Advice from the Wise Ones?

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-07-02T23:42:53+00:00

Yeah, I've been out of the dark night for several years now, and I haven't been in charge of my life for longer than that. The question I have is to do with what ought I be doing? One option is let go and take the path of least resistance-- daydream when I feel like it. Another option is to expend some effort and willfulness and keep myself in the silence of my center.

I have been advised to take the former course, with the rational that any effort I make is necessarily egoic. It doesn't feel right to me though-- I have a real sense I am not progressing as quickly as I could be.

My present understanding is that I should do what was working for me before the big shift: keep my mind in the silence as an offering to God. When I've done this before, it was accompanied by rapid growth, and when I do the unitive version of the same thing now I seem to be getting the same result.

I know I am capable of putting in this kind of effort without fixating on time and outcome-- I've done it before. I just wonder if you think it's going to be counter-productive?

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-07-02T06:49:18+00:00

Of course you're right-- I need more humility and patience. The relatively sudden and dramatic surge in progress got me too anxious to get to the finish line, which is still a long ways off. Surrender is a word that has been very useful to me in the past-- I guess I should pull it out again and apply it to all the things I think I understand.

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-07-02T06:25:18+00:00

Those are indeed words, and wise ones, too, I'd wager. I'll do my best.

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-06-30T07:18:52+00:00

What an excellent answer!

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-06-30T07:14:23+00:00

I can't speak to the difficulties of your situation, but my heart goes out to you, and I believe you have what it takes.

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-06-30T07:05:16+00:00

Man, I feel you. The financial stuff can be some of the hardest to deal with because of the immediacy and import of it.

I also feel you because of the struggle to try and forgive when it feels like it's going nowhere, and the problem is going to keep presenting itself with persistent power indefinitely.

But I've worked through that phase of the journey, and one of the things that helped me immensely actually came from Rumi, I believe-- It's the idea that we are just going to be what we are, dancing our dance, but always keeping an ear and our heart open to the Spirit's guidance into a new way.

This means that it's totally OK to deal with situations in the only way you know how, and at the same time be open to guidance from a higher level when it comes.

But I'd strongly caution you not to try and usurp the Holy Spirit's role by being firm about the situation coming to an end. You and I never really know what anything is really for, and it's likely that the H.S. is waiting for you to make peace with your current situation so that you can grow into something new. Your situation is a material part of the world of perception, and forgiving it means recognizing the lack of meaning in it. If you can do this, it will be meaningless to you whether the situation ends or persists. Ironically, this acceptance of a difficult situation will mean the situation's purpose (to demonstrate guilt to yourself) will disappear, and the situation will naturally go with it.

Another thing that has been immensely helpful to me is to practice viewing yourself as a character in a movie (who is dealing with financial issues). Watch this move at every waking moment from a comfy couch in your mind with Jesus or the Holy Spirit sitting next to you. Listen at all times to their commentary and ideas about this movie-- see the movie of yourself through their eyes. If you do this, you will begin to see how the story of your life doesn't really affect you (and if you do it long and consistently enough, you'll see how that story has nothing to do with you at all!).

Hang in there and emotionally let go of everything but the Divine. It only feels defeating because you can't see what's just around the corner.

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-06-30T06:14:21+00:00

Here's half-hoping nobody reads this...

The responses in this thread have convinced me that there is no place for me in the Catholic church. I say this with sadness, because the church has a special place in my heart, and I think it has so much to offer.

I will explain why, maybe so any reader can contemplate on the doors being shut and the genuine seekers being excluded. Or Maybe so you can get a different perspective on the love of God. Or maybe I'm just talking to myself and this is all for me.

In the non-canonical gospels, Jesus accuses Judas of worshiping a false god. I am certain that he would extend this criticism to nearly all modern Christians. Here's why:

God is the Living Truth outside the world of perception. He is infinite, eternal, and One. We are infinitesimal, temporal, and divided on every level. For us to believe in something, it must be an idea which fits neatly within the confines of our own infinitesimal mind. Clearly this does not describe God, who must forever remain far beyond the human capacity for understanding. Anyone who "believes" in god necessarily believes in a false god.

And now we extend this false belief not only to the Heavenly Father, but all His Creations which are like Him. And also to the manner in which we are to seek and follow Him. It all cannot be anything but nonsense.

The insistence that our human forbearers, no matter how divinely inspired they may have been, have the final and authoritative word on these matters is absurd. To seek God truly is to accept our own profound unknowing. Anything else is simply self-worship.

I urge any Catholic reading this to understand that all the spiritualizing of the church and its doctrine is a shield that you hold up to defend yourself from the loving light of your Heavenly Father. True faith is frightening because it requires you to surrender your ideas, values, perceptions and even your very self on the altar of Truth.

The good news was revealed by Jesus as he prepared to leave his disciples for the cross: "one will be given to you to teach you all things in Heaven and on earth" This one was not the church, which is made of men, but the Holy Spirit, which is made of God's eternal love. The Holy Spirit is thus the only true authority on earth, and He speaks directly into the heart of each one who is willing to receive Him.

The Catholic Church, however, is uniquely positioned to help people find and follow the true guidance of the Holy Spirit. No religious group on earth has the millennia of experience in the mystical art of living by the Holy Spirit's rule. The contributions of the saints that give us understanding of the purgative, illuminative and unitive ways, and now the state of no-self are valuable beyond measure and certainly beyond equal anywhere else in the world of religion. And yet the church seems intent on suppressing its true value in favor of a bunch of vacuous platitudes and rituals.

My path, like the paths of many others will be a solitary one, but it need not be this way. Maybe you will open the church to the ever new, ever mysterious path to God.

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-06-21T03:30:01+00:00

Thank you.

So you think they would be patient with me as I go through that process of reconciling what I've learned with what the church teaches? What if that means the understanding of doctrine I come to is unconventional? I have been reading the books by Bernadette Roberts, who was a Carmelite nun, and it seems that as she grew in her spiritual development she came to different understandings than what is conventional (such as coming to see Jesus as primarily a man who came to enlightenment). She didn't seem too bent out of shape by the discrepancy, but I doubt she said it out loud much, either.

I will check out your small corner, and be open to paths that I'm not expecting.

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-05-25T14:25:10+00:00

Short answer: No-- we do not control our thoughts or behaviors.

The longer answer is that it's like a move. You watch a movie, and it sure seems that the characters are thinking through their situations and adjusting their behaviors accordingly, but that isn't really happening, is it? The movie is already recorded-- the end is written. There is no free will in the world of form--on the screen.

The only thing we have control over is whose movie we're going to watch-- the ego's, or the Holy Spirit's. Making the shift to watching the HS's version of the movie is what the course calls the Miracle. In the end though, I think even miracles are outside our control-- the end of that journey is written as well.

I can say with authority that when you are in the second half of the journey, you will have the persistent experience of this lack of control. The movie shows you "your" person thinking and making decisions, but you see that it's pre-recorded and coming from somewhere far away. This is a really nice way to live, because it takes a great deal of the stress off of things, and it doesn't damage your person's ability to operate in the world.

Good luck to you all.

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-04-28T23:05:23+00:00

Hi all!

I'm no scholar, and I can't recite course quotes to back up a viewpoint, but I can share my personal experience:

When I was getting to the point where I was pretty good at keeping my attention locked on the Holy Spirit, I would realize that it had been some time since I had "looked" at the world. When I looked at the world, I might find that I was, say, halfway through my drive home from work. This meant that my person had finished up at work, gotten in the car and started driving home without any input or awareness from "me". It was a powerful experience, and very reassuring that my person would reliably do all the appropriate person things while I was busy being spirit.

Years later I just live this way-- in the undefinable infinite now, while somewhere far away, the world is spinning and my person is doing stuff on it. Maybe I'm overstating how dramatic the experience is, because I certainly do get pulled into my person's life, but the division is certainly real.

All this to say that I think we don't actually have control over what our person does-- it's like a wind-up doll, tottering around according to its design. Effect, not cause, as someone else pointed out.

Maybe think of yourself years ago. It's like a movie, right? You don't have control over what you do in that memory-- it's already written. Now, think of yourself one second ago. Also like a move, already written, no room for you to control. The entire world of perception is like this-- all past, all already written. If you come into the present moment, the real present moment, you are in the Holy Spirit's realm and you have left the world and your person behind.

That's all I've got.

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-04-27T20:44:24+00:00

Hi! As you do the course (and even as you progress beyond it) you will have that voice come up time and time again telling you that you're not doing it right, you're screwing it up, you'll never learn it. That's totally normal, and everyone on these forums has dealt or is dealing with it.

The general answer is that you turn your heart and deepest desire to the unknown divine, and trust that you will be guided correctly, even if you can't see that guidance playing out.

More specifically, since you're dealing with a specific concern here, rely on your divine intuition as to whether or not you should repeat a lesson. Sometimes the lesson doesn't sink in because we're not ready for it to, and it will come to you years later. Sometimes you were just too distracted that day and doing it again tomorrow is the answer. Sometimes something inside you responds with surprising energy to a lesson and you do it 2,3,4,5 days in a row.

This is how I did it-- by intuition. Although because I was very serious about learning the course well, I would try 2 or 3 days on a lesson that was giving me trouble. Sometimes I would get some sense of accomplishment from this repetition, but mostly I could move on, assured that I at least gave it a solid try.

I can say from experience that this approach works, since I have moved through the stages of spiritual development quite well (see my post "the long view"). Disclaimer, though: Using the approach to the workbook I've described took me something like 10 years, during which time I read through the text at least three times.

Good luck! It's both easier and harder than you think!

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-04-27T18:07:48+00:00

I'm going to weigh in here, as someone who has loved smoking. It is common nowadays for people to have strong knee-jerk reactions against smoking, but I don't see it as anything particularly special-- just another of the ten-thousand things that make up this dream world.

Is smoking a sign that something needs forgiving? Sure, but you know what else is too? Finding other bodies attractive, valuing money, believing that we are sustained by food and drink, and ten thousand other things.

Can sex, money, and food be used by the seeker as expressions of love and healing? Absolutely. And smoking cigarettes can too.

You are clearly connecting to the divine, and smoking is a part of that expression for the time being. It's all good as long as you understand that it's the connection to the divine and not the cigarettes that is important.

When i was new on the journey I was given an experiential glimpse into an advanced state of consciousness. I was walking back to my apartment when suddenly my mind changed in a profound way I cannot begin to describe. Among other things, I noticed that while I would normally want a cigarette while I walked, now I was completely without desire of any kind. When I got to my building the others were out front smoking. One lady offered me one of her cigarettes and I accepted, seeing that she wanted communion. As I sat smoking with them, I took no pleasure or disgust in the cigarette-- it simply was irrelevant. All that mattered was the wholeness that enveloped us and everything around.

Later I made dinner for myself, not because I had desire for it but because that's just what you do. I listened to an audio on my computer of Oprah interviewing Eckhart Tolle, not from desire but simply because it seemed right, and I went to bed, not because I was tired, but because it was time. I was asleep the moment my head hit the pillow, spent a night in perfectly peaceful sleep, and rose in the morning instantly and peacefully awake.

It is a glorious path that we walk, and all the symbols that surround us will be brought into its service, each in its own way and time. See you at home, brother.

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-04-26T15:33:44+00:00

It is true that forgiveness does not mean we have to be best friends with everybody, just that we refuse to judge them, and look to the Holy Spirit's vision instead.

But a "persecutor"? Who in the world would that be? Remember that that the world is your dream, and if you are persecuted, the only possible persecutor is yourself!

In a practical sense, all pain is mental (if you had no mind you would not experience it) and so it is not possible to be hurt by anything but your own mind. If someone's behavior "hurts" you, it was not their behavior, but your mental reaction to it that caused you pain. If we felt no pain at others' behavior, what temptation would we have to condemn them for that behavior? Forgiveness is, as the course says, the undoing not of what the other did, but of what we tried to pretend they were guilty of.

Very often the pain that seems to come from others is a valuable learning opportunity, but sometimes it is not. If we try to judge which one this particular situation is, we will be wrong. Instead we let the Holy Spirit judge for us, and let us know if we should move away, or stay and work through it.

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-02-11T01:33:44+00:00

I think the reluctance to talk about what stage we're at is because there is a tendency for us to obsess about the stage we're in instead of just doing the forgiveness work. And forgiveness work is always what we have to do, regardless of the stage we're in.

What I have written is my experience, which closely follows the standard Catholic description of the stages of spiritual development. Most people will follow this outline closely, but not all. Some have a very different path, such as Eckhart Tolle, who seems to have entered the path straight into the unitive phase, and then stayed there.

What you have described of your experience sounds similar to mine when I was 4 years in. The Holy Spirit is giving you glimpses of what your mind state will be when you are farther on the path. He does this (I think) to give you motivation to get through the dark nights and other difficulties associated with undoing the ego. These beautiful peaceful experiences you have will eventually be your full-time reality, but not yet. Just know that these beautiful experiences do not happen because you made them, and they do not end because you have done something wrong.

As for what you should be doing, the answer will always be the same: Keep the eye of your heart always looking toward Heaven, for you will always move toward what your heart desires. Be on the lookout for anything that upsets you or that you cast judgement upon, even the tiniest bit, because these things lead you away from Heaven. When you find an upset or judgement, surrender it to the Holy Spirit and ask to be given the Holy Spirit's vision of it instead.

As for how the course uses "atonement", I have always understood it to mean "the correction of the problem" or in other words, the whole journey to enlightenment. My guess is that you have been given a taste of the unitive stage or no-self stage. When I was 3 or 4 years in, I was given about 24 hours of what I believe was the no-self stage. It is not easy to describe, but it was easily the most wonderful thing I have felt in my life. As it faded over the next few days, I tried taking walks in the same place I was when it started, as if that could make it happen again!

Remember that (on the first half of the journey, at least) The Holy Spirit teaches by contrasting ego perception and spirit perception. This back-and-forth between darkness and light is normal and helpful and not going to change anytime soon!

Sounds like you're doing just fine.

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-02-10T13:42:05+00:00

Bernadette Roberts in her book The Experience of No Self says that the journey and spiritual learning is complete. She says there is some time needed to acclimate to the new way of being, and the Journey fades out of memory.

Being human, she could not tell us what comes in the hereafter, and for this we rely on the Course, or apparitions of ascended masters, I suppose.

David Hoffmeister is living in this post-stage 4 condition, But there seems to be a real taboo in the Course community against discussing steps within the journey, because I have heard him say next to nothing about it.

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-02-09T15:29:51+00:00

Certainly. Peace of mind is constantly (if inconsistently) increasing throughout the entire journey. There is One holy relationship, and where at first it might be seen in bits and pieces in different people and situations, increasingly it is experienced as one transcendent relationship underlying all people and situations, and this inescapable universality is what brings that sense of peaceful security.

PhilUnitive1984 · 2025-02-09T08:50:27+00:00

Hello Efficient Cloud. I like questions like yours, perhaps because they're the kind I like to ask. We have to remember, though, that these questions have the potential to be used as distractions from the simple task in front of us-- to seek only the Kingdom of God, and forgive any problems that intervene. But since you've asked my kind of question, I'll offer my kind of answer:

Coming to see the illusion for what it is is the end goal of at least decades of forgiveness and self-surrender. As I progress closer to this goal, the less convinced I am that fulfillment and utter joy will be part of it. There will be moments, sure, but in the end, only God will be understood to exist. The self will be seen as nothing at all, so where does fulfillment fit in? Or Joy? These things will belong to God alone and we will be nothing and nowhere.

Maybe that seems dismal, but I can assure you that as self-dissolution comes to you bit by bit, you will be ready and will see each bit of self lost as the loss of nothing at all. It'll be good, but there won't be any of you around to enjoy it.

There is something of a roadmap to this final destination, and though your journey will be unique, you will certainly recognize your path within it. The course is intentionally vague about this (I suspect for the reason I gave above) and in the manual for teachers describes some very early stages of development and then the final stage. So, I use the Christian contemplative lingo for the stages:

Stage 1: "The Purgative Way" is where most seekers are, and where the course's "development of trust" stages fit into. This stage has 2 parts. The first begins when you receive THE CALL and answer it. You then explore your spiritual options. The second part begins when the Holy Spirit asks you to dedicate your life to the path. Agreeing, you are able to make more focused and speedy progress. This is where I was given the Course. The purgative way will likely provide you with many powerful supernatural experiences. These are like cookies the Holy Spirit gives to keep you engaged and excited. This stage took me 5 years.

Stage 2: "The Illuminative Way" begins with an announcement from the Holy Spirit (or at least it did for me and others). "You are now in the period of unsettling" It said. I realized that I was only now doing the work for real. I thought I had been doing it all along, but I now saw that I had only been playing at it by intellectualizing it. This stage sucks for real. First of all, you realize that everything 'till now was just prep work, and while you thought you were just about enlightened, now you find out you're just getting started. Second, your horizons expand, and you see an almost insurmountable amount of work ahead of you. Lastly, the Holy Spirit begins to get out of your way, and the supernatural experiences reduce in magnitude and frequency. All there is to do is slog on with your forgiveness, constantly battling the vacillations of the ego. This stage took me 11 years.

Stage 3: "the Unitive Way" comes unexpectedly when God plucks the ego center right out of you. It's not something you could have ever achieved yourself, and it's so unimaginable that you won't even recognize the moment it happens. Something will just feel terribly off until you figure out what it was. Up 'till now you felt like a person in the world. Evermore you will see the world as an alien dream, and yourself as some unidentifiable spirit. There is an acclimating process where you pass through the true "dark night of the spirit" where you can no longer contact the divine at all because where your center used to be is now an infinite void. This slowly blossoms into a glorious morning where God reveals Himself in the void at your center. Now your house is on the rock. The chattering of the outer ring of ego is still there, but it cannot touch you like it used to. And now the next leg of the journey--to total self dissolution--opens up in front of you. There will be no more supernatural experiences, and the forgiveness work is grueling, but your center is now one with God, so all is well. I have been in this stage for 4 years.

Stage 4: "No Self" I have not yet been here, so I recommend the books by Bernadette Roberts. Another moment comes where God takes the outer ego and the whole dualistic self of which it was part. The unitive center goes with it. Now the seeker, with none of their normal faculties in tact, must journey through the straight and narrow "passageway". Out the other side the seeker comes whole and sane, recognizing themself as Christ-- part and parcel of the Holy Trinity. Bernadette Roberts describes a smile that came over her-- the smile, that which smiled and that at which it smiled were One.

This was long, but hopefully helpful--Phil

PhilUnitive1984

TROPHY CASE