• Home
  • Faculty/Ark of Peace
    • New to A Course in Miracles??
    • SFACIM Dedication, Mission, and Vision (under nonprofit “Ark of Peace”
    • Our Teachers
    • The Teacher-Pupil Relationship
    • The Community of Love
    • Ark of Peace Nonprofit Org. (Includes SFACIM)
  • ACIM
    • How It Came
    • What It Is
    • What It Says
    • Foundation for A Course In Miracles (FACIM)
  • Classes/Events
    • Calendar
    • Recommended for Newcomers
    • Ongoing Classes
    • Past Classes and Events
  • Resources
  • Musings
    • Lyn Corona
    • Conversations with Ken Wapnick
  • Mentoring

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
  • Beginners: New to ACIM?
  • Online ACIM Immersion Program
  • Audio
  • Video
  • Contact SFACIM
  • Topic Index/Site Map
You are here: Home / Archives for Contributors / Susan Dugan

A Conversation with Ken Wapnick: “The Course really works, if you work at it and smile!” … by Susan Dugan

May 6, 2019

NOTE: Clinical psychologist, teacher, and author Kenneth Wapnick, PhD, had taught A Course in Miracles since 1973 ( Ken passed away a few years ago), and had worked closely with Course Scribe Helen Schucman and Collaborator Bill Thetford in preparing its final manuscript. With his wife, Gloria, he was president and co-founder of The Foundation for A Course In Miracles (FACIM) in Temecula, California.

In the following conversation, Ken Wapnick generously answered all my questions about the daily practice of forgiveness, the fear and resistance that arises on our journey home, and how to keep our faith and focus on being kind, gentle, and patient with ourselves and other Course students while learning to smile with our inner teacher at all we still use to push love away.

(See Susan Dugan’s Website for more interesting stories and articles by Susan.)


Susan: I recently found myself in a lot of fear around this Course; feeling stuck and judging myself for it. You told me to remember not to take it seriously. How can we be serious about practicing forgiveness day-to-day while simultaneously not taking it seriously?

Ken: Well, the daily practice really is not to take it seriously. The principle is that line at the end of Chapter 27, “Into eternity where all was one there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh.” The problem is not the ego—which means not any of the problems a person thinks he or she has—or the difficulty a person thinks he or she has with the Course. The problem is the reaction to it. The whole idea of not taking it seriously or learning to laugh at it does not mean you minimize it or deny it or make believe it hasn’t happened but that you recognize that the problem is never the form. The problem is always the mind’s decision.

Anything you do during the day whether it’s related to the Course or something else in your life; the key is always to bring it back to the mind’s decision maker. The problem is not the ego or its expression in thought or behavior, not what’s in the wrong-minded box because how could an illusion be a problem? What the Course calls the Holy Spirit which really is just our right-minded thinking or sanity; that’s not the answer either. The answer lies in choosing the right mind just like the problem lies in choosing the ego. That’s where people really get kind of confused.

The key is always to bring it back to the power of the mind to choose, not to bring it back to Jesus or the Holy Spirit as some magical figure. The problem is simply the choice about wanting to remain in the dream or awaken from it. So that even when one is having a bad time with the Course or a relationship or sickness or something that’s happening in the world, it’s not what it seems. The problem is never external. The practice is always bringing the problem back to the mind from where we projected it.

Susan: OK, so here’s a not so serious question: In many of your CDs you joke that Jesus can’t stand Course students.

Ken: (Laughs) You can’t blame him, can you?

Susan: Not really. 🙂 So, what are the characteristics of A Course in Miracles students that tick Jesus off most?

Ken: Well, it’s their seriousness. I sometimes also say that if you read the Gospels it never, ever says that Jesus laughed. It never says he smiled. It describes him as getting angry, as weeping. Ultimately the Jesus of the Bible is not the Jesus of the Course. The Jesus of the Course is always smiling. But in a sense, that’s the issue. When I say that half-jokingly, it’s the seriousness Course students have, the seriousness with the Course that makes them judge other people, judge other Course students and other Course teachers. It’s what makes them say such unkind things to people who are sick–namely that “sickness is a defense against the truth”–things that tend to be so insensitive.

I’ve probably quoted that one line in the text about remembering not to laugh more in thirty-five years of teaching than any other because that’s the problem. I also say that sin, separation, the ego can’t be the problem because how can an illusion be a problem? If people could recognize that and then apply that and generalize it to everything during their day it would change everything. That’s what’s in back of the line “Seek not to change the world, choose to change your mind about it.” How can a non-existent world be the problem?

The mistake people sometimes make after my saying something like that is that it turns you into someone who’s insensitive and doesn’t pay attention to anything, but it doesn’t mean that at all. To really know the world does not exist allows you to be the kindest, most sensitive, most caring and loving person imaginable. Because you don’t get hooked into anything and so the love automatically flows through you and takes whatever form is most helpful. It doesn’t mean you don’t relate to the world but you relate without neediness or specialness and only with love.

So as you’re sitting and watching the election returns, for example, you can have real compassion.

Well, obviously you can watch how seriously everybody takes it including the commentators and realize that everybody lies and everybody’s the same no matter what side of the aisle you’re on, which is why nothing every changes.

Susan: Many Course students experience a real sense of loss as they begin to recognize the ego’s fleeting adrenaline highs for the defenses against all-inclusive, eternal Love they are and accept the true valuelessness of the world we once completely believed in. Can you speak to this phase?

Ken: Well, another source of confusion for people working with the Course is the confusion of body and mind. As long as you identify as a body, then it’s impossible to work with the Course and not feel a sense of loss because it says over and over again you’re not a body. Your body doesn’t think and feel and sense; doesn’t live, doesn’t die. Reading that as an individual body; how could you not feel a sense of loss that somehow the Course is taking something away from you? And, of course, it’s not taking something away from you; it’s simply showing you that what you thought you were was an illusion.

Even in the larger sense, it’s impossible to work with the Course without recognizing what specialness is. Specialness is our identity; we identify with our neediness, our special love, special hate. The Course is really exposing that for what it is. And so I think it’s almost impossible for a serious student as he or she goes through the Course over a period of years not to feel a sense of loss and a sense of sacrifice and then a consequent sense of resentment.

In another context that makes the same point, I’ve been accused by people over the years of taking Jesus away from them. Because what I emphasize is that the Jesus of the Course is not the Jesus of the Bible, not this magical Santa Claus to whom you turn over your problems without doing any work yourself. He’s not this person who heals problems in the world; and so people feel a sense of loss that the God, the Jesus they’ve prayed to is not the Jesus or God of the Course. Basically what students feel as loss is really the loss of their specialness. But, again, it all comes down to; am I a mind, or a body? If I choose to see myself as a body that feeling of loss and sacrifice is inevitable.

Susan: And that’s the fifth stage of the Development of Trust where it just takes a long time to let go of that specialness and we need to be patient with ourselves?

Ken: Well, it doesn’t specifically say that but, yes. Accepting the true valuelessness of one’s self in order to achieve the sixth stage is what takes a long time. The Course is meant to be taken literally in the sense that its goal is to help us awaken from the dream. And you can’t awaken from the dream when you think you’re still a dream figure, which means the body; you can only awaken when you realize you’re the dreamer, which means the mind. You’re the mind that can choose whether to awaken or not.

You know you’ve made some real progress with this Course when you recognize that the you being addressed in the Course is the decision-making mind and not the person you think you are. That’s a qualitative shift. But that’s really hard to hold onto because we read it as a person with eyes that think they see and a brain that thinks it thinks. And that shift that I’m not a body—and that’s why that line “I am not a body, I am free” appears more than any other in the workbook—is so important. People don’t realize that because it’s as if there’s a wall that separates what we intellectually know from what we really experience. So we may read and believe the words that the world is an illusion and the body’s not real and I’m not really here and at the same time experience ourselves very much as persons. And that’s what takes a long time; losing our belief in our identity.

Susan: In a recent newsletter article—”A Heroic Frame of Mind”—you describe the tendency of Course students “to arrogantly believe they have attained its magnitude” when they have not yet done the daily work of forgiveness. Can you give a specific example of how this might manifest in a Course student’s behavior?

Ken: Well, that gets back to one of your previous questions. In a sense you end up being very judgmental and unkind. Because if you really do the daily work you will minimize your ego which means that you recognize everyone is the same and your heart goes out to everyone because you feel the pain in everyone. When you don’t do that and think you’ve accomplished something when you haven’t it means the ego is still alive and well but it’s buried. And whenever it is buried it projects out and you end up separating, judging, attacking, and just being unkind.

You know I talk and write about kindness more than any other term these days because people just forget common decency; just being kind. I wrote an article, I did a workshop on a line that they attribute to Philo of Alexandria: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” And when you realize that everyone is fighting a hard battle then you realize that we all have the same split mind. But when you think you’ve understood the Course but you really haven’t that’s the arrogance of thinking that you’re ego free. And then the ego stays buried and the guilt stays buried.

I’ve pointed out that what has gone wrong with Christianity for 2100 years is Christians think that just because they profess that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord and savior, they are free. But they’re not aware of their own guilt and ego thought system so they continue projecting and that’s why Christians end up being just like Course students when they don’t do the work. They’re very self-righteous and they end up condemning and judging everyone. If you don’t deal with your ego which you have to work daily on doing in terms of exposing it and choosing against it, it stays there. You think you’re ego free and yet your ego is alive and well. You’re unaware that you’re continually choosing it which inevitably means you’ll project it, and then you won’t be kind. And you won’t realize that everybody in this world is suffering because the world is not their home.

Susan: In that same article you talk about “the humility of being wrong” which seems to be the real opening or prerequisite to forgiveness. From moment to moment, catching myself being unkind, wanting to hold on to my specialness, and then deciding again that’s not what I really want. I want to see my innocence in others.

Ken: Right. You quoted that article about being willing to say I’m wrong and learning for that to be joyful, learning the Course is the means to awakening and returning home. And so you should be joyful because every day takes you closer to your goal. Learning is exposing your ego. And if you’re so afraid of making a mistake and you want to be perfect you’re not going to learn. There’s all that tension and anxiety and false belief again in thinking that you’ve done it when you haven’t. So in a sense when you find yourself making judgments about people; that should be a happy thing because it’s exposing your ego and that allows healing to occur. That’s the importance of that line “would you prefer to be right or happy?” The way you can be happy is to be wrong and to learn from the mistake. But if you want to be right, you’re going to think that you’ve done something when you haven’t and then you make yourself and everybody else around you unhappy.

Susan: Course students often repeat statements such as “I am as God created me” but I find it doesn’t work for me. Is there an inherent danger for Course students in trying to embrace our “magnitude” on the level of Truth rather than just focusing on forgiving our pull toward ego specialness?

Ken: I use the metaphor of the ladder. The Course speaks on many different levels and passages that really reflect what’s at the top of the ladder such as “I am as God created me” remind us of where we’re going and our goal of awakening from the dream. It’s not to live a happier dream here, but to awaken. At the same time there are all those passages that refer to this as a process and the work involved and the Workbook itself is all about that. It says at the end of the Workbook “this course is a beginning not an end.” So you have to understand the different levels or rungs of the ladder the Course speaks to.

When people seize on statements such as “I am as God created me” and leapfrog to the top or so they think what they’re really doing is avoiding the daily work. One of the things I emphasize is that the oneness of Christ and Heaven is not what we experience here. The way that we’re created as spirit is perfect oneness but the reflection of perfect oneness in the world is sameness and that’s where the work is. To realize that we’re all the same and if I keep that in mind, I can’t judge anybody because judging only differentiates and separates and attacks. So the way to remember that I am as God created me and awaken from the dream is to practice everyday realizing how we’re all the same and therefore no attack thought is ever justified.

And you’re absolutely right; you don’t go from the bottom rung to the top rung. People who think they have done it are denying the guilt in the mind and they project it out and become unkind and it’s just another form of specialness. But if they do the daily work which is reflecting perfect oneness by learning to see everyone as the same, that’s forgiveness and that’s what gets you up the ladder. And the higher up the ladder you get the more you realize we’re all the same and attack is impossible. How could you attack yourself? It’s that sameness–the all-inclusiveness of forgiveness—that’s the heart of the practice. Everyone is fighting the same hard battle and if the Sonship is one in reality, then what awakens us is recognizing you are also the same in the illusion. You can’t exclude anyone from your forgiveness.

I sometimes say that if people started on page one of the text and went through all three books and looked at every time the word “all” and “every” appear whether literally or as a concept, they’d be astounded. It’s the all-inclusiveness of the Course’s vision that makes it what it is.

Susan: Practicing forgiveness day in and day out with whatever comes up, I’ve found that some areas and people in my life that used to trigger conflict no longer do, as if healed without any direct effort on my part. Conversely, I have completely new areas and people I’ve never had a problem with that suddenly seem to be in conflict. What’s going on here?

Ken: Well, the first part of what you said — that a grievance all of a sudden is gone — and really the second part — all of a sudden getting upset with someone you had no grievances with — are really heads and tails of the same process. In the first part, when you keep working at undoing the guilt and unforgiveness of yourself, it generalizes. So you don’t have to forgive every single person because they’re all the same. And the Course says behind each brother are thousands and behind each one of those, another thousand. It’s like a domino effect. So when you’re really working on some key issues and can let those grievances go, they have to generalize. So all of a sudden someone you had a grievance with, the grievance is gone because the unconscious guilt is gone. But, not all the guilt is gone. So, you’re saying I’m no longer angry at person A but there’s still guilt and all of a sudden that guilt will be projected at person B that you never had an issue with before.

That shows you that the problem was never person A or person B, anyway. That’s where you have to understand the Course’s metaphysics that there’s no one out there. So the guilt will just land wherever it works best for your ego. So it’s not only that you’re never upset for the reason you think, you’re never angry for the reason you think and you’re never angry at the person you think because it’s not the person. So as you do your daily work and you’re forgiving more and more and letting go of your unforgiveness of yourself, then people you thought you hated all of a sudden the hate is gone because the guilt is gone. But if there’s still some guilt lurking it can easily find another target. All of that helps you realize, it’s never the external that’s the problem.

And there just seems no end to the places where it can crop up.

There’s never any end to it as long as there’s still some guilt.

Susan: But it is being chipped away at as you forgive what’s in your face, in your classroom everyday. That’s the process part?

Ken: Yes. But you don’t have to know what’s going on, because it’s unconscious anyway. Each and every time you find yourself angry you remember that I’m never upset for the reason I think. I sometimes say the only two lessons you really need to master are lessons 5 and 34, “I’m never upset for the reason I think” and “I could see peace instead of this.” That brings the problem back to my mind, and reminds me peace is a decision. And as long as I’m doing that, there will be wonderful effects that I don’t even need to understand.

Susan: I love this Course. Forgiveness has brought me so much real comfort and I’m really grateful to you for helping me understand the practice. It’s helped me see everything as the same problem, and generally made me much more tolerant. But I am still on a journey, still often afraid of losing this special identity, ambivalent about its value and at times terrified of losing my special relationships even as I watch myself pushing human love away. Can you give those of us somewhere in the murky middle of this journey home any advice on keeping the faith? In other words, can you give us a little pep talk, Ken?

Ken: Well, the process really works and you feel much better. I sometimes tell people just plant your nose on the page in front of you, don’t worry about the whole rest of the music, work on what’s directly in front of you and trust that there’s a love in you that you’re choosing to get closer and closer to. And if you really work day in and day out on just looking at your ego projections, then the payoff is immeasurable. It’s just incomprehensible how wonderful it is and you will continue to feel much better. The Course really works, if you work at it, so don’t stop. The key is to work at it with a gentle smile and not with all that seriousness.

Filed Under: Site Map, Susan Dugan

The Quiet Center: An Interview with Ken Wapnick – by Susan Dugan

January 9, 2013

smokey mountain stream

During a visit to The Foundation for A Course in Miracles in Temecula, California to attend a workshop with friend and fellow Course student Deb Shelly, I interviewed premier Course scholar Ken Wapnick, PhD, about his journey with the Course. I wanted to know how Ken perceived his role in communicating the Course’s unique message, how he viewed awakening, how he avoided specialness, how he handled celebrity, and how his application of forgiveness has evolved since his early days with Helen and Bill. His answers may surprise you as much as they did us.

I have never been around an enlightened being–my teenage daughter notwithstanding 🙂 –but must say that sitting in Ken’s presence with Deb felt healing for both of us in ways we found difficult to describe. He offers the gift of his complete, unwavering attention, and seems to listen more deeply and carefully than the hundreds of people I have interviewed over the years. His answers resounded with truth, and led to my decision to publish them in their entirety (except for minor editing and restructuring for flow) rather than weaving truncated quotes into a narrative as I normally do.

NOTE: Clinical Psychologist, Teacher and Author Kenneth Wapnick, PhD, studied A Course in Miracles since 1973, and worked closely with Course Scribe Helen Schucman and Collaborator Bill Thetford in preparing its final manuscript. With his wife, Gloria, he was president and co-founder of The Foundation for A Course in Miracles (FACIM) in Temecula, California. Ken made his transition a few years ago, but his love and teaching legacy are still experienced worldwide by thousands of Course students.

 


Susan: How do you avoid making your role as a Course teacher special?

Ken: It’s the difference between form and content. A line I always like to quote is where Jesus says “Teach not that I died in vain. Teach rather that I did not die by demonstrating that I live in you.” Teaching is demonstration and what you want to focus on is making yourself as ego-free as possible and then whatever you do will be joyful; whether you’re teaching the Course, being a parent, washing dishes, writing an essay, taking a walk. It doesn’t make any difference.

That’s how you get away from the specialness of the form. Because that’s a real seduction, you know? To think that what I’m doing is important because I’m teaching A Course in Miracles. Well, why is that any different from building a hotel or raising children or anything else? So when you get away from the form, the content will always be the same.

There’s that lovely phrase in the Course about the quiet center. And while the image is not used, it’s implicit in it that if you think of a hub of a wheel there’s that quiet center where you live and the spokes that emanate from it are your various roles: wife, teacher, mother, etc. The spokes are not important. What’s important is that you stay in that quiet center and the love in there infuses everything you do; whether you teach the Course or whether you’re playing with your grandchildren. In a sense it should all be the same and to the extent that you recognize that it’s not the same then you recognize that you still have work to do. That’s where the process comes in.

It’s really a trap when you get seduced by the form into thinking the form is something. You teach Jesus’ message by living it; not by preaching it. I’ve often said you could give a wonderful workshop just reading the phone book and if you read it with love and that love infuses every name you read; then you teach it. It doesn’t matter that you have the theology straight or the dynamics of the ego straight. Anybody can learn it, memorize it. But that’s not how you teach it. That’s not how people learn.

Susan: So it’s about using the things that seem to arise in your life and forgiving yourself when you catch yourself making it special?

Ken: Yes. If you think back to your grade school years what you remember is not the things the teachers taught you. You remember those teachers that were mean and those that were loving; you don’t really remember how they taught you reading, writing, and arithmetic. The teachers who stand out in your mind years later are the teachers who were kind or cruel. That’s what it means to be a teacher–what you demonstrate–whether you’re teaching child-rearing or arithmetic. The line from the text I also quote frequently about the New Year: “Make this year different by making it all the same.” Everything is the same.

Susan: You have a lot of people who want a lot of things from you all the time. How do you deal with that?

Ken: Again, if you really just focus on that quiet center and don’t identify with the spokes. Whether someone says that was a great class or someone says that was terrible or boring or someone asks you the same question over and over again.

I get asked a lot how can you stand to teach the same thing over and over again. People listen to tapes I made 25 years ago and it’s basically the same thing. And I sometimes make a joke; I can say the same thing over and over again because I don’t listen to myself. But really it’s because it’s always for the first time. So if someone makes a “demand,” the person’s just always talking to me for the first time. Otherwise I couldn’t do what I do. It’s all for the first time.

And certainly you don’t take personally what people say. You learn that in grad school in psychotherapy because patients are constantly projecting; they either love you or hate you. Either way it has nothing to do with you. When you become a public figure, the whole trick is to stay in that quiet center. I want to help people to be more happy and peaceful and kinder but it’s not how you define yourself. You define yourself by that quiet center and then whatever people do or don’t do; you just try to be present.

Susan: I’ve read that in the early days of the Course you and Helen and Bill and others would ask for specific guidance from Jesus or the Holy Spirit around bringing the Course into the world, for example. How has your experience asking for help from Jesus or the Holy Spirit shifted over time?

Ken: Well, to be honest Helen and Bill were very used to asking for very specific help; what street corner should we stand on to get a taxi cab, which is no small feat in New York City. And they were very, very good at getting taxi cabs at the height of the rush hour; it could be raining. And I never felt comfortable with that. I could do it, and I would do it but it never seemed quite kosher to me. And as you’ve heard me say; The Song of Prayer pamphlet came out of that. And so I think what has evolved is not so much my understanding but the way I talk about it. It was never anything I did prior to meeting Helen and Bill and it just seemed a way to circumscribe that internal presence.

In that one message I quote a lot Jesus said to Helen you’re trying to make my love more manageable. It was a way of managing him. I used to say a lot instead of worrying about which voice you’re hearing and what the voice should tell you why not ask to hear what you should do to remove the blocks so that you can hear the voice better. So it’s not that asking for specifics is not valid or it can’t help you but in the long run it’s not where you want to go. That will just help you live better in the world. I knew Helen knew better and Helen did know better; it was just part of her costume.

Susan: Did you have any level confusion early on or did it all make sense from the beginning?

Ken: I think it all made sense from the beginning. I remember Helen once asked Jesus why I didn’t have problems with all this and his answer was because there’s no time for it. And actually there wasn’t. I couldn’t have done or do all I do. It was never an issue.

Susan: How has practicing the Course’s unique form of forgiveness changed your life; your relationships?

Ken: Honestly I don’t think it has. I was really never an angry person. I don’t think anything really changed. What the Course did was it gave a specific context for what I was (already) experiencing but it was not really an issue for me. Not that I didn’t make mistakes but I didn’t hold grudges and I was not angry, even as a child. I had some experiences with my parents where I’d get upset, you know; typical adolescence. But it never really went anywhere. I was never one to hold on to disagreement; it didn’t matter.

Susan: Did you experience any undoing? Do you feel that you came into this world in a healed state of mind?

Ken: I had issues, I had problems. I look back on my life and see a difference. But by the time I first saw the Course and read it, it was like I was reading it from the inside. And while I certainly would not have said things the way the Course says them when I read them I understood they were true.

I don’t have a sense of the process (with A Course in Miracles). I think for me the process occurred earlier. My greatest spiritual teacher was Beethoven. I started listening to his music in high school and that was my teacher. I sensed something in his music that over a period of time I was growing into. I was very clear about that from high school, college, graduate school, and beyond. What was more important to me than anything else in my life—my schooling, my work, my first marriage—was getting closer and closer to what I felt was the real heart of his music. It was very clear that was a process of hearing his music over and over and hearing his process.

The ego was gone right at the end of his life; you wouldn’t have known it from his life but you can hear it in the last quartets, especially. So I saw my whole life at that point as a process of growing into that music until I felt one with it. When I first heard it in high school I knew I wasn’t there yet, so that was the journey. So that part of the journey was completed by the time I first saw the Course. After that it was just a kind of crystallizing of everything I knew was true.

Susan: What is it like to basically be peaceful all the time?

Ken: Really nice.

Susan: Is it hard to relate to other people’s stuff?

No, not at all. The first professional work I did that I did enjoy the most was working with disturbed children in the school system. I really enjoyed working with psychotic people. I could enter into their thought system. It was like going into their water but I still had a foot on dry land. I could always relate. I could hear, I could understand, and I could help bring them through and out of it.

It actually makes you much more empathetic and compassionate because no needs are imposing on it. And another thing that’s great–because I am very, very busy–is it helps you become very, very efficient in time because there’s nothing interfering. No conflict. If there’s a pile on my desk, if there are calls to make; I just do it. Often everything happens at once. It makes your life easier. You get so much more done. And it allows you to be more compassionate because you can really hear people’s pain and kind of touch it and try to help without anything interfering.

Susan: I’m still fairly new to the Course and very new to teaching. I feel very joyful and present writing, teaching, or just spending a lot of time with the material. Then something just seems to come up out of nowhere and I feel unloved and unloving. My self-worth plummets and I’m just a mess. Can you speak about what’s going on with the ego’s backlash?

Ken: I think it’s an example of such a common experience almost everyone has regardless of their spiritual path and that is as you become more and more serious about letting your ego go the part of you that identifies with the ego gets terrified. Jesus says when you take my hand on the journey the ego retaliates. He says in that same passage I am beyond the ego so when you take my hand you’re going beyond the ego. So part of you still believes you’re Susan and all the things that go into making Susan, while all of them are not pleasant; they’re comfortable. So it becomes terrifying and that’s when the love turns to hate and the peace turns to fear and you start attacking yourself or attacking others.

It’s very important to understand that and, as you work with this material, to have a healthy respect for the ego which means a healthy respect for your own identification with the ego. Because if you don’t you’ll be blind-sided. Here I am teaching and writing and feeling so kind and loving and boom; I get hit in the back of the neck. And it shouldn’t be a surprise after a while. When it happens you just say oh, that’s what happened, that’s what egos do.

You know, it’s just a book. Books are harmless; it’s nothing. It’s when you take it seriously that you have a problem. You don’t want to dismiss your ego. You want to respect it but you don’t want to give it a power it doesn’t have.

Susan: Some A Course in Miracles teachers present themselves as awakened. Is there an inherent danger in this?

Ken: I think typically people who are truly awakened don’t talk about it. I’m a little suspicious of people who say they’re awakened. I mean, why would you make that claim? You just let your life speak for you. I don’t think Jesus said he was enlightened. That doesn’t mean someone may not be enlightened who says he or she is but as a rule of thumb I think you would tend to not talk about that.

We can lose sight of the process by focusing on being awakened. When people make that claim it really tends to induce specialness and breed separation. Really you just do what you do and behind what you do is that awareness that says we’re all the same. You want to focus on the process otherwise you skip steps.

Susan: What would you say to Course students/teachers who believe they/we can experience peace of mind (in a sense return directly to God/oneness) without practicing the Course’s forgiveness in our relationships?

Ken: When you read the Course it’s obvious it’s a process of hard work and you have to practice and practice and practice. I would be very suspicious of people who claim to be enlightened and people who claim they can just go straight to their right mind. I would say 99.999 percent of the time that’s denial. It’s not that it can’t work once in a while, but unless you’re ego-free you can’t do that and if you’re ego-free you don’t need forgiveness. The Course makes it clear this is a practice and a process. We’re in a world of time. I’m leery of people who say you don’t have to deal with the ego because if you say that you’ve already made it real by saying I’m not going to deal with it.

Susan: People frequently ask you questions about their relationships and problems in their personal lives in these workshops. The Course seems to be leading us to bring those questions to our inner, loving teacher. Is there a danger of students becoming dependent for answers on the external form; on you?

Ken: Obviously it’s a danger. I think what makes it OK is I don’t foster that and I don’t identify with that but I think a certain amount is helpful in the beginning stages just like a child has to begin by depending on his parents. A child’s not going to grow and learn if he or she is not dependent on the parents. But at some point the parents let the child go and you have trouble when parents don’t do that. And I’m certainly aware of all that having done therapy for many years.

People easily will project both good and bad onto me but I would not foster anyone’s dependence. Certainly I would say to some people if I can be of help to you, why don’t you ask me? There’s a line in the Course that says in effect the aim of any teacher is to make himself dispensable. You don’t want people to be dependent on you once they’re able to be on their own. It’s a danger, but I don’t think it’s a problem.

Susan: Do you have to set boundaries with your students? If so; when and how?

There’s no right or wrong. There are times when you really have to place very strict boundaries and times when you just have to give people slack. With some people placing a limit would not be helpful. Other people I do stop. It’s something you have to feel when it’s loving and when it’s not loving. To be firm sometimes is the most loving thing you can do; other times it’s not. It’s the same thing with children. Sometimes you overlook something a child does; other times you need to be very clear. It’s hard to know without feeling it from inside. But if you begin to feel badgered then you should place limits because otherwise you’re dealing with a sense of sacrifice and that’s not helpful. If you can’t freely give; then don’t give.

Susan: So overall your advice to those of starting to teach is to just be that kind and loving presence as much as possible and try to get the ego out of the way so you can hear what would be most helpful to people?

Ken: Yes. There’s a problem, too, with excessive humility. If you have the ability to help people and you don’t exercise it; that’s not helpful. If you have some information or expertise or there’s something about you as a person that could be helpful, to withhold it and say well I’m really just like you are, while true on the level of content, is not true on the level of form. So to withhold an ability to help people would be silly and unkind.

The idea is you don’t identify with it as we were talking about before. That’s the key. You don’t identify with what you do or with what people say about you, you identify with the love that you feel in that quiet center. That’s where you always want to stay and let the spokes lead out from there.

Susan Dugan - Ken Wapnick - Deb Shelly

Filed Under: Site Map, Susan Dugan

Search A Course in Miracles topic or class on this website: Type your search here & then hit “Enter”

Join Our Email List for New Posts on new classes and events, and new SFACIM articles

Help School for ACIM Provide Our Weekly Online Classes on The Study & Practice of ACIM




ONLINE Weekly SFACIM Classes:

SFACIM Online Classes thru Oct. 2025 (Summer Break: 7/1/25- 8/8/25)

ZOOM Link for Weekly SFACIM Classes…

After first two weeks of donation-free classes: Suggested monthly donations to continue access to weekly live online classes… and also receive link for SFACIM Video Library with hundreds of Class Replays

Journey Through the Text (JTTT) of A Course In Miracles - School for A Course in Miracles - logo

Sunday Mornings: The ACIM Text @ 9:30am Mt. Time

Every Monday @ 5:30pm Mt. Time: Highlights of This Week’s Workbook Lessons

Tuesdays: “The Escape from Our Belief in Death… An ACIM Death Cafe” 10-11:30am Mt.

Thursday Online Class @ 5:30pm Mt: Discussions of Ken Wapnick Books on ACIM

Saturdays in May & June @ 9:30am Mt.

Some Recent SFACIM Class Replays…

New Classes & Upcoming Events:

Online Class Guidelines: “Please Have Your Video Camera on During Class!” Please have your video camera on during the classes so we can see each others’ faces… except for times when: 1) you are eating, or 2) you may need to move around during class, or 3) you may not be feeling well. .. thanks! […]

Saturdays in May & June 2025 @ 9:30am Mt…. facilitator’s choice of an ACIM topic.

Announcements:

Our Current SFACIM Email Address…

Daily Calendar Of Online Classes

SFACIM Podcasts & Video Libraries

ACIM Women’s Discussion Group Online Wed. @ 5:30pm Mt

Wed. Gathering of Men: Online ACIM Men’s Discussion Group @ 5:30pm Mt.

The Text of ACIM Class Replay Series: 195 video class replays on Chap. 1 thru 31

Click Here to See: FULL SFACIM DAILY CALENDAR
All Course quotes are from A Course in Miracles, copyright ©1992, 1999, 2007 by the Foundation for Inner Peace, 448 Ignacio Blvd., #306, Novato, CA 94949, ACIM.org (Contact), used with permission.

Site Map · Copyright © 2025 · Lyn Corona · Genesis Theme by StudioPress
customized by Intent Design Studio (editor of ACIMblog.com) · hosted by BlueHost · WordPress · Log in