ACIM Mentor

             In the Manual for Teachers of A Course in Miracles where it discusses how one should approach the Course it says:   “The curriculum is highly individualized, and all aspects are under the Holy Spirit's particular care and guidance.” (M-29.2)   How would you read A Course in Miracles differently if you read it as the highly individualized curriculum of, and description of what was to happen to, someone else? A Course in Miracles lays out the path of its first student, Bill Thetford, and describes what is to happen for him. He is led to work on ego’s grievances as they block his awareness of God. He is told that he will see the real world and soon after God will “take the last step” and he will “put the body aside.” This is what occurred for Dr. Thetford. At the end of his life, he said he had one remaining grievance. Then one day he announced that it fell away, and he said in joy, “I am there. ” A few hours later ...

It is always important to read a book’s introduction and/or preface because they lay out the context of the book, orienting your mind toward its purpose. When A Course in Miracles was first published, it did not have a preface. This came later, after requests from readers, and was originally a pamphlet one could insert into their copy of the three hard-bound books. It was included, however, in later editions. Over the years of my study of the Course , I sometimes found it helpful to return to the Preface, which lays out what the Course is and what it is about in very simple terms. It cuts to the chase. In the Preface, Helen Schucman states about the Course :   “Its only purpose is to provide a way in which some people will be able to find their own Internal Teacher.”   Notice “only purpose” and “some people” in this statement. The Course may or may not be for you. And if it is, all it is for is to lead you to the Holy Spirit within. How simple and undemanding is t...

        Take this in, it is important, even if you can’t see it. In fact, I’m not sure it can be seen until ego falls away. But it undermines many of the fears ego promotes regarding the person’s continuance if ego falls away.   Ego and the person—the body and personality—are not the same thing.   Ego is the asserted idea in a seemingly individual consciousness that God is not real. Like Spirit, ego is an immaterial, disembodied idea in consciousness. But to seem to be more than an idea, to seem to be a reality apart from God, it projects itself onto material appearances in consciousness, specifically, a person, a neutral expression of consciousness. Here is another thought to take in:   Ego identifies with the person. The person, as a neutral expression of consciousness, does not have the agency to identify with anything.   Ego asserts that the person cannot live without it. But that is ego projecting, because it needs the person ...

          “... People get bogged down with their concept of God and never break past it. Meister Eckhart was quoted ‘the ultimate leave-taking  is the leaving of God for God.’  The myriad of mental constructs of God or Truth seems to be a formidable barrier…I know you’ve been addressing this pretty much your whole life, it’s a big stumbling block for most people, and I wonder when you first broke through it yourself.” –ESA   A concept of God, or Reality beyond consciousness, is inevitable in ego-consciousness. A concept is all God can be to ego, which is the denial of God. So, ego uses concepts of God for its own ends, which is to validate its own seeming-reality. These evolve as one’s spirituality evolves, but they are always false and only fall away if ego falls away. There are two aspects of ego’s concepts of God. First, in practice, ego is the god in ego-consciousness. Ego is the arbiter of reality. It determines what is real and does not...

          Recently, I went to Suzanne Segal’s book, Collision With the Infinite , to look up something. I ran into what she said were Transcendental Meditation’s three stages of enlightenment: cosmic, God, and unity consciousness. I was struck before, but more so now, by how they measure enlightenment not by the absence or presence of ego, but rather by what had come to stay in awareness. In fact, even when Ms. Segal finally found someone, a Buddhist, to explain her decade long feeling of the absence of the self and the fear that filled that void, he told her she was in bliss because of her awareness of what she called the Vastness. He dismissed the fear she felt, which clearly indicated ego was still present. So, the TM and Buddhist measurement of enlightenment is not ego’s absence but, the Presence of the Light in conscious awareness. The Light is called many things. I call It Spirit and Ms. Segal called It Vastness. In the TM tradition, the first stage of ...

            God is All, and being All, God must consider Its Own opposite. But being All, God cannot have an opposite. So, God’s opposite, or not-God, can only ever be an idea . It is an idea that does not extend God, so it does not represent Reality. In fact, the idea of not-God is simultaneously undone as soon as it arises because it represents an impossible idea. There can be no absence of the All in the All. But the idea of God’s opposite, or not-God, is not an intellectual concept. It is not undone through intellectual reasoning. As God is Reality, the idea of not-God believes it, too, is a reality, one that is opposed to God. It seems to have come into existence , in a situation called consciousness , and is full of experiences in a material universe . So, existence , consciousness , experiences, and the material universe are all not-God. They are all illusions. But as God’s Allness simultaneously undoes the impossible idea of God’s opposite, the...

            “The word, special or specialness comes up in ACIM so many times, and it is key to understanding so much of what the course is about. However, specialness is so much a part of the culture we are living in now that claiming someone or something is not special is considered an insult. Although you surely have in the past I think this would be a good topic to address in an upcoming Mentor letter as a refresher and reminder for the New Year.” –ESA Persons are unique, and everyone has a unique part to play in the Atonement (what is unfolding in consciousness/the world), so in that sense you could say everyone is special. However, A Course in Miracles uses the term specialness to describe ego’s attachment to its unique person and its belief that special people or situations will bring it peace and happiness. This is ego’s reality, and it will never change for ego. So, naturally an ego is offended if you tell them their person is not special. Y...

            “How did you get to the break? How do you continue towards the freedom from ego? What did/do you ‘do’?... you said that things happen, no matter what…Yet, you have been a student of ACIM for many years. There is an intense attention towards this continuing process. How does ‘it’ happen? I am curious to read your answer.”. —K   The Break refers to the moment when Spirit took the center of consciousness here, bumping ego off center and leading to it falling away. I felt this approaching for a long time before it occurred. (See my memoir. ) But I did nothing to make it happen. All my years of study and practice of A Course in Miracles and growing my awareness of Spirit perhaps were preparation and indicated that the shift in consciousness would occur, but they did not make it occur. In other words, the cause of the shape of Liz’s former life may have been her eventual shift in consciousness, the shape of her life did not cause the shift ...

            As many of you know, over five years ago I experienced what I call The Break , which was the shift to Spirit-consciousness that begins with ego death. (You can read about it in my memoir .) I understand this process to take 10 years, so I am just over halfway through. As the year is ending, I thought I would catch you up on what has gone on in this mind this year. I record and report my experiences and insights for those who may shift and experience ego death themselves, although for no two is it exactly the same. I was told that after an experience like The Break, ego remains but “winds down.” To start, this mind was very dark. After about two and a half years, it slowly began to lighten, and discomfort and difficulty to lessen. This year this mind became significantly lighter. There are still difficult episodes, but these pass much quicker. The power of ego does indeed wind down. This past year began with a review of Liz’s life. This was n...

           God is Formless, Timeless, and Infinite. God is Glorious.                     God is Reality. God is Truth. God is beyond consciousness, a false idea presented as reality (the material universe, the personal experience). Christ is a label for God’s Extension to consciousness. Christ is all one can be aware of God in consciousness. Christmas celebrates Christ coming to conscious awareness. Spirit is the label for God’s, or Christ’s, Extension into consciousness. Spirit represents God’s Everpresence even in the false. Spirit is the Idea that corrects, through thoughts and experiences, the idea that not-God is real (ego). Consciousness is the play of these two ideas, not-God and God, which is the Atonement , the expression of that moment of the idea of not-God arising in God and being simultaneously undone by God’s All-encompassing nature. In a recent article , I wrote about the vacillation...

“Liz, would you explain why we are doing this review (predetermination)?  Is it about the split mind? Is it about waking the sleeping Son of God? Who is watching this review at the end of the dream?” - Anonymous   God, being All, must contain the idea of Its Own opposite. But, being All, God cannot have an opposite. Not-God is only an idea. And it is over as soon as it arises. It seems to occur because the idea of not-God contains the idea of time , the opposite of Timelessness (Eternity). So, it does not seem to occur to God, but within the idea of not-God, consciousness.   Consciousness—what we think of as life in the world—is an expression of that moment. It is not a review in the sense of going over details again, but in the sense of depicting an idea that, in time, seemed to have occurred in the past.   And as a depiction of an idea that is over, its outcome, and the means to that outcome, are predetermined. “The script is written”, as it says in A Cour...

             God, being All, must contain the idea of Its Own opposite. But being All, God cannot have an opposite. The idea of not-God is simultaneously undone as soon as it arises because it is impossible. But within the idea of not-God is the idea of time , the opposite of Timelessness. And in time, it seems as though the idea of not-God arose long ago and will be undone in some indefinite future. The “space” in which this moment of undoing is depicted like a story is called consciousness . Everything that appears in consciousness—nonmaterial and material forms, thoughts, feelings—is an expression of consciousness. Within itself, consciousness seems to be split into many expressions of itself, seemingly-individual consciousnesses. In individual consciousnesses, the idea of not-God is represented by ego and the Idea of God is represented by Spirit . An individual consciousness has three parts:   Conscious awareness. This is what appe...

           “Since duality counts for just about everything here there is no surprise at the ego/spirit split. However, the ego’s dominance in the world remains strong and will always fight for its recognition and position. Spirit stands silently still and waits for recognition. In this world, few souls have recognized it. Do you feel that surrender plays a part in the shift and continuous surrender a precondition to staying there?” – ESA   What I have been trying to convey in my articles lately is that what is occurring in consciousness is this play of dark and Light, of ego and Spirit, and that it is predetermined. It is an expression, a depiction over time, of the moment of the idea of not-God arising and its simultaneous undoing by God’s All-encompassing nature. So, there is nothing here making a choice, there is nothing here to take the posture of “surrender.” All sense of choice is ego’s delusion that the person is occurring apart from the wh...

             This is how I thought it was: There is an “I” here that has two thought systems it can choose between, ego and Spirit. It vacillates between these two thought systems. This is what I have discovered is how it is: Consciousness here is like a neutral space that holds two “I”s, ego and Spirit. Consciousness does not have an “I” of its own. It does not have agency; it cannot make choices. It registers either ego experiencing ego or Spirit experiencing Spirit. In words, this may sound like a nuanced difference. After all, there is one thing here registering two different experiences. But experientially, it is a huge difference.   Relative to how they feel now, ego and Spirit felt muted before. Now, it is as though two entities or beings—I can’t think of better words to express the presence of these ideas that have taken form—occupy the space here called consciousness. And as each experiences only itself, it is as though there are two ...

             Since I’ve come to see that what unfolds in consciousness is an expression rather than for an outcome, I see everyone’s story as though it is a bloom in the garden of the Atonement. Whatever it is, is what it is supposed to be. There are no shoulds or shouldn’ts . Sometimes, clients will tell me what they really value over what they think they should value. What they value are “worldly” things like career, relationships, sex, family, money, and various experiential experiences. What they feel they should value is God above these. But the Atonement (consciousness) has two parts, the expression of the idea of not-God (ego) and the expression of the idea of God (Spirit). Ego is not wrong or bad, it is a false experience. Ultimately, so is Spirit because everything in consciousness is not real. Spirit is different from ego in that it reflects Truth, but it is no more real than ego. What is appearing in consciousness is not supposed to b...

             God, being All, must contain the idea of Its Own opposite. But being All, God cannot have an opposite. So, the idea of not-God is undone even as it arises. But within the idea of not-God is time, the opposite of Timelessness. And in time, it seems that the idea of not-God arose long ago and will be undone in some indefinite future. Consciousness is the space in God’s Mind where these ideas take form and are depicted. As it depicts an idea simultaneously undone, what unfolds in time/consciousness is predetermined. The story of your person expresses the Atonement, or the undoing of the idea of not-God. It is part of the whole of the Atonement and cannot be separated out. There is no individual soul or spirit on a journey, just one consciousness depicting the Atonement through various ideas that take form, nonmaterial and material. So, your person is a singular expression of consciousness, part of the whole of consciousness, and is not ...

          The first time I had an inkling that everything that happens in consciousness (the experience of being a person in a world) was predetermined was over twenty years ago, after a study group I led. The Secret was big then and there was a lot of talk about how one could manifest what they wanted simply by wanting it enough. I had feelings of incongruity about this idea, but I had not yet sorted it out for myself. An attendee came up to me and said that anything she wanted manifested within a few days. As I walked away from this conversation, I had the thought, “What if she wasn’t manifesting but her desire for something indicated it was about to show up?” In other words, her wanting wasn’t making something happen, she was simply in tune with what was to happen. I noted two things in my life when it came to desire and something showing up. One was that if it was not going to show up, trying to make it do so was a struggle. It felt like swimming upstream...

              A Course in Miracles teaches that consciousness—this experience of being a person in a world—is the Atonement , or the depiction of the correction of the idea of separation from God. This means that there are two parts to consciousness/the Atonement—the false idea, represented by ego, and its correction, represented by Spirit. Therefore, everything that unfolds in consciousness is the Atonement, whether ego or Spirit. But this does not mean that everything that unfolds in consciousness is Spirit . As consciousness depicts a moment that has already occurred—the idea of not-God arising and simultaneously being undone by God’s All-encompassing nature—how it unfolds is already predetermined, or, as the Course puts it, “the script is written.” In that sense, whatever occurs, even ego, is a perfect movement of the Atonement . But only the movement of Spirit is the movement of Spirit . As one develops their awareness of Spirit and advance...