What is the difference? ( Archived) (371)

So it appears

I wasn't aware that you've spent some time with ACIM. That's great.

Yes, I do know that I am contrary for the sake of it, and that is a part of my character that I want to keep hold of. It might be a source of irritation to others, and it doesn't always work to my advantage, but I actually think it helps me to see more clearly. My motive for questioning everything, ie, contrariness, isn't very noble, but I can live with that because of how highly I value the outcome. I don't want to stop questioning things.

Honesty does leave you vulnerable to some extent, but I think it also protects you and makes you less vulnerable overall. If you don't live behind a wall of deceit, it can't be broken down to reveal the ugly truth inside. It's often the case that people don't much like me to start with, but they usually come to think I'm nowhere near as bad as they thought if they get to know me. I would much rather have it that way than the other way round. I suppose where you are striving to achieve oneness, I am trying to achieve a perfect state of honesty, but I fear I have probably farther to go than you. I'm doing my best, that's all I can claim.

You have intimated that you were once also a poor wretched soul like me before you set out on the road to spiritual awareness, so can I ask how and to what extent it has improved your state of being?

Some limited time would be more accurate
Although some of my friends still 'work' with it ...

This is great. I think you understand that I wasn't calling notice to your tendency in order to judge, but to make you perhaps more aware that you already have accepted a part of your inner guidance (spirit) system, if not just in the background. I don't know if noble is present as much as your humility is. I can appreciate where you are coming from.

Wise choices you have made, if you ask me. I sometimes experience the issue of folks not liking me at first as well. It's important that I understand projection and mirrors though, as well as total acceptance of me (which as "one" means everyone else too) .. because as you say we are doing our best with what we know.


Welp, poor wretched soul isn't a way I'd describe it though I guess at the time the overall feeling would seem quite fitting. I would take issue with "like me" but I'm sure you understand that your uniqueness disqualifies any real 'like me' scenario... because circumstance and reaction comes from different vantage points and perceptions that are individual in nature to you and to me. Similar circumstances, not unlike you?

The answer to this could take some doing. I will be as brief as possible.
I have come to learn that my enemy is not my enemy, it is in truth, me in my own mind.
I have come to understand that nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists.
I have come to understand that the mind is quite powerful and as such, blindly accepting the ego's way, while it's multitude of grievances have taught me much, isn't the best or now preferred way of being in my life.
I have come to understand that any and all attack thoughts that come into my mind do not result in any damage to anyone outside of me; except my self which paradoxically is all of us, as one.
I have come to realize that any thoughts that I have; because of oneness, affect the whole, including those to whom I am more intimately attached. It now makes me lurch and sometimes cry when I have let's say 'less than loving thoughts'. I believe the crying is a release of those thoughts which I now try to revamp in a more loving way to both my ego and the one.
I have more and deeper appreciative feelings with the illusion.(aka life, as you know it)

There is a ton more I could write about changes that have occured in me, including healing, lightness and more.. I am in no way a Master or even a teacher in this discipline. I have been at it for literally years; but I know now that no soul is wretched much less poor. All souls are infinite, eternal children of god, or source, or allah or higher self or whomever your go to creator is.

Now, I still have illusion issues and attachments that don't really serve me but there's a joy in seeing them fade away. I am only at the beginning of this journey inward to awaken who I really am
Being awakened to truth is freeing, where 'the wretched soul' feels burdened.

I was introduced about a year ago. I could not afford the book then but I was getting daily lessons from another site. I did not dedicate myself at all to those lessons as I was going through something quite jarring.

However recently they completed an online book which is well laid out, and so now I am reading and adjusting in ernest. Right timing I guess.

I want to complete the text before I restart the daily lessons or at least start practicing them.
So also a limited time for me as well.

I'm not even convinced that there is such a thing as "true nature". It seems more likely to me that absolutely everything is relative and subjective.

And if someone says, look, here's a system, and it works, I don't have any argument with that. But if someone says, this is ultimate truth and true reality, and you too could experience it if only you would make the journey, then it makes me want to hit them with something hard. But not you, of course, bod.

I started the thread to try to understand something about the way someone experiences their existence once they have gained "spiritual awareness". It wasn't intended to be a debate about how to achieve it, or an exercise in challenging it. And it wasn't an invitation to try to convert me to it.

I did warn you to run. didn't I.....but did you heed me...nooooo......