The Way • The Truth • The Life
A COURSE IN MIRACLES
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o n l i n e
What Is A Course In Miracles?
The Experience of A Course In Miracles
Excerpt of A Discourse by The Master Teacher
Excerpt of A Discourse by The Master Teacher
• I have stated that the basic concepts referred to in A Course In Miracles are not matters of degree. Certain fundamental concepts cannot be understood in terms of opposites. It is impossible to conceive of light and darkness or everything and nothing as joint possibilities. They are all true or all false. It is essential that you realize your thinking will be erratic until a firm commitment to one or the other is made.
• The whole purpose of A Course In Miracles is to teach you that the ego is unbelievable and will forever be unbelievable.
• Knowledge is not the motivation for learning A Course In Miracles. Peace is. This is the prerequisite for knowledge only because those who are in conflict are not peaceful, and peace is the condition of knowledge because it is the condition of the Kingdom.
• A Course In Miracles is a very practical course, and one that means exactly what it says. I would not ask you to do things you cannot do, and it is impossible that I could do things you cannot do. Given this, and given this quite literally, nothing can prevent you from doing exactly what I ask, and everything argues for your doing it. I give you no limits because God lays none upon you.
• The purpose of A Course In Miracles is to help you remember what you are, and if you believe that what you are is fearful, then it must follow that you will not learn the course. Yet the reason for the Course is that you do not know what you are.
• The Course In Miracles states, and repeatedly, that its purpose is the escape from fear.
• A Course In Miracles offers a very direct and a very simple learning situation, and provides the Guide Who tells you what to do. If you do it, you will see that it works. Its results are more convincing than its words. They will convince you that the words are true. By following the right Guide, you will learn the simplest of all lessons: By their fruits ye shall know them, and they shall know themselves.
• The whole purpose of A Course In Miracles is to teach you that the ego is unbelievable and will forever be unbelievable.
• Knowledge is not the motivation for learning A Course In Miracles. Peace is. This is the prerequisite for knowledge only because those who are in conflict are not peaceful, and peace is the condition of knowledge because it is the condition of the Kingdom.
• A Course In Miracles is a very practical course, and one that means exactly what it says. I would not ask you to do things you cannot do, and it is impossible that I could do things you cannot do. Given this, and given this quite literally, nothing can prevent you from doing exactly what I ask, and everything argues for your doing it. I give you no limits because God lays none upon you.
• The purpose of A Course In Miracles is to help you remember what you are, and if you believe that what you are is fearful, then it must follow that you will not learn the course. Yet the reason for the Course is that you do not know what you are.
• The Course In Miracles states, and repeatedly, that its purpose is the escape from fear.
• A Course In Miracles offers a very direct and a very simple learning situation, and provides the Guide Who tells you what to do. If you do it, you will see that it works. Its results are more convincing than its words. They will convince you that the words are true. By following the right Guide, you will learn the simplest of all lessons: By their fruits ye shall know them, and they shall know themselves.
This is the illuminate process going on for you now, isn’t it? You are having very lovely revelation. This is what A Course In Miracles is, it brings about, through experience, the realization of God. That’s what you are doing. You are doing A Course In Miracles. You are having the experience of reality for the first time. The teaching is that if you can’t get it now, you won’t be able to get it later, will you? So what good is that possibly going to do you? No good! This is a Course in the transformation of the mind, not the observation of the transformation. This Course now, as we are going to present it to you today, is for the rapidly-maturing mind through the auspices of Jesus Christ. This is the teaching of the metamorphosis of man coming from his chaotic perceptual associations to the realization of His universal wholeness in love. Is that so? Is that what has happened to you? Where does the verification for this occur? Here on earth? No! Now we are into the teaching. This cannot be verified here because there is no evidence of divine love present in perceptual defensive associations. That is a fact. You are hearing this very plainly.
What is then necessary for the perceptual mind to come to the realization of singularity? Transformation! Staying out of A Course In Miracles for just a moment, the whole dilemma of human consciousness of perceptual mind is what? The need to know what you are -- the need to know what this is, to seek within your associate consciousness the peace and the happiness and the joy and the love that you feel inherently a part of, that is what you are. And seek it you must! And find it you must, reasonably, if you seek it. From a very reasonable standpoint, if you were to look at it, why it is that you could seek something and not find it? But if you carry that a step further, teaching singularity, how is it that you don’t know it? Could you, in fact, search for something that you don’t already know? No! Not reasonably. This is the teaching of Shankara, this is the declaration of singularity. It is the single assertion that separation cannot be real because finally there must a single, whole beingness -- a universal condition of reality. It makes absolutely no difference what you call that, of course not, what difference does it make? That’s God! Now you will bring, inevitably, your idea of God -- God is an idea because mind is the idea or mechanism of the assertion of creative capacity which is inherent in the creative whole structure of universal consciousness. You cannot not create because that is what you are. But here is the dilemma: Consciousness must still be singular. The idea of separate things communicating does not make sense in the reasoning process. This is a fact, not using A Course In Miracles. All they would be able to do would be to judge themselves in their perceptual associations with themselves. Obviously, separate things would have to have, reasonably, different sources. Now, somewhere, reasonably, there could be an idea of different sources, but how are they different? If they are different, they must be in fundamental conflict with each other. It is impossible that this be so. You cannot break off a piece of the whole and have a whole. This is the premise of the teachings of Jesus Christ in A Course In Miracles because it is simply the premise of all wholemindedness. This cannot not be so. This is singularity. It is not really open to question. It is the ontological assertion of a human being that there is ultimately a whole, divine relationship with himself in accordance with his perceptual principles of harmony. He has to know that -- and he does know it. Not only does he know it, but he shares it.
Here is the direction we will take: from an illuminate mind, from this mind, which is illuminate, the Course In Miracles, Jesus Christ, which is illuminate, we will direct to you the manner in which you may make application of your perceptual relationships to the determination of your whole self as God or truth created you. That’s A Course In Miracles. What we are going to do is construct A Course In Miracles reasonably within a statement of whole time, as it declares, without the necessity for an historic frame of reference, with the declaration that it is happening to you now, with the assertion that it requires the transformation of your mind, and with the declaration that there is, all around you, evidence of that transformation if you are willing to seek it and make allowances for it in your own perceptual associations. Got it? That’s what has happened to you.
To be continued...
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What is then necessary for the perceptual mind to come to the realization of singularity? Transformation! Staying out of A Course In Miracles for just a moment, the whole dilemma of human consciousness of perceptual mind is what? The need to know what you are -- the need to know what this is, to seek within your associate consciousness the peace and the happiness and the joy and the love that you feel inherently a part of, that is what you are. And seek it you must! And find it you must, reasonably, if you seek it. From a very reasonable standpoint, if you were to look at it, why it is that you could seek something and not find it? But if you carry that a step further, teaching singularity, how is it that you don’t know it? Could you, in fact, search for something that you don’t already know? No! Not reasonably. This is the teaching of Shankara, this is the declaration of singularity. It is the single assertion that separation cannot be real because finally there must a single, whole beingness -- a universal condition of reality. It makes absolutely no difference what you call that, of course not, what difference does it make? That’s God! Now you will bring, inevitably, your idea of God -- God is an idea because mind is the idea or mechanism of the assertion of creative capacity which is inherent in the creative whole structure of universal consciousness. You cannot not create because that is what you are. But here is the dilemma: Consciousness must still be singular. The idea of separate things communicating does not make sense in the reasoning process. This is a fact, not using A Course In Miracles. All they would be able to do would be to judge themselves in their perceptual associations with themselves. Obviously, separate things would have to have, reasonably, different sources. Now, somewhere, reasonably, there could be an idea of different sources, but how are they different? If they are different, they must be in fundamental conflict with each other. It is impossible that this be so. You cannot break off a piece of the whole and have a whole. This is the premise of the teachings of Jesus Christ in A Course In Miracles because it is simply the premise of all wholemindedness. This cannot not be so. This is singularity. It is not really open to question. It is the ontological assertion of a human being that there is ultimately a whole, divine relationship with himself in accordance with his perceptual principles of harmony. He has to know that -- and he does know it. Not only does he know it, but he shares it.
Here is the direction we will take: from an illuminate mind, from this mind, which is illuminate, the Course In Miracles, Jesus Christ, which is illuminate, we will direct to you the manner in which you may make application of your perceptual relationships to the determination of your whole self as God or truth created you. That’s A Course In Miracles. What we are going to do is construct A Course In Miracles reasonably within a statement of whole time, as it declares, without the necessity for an historic frame of reference, with the declaration that it is happening to you now, with the assertion that it requires the transformation of your mind, and with the declaration that there is, all around you, evidence of that transformation if you are willing to seek it and make allowances for it in your own perceptual associations. Got it? That’s what has happened to you.
To be continued...
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A Course In Miracles is exactly what the title says – a course in miracles. If you picked up a book called "A Course In Mayan Cooking", you would expect it to teach you Mayan cooking. The Course In Miracles is no different in that respect. It teaches you miracles – what they are, how they happen, how to make them happen, and how to recognize that they are happening. The similarity, however ends there. The Course is alive. It's you. It's an emanation of your Christ Mind. Words fail entirely to describe it. It is an experience.
It is written by the greatest Miracle Worker that we know – namely Jesus Christ of Nazareth himself. Yes, indeed, the selfsame resurrected and ascended Master.
So let's have the author of A Course In Miracles tell us what the Course is.
The First thing he says is that this is A Course In Miracles. He then goes on to say that the Course is "a required Course". You have no choice in the matter. You have to take it. You can, however, decide when you take it, not if.
Here are some other thing Jesus Christ says in the course about the Course In Miracles specifically:
• A Course In Miracles is a course in mind training. All learning involves attention and study at some level. Some of the later parts of the course rest too heavily on the earlier sections not to require their careful study. You will also need them for preparation. Without this, you may become much too fearful of what is to come to make constructive use of it. However, as you study the earlier sections of the Course in Miracles, you will begin to see some of the implications that will be amplified later on.
• Some of the later steps in A Course In Miracles, involve a more direct approach to God Himself. It would be unwise to start on these steps without careful preparation, or awe will be confused with fear, and the experience will be more traumatic than beatific. Healing is of God in the end. The means are carefully explained to you early in the Course. Revelation may occasionally reveal the end to you, but to reach it the means are needed.
• The first principle in A Course In Miracles is that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. In reality you are perfectly unaffected by all expressions of lack of love. These can be from yourself and others, from yourself to others, or from others to you. Peace is an attribute in you. You cannot find it outside.
• I have already indicated that you cannot ask me to release you from fear. I know it does not exist, but you do not. If I intervened between your thoughts and their results, I would be tampering with a basic law of cause and effect; the most fundamental law there is. I would hardly help you if I depreciated the power of your own thinking. This would be in direct opposition to the purpose of A Course In Miracles. It is much more helpful to remind you that you do not guard your thoughts carefully enough. You may feel that at this point it would take a miracle to enable you to do this, which is perfectly true. You are not used to miracle-minded thinking, but you can be trained to think that way. All miracle workers need that kind of training.
It is written by the greatest Miracle Worker that we know – namely Jesus Christ of Nazareth himself. Yes, indeed, the selfsame resurrected and ascended Master.
So let's have the author of A Course In Miracles tell us what the Course is.
The First thing he says is that this is A Course In Miracles. He then goes on to say that the Course is "a required Course". You have no choice in the matter. You have to take it. You can, however, decide when you take it, not if.
Here are some other thing Jesus Christ says in the course about the Course In Miracles specifically:
• A Course In Miracles is a course in mind training. All learning involves attention and study at some level. Some of the later parts of the course rest too heavily on the earlier sections not to require their careful study. You will also need them for preparation. Without this, you may become much too fearful of what is to come to make constructive use of it. However, as you study the earlier sections of the Course in Miracles, you will begin to see some of the implications that will be amplified later on.
• Some of the later steps in A Course In Miracles, involve a more direct approach to God Himself. It would be unwise to start on these steps without careful preparation, or awe will be confused with fear, and the experience will be more traumatic than beatific. Healing is of God in the end. The means are carefully explained to you early in the Course. Revelation may occasionally reveal the end to you, but to reach it the means are needed.
• The first principle in A Course In Miracles is that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. In reality you are perfectly unaffected by all expressions of lack of love. These can be from yourself and others, from yourself to others, or from others to you. Peace is an attribute in you. You cannot find it outside.
• I have already indicated that you cannot ask me to release you from fear. I know it does not exist, but you do not. If I intervened between your thoughts and their results, I would be tampering with a basic law of cause and effect; the most fundamental law there is. I would hardly help you if I depreciated the power of your own thinking. This would be in direct opposition to the purpose of A Course In Miracles. It is much more helpful to remind you that you do not guard your thoughts carefully enough. You may feel that at this point it would take a miracle to enable you to do this, which is perfectly true. You are not used to miracle-minded thinking, but you can be trained to think that way. All miracle workers need that kind of training.
