To be able to trace everything we say, do, think, feel, and touch back to mind takes a considerable amount of mind training. ACIM daily lessons serve as tools to help the mind reorient itself. It is quite common for years and years of humbling to accompany the mind training, before one can truly see that all perception is an impersonal non-located state of mind. When you start to get the awareness that everything is a thought, it is blatantly simple. This is what Workbook Lesson 23 of “A Course in Miracles” refers to: “I can give up this world by giving up attack thoughts.”
Attentiveness
What Is the Cutting Edge of Healing?
What is the cutting edge of healing? It’s in learning the principles Jesus teaches and applying them without exception. Explore the ACIM healing principle that you can only offer the world a gift of lilies, or a crown of thorns. There are only two options. These two states of mind are really all that you can offer the world. What lens are you looking through? This takes mind training. Without mind training, we have no idea what we are offering beyond the words. We’re clueless until we start to see clearly the subtleties of the ego and its defense mechanisms.
Who Are You Trying to Convince?
It is helpful to remember that your healing journey is not about convincing others. It is about practicing mind training for yourself in all situations. In many of David Hoffmeister’s ACIM videos, he shares his own story to help people struggling with similar situations. At the beginning of his mind training, he tried to be completely non-compromising. Sometimes things would seem to blow up in his face as he tried to integrate his new outlook into his life. The question that he found helpful to ask himself was: “Who am I trying to convince?” He found that there was no one he needed to convince. He found that everything was an opportunity for mind training.
Can Children Do Mind Training?
David shares his experiences of working with young children and teaching them mind training. Young and old are both part of the same construct. Your mind is THE MIND.
Facing Fear and Strong Emotions
Facing fear takes trust. The spiritual path is one of negation of blocks and it is important to get in touch with the blocks so that they can be removed. In this way, fear and other strong emotions can be welcomed as they come up and can be moved through. This does involve trust as emotions can feel very strong at times.
Distractions Retranslated
Everything can be seen in a different way. Everything can be reinterpreted. Even distractions? Yes, even distractions! Things that seem to be distractions when used by the ego can be turned around in the mind. Give distractions to the Spirit. The Spirit can use these distractions for your own Awakening.
Everything you seem to see in form is a symbol in the dream. David Hoffmeister discusses specifics: smoking, drinking, movies, music. The ego can use a symbol like a movie or a cigarette to divert the attention of your mind. These symbols are not cause for guilt or self-criticism. They are simply symbols; reinterpreted they are seen as calls for Love.
Raising Children While Practicing ACIM
Raising children while practicing ACIM can be very powerful! This experience gives you the opportunity to learn from your children. Just because you feel you are in a bigger body with a bigger brain and have read more books does not mean that you are superior. Learn the lesson of perfect equality! Nothing can obscure this perfect equality. Resign from this role of superiority and instead see what is going on in your own mind. Relationships in the world mirror your mind. Children deserve gratitude for mirroring back your belief system. A parent’s darkness and guilt may be acted out by children. If you unconsciously believe in abandonment, you will see scenes of abandonment. Find fearful beliefs in yourself and let them go. As you find inner joy and love, your children will witness to it. Lessen the sense of control. Children are our equals.