A Course in Miracles is divided into several sections. The section on which these articles focus is the "Workbook for Students." It contains 365 lessons, one for each day of the year.
A few weeks after I began reading the lessons, I realized that sometimes I would think I should start over, since I had not "done it perfectly" or completely understood the lesson. These thoughts were invariably followed by others that dismissed them. Imperfectly done is infinitely better than undone. Perhaps the first lesson I gleaned from ACIM was that my best is good enough.
I have not started over again. It will take me more than a year to finish reading all the lessons, and that is perfectly acceptable. Reading the book is still changing my life, and all I have had to do was give my consent and read it.
The first lessons of ACIM deal with the fact that human perception is flawed. Not only do we assign meanings to what we see, but we often assign wrong meanings to what we see based on our history. This is roughly analogous to the Buddhist concept of samsara, the condition of illusion and pain in which humans exist. The Christians call it the "vale of tears." The lessons assert that the world created by my perception is wholly different from the world God made, and if I want, God will show me the world from His perspective.
Example: I pick up my husband's phone and see a message from Chris. I don't know Chris, but I want to know why she is leaving messages for my husband. I begin to think of ways I can prevent them from having an affair, or break up the one they've already begun. Now the facts: Chris is short for Christopher. He is a new employee whom my husband is mentoring. Nevertheless, I have experienced the jealousy, rage, hurt, and fear just as I would have if my scenario had been true, and most cruelly of all, for no reason whatever.
ACIM shows me that the misery in this example is self-inflicted and unnecessary, that my first thoughts about a situation are apt to be wrong, and that I can save myself from many afflictive emotions simply by suspending judgement.
There are probably dozens of self-help books and thousands of psychologists that purport to tell me the same thing, but here is the important difference: ACIM works. I have read those books; I have delved my psyche with psychologists, but my thought processes never really changed. I realized a short time ago that all I really needed to do was give my consent to change, and reading the book would do the rest.
Next: Connecting to God
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Comments: 7
That doesn't mean, though, that the Sacred can't also empower ordinary self-help messages, too...It's really fascinating to watch the trails of Mystery and human change.
in little lessons
Open windows
To a new reality.
Last summer, magi introduced myself as well as two others to ACIM. All three of us read about the Course on line....the others were not ready to start their journey. I, on the other hand, was intrigued and decided to give it ago. Although we have literally hundreds of books on spirituality that Papa has bought and read religiously, I on the other hand never felt the need to read anything. My God resided within me and I had a warm personable kinship with him that matured with solitary walks by the sea and in the woods.
But it was a solitary walk...one in silence. I think the Holy Spirit within knew that it was time for me to meet others and to continue this journey holding hands and reaching out to others along the path and so it was written in eternity that first I would meet Magi through his Easter poems and then Minnie and Jan and now you Ann.
Yes, magi can attest, I had a difficult time with the lessons in the beginning. I would read the lesson of the day and my ego would cause battle. "What do you mean the world means nothing to me? Walking a beach on a crystal clear morn does mean everything to me. And so the battle would rage and I would start the lessons over again thinking I "just wasn't getting it". Magi told me to just continue...don't feel the need to commit it to memory...it will come. And then he told me to start the text...and only then could I do the lessons in peace. Yes, the ego still gets in the way....but less and less.