Miracles Audio
Why Is My Spiritual Journey Fearful?Q & A With David Hoffmeister And ACIM Lessons
Concern: I have actually checked out part of the book, A Course in Miracles, and done numerous ACIM Lessons. From the second day of reading, I feel a deep fright, particularly during the night. I tried to examine where this shock comes from. To tell it, "Go away" does not assist any longer. Can you inform me something about it? Has it something to do with ACIM?
David Hoffmeister: The fright you feel is the worry of loss of the familiar that Awakening engenders in the ego. The familiar is the past. Often this shock can look like the worry of the unknown, though it is more accurately described as the fear of the Understood.
When the mind dropped off to sleep it forgot Paradise, the Understood, and became familiar with time and area, the unknowable. So the time-space world became what it believed it knew, what was familiar, and the Light of Heaven became the unidentified, pressed completely out of awareness.
Considering that the sleeping mind thinks the world is genuine, it believes it will lose something genuine if it Awakens. This is the deep-seated ego belief that something must be sacrificed to return in awareness to Heaven. The ego belief in sacrifice is what is being reversed in Awakening.
Your current time reading the Course and doing the lessons is a symbol of your "will to come to the Truth." You will discover that the seeming journey is going through the darkness of worry (the unconscious or unwatched mind) to the Love which is buried even deeper within. Your willingness to go on with the practice or discipline, in spite of the distressing feelings which surface, is all that is required.
The first 30 ACIM Lessons of the Workbook are focused on undoing incorrect belief and flushing up and cleaning out the particles of ego idea. It is the beginning step of a complete turnaround of cause and effect, of comprehending that the mind is not at the mercy of the world because the world is only unreal thoughts in the mind.
It is a time of detachment from the stream of ego thoughts which make up every aspect of the time-space world. It is not uncommon that you feel scare as the ego is being reversed, for the ego is threatened by your desire to Awaken to Truth. Its existence appears threatened, but you are not, because you are not the ego.
Feelings that develop are best not rejected or packed, for enabling them into awareness is an essential element of their undoing or release (see ACIM Workbook Lesson 333). As soon as in awareness, a feeling of upset or discomfort uses the gift of a chance and can be viewed as a catalyst for hiring the miracle, a change of mind. Feelings show which voice one is listening to at any given moment, and thus they serve an important function in the discipline of being attentive to mind.
Mindset is constantly a choice, and it is essential to bear in mind that a choice is a conclusion based on everything that you believe. The unconscious mind IS false belief, and till it is undone completely there will seem to be vacillations between peace of mind and upset. This is why questioning whatever you believe is a significant aspect of A Course in Miracles and of every genuine spiritual path. It is definitely more crucial to question the incorrect than it is to attempt to analyze or determine the false, for the ego can just be forgiven and gone beyond and never ever really understood.
The first question that ever appeared to be asked was "Who am I?" Christ, in certainty, Knows Identity in God, and therefore has no concern at all. Every concern about type is thus a statement of false identity, the ego's effort to enhance the impossible. Yet questioning belief itself is how belief is undone.
The Holy Spirit is a State of Mind Answer, yet useful specifics and Assistance are contained within this Response, as long as the mind thinks in specifics, up until It remembers Its Perfect Abstraction as Light. Questioning what is thought is most handy at this point, for this is much like the metaphor of peeling the onion of consciousness to reach the Core of Reality.
Look for not the origin of the ego, for it has none and can never be understood. The ego is incorrect belief and is eliminated by withdrawing belief from it. It is difficult to release what you are unaware of, so flushing up and exposing the ego is how the undoing of it proceeds. That is why it is important not to stuff or task or distract away from whatever develops.
By not protecting the ego, it is immediately raised to the Light or brought to Truth, and darkness dissolves as it is exposed. This seeming procedure need not be unpleasant, though it is experienced this way sometimes. You will delight in the Development of Trust area in the Handbook for Teachers of ACIM. M-4. I.A. 3. It will offer you a context for what you will be going through as your work with the Course continues.
We stroll together and the location is certain. I am with you every action of the method. Thank you for your continuing devotion to Awakening. We Awaken together as One Self!