go of potential really means letting go of defining myself in terms of the world. That obligation to grow a personal self apparently pervaded my thought system. It takes many forms and I keep bumping into it so that I can remove it. The other day I ...

I have never been interested in fame, fortune, or power but there were certain assumptions people made about me when I became a life-coach back around 2000. One of them was that I was looking to become the next Dr. Phil, or some equivalent world-renowned life-coach. It’s true that some with whom I studied life-coaching were looking for recognition, either on a large or a small scale. Many were actively and openly looking for ways to get on Oprah! But my idea of success has always been inner peace, not a particular life style. Since I’ve written the translation of A Course in Miracles I find these assumptions (projections?) happening again. Some think that I wrote the book to become some sort of great guru, if not in the world at large, at least in the Course community. But in fact I still want only what I already have, which is everything I’ve ever really wanted: A loving life-partner, a sweet little home, and lots and lots of time for contemplation and meditation. I like my little m...

The way that I learned A Course in Miracles was to take my questions to the Holy Spirit and let them go. I was always answered, if not immediately, then within a day or two. Eventually, I extended this practice to everything else in my life. I also eventually heard the Holy Spirit faster and more clearly to the point that I can have discussions with It. But the one thing that never worked for me was asking the Holy Spirit to change a particular Peace-robbing thought about me, another, or a situation. Eventually I learned to affirm the Truth in place of the negative thought and this invited the Holy Spirit into my awareness. It finally occurred to me that doing these affirmations was the Holy Spirit’s means of correcting my thoughts! I had been too passive, expecting the Holy Spirit to come into my mind like something separate from it. You are constantly engaged in self-talk. The source of your experience is these thoughts that you are hearing, consciously or unconsciously, and believi...

A couple of weeks ago a student asked an important question: Why do I say “You are One with God” instead of “You are God”? Aren’t they the same thing? Yes, but there is a reason for making a distinction between these statements, just as there is a reason why A Course in Miracles makes a distinction between the “Son of God” and “God”, between "Christ/Holy Spirit" and "God", between “perception” and “Knowledge”, and between “miracle” and “revelation”. It is a distinction between the levels of your mind, which seems to be split between not-God, where you have the choice to experience God or not, and God, Where there is no choice because All is God. Knowledge cannot change but perception can. God in God’s Totality is the level of Knowledge. This is the level of “You are God”. If you have a direct experience of God you have a “revelation”. In a revelation of God there is only God. The Son of God is the level of perception and here you have a choice between perceiving a ...

A few weeks ago I was discussing with a student the stages we go through as students of A Course in Miracles in our relationship with the Holy Spirit. Initially, we simply invite the Holy Spirit into certain situations. We are still in the driver’s seat at this point but we are willing to ask the Holy Spirit for direction when we get lost or in trouble. In time, we realize that we don’t want to wait for a crisis and we call on the Holy Spirit for guidance more and more when decisions have to be made. Then our trust develops to such a point that we realize that we don’t even want to drive anymore and we move over and let the Holy Spirit take the wheel. Our trust is not perfect yet, so at first we sometimes try to take back the wheel but we always give it up before too long because we’ve learned that Peace comes from letting the Holy Spirit lead the way. Finally, we just sit back and enjoy the ride. All of this happens naturally because you cannot force trust. I then mentioned that I’d ...

When I was very young I read about Buddhism and the concept that all pain is caused by having personal desires and that true spiritual awakening came with letting go of personal desires. I instantly understood this and felt joyous liberation! Then terror at the thought of giving up individuality came storming in. I decided it would be impossible to not identify with a personal self. But it was too late. That experience of True Freedom has beckoned me back ever since. No matter the resistance of the personal mind, the call of Limitlessness has been stronger in me. In fact, the experience of joyous liberation from limitations is the sign I seek in my studying of spiritual teachings and in my experiences with the Holy Spirit. I know when I have hit upon the Truth when I feel set free. The other day I was preparing to take a shower when I looked at the body in the mirror and thought, “Not bad for forty-five.” This moment of identification with the body was a reflex and the thought was some...

I get a lot of questions from students of A Course in Miracles about the concept that you manifest or attract everything in your life in the world. Some of the teachers who advocate methods of manifesting or attracting what the personal mind wants are familiar with the Course and feel that the Course validates what they teach. I’ve written about some of this before but, since I get so many questions about this, I’m going to sum it all up here. A Course in Miracles states, explicitly, that everything that happens to you, you have asked for on some level. This is referring to the content of what happens to you, and, sure, you choose the form on some level, too, but the form does not determine your experience; your experience is a choice of your mind. This is simply a fact; at no point does the Course then suggest to you ways of making what the personal mind wants show up. Its emphasis is always on your internal experience, in which you have two choices: Love or fear. This is a choic...

For a long time I have tried to reconcile Truth and illusion, often not seeing that that was what I was doing. I would have a Holy Instant in which I would fully realize with all my being that “there is only God” and then, when I returned to an awareness of the world, I’d wonder what I just experienced meant for my life in the world. In light of this experience how should I live my life? What should I do with my life? What attitudes should I have? What criteria should I use to make decisions in the world? Of course I was instantly undoing with these questions what I had just learned in the Holy Instant because by asking them I was making the world real to myself again! There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. (W-132) I’ve done this over and over and over again until it happened a couple of weeks ago and I finally accepted that I can never bring together what can never be brought together. There are no answers to these questions because it cannot be ...

Students ask me what I think about “compassion” as a spiritual value and I always have to tell them that I don’t like the word. It’s wimpy and flaccid to me because it has so long been overused to stroke egos that its positive connotations have been all but wiped out for me. But it is a word that is used quite a lot in connection with spirituality so I have been contemplating what “compassion” means. In both my dictionary and in common usage the word means “sympathy” or “pity. “Sympathy” and “pity” are greatly valued in the world (this alone should make you suspicious). They are attitudes of separation because they are founded in the belief that personal stories are real. They are supposed to be about joining with another but they actually reinforce separation in your mind. When you look on a personal story that you have projected on another and you “feel for” them you are teaching yourself that the story that you have for them is real and that you are not the source of it. Moreover, s...

The end of the world is not its destruction but its translation into Heaven for you. This reinterpretation of the world leads to your corrected perception, which transfers easily to God. (MACIM-11.8.1) Did you know that “apocalypse” means to uncover or disclose? It refers to a prophecy, but the Apocalypse of the Bible is the last book of the New Testament and it’s about the destructive end of the world. So to the ego the connotation of the word “apocalypse” is fearfully negative because its guilt makes it assume that the end of the world would be a destructive event. Read history or any work of fiction from any era and you will find that everyone thinks that they are living in the worst times ever and that a punishing, destructive end of the world is imminent. Youngsters are shallow and lack respect; families are falling apart; society as a whole is a cesspit of selfishness and greed; wars, famines, natural disasters. The ego never changes! It always operates the same and no matter wh...

Students often ask if my relationship with my life-partner, Courtney, is a Holy relationship because she is not a student of A Course in Miracles . Yes it is but it is a different experience than I had in the Holy relationship that experienced when I was first a student of A Course in Miracles (see The Holy Relationship ). In that first relationship, which I call a mystical Holy relationship, I experienced another as the perfect reflection of my Holy Self. My Identity extended to include her, teaching me that the personal self that I thought I was, was not me. Eventually E moved on but I continued to experience Oneness just by thinking about her. Since I was still able to experience Oneness while she was physically thousands of miles away I learned that E was not the source of the Holy relationship; the Source of my experience must be with me all the time. The Holy relationship, I realized, is really with the Holy Spirit within me extended outward to encompass what my mind perceives. ...