ACIM Journal

[Anderz]

The love of money is false love. The integration of money is true love! What I mean is that what needs to happen is that when money is integrated into the larger whole instead of treated as separate, money will start to function harmoniously.

Automation and universal basic income are parts of the integration of money. So that's a very good thing! It will cause some problems initially because of the change needed to turn our current civilization based on only jobs to the new civilization based on automation instead of humans doing the work.

Something similar happened during the industrial revolution and there were even people called Luddities who opposed the change.

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"The group was protesting against manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices.[2] Luddites feared that the time spent learning the skills of their craft would go to waste, as machines would replace their role in the industry.[3] Over time, the term has come to mean one opposed to industrialisation, automation, computerisation, or new technologies in general.[4] " - Wikipedia

 

[Anderz]

Actually, the coronavirus crisis is a huge indicator of the shift from a job society to an automation society and marks the beginning of a new era for our human civilization. Ray Kurzweil has predicted that a technological singularity will happen already in the year 2045.

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"The technological singularity—also, simply, the singularity[1]—is a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization.[2][3] According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis, called intelligence explosion, an upgradable intelligent agent will eventually enter a "runaway reaction" of self-improvement cycles, each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing an "explosion" in intelligence and resulting in a powerful superintelligence that qualitatively far surpasses all human intelligence." - Wikipedia

 

[Anderz]

Another thing we do in ego consciousness is to perceive reality from an exclusive perspective of separations based on limited conditioning and fear-based survival strategies. This totally misses the absolute Truth which is an interconnected wholeness with far wider and deeper implications than given by our limited ego perspectives.

I got this idea from Leo's video about the mind's perceptions:

What ACIM calls special relationships can be extended to include not only people but also everything we experience in ego consciousness. Our relationship to the world in ego consciousness is that of special relationships. ACIM says:

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"The search for the special relationship is the sign that you equate yourself with the ego and not with God. For the special relationship has value only to the ego. To the ego, unless a relationship has special value it has no meaning, for it perceives all love as special. Yet this cannot be natural, for it is unlike the relationship of God and His Son, and all relationships that are unlike this one must be unnatural. For God created love as He would have it be, and gave it as it is. Love has no meaning except as its Creator defined it by His Will. It is impossible to define it otherwise and understand it." - ACIM T-16.VI.1

 

[Anderz]

Wow, I now realized that ordinary mindfulness practice can be very useful in relation to transforming ego consciousness. I have been thinking that the nonjudgmental part of mindfulness practice is inefficient because if we just observe our thoughts and emotions and so on then that only keeps the ego patterns going without much change.

What I now realized is, just as what Leo says in the video about the mind's perceptions, that all judgments in ego consciousness are very limited and give a distorted separation and abstraction based view of reality. Mindfulness practice is a way of taking a step back from all judgments and to observe reality more as a wholeness, more holistically. And with the knowledge that the mind's perceptions are all distorted there is an incentive to remain nonjudgmental and allow change of all thinking to happen. In this way mindfulness practice becomes a tool for transforming ego consciousness.

I will take a look at some basic mindfulness teachings, such as:

 

[Anderz]

What is the cause of ego tensions in mind and body? The answer is that those tensions are caused by the ego perspective of separation and abstractions. We might think that when we for example only care about our own money and are unconcerned about other people's money, that it's a selfish perspective. But it's not! When the ego has these kinds of seemingly selfish views it actually serves the collective control system in society.

We have unknowingly become slaves to serving the control system, primarily through money, and that serfdom manifests as ego tensions in us. The ego struggles in a mindless and heartless struggle for survival against other egos, and meanwhile the control system thrives and grows from all that tension. That why the love of money is the root of all evil.

To "serve God" simply means being aligned with the correct workings of reality, while serving money is what the ego does in how it relates to money.

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"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." - Matthew 6:24

 

[Anderz]

Money, calendar time and laws are absolutely necessary for the development of a civilization. But they are also a very clunky, mechanical, limited, abstract and separate way of relating to reality. They represent the "caterpillar" stage of our civilization.

My idea is that dissolving ego tensions can be done through mindfulness practice where personal management of things like money and calendar time are observed nonjudgmentally without participating in the thoughts and emotions. That's a radical practice. It means letting dealing with the caterpillar issues in life happen automatically.

[Anderz]

ACIM says that all minds are connected, even in ego consciousness! It's just that the ego doesn't recognize the connections and experiences reality as separations. That made me think that even the ego tensions are connected between people. And the whole collective ego structure of our society literally exists within us as tensions.

Therefore, when we dissolve our personal ego tensions we also transform the collective structure of the world. And thereby we transcend and include both our personal ego and the collective ego structures. To use the caterpillar metaphor, when our ego tensions dissolve they turn into a part of the cocoon within which the butterfly develops.

The ego structures become separated out from us and outsourced to the external cocoon. In practice this means that the external world will take care of our survival needs and the burden of personal responsibility is removed from us. Progress of technology, such as artificial intelligence and robotics will be be a part of this long term, but even now we can start to serve God instead of serving money, meaning allowing our survival strategies to dissolve.

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"“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,[c] your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy,[d] your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Do Not Worry

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[e]?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." - Matthew 6:19-34

 

[Anderz]

Anger is a result of ego tensions, and since the tensions are collective, the anger is a collective ego expression manifesting through the person. The need for serious anger will vanish when the ego tensions dissolve.

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"Anger in response to perceived magic thoughts is a basic cause of fear. 2 Consider what this reaction means, and its centrality in the world's thought system becomes apparent. 3 A magic thought, by its mere presence, acknowledges a separation from God. 4 It states, in the clearest form possible, that the mind which believes it has a separate will that can oppose the Will of God, also believes it can succeed. 5 That this can hardly be a fact is obvious. 6 Yet that it can be believed as fact is equally obvious. 7 And herein lies the birthplace of guilt. 8 Who usurps the place of God and takes it for himself now has a deadly "enemy." 9 And he must stand alone in his protection, and make himself a shield to keep him safe from fury that can never be abated, and vengeance that can never be satisfied." - ACIM M-17.5

 

[Anderz]

I also found this in ACIM about anger:

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"Whenever you are angry, you can be sure that you have formed a special relationship which the ego has "blessed," for anger is its blessing. 2 Anger takes many forms, but it cannot long deceive those who will learn that love brings no guilt at all, and what brings guilt cannot be love and must be anger. 3 All anger is nothing more than an attempt to make someone feel guilty, and this attempt is the only basis the ego accepts for special relationships. 4 Guilt is the only need the ego has, and as long as you identify with it, guilt will remain attractive to you. 5 Yet remember this; to be with a body is not communication. 6 And if you think it is, you will feel guilty about communication and will be afraid to hear the Holy Spirit, recognizing in His Voice your own need to communicate." - ACIM T-15.VII.10

I haven't made my opinion about that yet but I post the quote since I found it. "Guilt is the only need the ego has", that sounds interesting, I will ponder that. And also "All anger is nothing more than an attempt to make someone feel guilty, and this attempt is the only basis the ego accepts for special relationships." And in the previous ACIM quote it states that anger causes fear. I have been thinking that it's the other way around, that fear causes anger.

[Anderz]

Aha! Now I think I understand what ACIM means by anger causing fear. There are (at least) two causes of fear: 1) fear as a result of the ego trying to escape confusion, and 2) fear caused by anger that is taken seriously by the ego. When the anger is taken seriously it produces fear that strengthens and maintains the ego tensions. 

[Anderz]

One form of anger management is to examine what the collective cause of the anger is. At face value, the anger is at first perceived as caused by some other person or situation that affects us personally. That's only the top surface level of the cause of the anger. Then we can go a step further and examine what caused the external situation that gave rise to the anger in us. And then we can go more steps even further and examine how the second layer cause is related to other situations and so on in a whole interconnected web of causes.

And seen in totality the anger is recognized as having its root in confusion turned into fear collectively. The limited surface cause of the anger the ego sees is a form psychological projection.

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"Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.[1] For example, a bully may project their own feelings of vulnerability onto the target. It incorporates blame shifting and can manifest as shame dumping.[2]" - Wikipedia

ACIM has this to say about projection:

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"What you project you disown, and therefore do not believe is yours. 2 You are excluding yourself by the very judgment that you are different from the one on whom you project. 3 Since you have also judged against what you project, you continue to attack it because you continue to keep it separated. 4 By doing this unconsciously, you try to keep the fact that you attacked yourself out of awareness, and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe.

Yet projection will always hurt you. 2 It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its only purpose is to keep the separation going. 3 It is solely a device of the ego to make you feel different from your brothers and separated from them. 4 The ego justifies this on the grounds that it makes you seem "better" than they are, thus obscuring your equality with them still further. 5 Projection and attack are inevitably related, because projection is always a means of justifying attack. 6 Anger without projection is impossible. 7 The ego uses projection only to destroy your perception of both yourself and your brothers. 8 The process begins by excluding something that exists in you but which you do not want, and leads directly to excluding you from your brothers." - ACIM T-6.II.2-3

 

[Anderz]

Another useful addition to the anger management in my previous post is to recognize that the anger is justified, on the ego level. And that there are no actual mistakes in reality, even when we throw a temper tantrum that we later regret. Even the shame and the regret are justified! It's just that it's a low level of consciousness.

From the level of the ego the anger is the best we can do. However, there is according to ACIM at least, the possibility to transcend the ego state into a higher state of consciousness where the serious kind of anger is transcended. My own practice at the moment is to observe my anger without acting on it. That's a mindfulness practice approach because if I were to act on my anger that's a judgment that the anger is justified. Traditional mindfulness practice is about observing nonjudgmentally.

The aim of my practice is to raise the level of justification. What is justified on one level is not necessarily justified on another level. And from my ego level I can't raise the level myself. However what I can do is to mindfully observe my anger nonjudgmentally and allow the level of justification rise.

[Anderz]

Focusing on a single object in meditation might be useful after all. I have started experimenting with focusing on the idea that controlling the future is unnecessary. Either my attempts to plan, control or predict the actual future will turn out wrong, in which case it can be seen as wasted effort and even as confusion, or it will turn out as the actual future in which case the attempts are redundant, meaning unnecessary.

Then what if I plan something and it turned out close to my plan because of my control of the future? Here the idea is that the future is already determined, as Ramesh Balsekar said, and that even Stephen Wolfram says. This, then, means that even that kind of apparent control is actually an illusion. And the purpose of personal control of the future can be likened to how a child plays with a toy and pretends it to be real.

The play is useful for learning, and personal control is similar to that except the ego actually believes that it is in control. So the child playing with a toy is grounded in reality when the child knows it's just a play, while the ego is delusional in its belief that it controls the future in any way. Even a mindfulness practice of focusing on recognizing the mistake is of course also not in our control, but the understanding of the possibility is enough to make the mindfulness practice or meditation happen.

[Anderz]

If we are moving into a new earth, then it seems logical to me that it will include technological, social and other material progress along with a shift into a higher consciousness. Because I'm sure that the value of what every civilization, including our own of course, has developed will be preserved. So the new earth will be the same as the earth we live on today, same same but different. Anyway here is a new video about shifting to a new earth:

 

[Anderz]

And harvest into fourth density will on the human individual level I believe be about forming a collective consciousness (called social memory complex in the Law of One). That will improve the health and capacity of the human body. So transhumanism is then the wrong way into the future. Instead technological progress will be on an external level.

I will abandon healthcare! Because that's external third density means. And only use healthcare as a last option if my strategy fails. And also, I will abandon personal control of the future, because that's also third density (ego) activity. The harvest is, as everything else, a totally automatic process.

[Anderz]

The internet is becoming more like a cocoon. It represents both the pinnacle and the end of the caterpillar stage of humanity.  I will basically abandon the internet too and wait for new solutions.

[Anderz]

I guess I will have to use the internet still, at least a little bit, because that's the best we have got for now. Including new spiritual teachings such as the latest video by Shunyamurti. The presentation is about higher order from the current chaos. That sounds like an evolutionary leap into higher complexity! It will be interesting to find out if Shunyamurti has a time prediction for this emergent leap. And if it will be sudden or take many years or even decades.

 

[Anderz]

Yikes, Shunyamurti predicted a Mad Max world and that things will be much worse in 2021 than today. I doubt that it will happen. I predict a "new normal" that is basically as before the p(l)andemic with some changes in the directions taken in global and national politics.

Maybe a slight financial crisis will happen to usher in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) but nothing near a Mad Max scenario I think. More like the 2008 economic crisis. Actually, I predict a basically stable near future. Also, I predict that automation will accelerate after the pandemic, and "helicopter money" will remain and move towards universal basic income (UBI). And this can even prevent a financial crisis since it has already started to be introduced around the world due to the HOAX  plan-demic!

Of course, transcending the ego might be a more serious matter since it can cause a lot of suffering. Hopefully it will be a smooth transition without the need for massively chaotic situations in the world.

[Anderz]

Leo's explanation of reality as infinite intelligence is very useful as a concept for spiritual practice. No matter how arrogant, proud or what degree of delusion of grandeur or hubris my ego has, it will always pale in comparison to infinite intelligence. So with the idea that we are infinite intelligence, not separate from it, since we are not separate from reality, then it becomes a spiritual practice to recognize this in actuality and dissolve the ego.

As I have posted about a lot, my own view is also that reality is infinite intelligence. My take is that complexity is information structured as holons, and intelligence is increase of complexity, and manifested reality is an ever increase of complexity which requires that reality as a wholeness has infinite intelligence.

 

[Anderz]

Leo described how we as infinite intelligence created ourselves, designed everything in our bodies and in our universe with perfect precision. How does that fit with my model of an automatic universe? I think of Leo's description as a great metaphor! It's a useful parable for how amazingly mindblowing infinite intelligence is. And it's also potentially a first-hand experience of infinite intelligence from a first person perspective.

So how do I explain infinite intelligence? According to my model our reality is a single number. That's it. But it's an infinite number, and a number designed with infinite intelligence. So who was the designer? As I have mentioned before, the answer is: nobody! The number just is. It's just one special number out of all possible numbers. It's a platonic form. And our universe is just a recent Big Bang in a whole multiverse tree containing zillions and zillions of universes. So our universe is unique, but not special. Only the single number representing the whole multiverse tree is special indeed.

It's also possible to test the idea of infinite intelligence in everyday life. As an example, we can observe our thoughts, similar to mindfulness practice, and compare our thoughts in relation to infinite intelligence. Then we will notice that our thoughts appear far less than infinitely intelligent, and that's a starting point for change to happen to our thoughts.

Edited June 13, 2020 by Anderz