05 Jan 2012 Comments Off on Naked Honesty 2
Thoughts on A Course in Miracles
04 Jan 2012 Comments Off on ACIM w Amy, Comments on Lesson 4
ACIM w Amy, Comments on Lesson 4
The YouTube ID of t5dnBBWDzk4 is invalid.04 Jan 2012 Comments Off on Naked Honesty is Required
Naked Honesty is Required
28 Jul 2011 Comments Off on Shekinah, Divine Feminine & the Holy Spirit
Shekinah, Divine Feminine & the Holy Spirit
Last night we had a guest from Israel in our Course in Miracles class. About an hour into class, I referred to the Holy Spirit as “He” and she bolted upright with surprise!
“He?” she said, making sure she heard me right.
“Yes,” I answered, “The Course is written with Christian terminology. It’s a genderless ‘He’ but the masculine is used.”
“Not in the Hebrew edition,” she said.
“What does the Hebrew edition say?” we asked.
“She,” was the answer. And then a lightbulb went off in my mind: Shekinah–the Divine Feminine!
I suddenly remembered my interfaith seminary education where the concept of “Shekinah” was introduced to me by an African-American classmate (ironic since I was raised in a Jewish family but up until then knew nothing of Shekinah). 
So, I am no scholar when it comes to Shekinah, but this is what I’ve gathered from a bit of research:
Shekinah is the spark of the Divine within us, what A Course in Miracles calls the memory of God within us, aka, the Holy Spirit.
Shekinah and the Holy Spirit each seem to be a bridge to help us find Home–both are often presented visually with the symbol of a dove. Shakti is also an aspect of Divine Feminine, found in Hinduism, but it is more concrete as an activating force within the world of form.
Shakti is the life force within humans, animals, minerals, etc. I’m sure the Divine Feminine goes by many other names offered by countless cultures (Kwan Yin, Yemaya, Green Tara, on and on).
The point is, as the Course teaches me, I don’t know anything. But I can use everything I think I know in service of God’s Will with the Holy Spirit/Shekinah as my Guide. I have ascribed meaning and interpretation to everything in the world, because I am the dreamer of the world.
When I allow my source of knowing to be from Beyond this world then Love becomes the only pronoun.
Women, and sometimes men, often ask for inclusion of the feminine in A Course in Miracles language. It is interesting to find out that “She” is used in the Hebrew translation of the Course to represent the Holy Spirit. Remember, what is most important is that both “He” and “She” in A Course in Miracles are all-inclusive, therefore genderless. A pronoun is necessary to communicate with us, but whether it is male or female is ultimately unimportant. A Course in Miracles is not political–it is spiritual.
Spirituality, by definition, must be both female and male because the truth is we all are One. Spirit is the ultimate equalizer. Spirit is what truly empowers us. Miracle principle #1: There is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not “harder” or “bigger” than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal. Because Love is maximal. No matter what the representation of Love–Jesus, Mary, Holy Spirit, Shekinah–Love is maximal. Love is the content which is constant, eternal. Everything else is symbolized in form, which is ephemeral, ever-changing.
My background is in psychology, not the Bible nor the Torah. And my resonance with A Course in Miracles has a lot to do with my desire to understand human nature non-judgmentally, with an open heart and an open mind. The Course tells us that anything that upsets us is of our own making–we have chosen pain and victimhood. So when women (or men) feel left out or devalued by the omission of the female pronoun in A Course in Miracles, it is an opportunity to examine how we are separating and devaluing ourselves. Eleanor Roosevelt told us, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
The scribe of A Course in Miracles was Helen Schucman, a very accomplished professional woman. Her partner, without whom she could not have fulfilled her task, was a man, Bill Thetford (who happened to be gay). Ken Wapnick was instrumental in helping to organize the raw ACIM material, but Judy Skutch was the one who got it published.
Ken started the first ACIM teaching institute, with his wife, Gloria Wapnick. And Marianne Williamson is the one who really popularized the Course–on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Everyone is included in God’s plan. If we are excluding ourselves, and we are true Course students, it is incumbent upon us to take responsibility for self-exclusion and give that fear-based belief to our Higher Self: Shekinah/Holy Spirit.
Guan Yin by B Moussart
Sometimes students ask me, “Where is Mary in A Course in Miracles?” I don’t know. I don’t see Mother Mary or Mary Magdalene in
A Course in Miracles, but it doesn’t matter to me. Because I know that if I want to commune with Mary or Mary, or Kwan Yin for that matter (the Buddhist Madonna, or Mother of All Buddhas) They are Right Here, Right Now. All I have to do is tune in to Her and ask for Her Grace, Her Compassion, and Her Guidance. Any spiritual teacher you desire is available to you–take the time to pray and meditate and you will find that out for yourself.
Each time A Course in Miracles is translated into other languages, it is translated back into English again before being published, to make sure the Course teaching is accurately retained. Isn’t it beautiful and true that whether we say “She” or “He” the Holy Spirit remains the same Loving Memory of God in our mind? We can count on the constancy of Love Itself. There are no semantics, there is no discrimination within God’s Mind. God is empowering, God is empowerment. God is Love Power. Know God and you will know Thyself, masculine, feminine and everything in-between.
Copyright © 2011 Amy Torres. All rights reserved worldwide.
17 Jul 2011 Comments Off on Forgiveness is Illusion that is Answer to the Rest
Forgiveness is Illusion that is Answer to the Rest
“Condemn and you are made a prisoner. Forgive and you are freed. Such is the law that rules perception. It is not a law that knowledge understands, for freedom is a part of knowledge. To condemn is thus impossible in truth. What seems to be its influence and its effects have not occurred at all. Yet must we deal with them a while as if they had. Illusion makes illusion. Except one. Forgiveness is illusion that is answer to the rest.” ~from Lesson 198: Only my condemnation injures me.
What does this passage from Lesson 198 mean?
A Course in Miracles is using the word “condemn” to mean that we have chosen to believe a tiny, mad idea that we could separate from God’s Mind. God’s Mind is our Home. We were born there, and we live there right now. It is possible to daydream nightmares in Heaven, and once upon a time we had a thought that we could leave the Formless, Changeless, Perfect, Abstract Mind of God and be God ourself.* It was an idea that couldn’t be taken seriously because that would be like wishing to be human while extracting our own DNA–not gonna happen.
Anway, we went ahead and “remembered not to laugh” as the Course puts it, and believed our fantasy that we had separated from God’s Mind. In order to talk ourselves into this idea of splitting off and being an autonomous god, we had to divorce ourself from Infinity and Eternity. So we made up space and time. This was simply to put God out of our mind … or, more accurately, to become mindless about the fact that we are forever one with God’s Mind.
We tried to forget God and His quality of Unified Oneness (which the Course also calls “knowledge”). We fooled ourself into thinking there was more than one of us. Remember, this is all a game of pretend: if you see it you believe it–if you didn’t know better, an airplane in the sky would seem to be the size of an ant, but that doesn’t make it so! We pretended we were a separate thought from God and projected images out of God’s Mind that seemed real. Then we started a game of war: if I oppose you, that proves there is someone out there, which also disproves the Oneness of God. What a grand distraction! 
This sense of being separate from God is called “ego.” The ego came up with the delusional idea that we could fence God’s Oneness off within individual bodies–bodies with senses with which to perceive the world. The perceptions we have seem to be facts–we believe the world happens to us. The Course teaches us we are the dreamer of this illusory dream world.
The Holy Spirit is the memory of God within our minds which we can never lose, just as a human can’t be human without DNA. This memory is restored to us through forgiveness, which the Course defines as recognizing this world, our senses, and the belief that we are separate individuals, is actually a tiny, mad idea–a game of pretend. Since we are so convinced, the Holy Spirit meets us halfway and uses our dream to help us awaken to God’s Truth. Forgiveness uses the medium of illusion to undo our belief in illusion. Forgiveness is the only illusion, within our illusion, which leads to awakening and recognizing what we already are: God’s Child, safe at Home, never alone, always at One with Each Other.
Feel free to ask questions 🙂 Email me at [email protected].
* I use “ourself” rather than “ourselves” because there is only one ego mind which seems to be split into all of our individual personal selves–but that, too, is an illusion.
17 Jul 2011 Comments Off on I Know You Really Love Me
I Know You Really Love Me
For most of my life, I assumed there was something deep, dark and shameful about myself that would make people recoil in horror from me, if they really got to know me. This belief was unconscious, and it actually took a lot of work for me to admit this to myself. It was necessary, because I kept getting involved with people who didn’t value me. This included boyfriends, bosses, friends, family, casual acquaintances, and strangers. Even if they did value me, I was unable to accept their positive regard because secretly I believed I had some disgusting, unforgivable qualities which deserved repulsion.
These are strong words, I know. Disgusting, repulsion. And where do feelings like this come from? On a spiritual level, we all feel this way until we recognize what we already are — that is how the ego works. Lesson 93 from A Course in Miracles is called “Light and joy and peace abide in me” and yet it begins, “You think you are the home of evil, darkness and sin. You think if anyone could see the truth about you he would be repelled, recoiling from you as if from a poisonous snake.” Under the dark cornerstone of the ego thought system shines the light and joy and peace you truly are. But in order to reach this inner light, you must be honest with yourself first.
On a human level, there are all sorts of reasons to explain feelings of shame. For example, if our parents found changing our baby diapers disgusting, we could absorb deep feelings of shame and disgustingness. This happens automatically, at a 
pre-verbal stage of development, and we live with the deep, buried feeling that we are disgusting, dirty, smelly, etc. Obviously, there are many more emotional dynamics at play within families than just poopy diapers.
About 15 years ago, I had a revelation. I was in group therapy, feeling like a misfit, as did most people in the group (it makes me laugh now, but the majority of humans feel deeply misunderstood and alone). Someone had not shown up for group, and that person’s presence was still felt, even though he was not there. It occurred to me that even a person’s absence is presence … they are still part of the 
group even when not physically there. This got me thinking about a small dance performance I had done not long before. I was horribly nervous before going on, and a fellow dancer told me I must be imagining the audience was against me, but she wanted me to know that the audience was friendly and supportive–they were actually on my side and rooting for me.
These two ideas were spell-binding. I had never thought any of this through–and I had never danced publicly before–so the thought that the audience could be friendly was so reassuring and embracing that it did make sense if I let go of my own chronic self-criticism. I linked the idea that the audience was friendly with the idea that my presence is felt even in my absence and presto! transformation! My life changed forever.
I received the miracle A Course in Miracles teaches – a true shift in perception. Now I understood that whenever anyone behaved in a hostile or superior manner that underneath they really loved me – they were just projecting their own poor opinion of themselves and others, but that had nothing to do with my own lovableness. My mind opened and suddenly I saw myself and them through God’s eyes – I was lovable and they were lovable and that could never change.*
A Course in Miracles teaches “ideas leave not their source.” I had been living from the idea that I was a separate person in competition with others for love–the source of that idea is the ego. The miracle reconnected me with God as my Source and His Idea that we are Love. The only reason people ever think poorly of themselves or another is because they are afraid. The 
Course teaches there are only two states of mind: fear or Love. All fear is a call for Love. The Answer is always Love. As one of my favorite songs, Nature Boy, says, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” And the Course agrees, “A miracle is a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers.” (Miracle Principle #27)
Lessons 196 and 197 in A Course in Miracles are companion lessons. Lesson 196 teaches us that “It can be but myself I crucify” and Lesson 197 follows up with, “It can be but my gratitude I earn.” Lesson 197 assures us, “It does not matter if another thinks your gifts unworthy. In his mind there is a part that joins with yours in thanking you. It does not matter if your gifts seem lost and ineffectual. They are received where they are given.”
This simple message gives my life full purpose. I now know that I am generous, kind and loving — I feel the Truth of that. And because I place myself in God’s Hands and live in service of His Will – I am His channel – I can rest assured that all is in right order even if the person across from me doesn’t think so. The only mind that needs to change is my own.
Now I know that you really love me, because I love me, and we are the same One. A Course in Miracles assures us, “A miracle is never lost. It may touch many people you have not even met, and produce undreamed of changes in situations of which you are not even aware.” (Miracle Principle #45) and “Miracles are expressions of love, but they may not always have observable effects.” (Miracle Principle #35)
I offer you this practice: when you think that someone doesn’t like you, is out to get you, wants to win at your expense, is taking advantage, feels indifferently toward you, is outright rejecting you, or any variation of the above, send them the thought, “Deep down, in your heart of Hearts, I know you really love me!” Wait and see, something will change for the better. Let me know how it goes.
* “You are the work of God, and His work is wholly lovable and wholly loving. This is how a man must think of himself in his heart, because this is what he is.” ~ACIM, T-1.III.2:3-4
Read Five Steps to Cultivating Your Relationship with the Holy Spirit to feel truly loved by God 
Copyright © 2011 Amy Torres. All rights reserved worldwide.
26 Jun 2011 Comments Off on How to Find God through Percussion
How to Find God through Percussion
More than one student has commented on my measured reading of A Course in Miracles. They say it’s soothing, or grounding, or helps them slow down. They say I read aloud in an unhurried, steady way–I attribute that to my dance background. I’ve always had a great love of rhythm and percussion. The melody was always secondary to the beat when it came to my enjoyment of music. Back in the days when I first started attending kirtans,* I heard someone say, “God is in the space between the notes.” Another way of putting it is, “God is in the space between the thoughts.”
The ego mind uses “splitting” to keep us unaware of God. (Splitting is a psychological term that means dissociating from what’s real because it is too painful or disturbing to tolerate. A Course in Miracles explains that the ego mind uses this device of splitting and dissociating from God to believe it is autonomous–although that is impossible.) Along with splitting comes a racing sensation. In yoga they speak of “monkey mind” which is a ceaseless chatter that keeps us unaware of God’s Stillness which is ever-present.
Many spiritual paths teach that the ego is using the past and future to keep us out of the present moment which is where God resides. The ego seduces us with guilt, fear and worry based on past experience (or even without experience– cautionary stories we’ve been told and swallowed) and projects those fears onto the future nimbly bypassing the present.
A Course in Miracles explains that the ego is actually reviewing the past, which is over and never even happened–the past is actually a delusional state of mind. That’s a juicy subject for another day. For now, suffice it to say, speeding up is a ploy for keeping us from our natural Stillness.
We each have an internal rhythm of our own. My Sufi teachers, Puran and Susanna Bair, say the heart is our signature rhythm, akin to our fingerprint–wholly unique to each of us. When we are able to slow down and focus on ourselves internally, we discover our signature rhythm. Once we’ve done this, we can honor our rhythm by connecting our voice and our breath and our movement to our organic flow. The more we are loyal and true to our own flow, the calmer life gets. Phones and cars and cyberspace can zip and zoom around and we can remain unshaken. This provides the opening to recognize Spirit. As a yoga teacher I find this important because it keeps students centered and calm, and keeps the practice balanced as we hold a pose on the right side of the body, and then switch to the left. Many yoga teachers hurry a little and the second side gets short shrift.
Puran Bair taught me to have more impact on the world than the world has on me. He demonstrated the potential in this when he participated in an experiment where he placed his arm in ice while being monitored on medical equipment. Normally the body rejects the arm to save its life. Puran connected with his heart and mindfully sent warmth to his arm–eventually he melted the ice. Pretty impressive. But more important than this sort of feat is the practical application in everyday life of remaining connected with our own internal rhythm so we can be open receptors for God’s Stillness.
Many people believe that God’s Stillness is boring. And that it means doing nothing. But think about it–isn’t music riveting in the moment when all sound stops–just before it kicks in again? Don’t we hold our breath with pleasurable anticipation during that musical pause? Stillness is the Absolute–absolute Peace, Love and Joy … Unified Oneness. As long as we believe we are human, we can choose to apply the wisdom of rhythm to experience the space between the notes. Musicians might experience this as a unified oneness while they jam. Dancers feel a seamless communion as they dance with a partner, a group, or God Itself, whether the movement is improvisational or choreographed. When doing the Sufi turn (the dance Rumi discovered to heal himself of a broken heart from losing his spiritual teacher, Shams), I feel the Oneness and the Joy of Cosmic Self. Union is natural and reveals itself between the beats–we become One with the Universal Heart.
A Course in Miracles tells me I can change my mind and experience a shift in perception called a “miracle.” One way of making this happen is, like any good percussionist, plugging in to a solid pulse and holding that beat no matter how many other sounds and distractions are around me. I practice this until I can stay the course, hold the rhythm, become constant. In this way I become an open conduit for God’s Rhythm. When that happens, I recognize what I’ve always been–the Source of Percussion Itself.
*In Sanskrit, “kirtan” means “to repeat” and is used in devotional services. Live musicians play the harmonium, tamboura and other instruments, and lead chants or mantras (repetition of sacred sounds to facilitate direct connection with God–Om Namah Shivaya is a classic) in a call and response format. Krishna Das is a well-known contemporary Westerner who has embraced this genre, performs regularly, and has recorded many CDs.
© 2011 Amy Torres
Amy Torres is an established spiritual teacher, as well as a Gestalt psychotherapist, interfaith minister, and yoga instructor. A Course in Miracles is the foundation of all her work. To contact her, call 212-340-1201 or email: [email protected]
29 Apr 2011 Comments Off on The Practice Undoes Us
The Practice Undoes Us
The Workbook promotes an experience. It is not to be just read, but practiced. The practice undoes us. It unwinds us like a ball of yarn. And at the end of the skein is nothing. No thing. No thing reveals Everything. The lesson of the day offers us specific instructions for undoing.
Eventually we are undone enough that we begin to enjoy true perception–an experience of receiving the truth of Who We Are, which induces a natural inclination (the miracle) to give love to others, which reflects back to us the love that we are, which strengthens our conviction that our true identity is God, and so on.
We are learning to recognize how the ego thinks, and not to take the ego seriously. We are encouraged to choose again–choose the right-mindedness of the Holy Spirit’s guidance. And we learn through repetition. This is the mind-training ACIM offers. It is thorough, flawless, mighty. It is loving, uncompromising, truth. It is the memory of God within your mind, calling you.
We are all God-blessed. God wants us to claim our inheritance. The Workbook instructs us on how to do so.
22 Apr 2011 Comments Off on The Process of Image Making
The Process of Image Making
More than one spiritual path explains that this world is an illusion. Even science now agrees. But what do they mean? And if this world is an illusion, what good does it do us to know that?
A Course in Miracles (ACIM) teaches us, “It is because the thoughts you think you think appear as images that you do not recognize them as nothing. You think you think them, and so you think you see them. This is how your ‘seeing’ was made. This is the function you have given your body’s eyes. It is not seeing. It is image making. It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions.” (ACIM Workbook Lesson 15) ACIM posits that we are hallucinating this world by projecting our thoughts outward. In Hinduism and some forms of Buddhism, this is called “maya”–the dream of duality, or the ignorance of our true God-Self. Einstein has assured us that solidity is a mirage. Quantum physics explains that the observer affects what is observed.
Let’s break this down: “… the thoughts you think you think” tell you that what you consider thinking is not really thinking. What the ego (our sense of individual identity) does is replace God’s Thought with images–imaginary thoughts that appear as pictures. You view these pictures and call them “eyesight.” You believe in them, but that does not make them real. The function the ego gives the body’s eyes is to hallucinate images which are not real to distract us from the Reality of God’s Vision.
But why would the ego want to distract us from God’s Vision? Because the ego knows that if we re-discover this formless Peaceful Creative Light within ourselves, the personal self as we know it will unravel and “die.” Within this “death” lies Eternal Life–but that’s not the way the ego sees it. One scientist put it this way, “If you look at the universe with through a golf ball-sized lens, you will see a universe the size of a golf ball.” The ego limits our experience, but denies that it does this.
Un-think your way through this. Tell yourself, “I do not really think. What I think are my thoughts are images the ego made. These images are neither good nor bad, they simply are not real. Would I rather think these puny little thoughts that lead to suffering and death, or would I rather gently peel these images from my eyes today, and truly see what God would have me see?” Ask God, “What would You have me see?” He will show you. Then you can decide for yourself whether you prefer the image making eyesight of the ego, or God’s Vision.
© Amy Torres 2011
07 Feb 2011 Comments Off on Inexplicably Predictably Happy
Inexplicably Predictably Happy
Recently a phrase popped into my head, “Inexplicably predictably happy.” That’s one way I experience God — words come to me and I can tell they are not mine (some people call this “channeling”).
I was actually grieving at the time I “heard” those words, but even though I was grieving, I remembered to ask God to remind me of who I really was. In that moment, as I cried, I felt my heart expand and a peace move through me that was filled with joy. There was no logical explanation about why I needn’t grieve — I just felt at peace, even as I wept.
There was a smile inside me that said, “Inexplicably predictably happy” and I knew it to be True. “Inexplicably” because the joy of God is beyond words and explanations. “Predictably” because God is reliable, and if I ask Him for help, I will receive His help. “Happy” because God is full — full of joy, peace, love, eternal life, infinite creativity, and there is no way I cannot be happy because God’s treasures are my inheritance. Joy, peace, love, eternal life, infinite creativity are always mine — I just forget.
These days I remember my inheritance more and more and life is so interesting, full of wonderful surprises and beautiful people. I know that when I’m scared and overwhelmed that I’ve just forgotten Who I really am, and knowing that is a great comfort. Another name for the Holy Spirit is The Comforter, and He really is. When I accept Him, I am inexplicably predictably happy 🙂 And then comes the realization, just like A Course in Miracles says: there is no “me”!
Copyright © 2011 Amy Torres. All rights reserved worldwide.
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