About "A Course in Miracles"

I have always gravitated towards wanting to understand the mind, which ultimately led me to several degrees in the psychology and counseling fields.  Being on the “anxious side” since I was born, I have always looked for ways to increase my sense of inner peace.  “A Course in Miracles” has met both of these two needs for me.

“A Course in Miracles” (ACIM) is transformative in its psychology, philosophy, and spirituality. ACIM is possibly unlike anything you have ever read before – a systematic framework in learning how to remove all of the blocks we have put up to love. It is a course in mind training and forgiveness in which we gently come to learn that this world is not our home, that we are perfectly safe, that we actually do not know what makes us happy, and that bodies, sickness, and death are only illusions. Our true state is one of joy and peace, which is our natural inheritance.

Forget not that the motivation for this course is the attainment and the keeping of the state of peace. – ACIM Original Edition p.468

The Course gently teaches us to learn how to listen to our inner guidance system, or in Course terminology, the Voice of the Holy Spirit.

As we learn that we do not know what makes us happy or even how to choose for Peace, we increasingly let the Holy Spirit choose for peace FOR us. In this development of trust, we come to find increasing peace in our mind.

If you knew who walks beside you on the way that you have chosen, fear would be impossible. – ACIM Original Edition p.362

The Course teaches that we have a split mind. Part of our mind has never left God and is still perfectly at peace. The other part of our mind has elected to experience a state of separation in which chaos seems to rule (AKA our crazy world).  Things happen that do not make sense, there is pain, sickness, lack, and suffering. We believe we are a personality in a body (an ego) and are born, live a short time, experience intermittent happiness, only to suffer and finally die. It sounds pretty bleak – right?

The good news is that we cannot separate from our Source, God – we can only think that we can – and we are each a unique aspect in the Mind of the Universal Oneness.

And there is no bad news. The only possible perceived “bad news” would be perceived by our egos – the part of our mind that WANTS to maintain the separation. The ego is our identification with our “small” identities – our identity in this world, the part of us that wants to be in charge of it all.  As we often have fun saying in our weekly ACIM group, “You are not “insert YOUR name here.” You are something much greater.

The Course is a gentle one, slowly showing us that we are only happy when we are not confused about our identity. We are happy when we come to know that we are still as God created us, pure mind, in God’s Mind, and unlimited. Ultimately, we accept that we are not our bodies, and that the separation never really happened.

“A Course in Miracles” had two “scribes” – Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford, both professors of psychology at Columbia University.  Over the span of seven years (1965-1972), Helen took down in shorthand the words of an “inner voice” she heard.  The resulting pages were compiled into “A Course in Miracles.”  There are various editions of the book currently available.

The Course is a journey from darkness to light, from sadness to joy. It’s message is unique, but it is not for everyone.  The Course is clear on this, stating that it is “only one form of a universal curriculum” and that God’s teachers come from “all religion or no religion.”  There are many different paths, and each is legitimate. You get to decide whether this particular path right for you or not. There will be no proselytizing here!

Interested in the book?  There are several editions available in print and online. Click HERE for more information.

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