ACIM Journal

[Anderz]

Some people say that ACIM is not at all like the Bible. In a way that's true. From the big picture however I think of ACIM as a kind of a third testament. The Old Testament has a lot of violence and stuff in it, and that's because in a Spiral Dynamics sense that was written for early stages of human development. The New Testament uses a language for higher stages, and ACIM is directed at today's leading stages of development.

Is a vengeful and angry God a wrong picture? No! Who is God? The Word of God is everything and more! So the nasty things in the Old Testament are from an integral and holistic perspective a necessary development. At the same time we can see that many of those things if done today would be insane. A both/and integral perspective is necessary to piece the puzzle together.

[Anderz]

ACIM has an interesting explanation about how our thoughts are attacking ourselves:

"Because your attack thoughts will be projected, you will fear attack. And if you fear attack, you must believe that you are not invulnerable. Attack thoughts therefore make you vulnerable in your own mind, which is where the attack thoughts are." - https://acim.org/workbook/lesson-26/

Logically that's true! When for example authorities demand something and it makes me worried, I have attacked myself. When I'm afraid of hostile people, I have attacked myself. What will happen when my thoughts become peaceful instead of being attack thoughts? It will change my whole experience of life.

Notice that the trick is NOT to get tough, to strengthen the protective personal wall. That just INCREASES the fear in oneself. Nor is it about becoming vulnerable since that's actually a form of attack thought. Tricky.

[Anderz]

Here is a new video from Aaron Abke who has used ACIM in his teachings:

Good explanation about how love is not something separate from us.

[Anderz]

I wrote earlier that the Word of God is everything and more. How can something be more than everything? A clarification is needed. By everything I here mean every-thing, as in manifested reality. The Word of God is all of manifested reality AND also all of the unmanifested reality yet to become manifested (infinite unmanifested reality). In this way the Word of God is every-thing and more.

[Anderz]

According to ACIM only God's will is done. In my model, which fits even atheism, God's will has ALREADY been done. God is a timeless and changeless principle in my model. God is also infinite intelligence. That's the key to true inner peace I believe. Everything, including all the future, is ALREADY secure and taken care of with infinite care, including our own personal lives.

If I remember correctly, ACIM says that even death is a result of the ego which is an illusion of separate control. My hope and even belief is that I will NOT die! Sure, all official history shows that death has always been a part of human existence, but actual destruction is in my model impossible, so to preserve our physical lives is actually a piece of cake.

[Anderz]

I feel like ranting a bit. It's my projection and not meant as an attack on people. It's an attack on my own belief system and on the social system. What does ACIM say about healthcare? My interpretation, to paraphrase ACIM is: fuck the doctors and the nurses and those sadistic butchers and drug pushers and fuck the pharma industry and fuck the insurance companies. That's my rant for today.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, healtcare is still very much necessary, not least for all the jobs it creates, haha. My rant was about how long-term healthcare is the wrong direction as I see it, like a modern Tower of Babel.

Edited November 2, 2019 by Anderz

[Anderz]

Here I found yet another spiritual teacher, Paul Hedderman, talking about ACIM.

Hedderman is a nonduality teacher. They seem to like ACIM! In another video he said something like how the self cannot experience the self. Very good point. In a sense everything is the Self yet I see the truth of there needing to be a duality for experience to happen. 

[Anderz]

If the ONLY power is first order power then when we get access to that power no ego can get power over us, not even the global ego! That kind of power requires infinite responsibility. Fortunately, the ego doesn't actually have any responsibility, meaning the ego ALREADY has zero power. So it's a safe kind of power.

[Anderz]

What I call the global ego is the whole world as it is today. This takes the concept of ego to a worldwide level. Even nature is totally a part of the global ego, and that's why nature still is so primitive and seemingly cruel in many cases.

Notice that even the global ego has zero power on its own. People who say that politicians need to be responsible are totally deluded. People who say that nature is natural for a lack of a better word, are deluded! People who believe that the legal system has power are completely fooling themselves. All those things are a part of the global ego which has zero power on its own.

[Anderz]

A Course in Miracles is like a western version of jnana yoga which is the path of the intellect.

"Jñāna yoga, also known as Jnanamarga, is one of the several spiritual paths in Hinduism that emphasizes the "path of knowledge",[1] also known as the "path of self-realization".[2] It is one of the three classical paths (margas) for moksha (salvation, liberation).[3][4] The other two are karma yoga (path of action, karmamarga) and bhakti yoga (path of loving devotion to a personal god, bhaktimarga).[3][5][6] Later, new movements within Hinduism added raja yoga as a fourth spiritual path, but it is not universally accepted as distinct from the other three.[7][8]" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jnana_yoga

ACIM aims at a radical recontextualization of the intellect. The end result of which is the nondual realization of the ego being a mistaken view of reality. The truth is that the ego has zero power on its own.

[Anderz]

Yes! Now I found a passage in ACIM about changelessness.

"True learning is constant, and so vital in its power for change that a Son of God can recognize his power in one instant and change the world in the next. 6 That is because, by changing his mind, he has changed the most powerful device that was ever given him for change. 7 This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as God created it, but you think that you have changed it as long as you learn through the ego. 8 This places you in a position of needing to learn a lesson that seems contradictory;--you must learn to change your mind about your mind. 9 Only by this can you learn that it is changeless." - https://acourseinmiraclesnow.com/course-miracles-chapter-7-v-healing-changelessness-mind/

Notice here that changing one's mind is impossible since the mind is changeless. The ACIM quote is about recognizing that the mind is changeless. My model says that all of reality is changeless so yes also the mind is changeless.

[Anderz]

The whole world in the form of the global ego is completely deluded. Simple logic can tell us that. Reality is changeless as ACIM says. If actual change was possible then that which is would have to turn into that which is not. That's impossible! Simple logic. To turn something into something else, as in all forms of change, requires a mechanism outside it to do the change. Reality as a whole totality doesn't have something else to do the change! God is not some joker able to do things, nor is the ego, nor is anything. Everything is changeless.

The appearance of change and time is a result of the manifestation of a set of infinite changeless information. Infinity has no end so the manifestation goes on forever. Time started now. There is only now and all the past is timeless information in the now. How even the so-called biggest thinkers and philosophers throughout history have missed this obvious fact is highly suspicious to me, unless, as usual, people have already pointed this out and the knowledge has been ignored by the global ego.

[Anderz]

We live in an insane world dominated by the global ego. That's why people do ridiculous things such as physical exercise. That's totally retarded! Sure, practice is necessary to learn things, and even that is questionable since there may be faster ways of downloading skills. To have to practice again and again again like with physical exercise is a sign of insanity. The ego lives in a world of decay and even struggles with keeping the physical body in health and in good condition. And still the body ages and dies. Can the situation get more pathetic than that? Is that infinite intelligence?

[DrewNows]

14 minutes ago, Anderz said:

We live in an insane world dominated by the global ego. That's why people do ridiculous things such as physical exercise. That's totally retarded! Sure, practice is necessary to learn things, and even that is questionable since there may be faster ways of downloading skills. To have to practice again and again again like with physical exercise is a sign of insanity. The ego lives in a world of decay and even struggles with keeping the physical body in health and in good condition. And still the body ages and dies. Can the situation get more pathetic than that? Is that infinite intelligence?

 hehehe i love this, such a view could only be possible with infinite intelligence....does the global ego have a shadow side?

 

Edited November 3, 2019 by DrewNows

[Anderz]

@DrewNows I haven't looked into what the ego shadow is yet. What hit me today is that the reson for the global ego stupidity is because of a deliberate limitation. Historical researcher Richard Dolan says that there exits strong evidence for something he calls the breakaway civilization, a hidden society with way more advanced technology and knowledge than in the public society.

I have seen hints about there being a breakaway civilization and they surely know the real knowledge while us in the public society are stuck in the global ego with all its limitations.

There is a cosmic constructive purpose of the limitations though. The purpose is to evolve new civilizations like our own, and limiting possibilities has forced us to grow and develop our own unique civilization in creative ways. That's the purpose of the "fall" of humanity.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Anderz
Corrected what Dolan actually has said.

[Anderz]

Here is another example of how hardcore ACIM is:

"5 Who loves such a god knows not of love, because he has denied that life is real. 6 Death has become life's symbol. 7 His world is now a battleground, where contradiction reigns and opposites make endless war. 8 Where there is death is peace impossible.

M-27.3. Death is the symbol of the fear of God. 2 His Love is blotted out in the idea, which holds it from awareness like a shield held up to obscure the sun. 3 The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot coexist with God. 4 It holds an image of the Son of God in which he is "laid to rest" in devastation's arms, where worms wait to greet him and to last a little while by his destruction. 5 Yet the worms as well are doomed to be destroyed as certainly. 6 And so do all things live because of death. 7 Devouring is nature's "law of life." 8 God is insane, and fear alone is real.

M-27.4. The curious belief that there is part of dying things that may go on apart from what will die, does not proclaim a loving God nor re-establish any grounds for trust. 2 If death is real for anything, there is no life. 3 Death denies life. 4 But if there is reality in life, death is denied. 5 No compromise in this is possible. 6 There is either a god of fear or One of Love. 7 The world attempts a thousand compromises, and will attempt a thousand more. 8 Not one can be acceptable to God's teachers, because not one could be acceptable to God. 9 He did not make death because He did not make fear. 10 Both are equally meaningless to Him.

M-27.5. The "reality" of death is firmly rooted in the belief that God's Son is a body. 2 And if God created bodies, death would indeed be real. 3 But God would not be loving. 4 There is no point at which the contrast between the perception of the real world and that of the world of illusions becomes more sharply evident. 5 Death is indeed the death of God, if He is Love. 6 And now His Own creation must stand in fear of Him. 7 He is not Father, but destroyer. 8 He is not Creator, but avenger. 9 Terrible His Thoughts and fearful His image. 10 To look on His creations is to die.

M-27.6. "And the last to be overcome will be death." 2 Of course! 3 Without the idea of death there is no world. 4 All dreams will end with this one. 5 This is salvation's final goal; the end of all illusions. 6 And in death are all illusions born. 7 What can be born of death and still have life? 8 But what is born of God and still can die? 9 The inconsistencies, the compromises and the rituals the world fosters in its vain attempts to cling to death and yet to think love real are mindless magic, ineffectual and meaningless." - https://acourseinmiraclesnow.com/course-miracles-manual-teachers-27-death/

I suspect that most if not all ACIM teachers are thinking of this as ego death. That they have a lukewarm instead of hardcore interpretation of ACIM. I interpret it as physical death as well! Fear and death go together, including physical death.

"M-27.1. Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. 2 Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end? 3 We have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it more carefully. 4 It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. 5 This is regarded as "the way of nature," not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the "natural" law of life. 6 The cyclical, the changing and unsure; the undependable and the unsteady, waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path,--all this is taken as the Will of God. 7 And no one asks if a benign Creator could will this."

[Anderz]

If reality is changeless, why is that a good thing? Personally I think it's good because it makes mistakes impossible. Not even God can change anything.

Can the hypothesis that reality is changeless be tested scientifically? I doubt it. Instead I think one has to take it as a logical axiom.

The idea of changelessness is only good if reality is a construct of infinite intelligence, or else there would be the possibility of real disasters and horrible outcomes. Can the claim of infinite intelligence be tested scientifically? I doubt that as well. Leo said that it's possible to get a personal insight about the truth of infinite intelligence. I don't have such insight yet so at the moment I think of it as another logical axiom.

I haven't found yet in ACIM that it describes God as infinite intelligence although there are hints in that direction, such as:

"My holiness remains the light of Heaven and the Love of God. Is not what is beloved of You secure? Is not the light of Heaven infinite? Is not Your Son my true Identity, when You created everything that is?" - https://acim.org/workbook/lesson-283/

"Today I come to You. I will step back and merely follow You. Be You the Guide, and I the follower who questions not the wisdom of the Infinite, nor Love whose tenderness I cannot comprehend, but which is yet Your perfect gift to me." - https://acim.org/workbook/lesson-233/

[Anderz]

Even without a possibility of an objective scientific investigation about ACIM being true or not, I can test it for myself by dropping more and more personal responsibility. In the world of the global ego that is a crazy idea, yet it makes sense from ACIM's point of view.

If ACIM is correct then things in my life will improve by me dropping more and more personal responsibility. It does not mean becoming irresponsible which is just the opposite side of the same coin. Instead it's about dropping both responsibility and irresponsibility.

[Anderz]

Oh! The physical body is also a part of the global ego of course. That must be what ACIM means by: "M-27.5. The "reality" of death is firmly rooted in the belief that God's Son is a body. 2 And if God created bodies, death would indeed be real. 3 But God would not be loving."

In my model the Word of God is the creation of everything, even the global ego and our physical bodies. In that way this is another view where my model disagrees with ACIM and agrees instead with Christianity (see John 1).

But I see the truth in what ACIM is saying. It's a matter of perspective. The global ego IS a state of delusion and so even the physical body is a result of a misperception of reality. The ego sees absolute separation while in reality there is no absolute separation anywhere.

[Anderz]

I find many of Leo's videos to be similar to ACIM. In this video from about 1 hour and 8 minutes Leo explains that to erase evil requires removing evil from oneself, which in turn as I understand it is to remove the sense of separation in oneself, and that sense of separation is also the foundation of the ego.

Edit: Leo's explanation is a bit lukewarm here though it seems to me. I think that removing the evil in oneself also means that one's physical body can no longer be harmed. Otherwise there is a split between mental evil and physical evil and that's duality, not nonduality. And I believe evil will be eradicated from the entire world within a few decades. Leo says in the video that there will be evil still many centuries to come.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Anderz