ACIM Journal

[Anderz]

I didn't find any information about sexuality when searching the ACIM text. So ACIM is incomplete in that way in addition to how it lacks an integral approach that includes the ego and not just bashes it.

The Bible is seemingly severely restricting sexuality. The Bible even has a passage that likely most people consider crazy today about death penalty for gay sex. But what people miss when dismissing the Bible is that it also points to a higher reality, such as:

"Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven." - Matthew 22:29-30

Does the Bible mean that there is no sex in heaven? No, because angels can have sex:

"They called to Lot, “Where are the men [angels] who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”" - Genesis 19:5

To get a better understanding of the role of sexuality, since it has been so heavily suppressed, it's useful to look at the research of Wilhelm Reich and orgone energy. My take on it is that deadly orgone (DOR) is a result of suppressed sexuality which in turn is positive orgone (POR) and neutral orgone (OR) is a peaceful balanced energy connected to the heart.

The second beast in the Book of Revelation is made of deadly orgone. This is actually a good thing! Because the second beast will replace the deadly orgone in the form of ego tensions in our own bodies and minds. You may think, whoa, how is orgone related to the Bible?! That is difficult to explain but think of all things as being interrelated.

 

[Anderz]

It's easy to prove even with mainstream science that the ego is insane. When we worry about things of survival without the need for using our muscles the body still activates the primitive biological fight-or-flight response. That's insane! Just like what ACIM says. Joe Dispenza explains how this kind of mechanism even has become an addiction:

 

[Anderz]

How to explain the ego stupidity from a higher perspective? Isn't reality supposed to be managed by infinite intelligence? Yes it is! So it's a good thing from a higher perspective. The ego needs to have all that friction in order to prevent it from developing further. Otherwise the ego would turn into a super ego. Not good. Like a personal Tower of Babel. We can't have that and that's not infinite intelligence, so the ego is supposed to be massively blocked and stupid. Instead of developing super egos we need to transcend our egos and my idea is that it will happen through the emergence of a global collective consciousness.

[Anderz]

Could it be true as Dispenza said that we are addicted to suffering? Yes, I have a theory about that. Some people even cut themselves. The reason is I think because there is an even more dangerous condition which is the tendency of the body to numb itself against too much suffering. And numbness when prolonged or chronic is very dangerous for the health of the body. And since the ego is incapable of producing enough pleasant feelings, the second best thing is suffering and pain. Not too much but enough to overcome the increase of numbness.

Fits of anger can even feel like a relief instead of just suffering. And the ego needs valid reasons for the anger or it will come with feelings of guilt and shame which the ego despises. Unfortunately the pressure caused by buildup of fear leading to numbness builds up again and so new fits of anger are needed. It's kind of like an addiction I guess.

[Anderz]

Low entropy is not just about order, it's also about how complex the order is. The ego tensions have low entropy but too simplistic and inflexible order causing confusion in the mind. I'm experimenting with being mindful of both tension and confusion at the same time. My idea is that they go together and can be dissolved together.

ACIM has a lesson related to this:

"Reality is never frightening. It is impossible that it could upset me. Reality brings only perfect peace. When I am upset, it is always because I have replaced reality with illusions I made up. The illusions are upsetting because I have given them reality, and thus regard reality as an illusion. Nothing in God’s creation is affected in any way by this confusion of mine. I am always upset by nothing." - https://acim.org/workbook/lesson-52/

[Anderz]

In addition to the heart, the gut has advanced intelligence too. Someone said that the leaders for very big organizations and others with a huge amount of power and responsibility use their gut feelings! It's doubtful that they use their hearts much because of all the cardiovascular diseases we see today.

So the global ego then is not only run by the human intellect but also by gut feeling. That to me explains how those leaders can make very difficult decisions and somehow society works and is held together. What is the theory behind the gut intelligence? One idea I have is that reality is predetermined and the gut can sense the truth about some things, especially about third order structures. It's still impossible though to fully know the future in my model. ACIM says that God is changeless, and that's the same as my model if "God" means all of reality including the future.

It can therefore be useful to use inner body awareness for both the heart and the gut. And neuroscientist Candace Pert was shown a picture of the chakra system that matched nervous centers in a medical diagram of the spine, so the chakras are likely real energy centers to be mindful of. Actually the whole body can (and probably should) be included in the inner body awareness practice.

[Anderz]

ACIM seems to say that there is free will, such as:

"Father, Your way is what I choose today. Where it would lead me do I choose to go; what it would have me do I choose to do. Your way is certain, and the end secure." - https://acim.org/workbook/lesson-317/

Yet, just as in the Bible where I have found several verses about how God is doing everything, ACIM also says that there is only God's will:

"There is no will but God’s. I cannot be in conflict." - https://acim.org/workbook/lesson-74/

I doubt that either ACIM or the Bible describes God as uncertain or confused. Only the ego is uncertain and confused. Knowledge is power, says the ego so it seeks to gain knowledge. In truth there is neither more nor less power at any moment or in any situation or in any person. Uncertainty is an illusion. We always have the knowledge we need. And we always learn new knowledge at the right moment, not too soon nor too late.

I suspect that ACIM and the Bible at first give the impression that there is free will because that's the only thing the ego understands, while at the same time the message that there is only God's will is included too. In ACIM there is even a gradual shift in the lessons from the ego to the Holy Spirit. The goal as I see it is to teach us that there is only God's will.

[Anderz]

The spine seems to be an important energy center in the human body. The spine definitely connects a lot of things in the nervous system on a physical level, and eastern spiritual traditions teach about the spine in relation to for example the chakras and kundalini.

Hatha yoga, the yoga with body postures might be useful for dissolving tensions in the spine and also Kriya yoga. However I'm a bit suspicious when those kinds of practices have to be repeated endlessly. What I'm interested in is to remove tensions in my spine permanently. And I will practice inner body awareness of the spine to see if it can dissolve tensions.

ACIM doesn't mention the spine directly it seems and only describes misidentification with the body, such as:

"The ego’s fundamental wish is to replace God. In fact, the ego is the physical embodiment of that wish. For it is that wish that seems to surround the mind with a body, keeping it separate and alone, and unable to reach other minds except through the body that was made to imprison it." - https://acim.org/workbook/lesson-72/

"Spirit makes use of mind as means to find its Self expression. And the mind which serves the spirit is at peace and filled with joy. Its power comes from spirit, and it is fulfilling happily its function here. Yet mind can also see itself divorced from spirit, and perceive itself within a body it confuses with itself." - https://acim.org/workbook/lesson-96/

What ACIM describes is how the ego identifies itself as only being a physical body. In my model, the physical body is a second order structure, and what ACIM calls Spirit is the first order structure.

[Anderz]

Does first order reality have structure? In my model first order reality is Indra's net in the form of an infinite expansion of difference. Indra's net is an interconnected wholeness where every difference is connected to every other difference.

On a physical level it's still valid to describe the first order as structure in the form of vacuum energy, because second order reality in my model is the physical reality on the level of atoms and subatomic particles etc. Nassim Haramein has described how physical matter is made of the vacuum energy. So the vacuum energy can be called the first order structure since it's prior to and the source of the higher order structures.

It all of course depends on how the different orders are defined. For example biology in my model is still second order structure. Third order structures are those that have been manufactured. Termite mounds are third order structures, so are beaver dams and honeycombs made by bees. Most third order structures on our planet are the artifacts made by us humans, such as cars, furniture, iPhones etc.

ACIM describes reality as changeless:

"The miracle is means to demonstrate that all appearances can change because they are appearances, and cannot have the changelessness reality entails." - https://acourseinmiraclesnow.com/course-miracles-chapter-30-viii-changeless-reality/

Even the Bible has verses about God being changeless:

"I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed." - Malachi 3:6

Braham in Hinduism does not change:

"In Hinduism, Brahman connotes the highest Universal Principle, the Ultimate Reality in the universe.[1][2][3] ... It is the pervasive, genderless, infinite, eternal truth and bliss which does not change, yet is the cause of all changes.[1][3] [6]" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman

This is exactly the same as my model. Indra's net is infinite, eternal and changeless. I mentioned before how the appearance of change appears. What produces change is the manifestation of Indra's net. And since that net is infinite the manifestation goes on and expands forever, which results in the motion of time and the appearance of change and still the whole of reality (which includes all future infinite potential) is changeless!

 

[Anderz]

Here is a short video where Nassim Haramein explains how the vacuum energy is the source of the material world and how it relates to the physical body. I may already have posted this video before but I now noticed that Nassim said that the heart is the central point of interaction for our consciousness, so it may be useful to focus on opening the heart:

 

[Anderz]

Spiritual people often talk about "to die before you die". And even in the Bible it says:

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it." - Matthew 16:24-25

Leo has a good description of this in his new video, from about 23 minutes:

Leo said that death is the end of our identification. And ACIM has a related explanation:

"You perceive the world and everything in it as meaningful in terms of ego goals. These goals have nothing to do with your own best interests, because the ego is not you. This false identifi­cation makes you incapable of understanding what anything is for." - https://acim.org/workbook/lesson-25/

[Anderz]

Is it possible to have an integral approach to "die before you die"? Yes! We can die to our identification of ONLY being the physical body, which is only the second order structure. And then realize and actualize our first order nature as being the foundation which will transcend and include our second order structure.

Third order structures such as technology are also important and they will be integrated too although maybe not in the way Ray Kurzweil has predicted:

Nonetheless Kurzweil has made many accurate predictions and his explanation of exponential progress seems correct to me. So we will have very advanced technologies even within a decade even if we by then have realized our first order spiritual nature. There will be both/and for all orders of reality, including fourth order reality such as products and services created by artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and other forms of automation.

[Anderz]

I think ACIM describes an enormous shift of perception, a revelation and an apocalypse (means unveiling). It's about the removal of our identification with only second and higher order structures. Our own egos and the global ego too are a result of missing the deeper first order reality.

The technological means Ray Kurzweil and others propose are a continuation of the misperception. Technological and scientific progress is fine and necessary but it's only one part of reality and it needs to be connected to the spiritual first order reality. Nassim Haramein's research is in that direction while mainstream science is still very much stuck in a view detached from the first order reality.

[Anderz]

Here is Sadhguru talking about technology:

Sadhguru talked about the need for not only going outwards, as with technology but also to go inwards. And there is a form of intelligence called chitta he said which will not be done with a robot (not with third order structures!).

[Anderz]

Aha! Chitta is different than the intellect. The intellect only uses memory. That's the past. So my theory is that chitta can also use the future! In my model cause and effect is from both past and future. Sadhguru talks about chitta from around 45 minutes into this video: Technologies of the Future | Sadhguru and Michio kaku - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RQ44wQwpCc

[Anderz]

Confusion is a result of believing that several possibilities exist. Reality is changeless. The ego sees only the past and gets confused. The ego correctly sees the past as changeless. Confusion arises when the ego believes the future is different than the past in terms of changelessness.

[Anderz]

Third order structures are a sign of how mature our civilization is. I have been disappointed at how slow the progress of information technology has been in the recent years. I don't see Kurzweil's predicted acceleration. But recently I looked at Huawei and wow, that company is already leading in many areas and so I think we will see amazing progress coming from Chinese tech companies, while the western companies have been tricked into getting stuck like old dinosaurs with legacy products and systems. Even Google is already basically a dinosaur in comparison to the Chinese companies.

[Anderz]

Many people seem to believe that reality has an infinite number of possibilities. In reality there is only one possibility and we are it. Otherwise there would have to be a choice-mechanism, either through random choice or through free will choice. Such assumption is logically inconsistent. Why? Because when we look at reality as a single unit, that unit cannot change itself or it would become that which it is not. So then an outside mechanism is necessary to cause the change, and that too is inconsistent because reality as a whole doesn't have any outside mechanisms. So ACIM is correct in saying that reality is changeless.

[Anderz]

I looked up the word chitta and it's defined differently than how Sadghuru explained it! I think Sadhguru's explanation is correct and that it's a more modern and clear one than the past explanations of chitta. Sadhguru said that chitta does not involve memory while the other definitions seem to say that chitta involves memories, especially subconscious memories.

It's also spelled citta and one of Wikipedia's definitions is closer to Sadhguru's:

"The Pali-English Dictionary suggests citta is heart / mind, emphasizing it as more the emotive side of mind, as opposed to manas as the intellect in the sense of what grasps mental objects (dhammas)." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citta

Citta can be disturbed:

"The Yogasutras begins with the declaration that the purpose of yoga is cessation of the citta vrittis, or the modifications (vrittis) that arise in the citta. The scripture identifies five types of modifications which are responsible for the restless state of citta." - https://www.hinduwebsite.com/hinduism/concepts/citta.asp

What Sadguru described is the undisturbed state of citta it seems to me. The vrittis are five kinds of modification of chitta:

"Patanjali actually describes the five fluctuations (functions) of the mind (or five vrittis) to help us better understand the workings of the mind. He says these five vrittis can be painful or non-painful. They are:

1. Valid Cognition (Pramana)

2. Misconception (Viparyaya)

3. Imagination (Vikalpa)

4. Sleep (Nidra)

5. Memory (Smriti)" - http://www.yogawithgrace.com.au/the-vrittis-patanjalis-five-fluctuations-of-the-mind/

This also confirms Sadhguru's explanation since memory (Smriti) is one of the vrittis and not citta itself.

I will check out some more videos of Sadhguru. His explanation of chitta is correct in my opinion.

[Anderz]

Sadhguru's explanation of citta is similar to the Holy Instant in ACIM:

"The holy instant is the Holy Spirit’s most useful learning device for teaching you love’s meaning. For its purpose is to suspend judgment entirely. Judgment always rests on the past, for past experience is the basis on which you judge. Judgment becomes impossible without the past, for without it you do not understand anything. You would make no attempt to judge, because it would be quite apparent to you that you do not understand what anything means. You are afraid of this because you believe that without the ego, all would be chaos. Yet I assure you that without the ego, all would be love.

The past is the ego’s chief learning device, for it is in the past that you learned to define your own needs and acquired methods for meeting them on your own terms. We have said that to limit love to part of the Sonship is to bring guilt into your relationships, and thus make them unreal. If you seek to separate out certain aspects of the totality and look to them to meet your imagined needs, you are attempting to use separation to save you. How, then, could guilt not enter? For separation is the source of guilt, and to appeal to it for salvation is to believe you are alone. To be alone is to be guilty. For to experience yourself as alone is to deny the Oneness of the Father and His Son, and thus to attack reality.

You cannot love parts of reality and understand what love means. If you would love unlike to God, Who knows no special love, how can you understand it? To believe that special relationships, with special love, can offer you salvation is the belief that separation is salvation. For it is the complete equality of the Atonement in which salvation lies. How can you decide that special aspects of the Sonship can give you more than others? The past has taught you this. Yet the holy instant teaches you it is not so.

Because of guilt, all special relationships have elements of fear in them. This is why they shift and change so frequently. They are not based on changeless love alone. And love, where fear has entered, cannot be depended on because it is not perfect. In His function as Interpreter of what you made, the Holy Spirit uses special relationships, which you have chosen to support the ego, as learning experiences that point to truth. Under His teaching, every relationship becomes a lesson in love." - https://acimi.com/a-course-in-miracles/text/chapter-15/the-holy-instant-and-special-relationships

Ken Wilber said that Whitehead described how the subject becomes the object in each moment, and the new subject becomes the next object and so on moment by moment. This is the change in the moment. How long time span is the present moment? My answer is: zero seconds! In my model the manifestation of Indra's net is expanding at factorial speed. That's a humongous increase each moment, not necessarily the same as the increase of information. The subject in each moment is much larger than the past and the next subject much larger than the past/object appearing from the previous subject and so on in an ever expanding manifestation of reality.

Each iteration of subject-becoming-object has the appearance of the time interval of one Planck time. So even though the present moment is always zero seconds "long" the appearance of time is that of one Planck time at a time, so time is discrete! This hypothesis is falsifiable and if it is shown that time is continuous it falsifies my model.

The changeless love mentioned in the ACIM quote is this ongoing manifestation as a whole and it is always whole and source of the manifestation is a changeless configuration. Special relationships are the result of the ego believing that total separations exist while actual reality is always one wholeness.

Edited November 18, 2019 by Anderz
Added "manifestation of" to Indra's net expanding (Indra's net in itself is infinite and does not expand).