Year: 2020

ACIM interpretation of mind and spirit

Here’s a central technique in Marshall Rosenberg’s ‘Non Violent Communication’. Underneath our anger, judgements, strategies, opinions, evaluations, and blame of others is our needs. All people have the same basic needs, for security, safety, happiness, protection, fulfillment, autonomy, peace, meaning, connection, etc. If we can recognize and connect with these universal needs that are consistent in all of us, we have a better chance of connecting and getting what each person wants. If we can see beyond the anger, blame, and judgements to the needs, new and often unexpected strategies of dealing with the situation may appear. Even if they don’t, being more conscious of the needs of ourselves and others can bring out more compassion in both. When we are being attacked by others the natural inclination is to be defensive and attack in return. This quickly escalates. Consider an alternative approach. Instead of seeing the attack coming from the other, look beyond it to the feelings and needs behind it. Don’t allow yourself to become hooked into the storyline…look beyond it to what is empowering it. When we or others use judgmental language we are more likely to disconnect, and to fail to identify and be able to resolve our underlying needs which we may not be conscious of (“I’m just damn angry! I don’t know why…”). Needs might be obvious… but often they are not. If you don’t know what the underlying issue is, you can help the other person to identify it in themselves and better […]

The PDF embedded in this page presents my interpretation of the three modes of thought available to us. The first is the standard mode of thought in this world. Our separation from God created such unimaginable guilt that this world literally had to be projected outside of us. The one mind of God that we all share then became split into billions of ‘minds’ and bodies, all of which appear to be separate from us. When we observe any person, object, idea, or thing outside of us our brain immediately ‘recognizes’ it, names it, recovers past memories or stored thoughts about it, which colors our interpretation of it. The idea at this point becomes more important than the thing we observing, which we no longer see rightly. A favorite plan of the ego is to hold grievances, which we tell ourselves will be healed when the other person ‘changes’, which they never will. The vast majority of the world is trapped in this circular thinking system. Under A Course in Miracles thought system, recognition, naming, and ideation (recovery of good or bad memories) still occurs, however at this point we are watching these patterns unfold in our minds and make a conscious decision to turn this entire encounter over to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit sees all things as either Love, or a call for Love. Thus the Holy Spirit interprets the other persons ‘sins’ as illusory dreams that represent a call for Love, and that require not punishment […]