A Course in Miracles – the One-Mind and the split-mind

Kenneth Wapnick, widely regarded as the foremost teacher of A Course in Miracles, gave a talk, which later became a book, entitled A Talk on a Course in Miracles. I recommend that anyone interested in understanding the Course read this book. I want to summarize here some of the things he said.

Wapnick reminds us that the Course is written in two levels. The first level shows the difference between what the One-Mind and the split-mind are.

• The One-Mind level is where we remain united to God even though we have forgotten it. At this level, the body and the world are illusions, products of our separate minds or ego. They represent separation.

• The second level or split-mind relates to the world in which we think we live. It shows the differences between wrong-minded and right-minded. At this level, we consider our bodies and the world to be real. We see attack, separation, sin, and guilt.

Wapnick also mentioned that the Course speaks of three different thought systems: One-Mind, wrong-mind, and Right-Mind.

The following are brief explanations of the three thought systems:

• The One-Mindset is our true reality; it is the world of heaven. It’s the level we’ve never gone from, but we think we have. It has nothing to do with this world. It is our recognition of our unity with the Creator and with all of Creation. In heaven, there is no time or space. This level is rarely mentioned on the Course.

• The split-mind is the ego’s thought system. This system believes in sin, guilt, and fear. When the Course speaks of sin, it refers to our belief that we are separated from God, leading to fear and guilt. Wapnick says that the guilt the Course refers to is “the sum total of all the negative feelings, beliefs and experiences we have had about ourselves,” which are primarily unconscious.

• The Course tells us that as soon as the ego was created, God gave us the Holy Spirit, who, for the Course, is the part of our mind that knows that it is always connected to God. It is as if our mind is divided in two. One part, the Holy Spirit, knows that we have never separated from God. The other one, the ego, thinks that we have.

  • Right-mindedness is the thought system of the Holy Spirit, which leads us to forgive our guilt. In this system, we decide to live exclusively in the state of love, towards ourselves and others. We do this through forgiveness. Forgiveness does not lead to attacks or judgments because we begin to see what we previously identified as attack or judgment simply as the wrong way for the other person to say, “I feel lonely, and I need love.” This leads us to feel compassion, instead of anger.

In the following blogs, I will delve into some of the mechanisms of the Course to achieve forgiveness and live the experience of love.

Holistic philosophy: the mind

In the first few blogs, I wrote about thoughts and how your thoughts create your life. If you are reading my blogs for the first time or are interested in doing more research, head over to them. You will find them between January 24 and March 19.

Has it ever occurred to you to think where the mind comes from? To understand esoteric things well, I invent stories that resonate with what we are living in this third dimension. Imagine the Creator who is Supreme Intelligence, Eternal Love, Perfection, wanting to experience himself. As He was Oneness, he couldn’t. At this moment, there was nothing physical, just conscious energy.

Then he thought, I can do this by lowering my vibrational frequency so that what is now One is divided, in appearance only, into many. I say in appearance because, in reality, everything is still linked to everything. Once the frequency dropped a little, what we call Spirit was created, still united to All that is, and without anything physical existing.

Spirit kept lowering the frequency, very slowly to get used to it, until a density began to be perceived very subtly. It went on like this for millions of years, until at a precise frequency, the soul, or vehicle of the Spirit was created.

Since it had dropped quite a bit in density, although still at a very high frequency, the soul appeared to be separated from the Creator. The soul also has all the attributes of the Creator because it is the vehicle of the Spirit and our true reality. All humanity is united by the soul. When we die, what dies is the body. The soul is eternal, as is the Creator.

Being in a lower dimension, the soul, now thinking that there were many souls because it saw them separated, was very frightened thinking it had separated itself from God. That fear of the soul emitted so much energy that it created the “Big Bang,” which created the physical Universe.

For duality to exist and for the soul to experience differences, it continued to lower its frequency enough to inhabit a physical body. Once the soul inhabited a body, its density was such that it forgot where it came from.

A Course in Miracles teaches that the ego-mind was created at the very moment we thought we were separated from God and others due to the intense fear felt by the soul.

The ego is the part of our mind that judges, projects, criticizes. When we think with the mind of the ego, we feel alone, scared, isolated. When we think or say “I,” we usually identify with the ego. It is what we think we are.

A Course in Miracles leads us to get rid of those mistaken thoughts that cause us unhappiness. In the following blogs, I will explain how it does it.

Holistic philosophy – The body Part 3

MOVE AND EXERCISE

Exercise is essential. Many people work sitting down all day. They come home, eat, and sit down, this time, to watch television. So little by little, the belly grows.

Exercise is vital for a healthy body. What are some of the benefits for your health?

• Improves muscle strength and increases endurance.

• Strengthens bones and muscles.

• Helps to have a better balance which can prevent falls.

• It helps control weight.

• Supplies oxygen and nutrients to tissues and helps the cardiovascular system work more efficiently. When your heart and lung health improve, you have more energy to do daily tasks.

• Improves mental health by relieving stress. The chemical substances that exercise produces in the body help improve mood.

• Helps you sleep better.

There are many ways to exercise. You can do sports, go to the gym, walk, and jog. Anyway, find what interests you the most and get started. At first, it’s more difficult. If you haven’t exercised in a long time, your muscles will ache, you will be tired, etc. Don’t use that as an excuse not to continue.

From my own experience, I’m sure that you will feel much better once you create the habit.

To create the habit, choose days and hours that are favorable for you. That way, there won’t be an excuse not to continue. Put it on your calendar and set alarms to remind you.

But the most important thing is to start. Once you achieve it, you will not regret it. I wish you success.

In the next blog, I will write about the mind.

Holistic Philosophy – Body part 2

What enters through your nose and your skin?

Our health depends on what enters our mind, mouth, nose, and skin. In previous blogs, I have written about the mouth. Today it’s up to the nose and skin.

When I was in my early forties, an oil tanker ran aground at sea, causing an oil spill near where I lived in Puerto Rico. It was something like the well-known Exxon Valdez but on a smaller scale.

I lived close, but not close enough to smell the horrible stench that oil had. However, I was close enough to breathe in the chemicals. As a result of breathing in the chemicals for several months, my immune system went haywire, and I began to react to most of the chemicals that reached my respiratory system or skin.

To function in this world, I had to stop coloring my hair, nails, using perfume, start cleaning my house with natural products, and not go where I knew there would be chemicals. Although I saw that as a misfortune since I was sick for several years, I see it as a blessing today. Over the years, I continue to react, but I can recover much faster than in those times. But I still have to avoid the harmful chemicals.

People who react like me are called canaries because many years ago, when there was no technology to detect harmful chemicals in the mines, they let a canary go inside the mine. If the canary died, the miners did not enter. If the canary did not die, they entered.

Why am I telling you this story? Because, although in a much slower way, those chemicals that hurt me immediately hurt other people over time. What happens is that since it is not instantaneous as it is with me, they do not see the relationship between their health conditions and the chemicals. But that’s how it is.

Not only do many of the people bathe in perfumes, dye their hair and paint their nails, but they also clean their houses with very toxic products, smoke, or are around people who smoke.

Nobody thinks they will be old anytime soon, but life passes extremely fast, and the body deteriorates. Thanks to the fact that I had to be so careful with toxins, I can proudly say that I am not suffering from anything. I don’t have to take medication for any condition because my body, free of toxins, can regulate everything well.

Especially now with the pandemic, if you want a strong immune system that fights any virus or bacteria, you have to put your body in optimal conditions. To achieve this, if you don’t want to totally eliminate all chemicals toxic to your health, you must reduce them considerably. Today there are many natural products that do the same job. Start reading the labels of the products you buy.

Take care of your body from toxins. No one is going to do it for you.

Holistic philosophy – the Body Part I

What goes into your mouth?

In a previous blog, I mentioned the relationship between health and thoughts. Today I am going to discuss the importance of a good diet for a good and healthy body.

Many years ago, people lived from family farming. We ate what small farmers grew. These foods were nutritious and met all the body’s needs of vitamins, minerals, etc.

Unfortunately, that went down in history. Today large agricultural companies dominate the food market. To have bigger and faster harvests, they turned to chemicals and pesticides, which many people automatically put into the body. These foods take away hunger, but they do not think about the damage these chemicals and lack of nutrients are doing to them.

The conditions in which the animals that give us meat, eggs, etc., live are disastrous. Some can barely move. The antibiotics and other medications that are given to them to produce more and more are many. All these chemicals and the negative energy from suffering remain in the flesh and pass into the body of the person who consumes it. To that, we can add the terror and despair they feel when they are killed.

Sodas and other soft drinks full of sugar and other chemicals were introduced (diet sodas are included) and bags of chips etc., full of fats and chemicals. These chemicals create a kind of addiction where every time we want to drink or eat more.

This type of diet creates very dense energy in the human body. Apart from that, obesity has been on the rise more and more. That brings other complications to health.

If you want to improve your health, you need to watch what goes into your mouth. Start, little by little, to eat healthier. The perfect thing would be to eat only organic foods that do not have the chemicals I mentioned. If you like to plant, grow your vegetables and fruits organically.

Eat less meat. If you eat every day now, start by eliminating one day. As you get used to it, you eliminate another one, and little by little, you change your meat diet.

Try to reduce, until you can eliminate them, the sodas and chips and other harmful things, everything little by little. The body has to get used to the new way of eating.

Keep a journal of what you eat. Put the date and how you felt during that day. The journal will help you realize if something you are eating is causing you symptoms, such as sleepy, tired, full of gas, you can’t string ideas together or forget things. If you find that something does not agree with you, eliminate it.

Finally, the purity of the water we drink. The purer, the better it is. Now a days, governments treat water to make it drinkable. Although it is much better than if they did not treat it, it still has many chemicals and harmful substances. The best thing is a filter in the house that purifies it completely.

Everyone is responsible for their health. To achieve any change, commitment and dedication are necessary. I invite you to try it.

Holistic Philosophy – Body, Mind, and Spirit

Although many people think that they are a body with a spirit, in reality, we are a spirit inhabiting a body. We came to this planet Earth for one purpose – to raise our consciousness to recognize our eternal union with the Creator. We do it when we learn to live from love and not from fear.

To be in this third-dimensional world, we need a physical body. In turn, we create our experiences, which we call our life, through the mind and the thoughts that we hold regularly.

Therefore, you cannot lose perspective that you are body, mind, and spirit. Feeding these three areas is the foundation of the holistic philosophy. If you ignore any of them, you are incomplete. It doesn’t matter where you start as long as you include all three.

In his evolution as a human race, the human being has gone through different evolutionary stages. In some, he concentrated on the body, in others on the spirit, and in others on the mind. By this evolution, I mean millions of years.

We are in the last stage of the third dimension, where the planet and its inhabitants will rise, little by little, to the fifth dimension. To achieve this, we have to refine our bodies and cleanse our minds of all negativity, living primarily in love.

I will dedicate the following blogs to explain how we can help ourselves balance in mind, body, and spirit. I invite you to read them.

Invisible friends, pure imagination?

As children, did anyone have the experience of having an invisible friend? Or, do any of your children have or have had an invisible friend?

When we are born into this third-dimensional world, we come with what I call the veil of oblivion. That veil does not allow us to remember the previous experiences that our soul has lived. In this way, we can do the work that we came here to do of raising our consciousness without being distracted by past memories.

When a baby is born, there are two soft areas on the top of the head where the bones of the skull have not yet joined. These areas are called fontanelles.

From a physical point of view, this allows the baby’s head to move through the birth canal, which is very narrow. Little by little, the bones of the brain come together, and the fontanelles close.

From a metaphysical point of view, this allows the baby to still contact the higher planes since their veil is not entirely closed. Things being this way, children can see beings in other dimensions that adults do not see.

This “friend” helps the child in their emotional development. It is someone with them and someone who understands them. Parents should validate what they see, not criticize them or tell them that this friend does not exist.

I remember a two or three-year-old boy playing in his home, an apartment on the sixth floor. His grandmother came in, and he told her, very calmly, that a man had entered through the window and was with him for a while. The grandmother thought it could have been the grandfather, who had never met the child. He had just died, and she thought he came to see him before leaving for other dimensions. We’ll never know whether or not it was the grandfather, but that the child saw and described him, that did happen.

Like this one, I have heard many stories. I invite you to open your mind to the fact that there are many dimensions, and support children who have access to them. After the age of seven, the veil is entirely closed for almost everyone. Some people who have the joy of staying connected have a gift. We, as parents, must help them to cultivate it.

Reiki in hospitals

For many, many years, most people walked through life like robots. They worked or went to school during the day. They came, ate, were distracted by something, and went to sleep. The next day the same.

They took as true what was taught in schools or read or heard on the news. On Sundays, they went to church, and so the days, weeks, and years passed.

Little by little, humanity has been slowly awakening. Scientists already talk about quantum energy. Eastern spiritual beliefs were reaching the West. It is already normal to talk about yoga, meditation, acupuncture, and Reiki.

Lately, mainly at patients’ request, many hospitals are including Reiki treatments as part of alternative therapies.

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) places Reiki therapy in the bio-field energy category. Bio-field energy is any electric or magnetic field produced by a biological organism. E.g., a human.

What are the benefits of Reiki?

• Releases repressed emotions.

• Increases our energy level, providing us with physical and emotional vitality.

• Causes a very pleasant state of relaxation, reducing or eliminating anxiety. A Reiki treatment helps a lot before and after surgery.

• Relieves physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual pain and suffering.

• Decreases the side effects of medications and treatments, such as chemotherapy.

Many years ago, a dear friend had cancer. The side effects of chemotherapy were horrible. When I found out, I offered him Reiki, and even though he thought I was crazy, because he trusted me, he allowed it.

Days later, he called me to tell me about the big difference in his well-being after chemotherapy. He said that the side effects were greatly diminished. He asked me if I could attune him and his wife to Reiki, so he could receive a Reiki treatment before and after the chemotherapy.

Eventually, my friend died. However, his quality of life through the end was vastly better than what he had before Reiki.

Before moving to California, the Cleveland Clinic in Weston, FL was looking for Reiki therapist. Also, in many hospitals, nurses and, even doctors are being attuned to Reiki.

I hope that people continue to wake up to this gentle but powerful therapy.

Reiki III – Master Level

(This is a continuation of the previous blog.)

When I attuned to Reiki, the process of becoming a teacher was quite expensive. Years passed, and the price went down. One fine day, my inner voice began to tell me to become a Reiki master. I had already committed myself to listen to that voice, no matter what it said to me.

I started looking for someone to teach me when I opened the newspaper and saw a one-page ad for a Puerto Rican Reiki teacher, Reinaldo Torres (R.I.P.) Reinaldo lived in Tampa and came to Puerto Rico to teach Reiki III or master classes. I called him in Tampa, and after a beautiful experience in his classes, I became a Reiki III master.

Reiki was brought to the West from Japan by Ms. Takata, of Japanese descent but a resident of Hawaii. She tried to have something so sacred be respected and valued in the United States, and the western world. In order to achieve this, Mrs. Takata established a series of rules about prices and initiations. I’m going to call this Traditional Reiki.

In Reinaldo’s class, I learned that over the years, Traditional Reiki was softening, and changing a bit. With Reinaldo, I learned to attune people in the traditional way that includes four attunements. Also, I learned how to attune with an additional symbol that allowed only one attunement. I had never heard of this before, so the question remained in my mind if that form worked.

Soon after, I went to my hometown, Ponce, and visited my sister. When I arrived, I found out that her husband was ill and was in a lot of pain. I told her that I had become a Reiki Master and could teach her to give Reiki to her husband to help him with his pain. She was my first student. I had never taught a Reiki class.

Since I was in a hurry, with a bit of apprehension, I decided to go with the single attunement system and prayed that it would work. After I attuned my sister to this extraordinary energy, I told her to practice giving Reiki to me so in case she had any questions I would be able to answer them.

In Reiki, the hands are placed with the fingers close together so that the energy doesn’t escape through the open fingers. After about five minutes, she asked me if it was indispensable to have the fingers together. I remember I told her that nothing was indispensable, just preferable, and I asked her why she was making that question. Her response, which amazed me, was, “it’s because I’m burning.”

Again, neither before nor after had I heard such a thing. I thanked my Reiki guides because I’m sure they wanted to let me know that this new way of attunement worked very well. Since then, that is the one I use in my classes.

It is wonderful to know that if we learn to listen to the messages, our inner voice or spiritual guides direct us at every moment.