Over the past several weeks, I noticed I had an unexplainable feeling of flatness surrounding A Course in Miracles (ACIM). Since I began studying it in 1997, I’ve honestly never put the book down. My typical enthusiasm and love for the Course seemed like it went away on vacation, and this was upsetting to me.
I had a sense that something was shifting inside, only I had no idea what. I kept getting the feeling that I was going through some kind of “period of undoing” only this period simply entailed a feeling of flatness. There were no big upheavals, no anxiety, and no drama whatsoever.
“Forget this world, forget this Course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.” – ACIM Lesson 189
As I pondered this strange feeling of flatness, the above ACIM quote kept coming repeatedly to mind, almost like a broken record. “How can I forget this Course,” I thought? There’s no other pathway in the world that has helped me so much.
I’ve noticed in my journey that some form of pain often precipitates huge shifts and deepening peace. Pain hurts, and so I GET TO WORK in relinquishing everything, wholly willing for a new perception to come to me. Rather than allowing pain to “prove” that I am a body, pain has been a helpful catalyst for growth.
The pain of the world was about to show up smack in my face again. A family member sent me a video about a rescued chicken (you know how I love my pet chickens), and upon watching the video, I learned about a religious mass animal sacrifice that occurs every year. This particular chicken was rescued from the animals that were to be sacrificed, and I learned about the horrific treatment of these animals. I sobbed for about an hour and was so upset with the person who sent me the video. Yet there are no mistakes.
I quickly recognized that this was JUST ONE of the MANY horrors of the world. Be it these particular animals, factory farming, harming the environment, genocide, sexual abuse, etc., the atrocities of this world are endless. And it came to me that what I am seeing is an IMAGE, an outward picturing of MY state of mind. These horrific scenes ARE IMAGES I have made to replace truth in my awareness:
“Whatever I see reflects my thoughts. It is my thoughts that tell me where I am and what I am. The fact that I see a world in which there is suffering and loss and death shows me that I am seeing only the representation of my insane thoughts, and am not allowing my real thoughts to cast their beneficent light on what I see…” From Review Lesson 53: My thoughts are images that I have made.
In that moment, I had a surge of desire within to end suffering for EVERY living thing. Fixing the picture “out there” felt like it would take too long to achieve, I wanted relief from suffering for all, NOW. A willingness arose in me unlike anything I had ever experienced before:
“I want to wake up FROM the dream, not just in it.”
Upon feeling these words in myself, I felt a surge of peace return at the thought that I want to allow my own mind to be healed, more than anything else in this world. Those chickens being sacrificed are me. The people doing the slaughtering are me. I no longer want to continue attacking myself.
At no time prior to this was I wholly willing to let go of my identity as Corinne. I used to be afraid that if I “aced” the Course, I’d get whisked away into the oblivion of Love (this was simply an ego-based fear). But this time I desired Truth above all else. I felt completely willing to know what I AM and let go of my limited identity as Corinne the image maker. I want to know the Love of what we are because I want healing for ALL. And guess what… I’m still here.
Fast forward to the second annual Miracle Share Virtual Conference on ACIM. Every time I speak with John Mark Stroud of “One Who Wakes,” I have some sort of profound experience. This was my second year interviewing him for the conference, and to my surprise, our video interview and then live Q&A call addressed EXACTLY what I was going through regarding my “flatness.”
In his conference video, John Mark spoke about how our spiritual beliefs are often the most fearful to relinquish. We cling to them, yet they are “beliefs” which are still removed from the simple experience of Truth.
I got the clear internal message that my “flatness” with A Course in Miracles, was guidance to let go of my identity as A Course in Miracles Student. I felt the fear that John Mark was talking about in relinquishing spiritual beliefs. “WHO AM I if I am not a student of A Course in Miracles? Yikes!”
When I shared this with John Mark during the conference Q&A call, he enthusiastically and joyfully congratulated me.
The whole experience of being guided to “let go” felt as if I was standing on roller skates, and without moving my body, a magnetic pull coming from my chest was pulling me forward to let go of A Course in Miracles. As I am being pulled forward, my hands are thrown up in the air and I’m saying to myself, “WTF is going on!?” I’m not doing ANYTHING and yet I’m being directed to let go of ACIM.
I know enough by now that when I feel guidance come forward I can trust it. Even if it seems totally crazy. So I obliged. I became willing to let go of A Course in Miracles. Instantaneously, a surge of peace returned. The internal shift happened. The feeling of flatness evaporated and I felt freer than I ever have before. What remains is a feeling of “I AM.”
I continue to see big shifts that may be effects of my heartfelt desire to wake up FROM the dream. People around me who I never expected would awaken in this lifetime, are having spiritual awakenings. The teachings of A Course in Miracles feel clearer to me than before. My trust has deepened. Nothing “external” has changed in my life, I still read and teach and learn from A Course in Miracles. But the shift inside is palpable to me.
Here’s to the joy of our collective waking up. It is actually a fun, gentle, and joyous process! I’m ready to end suffering in all of its forms. Are you with me? Let me know by leaving a comment below. ♥
2022 UPDATE: I wrote this post in 2015. I was brought back to reading it after having another deep experience with being guided to let go of A Course in Miracles in an act of faith and trust. You can read my recent reflection on releasing ACIM to trust in Spirit directly, here.
Thanks for sharing, Corinne…. another part of I AM, you and me and all… does that make sense? Felt almost awkward to address you as Corinne after reading your post! I think you’ll get it. My husband and I have similar conversations to your wondering in this post and your thoughts have really touched me. I’ve often felt torn between my desire to let go of ‘identity’ and hence, labels of many kinds… for example, I struggled with whether or not to put ‘labels’ on the about page on my website for this reason…. yet, I also notice that sometimes those very labels that might appear to describe an individual identity also help me CONNECT with others, our larger self? This same concern came up about signing artwork that I’ve co-created (with inspiration, experience, love, etc) because I didn’t want it to be about me, but about US (the bigger I AM, yes? – artist, inspiration, viewers… all being together)… so I ended up choosing to sign with initials, J.O., in a way that resembles a dragonfly to me (which has symbolic meaning and reminder of the mystery). I also thought of a recent book my son and I read called ‘Gaia Girls – Into the Earth’ when you mention the environment horrors in the dream and a recent song my husband wrote and produced called ‘Awake in the Dream’ which is part of his album, Dreams of the Unknown, which is largely all about his spiritual journey and wonders. I’ll share your post with him as well (I’ve told him about you before). Wish we could have you over dinner and conversation…. I’m sure it would be quite interesting. 🙂 It’s especially wonderful to be able to reconnect all these years later after going to high school with you to see how our paths and thoughts and opening and lives are evolving. I’ve been pondering the dream and our roles as well and focus my thoughts on love, wisdom, and kindess… for example, when military aircrafts fly over… one little step to imagine harmony in being instead of fear and horror. Lots of love to you! xo, Julia
Oh Julia, I am SO touched by your comment (or can I call you “Julia” lol!)! Yes, I completely resonate with everything you say. I totally agree – that sometimes those labels can help us connect with others. For instance, I’ve come lightyears down the path of getting through anxiety issues, but I still tell my story because people can relate to it (and because by sharing my healing story it strengthens these healing ideas in my own mind). It helps us connect and join together in deciding that YES – we want to “wake up” to the LOVE we are, so let’s do it together! 🙂 I love what you describe about how you are signing your artwork – I’m going to pay close attention to your signature now. And PLEASE share your husband’s song with me when he makes it available to others – I would LOVE to hear it. So inspiring! I too share the same gratitude that we have reconnected all of these years. It is so refreshing and fills my heart! ♥
By the way, I often forget to sign artwork so you may or may not find the little initials in a corner! 😉 Here is the link to Nathan’s album and I think you can hover over the song titles to read the lyrics if you like: http://nathanosterc.bandcamp.com/album/dreams-of-the-unknown
This is BEAUTIFUL Julia! Not only do I love the gorgeous tunes, but the album artwork is amazing 🙂
Labor of LOVE 🙂 xo
It feels to me as though you are describing yet another episode in the 5th stage of trust.
There is a part of my mind which needs to verbalize, analyze and situate myself in split mind world I inhabit.
I love that quote from the text about forgetting because it is, for me, about “remembering” the only real function I have here as I practice with that “special” tool which brings me back to peace and “looking without judgment.”
“There is no statement the world is more afraid to hear than this:
7 I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself.”
That statement is truer to me now than when I first heard it and what an enormous relief it is to accept my role as Jesus’ “little child.”
Not knowing where I am is much more liberating than speculating about where I believe I am or where I think someone else is.
As a student of the Course for that last 38 yrs reminded me recently…”I don’t know and I don’t need to know.”
This reminder points me to the wordless, non-conceptual place where peace waits patiently for me.
W-pII.1.4. “Forgiveness … is still, and quietly does nothing. 2 It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearances it likes. 3 It merely looks, and waits, and judges not.”
Thanks for sharing xoxoxoxox
This is beautiful Jim! I love how you raise the point that we ARE “little children” and when we think we “know” we’re blocking the actual experience of KNOWING. I love this: “I don’t know and I don’t need to know. This reminder points me to the wordless, non-conceptual place where peace waits patiently for me.” Peace IS patiently waiting for us to be willing to return to it, for that Peace is already here. Thank YOU for sharing!! xo
“YES” I am with you 🙂 I opened to this course section this morning before I read your post and especially noted the part about us wanting specialness here and the Holy Spirit then turning what we made into our special function so that He can complete His special function …
“Yet while in time, there is still much to do. And each must do what is allotted him, for on his part does all the plan depend. He has a special part in time for so he chose, and choosing it, he made it for himself. His wish was not denied but changed in form, to let it serve his brother and himself, and thus become a means to save instead of lose.”
“The Holy Spirit needs your special function, that His may be fulfilled. Think not you lack a special value here. You wanted it, and it is given you. All that you made can serve salvation easily and well. The Son of God can make no choice the Holy Spirit cannot employ on his behalf, and not against himself. Only in darkness does your specialness appear to be attack. In light, you see it as your special function in the plan to save the Son of God from all attack, and let him understand that he is safe, as he has always been, and will remain in time and in eternity alike. This is the function given you for your brother. Take it gently, then, from your brother’s hand, and let salvation be perfectly fulfilled in you. Do this one thing, that everything be given you.” – Ch. 25
Thank you, Susan! These quotes are SPOT on and so helpful (and it is funny that you read them right before reading my post). Thank you, and thank you for being with me!
That’s beautiful Corinne. One by one, each concept is dissolved. I can relate to your story. I remember having silly guilty thoughts about the idea of “letting go of ACIM and being student (and teacher.” Who am I without it? The Answer: FREE I love your analogy of “standing on roller skates”…there’s something very effortless in all of this. I appreciate your sharing…Much love, Craig
Thank you Craig! The roller skate image is EXACTLY how it felt… it was guidance that I wasn’t resisting and was clearly moving me, but I felt like “WTF is happening?!” at the same time. LOL! xo
Your sharing helps me. Please keep it up. Thank you
Thank you Dan! I will ♥
I think this blog is so awesome Corrinne!
What you have shared here has helped me to look at an area of my seeming experience with love rather than fear.
The question “who am I without ACIM is brilliant, because it suggests our identity can change, based on something – an image that seems to be external or “outside” ourselves. What is ACIM but a tool of awakening? It can also be used as an example of Unconscious Guilt, if we are holding the belief anywhere that we’re not being a “good” student. The blog expresses this beautifully. Innocence isn’t dependent on A Course In Miracles. Innocence IS because God IS. It’s what we are. Innocence isn’t temporary, and can’t be changed no matter what “seems” to be!
Thank you for your beautiful comment, Deedre! I LOVE what you wrote: “Innocence isn’t dependent on A Course In Miracles. Innocence IS because God IS. It’s what we are. Innocence isn’t temporary, and can’t be changed no matter what “seems” to be!” SO PERFECT!! Love you!! xo
Oh dear!
This really helped med shift focus. The big step from within the world,or the dream, to out of the dream onto The Big I AM; still remaining, but in deeper peace.
Thank you so much!
I always experience difficult pains and conflicts before new insight. This helps me not to be so hard on myself, and others!! <3
Beautiful, Gunnel! That certainly does help us not be so hard on ourselves and on others. The GOOD news is that we also don’t need the pain to grow, but it has been quite a catalyst for me. Yay for awakening 🙂
Thanks Corinne, especially for your sharing about your feelings regarding animals and the environment….I thought I was “the only one” who had those deep feelings (an ego thought for sure, but in my Experience other people weren’t expressing that sort of grief over those images, as you did)
Thank you for putting into words (or trying to) your transcendent experience…
As an aside, you in particular represent a particular Forgiveness Lesson, b/c when I see videos of you, I try to just hear your message, but you SO REMIND me of a woman from a past job (“I see only the past”!!) who was part of a large entangled corporate structure that involved my going down a very confusing road…. Of course I Could look at it as part of the whole scenario which has lead me to find the Course! Anyway, it’s also kind of funny how when I look at your Image as Corinne, you look and have the exact voice as the other woman (can’t even remember her name), but what a funny “Teaching”!!
Love,
Cathy
Hi Cathy! Thank you for your beautiful comment.. and your words about “I see only the past” are too funny! What a wonderful lesson in forgiveness LOL! You mentioned that you could look at the scenario as having led you to the Course, and I very much resonate with that. Although my initial reaction was anger at the person who sent me the video (my crying got in the way of some work that needed to get done – and it is quite funny to have a reaction of wanting to punch someone after witnessing brutality), that video let me to this very experience of deep letting go and a willing to wake up FROM the dream. That wouldn’t have happened (at least not right away) if that video had not been sent to me. I became willing to take complete responsibility for what I saw, as it was an image coming from within me (and the anger response is certainly evidence of the ego thought system in my own mind). Thank you so much for sharing!! xo
Hey Corinne… the minister from my church just sent me your piece on letting go of acim. It is so grrreat you are sharing this important info Corinne. A couple of years ago I felt kinda bored with acim… like it didn’t have the exciting pull that it once had….and I also shared this with JMS (I had just organized an event here for him on Oahu) and he was sharing with me about ACOL… I instantly had a feeling to change my acim class over to an acol class (A Course of Love)… and JMS said woohooo :)… and so I did, and it has been a strong group who love acol these past 2 years or so. ACIM is still very much in my heart today…but just not in my head lol. I still share and teach on acim quite often, and acol, and wom (Way of Mastery). And today I am feeling that these are all like jumping boards / spring boards…. and I share about the messages from these books… but I have come to feel that I have all the answers within. they are all in me… as the books are all in me… and written by me lol (and by all of us as the One)… I appreciate the books, but yeah, we do come with wholly empty arms… I often feel and share that 🙂 I Love your sharing Corinne!! Mahaaaalo! 🙂
Thx for sharing such an important piece. Love you! Robyn xx
Thank you for your beautiful reply, Robyn! It’s funny… at the moment I don’t feel guided to study anything else but like you said, I’m just showing up with “wholly empty hands.” You’re SO right that these are all spring boards to the same place. It feels so good to have let go of this identity attached to being a student of a particular pathway… I seriously feel so much lighter. I also think it is so funny that your minister sent you this from halfway around the world LOL! Mahalo! xoxo
Oh Corinne!
Another irony. This insight came to you from a movie about a chicken that awakened you from the “movie” of your life.
Let’s have a laugh about it all. I think I hear Jesus over in the corner cracking up right now….. he had a hand in this, and he’s no more real than the rest of it!
I will say it with you….
“I am willing to know what I AM and let go of my limited identity as Christy the image maker. I want to know the Love of what we are because I want healing for ALL.”
I love you so much-
That’s too funny Christy! Thank you for joining with me willingness to wake UP.
Hi Corrine,
After studying ACIM for twenty years, and recently beginning to teach it, during another period of life challenges, I was searching ACIM for answers. But, out of nowhere Jesus whispered to me to drop the Course. Really? How could I do that? It has been my trusted friend for years. I felt ungrateful at the thought of tossing it aside. Then the next day, the handle to my black lawyer brief case, that I also carry ACIM in, suddenly broke, DROPPING the brief case and ACIM to the ground. I got the message. I sat at my kitchen table and heard and had the feeling of I Am, I Just Am.
I still study and teach the Course but for me the goal has changed. Over and over Jesus states in ACIM that the goal is to know ThySelf. Our I Am Love Presence. We will only be at Peace when we remember our True Identity. Therein in is the Peace of God.
Peace, Paul
This is SO wonderful Paul, it gave me goosebumps! I love the humor in your brief case falling to the ground. I’m on the same page with you, although I’m still teaching from ACIM something big has shifted… I just want to wake up. Thank you for your amazing comment!
Hi, just watching, learning and listening to all your thoughts. Thank you for sharing. I’m definitely ( Swype wrote ‘divinely’, lol) on the same plane about releasing acim from my sticky grasp and coming to God with empty hands … More later. Off to sleep now.
This is beautiful, Netta. Thank you!
Yeah I’m with you
Hi Corinne I’ve been thinking heavily about going back to A Course in Miracles study. I read your article and I’d like to see if I can get some clarity about something that you wrote in it. You mentioned something about seeing a video and that you realized you were projecting the image. But if I was standing right next to you looking at that same video we would be seeing the exact same thing right? In fact, if you would have Place thousands of people or even Millions in front of that same video and we all watched it together how could we all be projecting the exact same thing to the exact same motion and detail?
Hi Vince! Thanks for your question. In addition to our individual projections and dreams, there IS a collective component happening as well. It’s as if we’ve collectively agreed to believe in false ideas and have therefore made them real for ourselves, so we can all keep staying asleep and believing in the dream of separation. We each must do our part in healing the ONE mind. I hope that helps!
Makes sense about “healing the One mind”. I was on search through internet about …let go of this course and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.
Hi Corrine, Thank you so much for sharing! Reading this makes me feel not so alone on my ACIM and truth remembering journey! I very much relate to not wanting to identify with a particular teaching, but I feel myself cling sometimes as if it’s my lifeline only to find that when I relinquish it and go within I find the real relief and truth. Nice to journey with you on this path 🙂
Oops spelt your name wrong sorry Corinne! 🙂
Dear Corinne,
thanks you so much for this wonderful experience sharing. I was googling “a course in miracle death of animals” because I felt so much pain after this afternoon we have visited our neighbors house in our winter domicil and when I asked him what his profession is, he answered “butcher”… I didn´t really understand why there still was so much pain inside myself as I tried to “forgive” the butcher outside…
Now after your article I understand it…
Thanks so much brother
Lots of love and all the best
Thank you, Corinne. It was very good for me to find you and this website. I was searching for an understanding about “Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.”.
I plan to keep up with finding more that you and others share here. My son and I are going through some rough times in life. I sent him one of the ACIM quotes as I mentioned above. He had asked me a question this morning about what did I think the Course in Miracles might say about his current situation in life. We then had a discussion by way of texting about forgiveness and prayers.
Thank you for this great website, Yolande Persico
Thank you for sharing this, Yolande! I’m sending so much love to you and your son. xo