ACIM Journal

[Anderz]

One advantage of an integral approach instead of a pure ACIM following is that it makes my ego a part of me instead of something that is deemed as bad. Sure, from a higher perspective the ego IS insane. Still, from an even larger perspective the ego is perfectly healthy and a necessary part of reality.

So one trick I came to think of is to just keep identifying with my ego and let the transformation happen automatically. And to focus on inner peace.

[Anderz]

Being selfish in a narrow way keeps me trapped in ego consciousness. What is needed is to become Self-ish! Where the Self is a collective self or else we are back into separation and conflict and ego consciousness again. So the collective Self will happen automatically when we transcend our egos.

[Anderz]

To recontextualize simply means to switch context. For example, from the context of the ego, personal responsibility is necessary and a virtue. From the larger context of transcending the ego personal responsibility is a sin! That's how radical the meaning of things can change simply by switching context. In ego identification we can sense that there is something wrong with personal responsibility, but only on a feeling level. Personal responsibility generally feels tedious, boring and as a burden. That's reality telling the ego that personal responsibility is actually a sin because the ego is deluded by the belief that it itself has power. The ego has in reality zero power on its own and hence personal responsibility is recognized as a complete fiction from the larger context, hence a mistaken view, an error; missing the mark, meaning sin.

[Anderz]

ACIM uses the term God. Can there be an atheistic explanation for God? Yes there can! Leo described reality as difference. And I showed earlier how difference gives rise to Indra's net which in turn gives rise to information. God is a subset of Indra's net that results in the Word of God. What is the Word of God? The answer is that the Word of God is infinite information structured by infinite intelligence.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Something like that it says in the Bible (John 1). That's exactly it! The Word of God and God timeless just are. God says in the Bible something like: "I am that I am." Again, precisely correct.

So from the atheistic definition of God I used here, God is timeless, changeless and has infinite intelligence.

[Anderz]

Ouch! Yikes, I found something in ACIM that I disagree with:

"One holy thought like this and you are free: You are the holy Son of God Himself." - https://acim.org/workbook/lesson-191/

Okay, from a oneness perspective one can say that everything is the Word of God made manifest, meaning Christ. However my definition of Christ is like in Christianity, that there is only ONE Christ and that we humans are NOT Christ.

And from an atheistic perspective, in my model Christ means the manifestation of the Word of God. This fits precisely with the Bible which says that Christ is one with the Father yet the Father is greater than Christ. The manifestation of reality has infinite potential and will never end, yet the manifestation is always finite. Christ is the way and the truth and the life. And also, Christ can only do what the Father says, which is the Word of God.

Christ started at the beginning (before Abraham was I am, Jesus said). Our human souls on the other hand started at later points in time. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. The end is the ongoing edge of creation in the present moment. So Christ has a definite and precise end in that sense while God the Father is endless and infinite.

How can our individual souls start at a certain point in time? Aren't souls timeless? Yes, souls are timeless. In my model a soul is a unique point within Indra's net and both the point and the net just timelessly are; they are eternal and indestructible. Still, there is a manifestation going on moment by moment which produces the movement of time. A person born today for example, and let's say that it's a new soul, not a reincarnated soul, his or her soul started today! Future souls already timelessly exist within the Word of God and they have not manifested yet, yet they are still eternal changeless points.

[Anderz]

Christianity is still my favorite religion although as I see it it's "just" a model, like all religions. My model (as I have already mentioned before but anyway) also includes all the other major religions, including Buddhism which doesn't even have the concept of a God. Even atheism is included in my model.

In a way Buddhism fits better with my model of God:

"Hinayana Buddhism, consistently rejects the notion of a creator deity.[1][2] It teaches the concept of gods, heavens and rebirths in its Saṃsāra doctrine, but it considers none of these gods as a creator. Buddhism posits that mundane deities such as Mahabrahma are misconstrued to be a creator.[3] Buddhist ontology follows the doctrine of Dependent Origination, whereby all phenomena arise in dependence on other phenomena, hence no primal unmoved mover could be acknowledged or discerned.

However, Mahayana Buddhism does believe in the doctrine of Sunyata (emptiness) or Tathata (thatness) out of which all things emerge. Furthermore, this ultimate reality is considered to be the Tathagatagarbha (Womb of all Buddhas) and the Adi Buddha (Primordial Buddha) who is worshipped differently in various Mahayana traditions as Vairocana or Amitabha and in the Vajrayana traditions as Samantabhadra or Vajradhara. Thus this concept of an ultimate reality which is the source of all things approximates the idea of a creator God." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creator_in_Buddhism

In my model God is not an active creator. God in my model is like Brahman, timeless and changeless. In the Bible it may seem that we humans have free will and God has another will, but I have found many passages in the Bible which describe that God does everything, and definitely ACIM agrees with this view:

"There is no will but God’s." - https://acim.org/workbook/lesson-74/

[Anderz]

Here I found an interesting passage in ACIM about sin vs error:

"T-19.II.1. It is essential that error be not confused with sin, and it is this distinction that makes salvation possible. 2 For error can be corrected, and the wrong made right. 3 But sin, were it possible, would be irreversible." - https://acourseinmiraclesnow.com/course-miracles-chapter-19-ii-sin-versus-error/

I have previously equated sin with error. ACIM's explanation is better depending on what definition is used. Sin is actually an illusion. There IS no sin, now that I look at it from a larger perspective. Tricky! An error such as 7 + 9 = 14 can be corrected into 7 + 9 = 16. Sin on the other hand is the belief in total separation. To correct sin requires a leap into a new context, while an ordinary error can be corrected within the same context.

The tricky part is that there is no sin as in wrongdoing because sin is a necessary and temporary development "tool" and sin is a part of what currently is.  

[Anderz]

In Islam just as in Christianity there is a debate regarding Allah/God doing everything vs free will:

"We can divide those who believe in destiny into two major categories. Those with the commonly held blind belief in destiny portray it as predetermination by God of everything big and small. This view is popular with some cryptic sects of Sufis (mystics), who live a life apart from the common people. They claim that man has no control over anything. Everything is predetermined. As such all that happens is the unfolding of the grand plan of destiny, known only to God. This is a very problematic concept of the plan of things and inevitably leads to the question of crime and punishment, penalty and reward. If a man has no choice, then there should be neither punishment nor reward for his actions." - https://www.alislam.org/book/study-of-islam/predestiny-and-free-will/

My model is exactly as the Sufi claim! At least if the article is correct about the part about Sufis. The problem mentioned in the quote is resolved by distinguishing between first and second order reality. Sufis are mystics, the masters of Sufism have realized the first order reality. Ordinary people on the other hand, we are stuck on the level of second order reality, and from that more limited perspective it appears to be a problem with personal responsibility and punishment and so on. As I wrote earlier, personal responsibility dissolves on the level of first order reality.

[Anderz]

In addition to personal responsibility, another thing that will fall away according to my theory is trust. Only the ego needs trust. First order reality is already perfectly secure and indestructible. Therefore the need for trust disappears when moving from the ego context to a first order foundation.

ACIM still has the concept of trust, but it's in essence the same idea:

"The teachers of God have trust in the world, because they have learned it is not governed by the laws the world made up." - https://acimi.com/a-course-in-miracles/manual-for-teachers/i-trust

It's a matter of how the word trust is used. Another way to put it is that when everything is trustworthy, where is the need for trust or distrust for that matter?

[Anderz]

If God is infinite intelligence, then how to explain that? My model says that the amount of manifested information in our reality increases all the time. And all that information always has zero entropy. As I mentioned earlier, physicist Leonard Susskind said that entropy is hidden information. This matches my idea that if the hidden information becomes known, it's no longer entropy!

Zero entropy means order and entropy means disorder. Reality is a wholeness with perfect order. The future potential has infinite information. How to construct an infinite wholeness with zero entropy? At first that might seem like an easy task, for example just take an infinite binary string such as: 01010101010101... which is perfect order and it's infinite. That's cheating! Why? Because separate bits of information cannot exist in isolation like that. The wholeness of reality is fully interconnected. Something truly separate wouldn't be a part of reality. And this full interconnectedness of the infinite information requires infinite intelligence to put together.

Of course, in my model there isn't some separate God who created the infinite information at the beginning of time. Instead the infinite information just timelessly exists as a platonic form. Still, the infinite information of reality has infinite intelligence as one of its properties. So my model describes intelligent design without any designer needed.

[Anderz]

The ego tries to push itself through life using willpower. That's a total illusion! In reality the ego cannot do anything and has zero power. The ego is a second order structure. Imagine watching a YouTube video and believing that the video created itself and presents itself. Such belief is complete madness. And that's the kind of belief the ego has about itself.

So, then who has willpower? The answer is: nobody. Reality is an automatic process as a result of the instant manifestation of an infinite, timeless and changeless structure.

[Anderz]

My model matches ACIM. Then what about science? Does my model have any support in mainstream science? In some ways yes. For example more and more physicists have started looking at information as being the foundation of physics. That's direct in line with my model. And experts such as Stephen Hawking and Stephen Wolfram have suggested that there is no actual randomness or uncertainty and the pilot wave interpretation of quantum mechanics has determinism. That's again exactly in agreement with my model.

Then there is the huge pink elephant in the living room: Einstein's relativity. If Einstein's relativity is correct, then my model is false. In a way that's a good thing because it means that my model is falsifiable which is an important part of the scientific method. My model says that it's impossible to travel in time or even bend time. I predict that Einstein's relativity will turn out to be not only false, but a cruel yet necessary joke basically. Why necessary if it's a false theory? Because it maximizes creativity and uniqueness of our civilization. A too simple and correct scientific unifying theory giving to us too early would result in much less creativity and uniqueness for the development of our civilization. A really tricky issue!

[Anderz]

ACIM says that all minds are connected. That's true even in ego consciousness and we are all locked up in the global ego when we are identified with our egos. This also means as I see it that one should aim for a collective awakening, not just personal enlightenment. It also explains why I experience my ego as being so heavy; my ego is a part of the global ego. That's a massive heap of conflict resulting in all kinds of tensions in body and mind.

[Anderz]

True inner peace feels extremely pleasurable to the ego. So that's a way of integrating the ego and ACIM. The ego can be preserved, it just needs to be recontextualized, and although high level concepts are useful, the ego can be modified through inner peace without the need for intellectual theories.

It seems to me that peace is the foundation of love, so when ACIM talks about going from fear to love, a first step is through inner peace. The energy field of inner peace can bathe the whole body and mind so that the mental, emotional and physical tensions start to dissolve.

[Anderz]

I got an idea! The "tsunami of automation coming to America" that Marianne Williamson has talked about is a sign of the world starting to transform from a "caterpillar" into a "butterfly".

And a universal basic income (UBI) will allow more and more people to live without having a job. At first the UBI will be way too small to live on except for extremely downsized lifestyles. However, as Ray Kurzweil has explained, the technological progress is accelerating including resulting in better and better price/performance of products and services. In short, stuff will become dirt cheap, and then a UBI will be sufficient for completely replacing the need for jobs.

Having a 9 to 5 job is to remain in the caterpillar, and just like how a real caterpillar turns into a cocoon, the world - the global ego - will turn into an automated cocoon. And more and more people then become "imaginal cells" who build the world butterfly. The UBI is only a temporary political tool. Further into the future even the need for money can be removed. Here is a short illustration of a similar (or even the same) analogy:

 

Edited October 29, 2019 by Anderz

[Anderz]

Looking at the polls indicates that Williamson will require a miracle to win in 2020. I have strong doubts about that happening, but who knows! My current guess is that Trump will remain President. Anyway, Marianne even being included in the first debates is a sign that integral spirituality is peeking into the big power structure. And historically it indicates that we are in a transformation of the whole world within a very short period of time. It will take many years before we see any radical changes, yet it's about decades at most, not 1,000 or even 100 years into the future so from a historical perspective my take is that it's a very fast and accelerating shift going on right now.

[Anderz]

I was hoping that I would start feeling more inner peace. Today I feel confusion instead. And I notice how unpleasant the confusion feels. My theory is that fear is a result of confusion turned into protection. So I'm practicing observing my confusion and the pull towards fear it causes.

The confusion itself is as I see it a result of the ego being trapped in only second and third order reality. The love ACIM talks about is on the first order level. I will continue practicing being mindful of my confusion and the tendency towards fear.

[Anderz]

First order reality is nonlocal,  meaning everything is connected instantly regardless of distance. Does that mean that miracles are independent of distance? Only in principle. Second and third order reality is a fruit of first order reality and is always integrated. In second and third order reality distance makes a huge difference and even miracles operate within second and third order reality. Therefore miracles independent of distance are probably more of an exception instead of the rule.

[Anderz]

My take on Buddhism, with only the little knowledge I have about it, is that impermanence is second and third order reality and nirvana is first order reality and is permanent. From an integral perspective Buddha nature is the realization of both!

As an example, imagine that you are playing a video game and place explosives near a house and blow it up, or to use a more peaceful example, you plant a garden outside the house. That's change. That's impermanence. That's not first order reality. In this analogy the first order reality is the computer game. When you change the situation in the video game (impermanence), the video game itself remains the same (permanent).

The fear vs love described in ACIM is a result of a lack of Buddha nature. And I think what ACIM means by Holy Instant is the realization of Buddha nature.

[Anderz]

And, oh I forgot! Not only in Buddhism, but what is called the kingdom of God in Christianity is obviously also the first order reality. Simple!

ACIM talks about kingdom of heaven. There might be a slight difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God. I think the kingdom of heaven means first order reality without ego distortion, and the kingdom of God is the same thing but also refers to the hidden first order reality even when we are in ego identification.

ACIM says:

"... allow peace to flow over you like a blanket of protec­tion and surety. Let no idle and foolish thoughts enter to disturb the holy mind of the Son of God. Such is the Kingdom of Heaven. Such is the resting place where your Father has placed you forever." - https://acim.org/workbook/lesson-50/