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Thread: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

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    Scotland Avalon Member greybeard's Avatar
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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    Hi johnf
    Thanks, you reminded me about Scott Kiloby.

    I have put his interview by Conscious TV here so not to be off topic
    It is a very full account of the enlightened state in the first moments

    Chris

    https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...l=1#post638599
    Be kind to all life, including your own, no matter what!!

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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    Simon Magus many centuries ago, extended into the present and is currently distorting much of our understanding of the teachings of Jesus, both through the doctrines of many churches and through A Course in Miracles.. I got as far as chapter 19 in the ACIM when I started to have misgivings. ACIM may have been channeled into Helen by non other than the 1st century sorcerer Simon Magus.
    quote from link below:
    Quote As I update this in April, 2011, I should mention a few things that have happened since I first put this article on the internet. I have gotten emails from a number of people who have greatly appreciated what I have written here, because they say they have tried for a long time to follow A Course in Miracles and found that the results were not what are promised in the Course. They wondered why, until reading this material, and then realized that the Course does not provide an accurate picture of the spiritual nature of humanity. When you follow its lessons and ideas you will not find spiritual enlightenment but will rather develop some very unhealthy characteristics, mostly based on the denial of the reality of the world, a denial of suffering, of our responsibility for our actions, of truthfulness and of the closeness of God in our world. God is not far away, as ACIM often says, but is close to us and our life in the physical body. Our physical life is not an illusion created by the ego, but is the basis of the most valuable spiritual lessons we can have.

    source
    http://www.thomastwin.com/20%20A%20A...20Trinity.html

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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    The late Dr Hawkins who was enlightened--- checked the course thoroughly and found that while both the text and work book had a high frequency, the workbook --daily lessons---was of a higher spiritual vibration.
    As already said Eckhart Tolle also recommended it. You can not fool some one in the state of enlightenment.

    I found the text heavy going, complex,confusing (to me) and could not really relate to it, but the work book is great, simple, workable, effective.

    Chris

    Ps Hawkins said that the textbook tended to make the ego into the enemy which is not helpful.
    Last edited by greybeard; 20th February 2013 at 22:51.
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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    Quote Posted by greybeard (here)
    Hi johnf
    Thanks, you reminded me about Scott Kiloby.

    I have put his interview by Conscious TV here so not to be off topic
    It is a very full account of the enlightened state in the first moments

    Chris

    https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...l=1#post638599
    I think you were the one who posted that video. It gave me the most down to earth example of how realized unity consciousness looks, and what some of the pitfalls are along the path.
    And I think it addresses the concerns of TOTHE as quoted below.

    "I have gotten emails from a number of people who have greatly appreciated what I have written here, because they say they have tried for a long time to follow A Course in Miracles and found that the results were not what are promised in the Course. They wondered why, until reading this material, and then realized that the Course does not provide an accurate picture of the spiritual nature of humanity. When you follow its lessons and ideas you will not find spiritual enlightenment but will rather develop some very unhealthy characteristics, mostly based on the denial of the reality of the world, a denial of suffering, of our responsibility for our actions, of truthfulness and of the closeness of God in our world. God is not far away, as ACIM often says, but is close to us and our life in the physical body. Our physical life is not an illusion created by the ego, but is the basis of the most valuable spiritual lessons we can have."

    There is a real danger here of getting caught up in the intellect and just flat out denying actuality of everyday reality.
    I am probably still stuck on this at some level, and ran into it real hard when attempting to study ACIM.

    However when we have examples of people who can deal with the most sensitive subjects of life and always come back with a graceful invitation to look at ourselves in a way that lets us deal more effectively in the everyday world. And they way they got that way was to let go of thier illusions of separation, we have a way to neutralize this danger.
    The kicker in ACIM is that it talks over and over about the real world, and people tend to have trouble fitting that together, with the idea that the world is an illusion. I take it as an invitation to look at the illusions I am putting between myself and what I believe to be a temporary creation.
    Last edited by johnf; 20th February 2013 at 22:54.

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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    I sadly left out a direct thank you Chris.
    Um, so thank you Chris
    As well as all the other videos of people who had found a practical way to integrate this sort of experience in their very practical lives. Karen Richards, Lisa Cairns. I had already spent some time watching Mooji, as well as Eckhart Tolle, each of these people have a different flavor to their talks ,and approaches that seem to fit different things I might be going through at the time.

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    Canada Avalon Member Ernie Nemeth's Avatar
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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    Honestly, I do not follow the course any more. It made a hell of my life that has not yet fully abated, five years later. And as Chris says, it makes an enemy of the ego - which is not helpful.

    Still, wisdom is wisdom, and the book is full of that, in my estimation anyways.

    But I look for wisdom wherever I might find it. I often find that children are filled with simple wisdom that is soon programmed out of them. Nowadays the wisdom of children fades by age four. They used to hold onto it for much longer, maybe as old as seven and eight or longer.

    A tree has wisdom, and a flower too, but they can't talk so you must "see" it to understand. Even the clouds and the ground under our feet has sage advice for those with eyes to see.

    We are surrounded by the simplest and most profound wisdom but we are mired in our everyday, self-complicated lives and miss those opportunities that are presented to us had we had the time to just be aware of them.

    ACIM has helped me and I am grateful for my exposure to its contents. I take what resonates and discard the rest, as all advanced beings do.

    Thanks for the input folks.
    Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water...Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. Bruce Lee

    Free will can only be as free as the mind that conceives it.

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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    Quote Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
    There is one thing that you have never done; you have not utterly forgotten the body. It has perhaps faded at times from your sight, but it has not yet completely disappeared. You are not asked to let this happen for more than an instant, yet it is in this instant that the miracle of Atonement happens. Afterwards you will see the body again, but never quite the same. And every instant that you spend without awareness of it gives you a different view of it when you return.

    The body cannot exist at all without a story and for a story the concept of time is needed.
    What is the difference between a million years having passed and 100 years?
    I am not asking you directly Ernie I am just asking it as a general contemplative question.

    Quote Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
    The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. But though it is nothing more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose instead to change your mind about the world.
    On the same day you posted this I was watching ''Vanilla Sky'' anyone seen that movie?
    It can really make you think. The main character gets his subconscious
    reflected back to him in the world and thinks it is reality.
    Not a loop to easily get out of, is it?

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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    Quote Posted by johnf (here)

    My experience in reading this thread today started with realizing that the quote "To have give all to all" was my least favorite quote. I spent a lot of time trying to reconcile that, with little success. Ernie's post above served to point to my attachment to, and my belief in the power of the body. The All to all statement brings up belief in limitation perhaps?
    And my minds obessions seem to stem from trying to deny and escape from those beliefs, and result in laying more limitations on top of it.
    This thought stream is similar to Scott Kiloby's talks about the idea of an inadequate self, weak self ,unlovable self, being the core of belief in separation.
    The 'give all' is a little stressful. I think it's more that we don't identify with 'all' in a very healthy way. We don't have all, we can't give all. Believing we don't have all.
    But we do, we just don't believe it by default. You're right, if you identify with the body, and most of us do, we instinctively protect what we have.

    But it's a practice, not a command or an error that's being pointed out. When you give, you get filled back up. And the energy that wants to come in is active, and needs to be circulated.
    When we're in a condition of 'withholding', and that's anything we keep from others, love, respect, assistance, encouragement whatever, we can't experience that movement of energy cycling through us.
    It needs to move. And so having anything to give to, is sort of a trick, and taking the action of giving, is like taking the bait.
    You do it, you like it, and eventually you can't get enough. Because you're being fed an experience of what you are through it. Not the altruism of giving, that's just a value system,
    but the joy of the reward of discovering yourSelf. And what it feels like to be You.
    Extension, instead of contraction.

    Just try it out anyway you can. Experiment. Just seeing others worth is enough. Appreciation for everything is enough. Do it because you want to see what it feels like,
    not because you're wrong or guilty if you don't.
    Guys that take 'separation' and turn it into a separate thing can't see what they've just done. Separation is thinking there's another state than what you're now in.
    You feel yourself contracting. Recoiling from something. I know it really well. Cycling and extending that energy is a way to discover there is no such thing.
    Practice practice practice. Until you recognize that you are an action of mind, not a caretaker of it.
    Last edited by markpierre; 21st February 2013 at 17:31.

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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    Hey if anyone is interested in the earlier editions and the evolution I found a cool website http://www.miraclescenter.us/jcim.htm

    It seems to have everything there on PDF, and normal windows and even audio files. It's crazy. There's a fair article there by Robert Perry about his take on the three versions. I have to recommend the earlier version because I was involved in the conspiracy to bootleg the original and print it.

    To get it straight, Helen was purely a scribe. She'd been hearing the voice for a long time before she began to take notes. Here's a description from her http://acim.org/Scribing/the_voice.html
    She was a psychology professor at Cambridge, and it rattled her professionally a little.
    One day the voice said to her "Write this down.This is a course in miracles." and she started to take it a bit more seriously.
    Bill Thetford was a close co-worker that she confided in and he began working with her. Bill typed the notes up for her and the two did the original editing of them into the original edition.
    That edition was passed around as a manuscript to a few people for their opinions, and then stored away at the Edger Cayce Foundation, where it remained.

    The blue edition that we grew up with was lovingly edited more toward a fondness for psychological language, by a very good psychologist friend of theirs. Ken Wapnic, and published. He then became the principle protector and teacher of the material.

    No serious damage to the text and none to the lessons, but some omissions and obvious changes throughout the entire text that we didn't agree with, and a lot of the intimacy and personality that is there in the original manuscript had been removed. The original is Bill Thetford organizing into a form as much as possible, Jesus own words. I much prefer to hear it the way it was said.

    The notes and manuscript got somehow liberated from the ARA by some 'tourists' around 1999 and mysteriously circulated. Bill's edition then manifested as a book. It was a little dodgy and we were sued, which was the plan. It broke the copywrite and released that version to the public.The ruling? You can't own a copywrite to something that's eternal. So Jesus was regarded by that court as something that's eternal. What an unusual judge. The court declared that Jesus wrote the book.
    It was a bit more complicated than that, and we were a bit more naughty too. In the book itself is this instruction 'give this away'. So we did.

    And the older URtext version is the actual words verbatim as scribed into Helen's notebooks. A lot of personal conversation between Helen and Jesus and Jesus and Bill.
    It has an artifact feel to it. Like a pry into the divine. But I wouldn't attempt to work with it.
    It's interesting, that it's the only teaching I can think of that's evolved backwards. Back to it's original.
    And it also illustrates that anything you have that's been printed, has passed through a lot of human hands.
    Last edited by markpierre; 21st February 2013 at 15:01.

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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    There's something in some of these replies that disturbs me a little, and I haven't encountered it obviously since I stopped associating with 'Course' people.

    There's usually a competition almost of people that want to compare understandings of concepts and stay in a conflict, because they won't apply the training to themselves.
    Or they dismiss it all on the basis of that it doesn't seem to work through concepts. It won't work through the concepts.

    The text of ACIM is NOT a belief system. He's not telling you some mystical cosmic truth. He's describing to you the way the egoic mind works,
    and how the mind of God works through and around that.
    And then he goes on about what it's possible to do when the mind is functioning in unison with God.
    For the most part the concepts are for the conceptual mind to bat around, while the discipline does it's work in the background.
    It's like giving a child a toy to distract it and stay still enough, while the medicine brings down the fever. The child does want to get well.

    I can't talk to anyone who hasn't employed the workbook, except to encourage them to do so. Simply reading the text is completely useless.
    But not without purpose if it gets you to eventually agree that you need to train your mind.
    There are a lot of disciplines and training you can use. Pick one.
    The text is not without it's pearls, but what do you use them for? Your wisdom collection?

    He wants the concepts to be understood, but I'll be blunt about it, you won't know what they mean until you experience them in yourself.
    The process won't be as fun and uplifting at times as you'd like.
    Seeking relief was why you picked it up. But it might take you into conflict that you've always previously avoided, and you need to know why it's uncomfortable.
    You need the comfort of recognizing that it's working. You're in pain because it's changing you.
    The process won't leave you there unless you bail out of the process. And even that's just a delay, which can be a very painful one.

    I had a good hard lesson in that.
    Last edited by markpierre; 21st February 2013 at 22:09.

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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    I think Ernies post #18 was exactly what I needed, Ive been studying this chapter trying to understand what it means.
    Does anyone want to translate a few sentences into 'normal' english for me? I am not sure what he is talking about here, the sentences I don't understand are in bold and my comments/questions are in brackets and underlined. (Please only answer if you feel like it, I'm sure I can find someone else to ask.)

    Quote Your way will be different, not in purpose but in means. A holy relationship is a means of saving time. One instant spent together with your brother restores the universe to both of you. You are prepared. (What is meant by that?)

    Now you need but to remember you need do nothing. It would be far more profitable now merely to concentrate on this than to consider what you should do. (Is he referring on concentrating on doing nothing or a holy instant with your brother?)

    When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation and fight against the giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation; or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it always comes with just one happy realization; “I need do nothing.”
    Here is the ultimate release which everyone will one day find in his own way, at his own time. You do not need this time. Time has been saved for you because you and your brother are together. This is the special means this course is using to save you time. Save time for me by only this one preparation, and practice doing nothing else. (Practice what?)

    “I need do nothing” is a statement of allegiance, a truly undivided loyalty. Believe it for just one instant, and you will accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation, or of struggle against temptation.

    To do anything involves the body. And if you recognize you need do nothing, you have withdrawn the body’s value from your mind. (How can one recognize that one needs do nothing without contemplation?)

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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    Quote Posted by markpierre (here)
    Simply reading the text is completely useless.
    It depends on the person.
    For me just reading the text is very useful.

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    Canada Avalon Member Ernie Nemeth's Avatar
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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    This brought me out of hiding.

    Very interesting MarkPierre.
    I wonder what compelled you to work to bring the course to the world?
    And then I thought what compelled you to leave the course?

    I was exposed to the course just as I was starting Kundalini yoga for my yoga teacher's course. I think it may have been the same day.

    Not a month later I gave up everything I ever thought I wanted (house, possessions, workshop, girlfriend of ten years, yoga course, money, security, you name it) and hooked up with this woman I met by chance on my birthday who so needed guidance and love.

    I'm still with this one I thought was to be my holy relationship from the course days. I did the workbook. I connected with course participants. I did retreats and became a councillor for retreats. I took a practitioners course (one full year). It was good, and I was good at it. I helped a lot of people. There was magic in the air those days and lots of miracles, to be fair. Lots of unexplainable occurances, by everyday standards at least. It looked like I, we (my group), were on our way to mastery. Here comes the but...

    But I was not taken care of. I couldn't pay my bills or the rent. I fell deeply in debt. I made an enemy of my ego - which I learned to actually hate. I noticed that those as devoted to the book as myself also had similar experiences. They are mostly in a daze these days, going through the motions of life, struggling to survive. Some still keep plugging away at the course, going to sporadic meetings and such, but their lives are a fiasco, devastated and desolate, unable to make their way in the world. Almost all have never fully recovered, like myself. I've been left in limbo, with a hole in my soul I cannot fill. I'm slowly coming out of the spell that was cast on me, like from a deep sleep, shaking my head and wondering what the heck happened. I still love my woman but it has never turned from a special relationship into a holy one as promised in the book. I've also slowly made peace with my ego and we are in the process of putting the pieces of my life back together again. I now wonder if there is a God at all...my opinion has changed a great deal on the matter, my faith tested to its limits.

    Nowadays I trust only in myself and whatever esoteric knowledge I can verify by direct means. I've come a long way since then (5 years now) and I've learned many wonderous things, expanding my understanding untill, now, I can see beyond the box we are programmed into from birth. I don't think I will ever be able to fully recover, though. But I am not bitter, oddly, I am grateful.

    The course allowed me to drop the BS of this world and shake off the shackles imposed on us by our societal conditioning. Still, I wait for others to join me here in the new world, a world of wonders and beauty, so that I can walk back into the midst of my brothers and sisters. I will not be free until they free themselves.

    Meanwhile I remain on the sidelines watching the insanity of my race and refusing to put the yoke around my neck again. Even though my body must suffer for it, I stubbornly refuse to assauge it by doing what this world says I must do to have comfort.

    I thought this thread had come to its end with my final book entry. I guess I was wrong. Thanks for listening. Thanks for opening up about your involvment with the Course.

    Sorry for what must seem like a rant...
    Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water...Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. Bruce Lee

    Free will can only be as free as the mind that conceives it.

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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    What a way to start the day! Ernie, this thread led me to investigate ACIM again so for the past few days I've been having a go at it from a link posted earlier. Now your and MarkP's discussion here have given me much to think about. Thanks so much to Mark for sharing his experience and that fascinating website that I've just bookmarked. Can't wait to start digging around in there.

    But then that last post gives me pause. I love what you said there in those last 4 paragraphs. That's exactly how I already feel. Wow.
    Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
    Franklin P. Jones

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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    A fine rant it was Ernie, and with that, I'll relay my ACIM experience. I almost did back in the thread's beginning, but didn't want to seem a party crasher.

    My experience with ACIM is that I never read it, but not for lack of trying. Back during my devouring of books days I used to come across it all the time at the book store, would give it the usual thumbing through test ride, and it always looked very intriguing. Except, it always wound up back on the shelf, not to come home with the others.

    I did go through a lot of books during those years that I now consider garbage, but I don't think not reading it was because of that, far from it. What might have happened though, is that I might have gotten stuck in it, like you were describing. I have nothing against the book at all, it just obviously wasn't for me.

    Of course, I've now just opened myself wide open for someone to chime in: "Well maybe you're just not ready for it yet".

    Cheers,
    Fred

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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    Wow, I don't know what to think of ACIM anymore after all these negative
    posts about it and also reading the link that TOTHE posted, what is that
    all about? ''disturbing'' as Markpierre said.

    Many things said in the book just confirm my own experience and understanding
    but perhaps I should not get carried away with this book and believe everything it says?!...
    I don't need the book but I thought it would be a good supplement...now I am not so sure what to think anymore.

    Sounds like people here seem to have a mix of positive and negative experiences with it.

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    Canada Avalon Member Ernie Nemeth's Avatar
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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    Dear EmEx,

    Don't be discouraged. If the course resonates with you then you are meant to delve into it. What Simon Magus says is true to a point only.

    I like to think of it like this, in a nutshell...Jesus was a radical. He was not floating around on a cloud singing hymms and planting flowers. You must remember the historical context. His people were under the yoke of the Roman Empire, squeezed for every last tax dollar and tribute until their lives were miserable and virtually intolerable. But the vast majority, although they did a lot of complaining, still got up every day and went to their jobs. What else were they going to do? They had to survive and house and feed their families. Sound familiar? Jesus came along to show them there was another way...and we all know what that was.

    So the way I see it, Jesus has just come back as best he could to remind us of that. But two thousand years later, this ruling class of elites has had plenty of time to perfect their means of control over the masses. It is far more subtle and insiduous today than it ever was; it is almost impossible to see through their nefarious ploy. How to rouse the masses then? How can you wake them up? By placing the human soul in conflict with its very survival mechanism - the ego. Stir that dynamic up enough and that would set the individual on a path of discovery that must eventually lead to a sort of desperate rational revelation. That, although God (and I still believe in an ultimate Supreme Being or Entity or Cosmic Intelligence or Source Feild or whatever you want to call it) doesn't care what happens here on earth, after all its only a game or a means of experience or path of spiritual evolution or whatever you want to call it, we here living all very much do!

    The way to shake the yoke off for good is to realize we are manipulated, come together as one species in love and understanding, stand up on our own two feet as sovereign beings in full and responsible control of our destinies and say, "This far and no further"!

    The only other thing I would add is that connecting to the Source and fully Trusting in that connection does help, immensely. That is what the workbook is designed for; Jesus didn't just leave us hanging, he provided the means to experience this connection both as an individual and as a collective.

    Remember what the bible says, "Where two or more gather in My Name, there I shall be."(paraphrased, I like that better than memorizing another's words)

    We cannot do it alone; we need each other.

    Peace
    Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water...Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. Bruce Lee

    Free will can only be as free as the mind that conceives it.

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    United States Avalon Member TOTHE's Avatar
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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    Well said Ernie Nemeth. I was thinking all night on how to respond to EmEx. Your summation is pretty much on the mark.

    To EmEx: you have to go deep into the book before you begin to see the annoying circular logic. Some of the lessons you can use in your meditative toolkit though..of course use the “no harm to you or no harm to others” filter. Tackle it as you would ‘speculative fiction’ and file it under ‘speculative spirituality’ on your ever expanding bookshelf like Fred Steeves. However it must be read and balanced with all you know on your own deeply personal intuitive level. All of us here are on a path to seek the experience of spiritual truth, and oh what a weaving path it is.

    My ACIMcopy was the 1st edition “Canadian” published just after the U/R Text. I have seen and observed with interest the subtractions and editions in the subsequent Wapnick edited publications. It was given to me in November, 2009 by Larry Sayer at David Wilcock’s Convergence Convention. It took me a year before I dived into it..intuitive reservations??


    ACIM and old Simon may be one of the players in the War.

    War in Heaven. by Kyle Griffith
    http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vi...heaven-III.htm

    WiH forum (read only)
    http://revolutionaryspiritualism.yuk.../War-in-Heaven

    Text from Appendices, I highlighted part of the text in item # 19:
    http://revolutionaryspiritualism.yuk...WiH-Appendices

    Quote Appendix C: Summary - A Revolutionary Cosmology

    1 The human soul is composed of astral matter, which is different in subatomic composition from physical matter but still follows the same general set of natural laws. The soul is a complex biological entity just as the body is, and it is not immortal or imperishable. Like any living thing, it can grow, and repair its own tissues, but it can also be wounded or sicken and die. It also requires nourishment, which it obtains from the body while incarnated. The human body converts some of the chemical energy from the food it ingests into astral energy, which nourishes the soul.

    2 After the physical body dies, the soul can survive temporarily in a disembodied state, living on energy it stored while incarnated. Disembodied souls (spirits) can also absorb astral energy radiated by living people who are in states of consciousness that activate their psychic powers - sexual orgasm, religious ecstasy, etc.; but this energy is not usually enough to nourish them adequately. Spirits can also drain astral energy directly from other spirits. Such spiritual vampirism and cannibalism is one of the principal causes of the War in Heaven.

    3 The spirit world (astral plane) is not "the natural abode of the soul" as so much religious literature asserts, but is a harsh and hostile environment; many souls do not survive when they enter it after physical death. The astral plane is a condition, not a place. We can't see spiritual beings because the astral matter of which they are made does not reflect or absorb ordinary light, but they are all around us, all the time, right here on the surface of the Earth.

    4 Some disembodied spirits can use their psychic powers to communicate with each other and with living people. Since the telepathic faculty of an average Earth person is locked deep in the subconscious mind, psychic communications from spirits and from other people usually are recorded directly in the subconscious memory banks without the knowledge or approval of the conscious mind. Because of this, disembodied spirits and living psychics can practice a form of mind control that most people find very difficult to detect or resist.

    5 After physical death, some human souls become "Theocrats." They refuse to reincarnate, but stay disembodied indefinitely. Theocrats maintain political power over other spirits by falsely claiming to be gods, sustaining themselves by feeding off the vital energies of others. The Theocrats use certain forms of organized religion to enslave the souls of believers after death, and they oppose all efforts by living people to build a truly advanced civilization on Earth.

    6 The psychic powers of the Theocrats are not strong enough to allow them to paralyze the will of a living person and simply take over direct control of his or her conscious mind. Instead, they practice mind control by telepathically reprogramming the subconscious of anyone who is in the correct state of consciousness to be vulnerable. Until recently, the Theocrats most often practiced this mind control during religious rituals, but they now also practice it on people who are watching television or listening to recorded music. It is no accident that so many people have compared the hero worship of media stars with the religious worship of gods. The purpose of both is the same: to enslave people to the Theocrats.

    7 The cruelest Theocratic deception of all is the religious promise of "eternal life in Heaven." Everyone who enters 'Heaven" after death is really entering a Theocratic band. A few of the souls who become entrapped in such bands will eventually become Theocrats themselves. The rest will be devoured. And the concept that human souls can become immortal only by remaining on the astral plane with the "gods" is a lie anyway. A soul can survive almost indefinitely simply by reincarnating for life after life on Earth, and it can grow in wisdom and psychic power during the process.

    8 The War in Heaven is an effort by another group of spirits, called the "Invisible College" in this book, to break the control of the Theocrats over the human race and allow people to continue their natural spiritual and cultural evolution. The subconscious telepathic manipulations of the Invisible College are responsible for most of what is good in modern civilization.

    9 Some of the spirits in the Invisible College have been sent here deliberately by advanced extraterrestrial civilizations that possess sufficient psychic technology to teleport souls over interstellar distances. These extraterrestrial spirits are partly motivated by altruism, but they are also serving the interest of their own societies. The Theocrats are potentially dangerous to the inhabitants of other worlds because they are perverting the natural capacity of the human soul to form god-like composite entities.

    10 The human race exists in two forms: individual and composite. The individual form consists of a soul incarnated in a body, and is a complete living creature that can perform all life functions, including reproduction. An individual disembodied human soul cannot reproduce on its own. Every soul was originally created by a human body, and the body cannot survive without a soul. If a disembodied soul does not incarnate into an infant, a new soul forms through a natural embryonic process.

    11 However, the human soul also has the potential to fore a composite entity similar to the group soul that a colony of social insects possesses. Instead of attaching themselves to bodies, a large number of disembodied souls attach themselves together, creating a composite entity with the potential to develop a conscious intelligence separate from that of the individual souls contained in it. If this entity possesses only an animal mind and emotions, it is called an Elemental Spirit. If it develops full creative intelligence and becomes a moral, rational being, it is called a God. (However, it is important to realize
    that such a God has little in common with the Theocratic impostors who have been posing as gods on Earth throughout history.)

    12 Both Elementals and Gods are complete living beings capable of reproduction, and they are not dependent on the human body to supply them with nourishment, because they can directly absorb the astral energy radiated into space by certain kinds of stars. However, they cannot do this while they are on or near the surface of a planet, but only while traveling through deep space.

    13 When planet-bound, both Elementals and Gods can obtain the energy needed for life and growth only from psychic emanations of living people or by absorbing other disembodied spirits. In their embryonic stages, the Gods are just as parasitic on the living human race as the Theocrats are; of course, a human embryo is a parasite on its mother, too.

    14 The natural course of human evolution on a planet is a grim and animalistic one, dictated by iron laws of ecology. It is natural for human civilizations to develop under the complete control of Theocratic spirits, and to make slow but steady technological progress that eventually allows the living population to increase into the billions. Such a society allows little opportunity for individual freedom or personal psychic development, and most souls that survive for more than a few incarnations do so only by becoming Theocrats.

    15 Eventually, human overpopulation begins to destroy the planet's biosphere, and deaths begin to exceed births by hundreds of millions every year. Theocratic bands on the astral plane became larger and larger, and some of them develop minds of their own and turn into Elemental spirits. The Elementals devour most of the Theocrats who are running the civilization, which then collapses, causing the living population to drop even further. At this point, the Elementals depart into space and the whole cycle begins again, unless the planet has been too badly damaged to support human life any more.

    16 These Elementals are extremely dangerous to people on other worlds. They have the minds and emotions of predatory animals. Whenever they approach an inhabited planet, they remember devouring human souls as infants and attack this concentrated supply of food. An advanced human civilization with a high level of psychic technology can survive such an attack, but only by fighting a desperate war and suffering heavy casualties. This is why the extraterrestrial spirits are now on Earth: to interfere with this process both for our sake and for their own.

    17 If they succeed in winning this War in Heaven, new Gods will be formed instead of destructive Elementals when Earth's population reaches the die-off point; and with luck, a new advanced civilization of individual human beings will also be born.

    18 There is very little that ordinary Earth people can do to assist the extraterrestrial spirits in their direct psychic battles with the Theocrats and the Elementals that the latter control. The Invisible College recruits a few advanced magicians to fight in this phase of the War in Heaven, but anyone with enough spiritual knowledge and psychic training to qualify already knew everything in this book before reading it. Most attempts to recruit Earth people to fight in the War in Heaven using operational magic are Theocratic deceptions.

    19 What then does the Invisible College want people to do to assist in winning the War in Heaven? The most important thing you can do if you agree with the basic thesis of this book is to ensure your own survival after death, by avoiding all forms of Theocratic mind control and by developing as much conscious control over your psychic powers as you can. Stay away from religious and occult groups that practice religious mind control, and don't become addicted to popular music or the electronic media; but do work with occult or New Age groups that teach people how to take charge of their own spiritual destiny.

    20 War In Heaven contains many negative, frightening ideas, but it is essentially a positive book. It is very probable that the Invisible College will win over the Theocrats, and that most of the human race will survive to enter a New Age. The only people who won't survive will be those who die and are swallowed up in Theocratic bands before this happens. The goal of the Spiritual Revolutionary movement is to allow as many people as possible to avoid this fate by spreading the message in this book and helping them to make a breakthrough in consciousness about the nature of spiritual reality.
    Last edited by TOTHE; 23rd February 2013 at 19:54. Reason: fixed links to open & added image

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    Scotland Avalon Member greybeard's Avatar
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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    There is a book out on "Mastership" which claims that it is from the same source as ACIM---it quotes parts of the course.
    A friend who has studied ACIM has read it and recommended it to me.
    There are quite a few books supporting the students of ACIM--- clarifying etc.
    Marianne Wiliamson http://www.marianne.com/
    is one of the major promoters of the course.

    I would recommend being part of a study group.

    Chris
    Be kind to all life, including your own, no matter what!!

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    Default Re: To have, give all to all (ACIM/ A Course in Miracles)

    Quote Posted by Ernie Nemeth (here)
    Very interesting MarkPierre.
    I wonder what compelled you to work to bring the course to the world?
    And then I thought what compelled you to leave the course?

    You wonder? Or you want me to explain it to you. Sure, my pleasure.

    I didn't work to bring it to the world, I just joined in. I just started working with it and then s#it happened.

    It was told I was supposed to work with it in a reading years earlier, so I bought it but couldn't make any sense out of it.
    Or more accurately, it made me responsible for all the pain I was in, and I was in a lot of pain. I couldn't believe that I could trust the
    mind that had caused it (which was all I knew) to get me out of the mess I was in.
    So I put it back on the shelf.

    Post illumination, after looking everywhere for something that showed any remote glimmer of what had happened to me for a couple of years,
    I picked it up again. I understood it a whole lot better, because not only did it describe very closely what I'd seen (Jesus uses the term "The Real World" look it up)
    I understood in that experience that the mind that undid the error was within me. I just had to uncover that mind. Ya right...piece a piss mate.

    After passing through student identity into teacher identity, it dawned on me that I have no business telling anyone how to conduct their own business.
    It was painful. And I hated the BS that goes on in the 'Course world' and the politics of it. It's a cut and paste culture, just like everything that forms around a teaching
    and asserts itself in the world. If you know something (this is good for Christians to consider) how does it not come out of your mouth in your own words and from
    your own experience?

    Don't know, just stopped associating out of frustration. Not with Jesus, with myself. And then went on to other bizarre experiences which I don't regard as anything other
    than more of all the things I'm meant to look at before I'm done here.

    And as you can see, you can't leave the Course, because it doesn't leave you. Once you fully recognize that you are responsible for everything you see, and that it's up to you
    just how you want to see it and that the reality of it has nothing (ever) to do with your interpretation, you can't be fooled by anything again.

    It's a brilliant bloody piece of literature you've noticed. Alot of the text is written in iambic pentameter. Beautiful.
    Last edited by markpierre; 25th February 2013 at 16:18.

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