No Balloons

How does anyone new to this subject ever make sense of it? I try to keep it all very simple. I categorize everything I read into – which direction is it pointing me in? There are two directions and I am only interested in one of them and the vast majority of what I read is pointing the other way.

We believe we are separate people living in a world of other separate things and people. In that stage of our lives, we tend to emphasize personal viewpoints about -ourselves, others, and the world. We think the world is something objective that our minds are commenting on. We emphasize these personal viewpoints believing that it is reality. We can come to realize that separation is illusory and experience reality as non-dual. At that point, we may begin emphasizing impersonal thoughts such as; All is Oneness, nothing exists, and It's all awareness. These are fine insights but it is freedom from these extremes of emphasizing personal and/or impersonal mental viewpoints that is the goal.
This usually shows up for us naturally once the belief in separation has been seen through and once we no longer cling to our impersonal thoughts. We realize that separation is not real, yet we fully engage on every level with the conventional world of people, places, and things. We know that nothing has an independent nature, yet we are free in the midst of our very lives, free to live and act as people in the world, sharing a message of freedom and love, changing our world, and not denying relative existence, relationships, community, family, and all other aspects of life. 

A Course in Miracles has some good material and shows how to get us out of our ego and body;