ACIM Journal

[Anderz]

It's clear that the special relationships described in ACIM are more than just relationships between people. The ego's relationship with itself is a special relationship and so is the ego's relationships to personal finances, material possessions, social status, reputation, knowledge, political views, religious beliefs or lack thereof and so on.

ACIM also indirectly points to the integral solution where the special relationships become healed by the Holy Spirit. It simply means to look at the special relationships starting from a perspective of oneness instead of as the ego to look at relationships as separate things.

[Anderz]

Wow. Sadhguru said (from about 46 minutes into the video) that most of the time he hasn't a single thought in his mind! I believe him and I think I heard him say something similar in another talk and that's like a highest meta perspective (on a mental level). Probably ACIM aims at a similar state. Eckhart Tolle said that the the degree of awakening is determined by the amount of inner peace we feel inside. And Eckhart also said if I remember correctly that the absence of thought is also a measurement of awakening.

Mindfulness practice then should not only be about observing thoughts endlessly but about observing how the mind becomes more quite and stable.

[Anderz]

One problem with Sadhguru is that he believes that the physical body will inevitably die. He is stuck in memories! And he said himself that chitta is freedom from memories. To extrapolate into the future from past memories often works but not always. So I have doubts about his claim about inevitable physical death. Also Leo falls into this trap and believes that the physical body will inevitably die. Their position might seem like a rational standpoint but it's actually a self-bias promoted by memories. We need to go more meta in my opinion.

[Anderz]

When duality people say things like "I'm not the body", then that's a huge whopping duality position! Every time we say I am not this or I am not that we have split oneness into two. Oneness cannot for example say "I am not my thoughts" in a truthful way. Even ACIM has this duality position, such as:

"The body will not stay." - https://acim.org/workbook/what-is-5/

What is it that can stay or go from a oneness perspective? The answer is: nothing! And to say that there is no individual self, as some nonduality teachers do, that's also a false perspective because within oneness there is duality. In short, essentially all spiritual teachings on the planet are false! I suspect it's the global ego that causes all those false perspectives.

[Anderz]

To be fair, what the spiritual teachers and teachings are good at is to describe the oneness perspective. That's the correct biggest meta perspective since all the duality is contained within that perspective. Even though I haven't realized the oneness perspective myself yet I can sense it more now, like an openness that is free from all the clutter and stuff in the mind.

Inner body awareness practice from the oneness perspective is interesting. It's difficult to focus on only the inner body! Because my awareness is both inside and outside my body when I get a sense of the oneness perspective. Sadhguru talked about experiencing being one with everything. I haven't such full oneness experience but I believe it's possible to reach that state.

[Anderz]

The belief in inevitable aging and death drives the ego completely insane. Think about it. Think of all the things the ego clings to with incredible fervor including memories, skills, achievements, desires, relationships, material possessions, social status, political opinions, career, education and loved ones. At the same time the ego has the firm belief in an inevitable aging, deterioration and death of the physical body. Talk about schizophrenic clash! The ego hates and fears losing things and with a belief of inevitable loss of the ego's whole life, that's what is driving the ego mad.

And spiritual people and spiritual teachings come up will all kinds of crazy cop out claims for why the death of the body is not such a big deal. It's a huge whopping deal! So the situation even for spiritually enlightened people becomes highly hypocritical. They claim to have some mental kind of enlightenment while publicly dismissing their own physical body crumbling to death because of ego tensions.

True spiritual awakening to me includes awakening the body of flesh into a glorified body as it is called in Christianity. All other kinds of claims of awakening can be useful pointers on a mental level but it's not the real deal in my opinion. Also, as I mentioned before, I think that the real awakening is a collective one, not only an individual experience.

[Anderz]

Adamus who I think is a channeled entity said that when feeling into a whole group of people it can feel disgusting. Are the channeled entities just New Age woo woo? Maybe not! And many of the channeled entities are a collective consciousness. ACIM is supposedly channeled from Christ, but I don't know if it means a collective consciousness.

Think about how horrible our own personal problems can feel. Imagine feeling into a group of 100 people who are all in ego consciousness. That must be absolutely awful, just as Adamus said.

J. Krishnamurti talked about "thinking together" which may have been a reference to a collective capacity. And to achieve a collective consciousness requires a very advanced coordination and clear and peaceful feeling among the individuals, or else it will feel horrible and not work at all.

[Anderz]

Excellent. I haven't followed Gregg Braden much but now I found this video where he said that our mental belief and thoughts about inevitable aging cause our bodies to respond to those kinds of thoughts. Amen! Bruce Lipton has said something similar in relation to what he calls the biology of belief.

 

[Anderz]

Is it good to become empty of self and let the Holy Spirit speak, act and think through oneself? No, I don't think that's what ACIM is about. It seems more like ACIM aims at making ourselves become the Holy Spirit.

To be empty and 100% spontaneous is actually non-integral! Because then there is a separate self that now has become a "passive observer". Not good, and mainstream psychology even calls this a depersonalization disorder.

A more integral approach is to be very open yes, but still have an idea of what to do in certain situations, general plans and personal beliefs and wants and so on. I think we as individuals need to remain having personal command and control or we will fall into the false oneness trap that's actually a severe case of duality split.

[Anderz]

Promises are an ego trick, especially demanded by energy vampires. When you make a promise, you have to remember that promise, be personal responsible for the promise and keep that promise. Forever! That's a huge burden and it constantly robs you of energy. And also, promises can never be 100% guaranteed. Because things, situations, circumstances, beliefs, knowledge and other variables can change. It's impossible, even in theory, to fully predict the future. So screw promises. All of them.

[Anderz]

Selflessness is another ego trap. Like the psychological disorder of becoming a passive observer, to become selfless in another psychological disorder, maybe even worse since it's then the self that through some incredible hypocritical stunt of self-sacrifice still somehow is supposed to feel good about himself or herself through only serving others, selflessly. And in the case where the service is absent we are back into the selfless person being a passive observer. Insanity in both cases, yet promoted by many if not most people today as something to strive for, by people who lack understanding or put up phony fronts and lie in your face. So the whole concept of selflessness is usually just propaganda told by egos who secretly want others to become selfless. So screw selflessness. Instead expand your sense of self to include everybody and everything, including yourself.

Notice that some spiritual teachers may talk about selflessness as something good, because that's generally the only thing the global ego understands. When people are too deeply trapped in ego consciousness they can only think in duality terms of us vs them, self vs others, "service to self" vs "service to others". If the spiritual teachers would say that selflessness is something bad, as I propose, then the ego can take that as meaning that selfishness in the narrow sense is good, which is an even lower stage of development.

Edited November 21, 2019 by Anderz

[Anderz]

Then what about sayings like "die to the self" and "deny thyself"? Aren't those about self-sacrifice? Or about becoming selfless? No. Absolutely not. It's about an awakening into a higher level of consciousness. When we wake up in the morning after having had a dream then we "die to the dream" one might say. So it's about a transformation, not about an actual death or destruction of the individual.

[Anderz]

ACIM has a radical approach to healing:

"This is a course in miracles. As such, the laws of healing must be understood before the purpose of the course can be accomplished. Let us review the principles that we have covered, and arrange them in a way that summarizes all that must occur for healing to be possible. For when it once is possible it must occur.

All sickness comes from separation. When the separation is denied, it goes. For it is gone as soon as the idea that brought it has been healed, and been replaced by sanity. Sickness and sin are seen as consequence and cause," - https://acimi.com/a-course-in-miracles/text/chapter-26/the-laws-of-healing

Previously I was thinking that healthcare sucks, then later I changed my mind and now support healthcare. I think it can be done while still aiming for the ACIM type of healing. Healthcare can be seen as a platform from which to take the next step up onto a higher platform. Currently healthcare, even the pharma industry, is our foundation. When stepping up to the higher platform there is a period of time when the lower platform is necessary as a support until the step to the higher level has been completed. In this way there is a peaceful and integral relationship to healthcare.

[Anderz]

Sadhguru said something like: let truth be the authority instead of authorities be the truth. And ACIM can be seen in that way. Instead of treating ACIM as some authoritative text to treat it as a hypothesis about the truth. And then test the hypothesis to see if it comes true. And also combine it with other teachings; spiritual, scientific, esoteric, philosophical and so on.

[Anderz]

Are the relationships to our loved ones always what ACIM calls special relationships? No, not when the loved ones are everybody.  That's what Jesus was ranting endlessly about (brothers in heaven etc etc) and that's what ACIM means by holy relationship.

[Anderz]

Does consciousness have an amazing untapped power as some spiritual traditions, religions, philosophies and new age teachings claim? In a sense yes! Because consciousness is ALREADY connected to the Holy Spit. Because consciousness is a oneness, a wholeness, an undivided state. Even mainstream science has recognized that consciousness is an indivisible wholeness, such as:

"The axioms are intended to capture the essential aspects of every conscious experience. Every axiom should apply to every possible experience.

The wording of the axioms has changed slightly as the theory has developed, and the most recent and complete statement of the axioms is as follows:

• Intrinsic existence: Consciousness exists: each experience is actual—indeed, that my experience here and now exists (it is real) is the only fact I can be sure of immediately and absolutely. Moreover, my experience exists from its own intrinsic perspective, independent of external observers (it is intrinsically real or actual).

• Composition: Consciousness is structured: each experience is composed of multiple phenomenological distinctions, elementary or higher-order. For example, within one experience I may distinguish a book, a blue color, a blue book, the left side, a blue book on the left, and so on.

• Information: Consciousness is specific: each experience is the particular way it is—being composed of a specific set of specific phenomenal distinctions—thereby differing from other possible experiences (differentiation). For example, an experience may include phenomenal distinctions specifying a large number of spatial locations, several positive concepts, such as a bedroom (as opposed to no bedroom), a bed (as opposed to no bed), a book (as opposed to no book), a blue color (as opposed to no blue), higher-order "bindings" of first-order distinctions, such as a blue book (as opposed to no blue book), as well as many negative concepts, such as no bird (as opposed to a bird), no bicycle (as opposed to a bicycle), no bush (as opposed to a bush), and so on. Similarly, an experience of pure darkness and silence is the particular way it is—it has the specific quality it has (no bedroom, no bed, no book, no blue, nor any other object, color, sound, thought, and so on). And being that way, it necessarily differs from a large number of alternative experiences I could have had but I am not actually having.

• Integration: Consciousness is unified: each experience is irreducible and cannot be subdivided into non-interdependent, disjoint subsets of phenomenal distinctions. Thus, I experience a whole visual scene, not the left side of the visual field independent of the right side (and vice versa). For example, the experience of seeing the word "BECAUSE" written in the middle of a blank page is not reducible to an experience of seeing "BE" on the left plus an experience of seeing "CAUSE" on the right. Similarly, seeing a blue book is not reducible to seeing a book without the color blue, plus the color blue without the book.

• Exclusion: Consciousness is definite, in content and spatio-temporal grain: each experience has the set of phenomenal distinctions it has, neither less (a subset) nor more (a superset), and it flows at the speed it flows, neither faster nor slower. For example, the experience I am having is of seeing a body on a bed in a bedroom, a bookcase with books, one of which is a blue book, but I am not having an experience with less content—say, one lacking the phenomenal distinction blue/not blue, or colored/not colored; or with more content—say, one endowed with the additional phenomenal distinction high/low blood pressure. Moreover, my experience flows at a particular speed—each experience encompassing say a hundred milliseconds or so—but I am not having an experience that encompasses just a few milliseconds or instead minutes or hours.”— Dr. Giulio Tononi, Scholarpedia[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory#Axioms:_essential_properties_of_experience

Edited November 21, 2019 by Anderz

[Anderz]

I have heard some spiritual teachers, at least Eckhart Tolle and Mooji, and maybe even Sadhguru and Lisa Cairns and others talking about becoming aware of awareness itself. That's a part of the highest meta perspective! Because consciousness is connected to the wholeness of reality.

Here is a recent video by Lisa Cairns where she explains some of the highest meta perspective:

 

[Anderz]

One of the biggest challenges I have noticed is that when I have depressing thoughts it's really difficult to recognize higher meta perspectives. My mind becomes sucked into and locked in to a state of depressing thoughts and feelings. In such cases I think it's useful if one can remember the highest meta state and go directly to becoming aware of awareness and stay there for a while until the nasty thoughts and feelings dissolve. Easier said than done but it's a simple practice if one can remember it during those low states of consciousness.

I don't know if the claims that the author of ACIM, Helen Schucman got depressed are true but she died of cancer according to Wikipedia. A disease like that may be correlated with harmful stress. So it's probably a good idea to be a bit cautious when dealing with such radical texts such as ACIM.

[Anderz]

Lisa Cairns said that anger can come from the solar plexus. I have noticed anger tensions in my face but I haven't researched the solar plexus or connected it with anger before. The solar plexus is some kind of nerve center I found now on Wikipedia and it's also connected to one of the chakras. I will experiment with inner body awareness of the solar plexus in relation to anger including subconscious anger which can be tricky to detect because it's usually below our conscious awareness.

Edited November 21, 2019 by Anderz

[Anderz]

Aha! The solar plexus is a part of the sympathetic nervous system:

"The solar plexus — also called the celiac plexus — is a complex system of radiating nerves and ganglia. It’s found in the pit of the stomach in front of the aorta. It’s part of the sympathetic nervous system. ... Anxiety is a common cause of solar plexus pain. The solar plexus is tied to the adrenal glands and the lungs. The fight-or-flight response to stress can result in poor breathing." - https://www.healthline.com/health/solar-plexus-pain#causes

And the sympathetic nervous system is connected to the fight or flight response:

"The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is part of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which also includes the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). The sympathetic nervous system activates what is often termed the fight or flight response." - https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/sympathetic_nervous_system.htm

The fight or flight response is a huge part of the ego. It's a primitive biological mechanism that the ego activates even in relation to worries unrelated to the immediate need for alarmingly activating the muscles, the nervous system and shutting down the immune system like in the case of imminent physical danger. So even intellectually we can see that there is some kind of imbalance and distorted perception the ego has.

The fight or flight response is related to fear:

"In the face of fear, whether it be caused by a grizzly bear or an audience waiting to hear you speak, your body initiates a reaction to stress. The breath quickens, the pupils dilate, the heart begins to pound. These automatic responses occur as a part of the so-called fight-or-flight response, the body’s evolved mechanism to threats around us." - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fight-or-flight-may-be-in-our-bones/

ACIM talks about fear vs love. I now came to think that going from fear to love is an evolutionary development, and what served a useful function in the early history of humanity, such as fear, is starting to become obsolete and even dangerous for our health because of how our minds still connect to the solar plexus and the fight or flight response in our modern world where those connections become dysfunctional.