School for A Course In Miracles

"The universe of learning will open up before you."

School for A Course In Miracles

“The universe of learning will open up before you in all its gracious simplicity.” T-14. II. 6:4
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Musings: On ‘Idols’ in “A Course in Miracles”

Idols & Idolatry

(The word ‘idol’ is used 172 times in the Course)

Definitions of “Idol” from Ken Wapnick’s Glossary of Course Terms:

  1. A false belief that there can be something or someone other than God or more than God.

  2. Symbol of the substitution of the ego for our one true Self or God.

  3. A belief in separation projected onto special relationships with things, people, or ideas.

  4. The Anti-Christ

 

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The first idol we made-up in our minds (and in a sense worshipped) was our belief that we could be a separated Son of God, autonomous and distinct from our Father in Heaven. The Course calls that “new” identity/idol ego. This silly belief gets projected onto time and space, with all our worldly idols a reflection of that original mistaken error.

These ‘idols’ includes all our special love and hate relationships, with things and people we like, and things and people we don’t like. All those “idols” are simply mirrors of that believed separation within us in our mind. That is their purpose in the world… to keep us involved in all the worldly drama, and not realize their source.

The way out, of taking this seemingly gigantic hallucination seriously, is to see past those worldly idols and be willing to have an experience beyond them (with Jesus and the Holy Spirit’s help), to the true innocence of others and ourselves as God’s One Son, still intact. The Course calls that willingness forgiveness.

 

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Use of Word “Idols” in the Course:

 

 

 

 

  • Ch. 10, Sec. III, p.185, par. 1 & 5 “The God of Sickness”… on idol of sickness:

“A sick god must be an idol...that is exactly what the ego does perceive in a Son of God….a sick god, self-created, self-sufficient, very vicious and vulnerable.”

 

 

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  • Ch. 20, Sec. VI, p.436  “The Temple of the Holy Spirit” … on bodies as idols:

“The body is the ego’s idol...a wall of flesh around the mind.”

 

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  • Ch. 29, Sec. VII, p.617. par. 6 “Seek not Outside Yourself” … on idol of death:

“Idols must fail/fall because they have no life…you came to die…and you see death and disappointment everywhere.”

 

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  • Ch. 29, Sec. VIII, p.619 “The Anti-Christ” … on the idol of Anti-Christ:

“What is an idol? Nothing… Where is an idol? Nowhere.”

 

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  • Ch.29, Sec. IX, p.622 “The Forgiving Dream” … on idols as nightmarish toys:

“Whenever you feel fear in any form… be sure you have made an idol, and believe it will betray you.”

 

 

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  • Ch. 30, Sec. III, p.630 “Beyond All Idols”… on seeking idols to complete us:

“This is the purpose of an idol: that you will not look beyond (your needing) it, to the source of the belief that you are incomplete.”

 

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  • Ch. 30, Sec. IV, p.633 “The Truth behind Illusions”… more on idols as toys:

“The wearying, dissatisfying gods you made are blown-up children’s toys…The rules he (the child) made for boxes and for bears have failed him…and he is afraid.”

 

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  • Ch. 30, Sec. V, p.635 “The Only Purpose”… on idols as blocks to the real world:

Our experience of the Real World takes place… “when we learn how easily our idols go when not wanted any more.”

Next Saturday (10/27) Seminar on Death & Dying

Click on pics below for more info:

ACIM One Day Seminar on:

Fearless Dying.

“Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem… Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one.”   (Manual for Teachers #27)

Sat., Oct. 27, 2018

9:30am-4:30pm

@ Rocky Mountain Miracle Center

 

Latest Video Course Chat on

“Grace: What is it; how do I get it?”

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k7L6Q5d0OY&t=51s

Click here if video doesn’t appear above…

 

 


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Christmas Retreat

Dec. 7-9, 2018

in Colorado Springs:

Course Immersion One 2019,

Six Month Intensive from January thru June 2019,

(Available In-person and Online)

A Course in Miracles - combined volume - hardbound - English

An ultimate in Course education and practice!

Come, study, and experience A Course in Miracles with our School for ACIM facilitators (who have collectively learned, practiced, and taught the Course for over a 100 years ). This is a six month program, from January 1st, 2019 through the end of June. We cover and explore in-depth all of the fundamental ideas on forgiveness and healing in the Course, and the how-to’s for application in our everyday lives.

 

Ken Wapnick You Tube Videos… on “Christmas and The New Year”

Ken Wapnick dark bkgnd

Five minute youtube clips on Ken Wapnick speaking about Christmas:

 

 

 

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and the New Year:

Also…

A New Kind of New Year’s Resolution :

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feQXDh-H-6M

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“On Ken’s Relationship with Helen”,” 10 minutes,  (click here);

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One Hour Interview with Ken Wapnick By Ken Bok... click here

 

See latest book release from FACIM based on Ken’s writings: click here

And… A Tribute to Ken upon His Passing:

Ken was my teacher, living example of the Course and dear friend. My first experience of Ken was hearing a cassette of “this guy from New York who edited that course” explaining why I’d immediately forget the paragraph in the text that I just read. My last experience of Ken was at the Foundation workshop I attended last year where he once again illuminated the Course’s holy trinity: Forgiveness, Love and Joining.

I was overjoyed when the Foundation relocated to Temecula, and I could get my heart and soul refreshed and reawakened in The Oasis of Peace that Ken made the Foundation. I delighted in watching him welcome new and veteran Course students with smiles, hugs, the occasional prank and always loving attentiveness to each of us.

Ken truly brought the Course to life. I sought his help when I was in a desperate heart of darkness period. This was just one of the many conversations we had during that dark time. Through tears I said, “Ken, I feel as if I’ve painted myself into a corner and can’t get out.” Ken reflected a moment, and looking at me lovingly with his familiar impish smile said, “You don’t have to wait for the paint to dry.” I see his smile and feel his love now and always.

Jack B.

 

Milwaukee ACIM Sat. 2/9/19 Seminar On Course Fundamentals

 

The Fundamental Metaphysics of “A Course in Miracles”

… A foundation for the pathway home:

Are you curious about what “The Course in Miracles” is REALLY about?  Are you a new student or are you someone that picked up the “Course” book years ago but, never read it, however, never threw it out?  This four hour workshop teaches the basic “bones” of the “Course.” For new students it is an opportunity to gain a better understanding of this miraculous message, a beginning to a new way of seeing.  For seasoned students it provides enhanced learning, as spirit always offers new messages, a deepening in understanding, and the opportunity of learning a lesson of love. 

Saturday, February 9th

12:30 to 4:30 pm

Cost: $30

Location:

Light of Grace Healing & Ed Center

5900 W. National Ave., West Allis (Milwaukee), Wisconsin 

For full details and to RSVP click here:  Fundamentals

 

 

Musings… How Could the Separation Ever Have Happened??

 


(by Tim Wise)

In the 1980’s the Talking Heads rock group had a song that kept repeating the line… “Well, how did I get here?”

Probably the most often question ever asked by both new and ongoing Course students is this: How did we/why would we ever leave the oneness and the peace of Heaven, and then separate into something else… if oneness is our true reality. 

What is the Course’s short and quick answer to “How did the impossible happen?”… It didn’t!

 

 

There are actually three ways the Course approaches and doesn’t answer this ego-based inquiry:

(1) It’s An Assertion, Not a Question

1) It’s not really an innocent question, the Course explains, but rather a statement masquerading as a question. We have already wrongly defined ourselves as separated beings. Now we are similar to two year olds throwing a fit and stamping our feet, insisting on something not real or helpful. We are demanding an explanation from God as to how that exodus from Heaven took place. As with any loving and caring father dealing with a tantrum, there’s not a lot He can say… but simply quietly wait for the tantrum to stop.   (Text: p. 376, par.4  &  The Quiet Answer p. 574-6)

“Who asks you to define the ego and explain how it arose can be but he who thinks it real, and seeks by definition to ensure that its illusive nature is concealed behind the words that seem to make it so” (Man. p. 81 par. 2).

 

 (2) It’s Not Only in the Past- It’s Happening Now Too!

2) At one point Jesus said to Bill Thetford, when Bill asked him about how the separation happened… “why are you asking about something that seemingly happened in the past (The Big Separation from God), when you believe you are doing it right now?” In any given moment there is only one of two thoughts being projected into our awareness in time and space… either separation (and it’s not our fault), or forgiveness (the Course’s Atonement principle which says separation never did happen, and isn’t happening even now). That all solely depends on which internal teacher we are choosing in this very second, the ego or the Holy Spirit. (Text p.85, par. 6 & p.179, par. 11-12)

“It is reasonable to ask how the mind could ever have made the ego. In fact, it is the best question you could ask. (Because, the ‘best’ answer is…. it din’t.) There is, however, no point in giving an answer in terms of the past because the past does not matter, and history would not exist if the same errors were not being repeated in the present” (Ch. 4, p. 56, Sec. II, par. 1).

 

 

(3) Ask for An Experience, Not An Explanation

3) And finally the most comforting description of this process of addressing this belief… Jesus says that when we practice forgiveness in our minds with others and ourselves, this question/belief will simply fade away, into the unreality from which it came. In other words, an experience of our true connection and identity as one Son of God is the direct result of forgiveness. We will know the disconnect never happened, despite the separated images we still seem to see. Then the question “well, how did I get here” becomes irrelevant, and we totally lose our investment in needing an impossible answer to a silly question. The simple answer to the question “how did the the separation ever happen?” is… it didn’t.     (Manual p. 77, par. 3-4)

“The ego will demand many answers that this course does not give. It does not recognize as questions the mere form of a question to which an answer is impossible. The ego may ask, ‘How did the impossible occur?’, ‘To what did the impossible happen?’, and may ask this in many forms. Yet there is no answer; only an experience. Seek only this, and do not let theology delay you.” (Man. p. 77 par.4)

 

https://youtu.be/_lQYJCYIIsA

For further discussion of our ‘leaving Heaven’

see Ken Wapnick’s CD set or MP3 download on

“The Four Splits” (click here),

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For an SFACIM post on the ‘way back’ to Heaven thru

“The 3 Steps of Forgiveness”:  click here