Course Immersion 2026: Five Month Online Intensive for All Students of “A Course in Miracles” (excellent for beginning students of ACIM, but also very helpful for long-time Course students!)

January 3, 2021

Course Immersion 2026

starts January 2026 thru the end of May 2026….

with 22 live online classes on ACIM fundamentals, and one-on-one personal mentoring… and more:

Our Online Immersion 2025 program is different from our regular weekly classes. It is for people new to A Course in Miracles and anyone desiring to increase their understanding, appreciation, and practice of the Course from the ‘ground up,’ over the first five months of 2026. It can be described as an online ACIM intensive of basic training, not in blaming and fighting, but in the gentle arts of forgiveness and healing.

Online Course Immersion 2026

Five Month Intensive from January thru May, 2026,

Designed for those new to “A Course in Miracles” …

and anyone desiring to re-immerse themselves

in a profound understanding and practice of the Course.

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An ultimate in Course education and practice!

Come, study, and experience A Course in Miracles (ACIM) with our School for ACIM facilitators, who have collectively studied, practiced, and taught the Course for over 200 years. This is a five month online program, from January 2026 through May 2026.

We cover and explore in-depth all of the fundamental ideas on forgiveness and healing in the Course, and the how-to’s for practical application in our everyday lives.

Be part of a close-knit interactive community of about 10 to 20 Course students, who for four months..

are working a lesson a day (on their own) from Ken Wapnick’s “Journey Through The Workbook,”
are spiritually growing together (both facilitators and participants alike) as they study a carefully selected set of Course topics that progressively build to an overall understanding and practice of the Course’s process of forgiveness and healing,
are supported and encouraged with one-on-one mentoring throughout that process.

1) The program includes online one and a half hour classes on Saturday mornings each month (for four months) on a developing series of meticulously chosen Course topics. . All classes are streamed live using the free app Zoom (and are recorded and made available to all participants for replay and review).

2) We provide access to many hours of listening from our Dr. Kenneth Wapnick Memorial Library to specific Ken seminars that explore each of the Immersion topics that we cover. We believe Ken Wapnick is the world-renowned authority on the Course, and he is the beloved Course teacher for all our SFACIM facilitators. (Access to these audio seminars from the School’s Ken Wapnick Library are included in the Immersion tuition.)

3) During the Immersion we also provide free access to all our other regular weekly online classes … and access to hundreds of SFACIM video class replays on the many topics and themes in ACIM, including the ego and the Holy Spirit, the purpose of time, and the three steps of forgiveness.

4) Since all our relationships provide the ‘classrooms’ in which we learn forgiveness, we dedicate a special half-day seminar on “Relationships ” on a Saturday on March 15, 2025, as part of the Immersion. It is Zoomed live online. (This seminar is included in the Immersion tuition.)

5) One of the most valued aspects of the Course Immersion is the one-on-one mentoring sessions by our well-practiced facilitators. These take place twice a month during the four months.

For more details about the …

School for A Course in Miracles

Immersion Program 2026

(Jan. thru May 2026)

Saturdays 9:30am to 11am Mt. Time

and how to register:

click here

Lyn Corona: Thoughts & Writings on ACIM…

November 22, 2020

Below are links to earlier posts and insightful compositions

written by Lyn Corona

**on various helpful topics in A Course in Miracles :**

on Christmas

click here “The Way Home”

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Death

click here “A Decision Not to Decide”

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Dreams

click here “Field of Dreams”
click here “A Dream of Time & Space”

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Ego

click here “Seek, But Do Not Find”
click here “Self Sabotaging Behavior”
click here “False Sense of Self”

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Forgiveness

click here “What is it?”
click here “A Little Willingness”
click here “A Daily Practice”

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Gratitude

click here “Make no comparisons.”
click here “Seeing the world forgiveness sees.”

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Happiness

click here “Perfect Happiness”

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Healing

click here “Healing, not Fixing”
click here “What is healing anyway?”

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Holy Spirit

click here “Teacher of Teachers”

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Identity

click here “Our One True Self”
click here “What’s valuable really?”
click here “We are Love!”
click here “Get over yourself.”
click here “The Myth of Personhood”
click here “The Seeker”
click here “The True Shape of Being”

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Immersion/ SFACIM

click here “Are changes required?”
click here “SFACIM… helping change the way we see”

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An Invitation

click here “Curriculum Invitation”
click here “…to Love’s Presence”
click here “… to make a decision”

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Jesus

click here “I will wait until you change your mind.”
click here “Jesus & Me”

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Lyn (herself)

click here “Some History”
click here “Some Stories”
click here “Marcus Aurelius”
click here “Ken & Me”
click here “Teaching Love”
click here “Mrs. Amos”

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Minds/ Bodies

click here “Only the Mind is real.”
click here “The Course is written to my mind, not my body.”
click here “Who’s Looking?”

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Miracles

click here “Miracles are natural, the most natural thing of all.”
click here “Living in Miracles”

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New Year’s Resolutions

click here “Make this year different by…”

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Pain & Suffering

click here “Dealing with the illusion of pain”

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Peace of Mind

click here “True Peace”

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Relationships

click here “Beyond The Body”
click here “True Intimacy”

Ken Wapnick’s 10 Minute Videos…

August 2, 2020

(1) “ACIM : A Gentle Non-Dualism”

(2) “What is A Holy Instant”

(3) “Not about fixing the world!”

“A Gentle Non-Dualism”

“What is a Holy Instant?”

Musings… What’s my perception of purpose? And what’s my purpose for perception?

August 2, 2020

Video Presentation on…

“The Ego’s Purpose of

Belief in Separation & Sin”

(click here)

__________________________

**In any given moment there are only two possible purposes for anything we seem to do or don’t do…**

A discussion follows:

The Course tells us early on in the text that the only thing we should ever ask of anything is …”What is it for?” It uses that specific phrase at least five times throughout the book, and infers it in many other places. In any given situation or seeming drama, we should ask ourselves what is the purpose of this person, thing, or event in my life.

The Course reminds us constantly that the source and answer to that question depends on only one of two choices… of one of two teachers within us … the ego (the voice for separation and guilt), or the Holy Spirit (God’s Voice for healing and forgiveness). Accessing either one of those teachers will determine the way we look at and react to all of our lives’ day-to-day activities, whether it’s brushing our teeth or dealing with a tragedy. (See example of what is a phone call really for, in WB Lesson 25 “I do not know what anything is for.” on p. 38)

Is the purpose of any undertaking to see and reinforce guilt and blame in someone else and ultimately in myself, or is the interaction an opportunity for forgiveness (i.e. to see our true identity as God’s one innocent Son, instead of seeming separate entities full of sin and guilt )?

The ways we choose one of two inner teachers work like this…

Choosing the ego:

We seem to slip into ego default mode of judgement and condemnation without even recognizing it . Jesus tell us it is initially an intentional choice that we make out of fear in our minds, and then quickly forget we did that… (see Les. 136, par.3-5). We make an inner decision to believe in separation from God and each other. That decision is the real and only source of all our torment and suffering. We make up a new identity as a separated ego self and make this new ego identity our ‘guide,’ and don’t have a conscious clue we have done any of that (except we’re not feeling very peaceful)…

**The ego’s purpose is to see separation, feel pain and suffering, but blame/project the source of our pain on someone or something else.**

Thus the ego purpose for the way we are seeing anything or anybody in the world is to find fault and judge, without ever admitting to ourselves (1) we are constantly doing that, (2) that the ego is now our chosen teacher, and (3) that the ego’s purpose of ‘the need to blame’ has fully kicked in.

We are sure we are only reacting to a seemingly real world of victims and victimizers, and we simply have to ‘justifiably judge’ those we believe are causing us pain. We never recognize or take responsibility for our own internal wish to separate and maintain the pain and guilt of our own belief in that separation… by putting that responsibility on others.

Choosing The Holy Spirit:

We consciously ask the Holy Spirit or Jesus for help to see others and ourselves the way they do in any given situation or circumstance. That is… no matter what others or ourselves do or don’t do, if we ask for help, we can and will experience everyone together as one innocent Son of God. We begin to realize our separation from God and each other is totally made-up, no matter what seems to be happening in our world.

It doesn’t mean in time and space we don’t take appropriate actions. But it does mean we are willing to see our brothers a different way (true perception), and stop blaming them for our own chosen lack of peace and awareness of our One True Self… which was actually impossible in the first place (The Atonement).

Setting this process as our purpose and goal for each day is the Course’s definition of forgiveness.

**(click here for further description of The Three Steps of Forgiveness.)**

**The Course uses the word purpose more than 700 times,**

**the word goal about 450 times,**

intent/intentions 40 x, and motive/motivation 35 x.

Here are some of our favorite Course references…

on “Purpose:”

**Don’t bother me… I’m busy being peaceful!**

By becoming involved with tangential issues, it (the ego) hopes to hide the real question and keep it out of mind. The ego’s characteristic busyness with nonessentials (in the world) is for precisely that purpose. Preoccupations with problems set up to be incapable of solution are favorite ego devices for impeding learning progress (even when I fix things in the world it doesn’t bring me lasting peace). In all these diversionary tactics, however, the one question that is never asked by those who pursue them is, “What for?” This is the question that you must learn to ask in connection with everything. What is the purpose (the ego’s purpose of maintaining belief in separation, or the Holy Spirit’s purpose of forgiveness)? Whatever it is, it will direct your efforts automatically. When you make a decision of purpose (in the mind), then, you have made a decision about your future effort; a decision that will remain in effect unless you change your mind.

(Text Ch. 4, p.66, par. 6)

I have spoken of the ego as if it were a separate thing, acting on its own. This was necessary to persuade you that you cannot dismiss it lightly, and must realize how much of your thinking is ego-directed… The ego is nothing more than a part of your (own) belief about yourself.

(Text Ch. 4, p.67, par. 1)

The ego cannot oppose the laws of God any more than you can, but it can interpret them according to what it wants, just as you can (as a decision maker in our mind). That is why the question, “What do you want?” must be answered (separation or forgiveness, conflict or peace). You are answering it every minute and every second, and each moment of decision is a judgment that is anything but ineffectual. Its effects will follow automatically until the decision is changed. Remember, though, that the alternatives themselves are unalterable. The Holy Spirit, like the ego, is a decision (in the mind). Together they constitute all the alternatives the mind can accept and obey. The Holy Spirit and the ego are the only (actual) choices open to you…

(Text Ch. 5, p.85, par. 6)

² In any situation in which you are uncertain, the first thing to consider, very simply, is “What do I want to come of this? What is it for?” The clarification of the goal belongs at the beginning, for it is this which will determine the outcome… The ego does not know what it wants to come of the situation. It is aware of what it does not want (doesn’t want peace), but only that. It (the ego) has no positive goal at all.

³ Without a clear-cut positive goal (of peace & forgiveness) set at the outset, the situation just seems to happen, and makes no sense until it has already happened… And now the only judgment left to make is whether or not the ego likes it; is it acceptable, or does it call for vengeance? The absence of a criterion for outcome, set in advance, makes understanding doubtful and evaluation impossible.

⁴ The value of deciding in advance what you want to happen is simply that you will perceive the situation as a means to make it happen… It is quite noticeable that this approach has brought you closer to the Holy Spirit’s sorting out of truth and falsity. The true becomes what can be used to meet the goal. The false becomes the useless from this point of view. The situation now has meaning, but only because the goal (of forgiveness) has made it meaningful.

⁶ The goal of truth requires faith. Faith is implicit in the acceptance of the Holy Spirit’s purpose, and this faith is all-inclusive. .. This seems to ask for faith beyond you, and beyond what you can give. Yet this is so only from the viewpoint of the ego, for the ego believes in “solving” conflict through fragmentation, and does not perceive the situation as a whole. Therefore, it (the ego) seeks to split off segments of the situation and deal with them separately, for it has faith in separation and not in wholeness.

(Text Ch. 17, p.366, par.2-6)

⁶ The test of everything on earth is simply this; “What is it for?” The answer (ego’s purpose or HS) makes it what it is for you. It has no meaning of itself (in the world), yet you can give reality to it, according to the purpose that you serve (in your mind)…

¹¹ And thus are two sons made, and both appear to walk this earth without a meeting place and no encounter. One do you perceive outside yourself, your own beloved (ego’s) son. The other rests within, his Father’s Son, within your brother as he is in you. Their difference does not lie in how they look, nor where they go, nor even what they do. They have a different purpose. It is this that joins them to their like, and separates each from all aspects with a different purpose. The Son of God retains His Father’s Will. The son of man (the ego’s son) perceives an alien will and wishes it were so. And thus does his (the ego’s) perception serve his wish by giving it appearances of truth (the world and its victimizers seem real). Yet can perception serve another goal. It is not bound to specialness but (only) by your choice. And it is given you to make a different choice (in our mind), and use perception for a different purpose. And what you see will serve that purpose well, and prove its own reality to you.

(Text Ch. 24, p.515, par.6 & 11)

5) Yet mind apart from spirit (Holy Spirit) cannot think. It has denied its Source of strength, and sees itself as helpless, limited and weak. Dissociated from its (true) function now (forgiveness), it (our mind) thinks it is alone and separate, attacked by armies massed against itself and hiding in the body’s frail support. Now must it reconcile unlike with like (hate with love), for this is what it thinks that it (our mind) is for.

6) Waste no more time on this. Who can resolve the senseless conflicts which a dream presents? What could the resolution mean in truth? What purpose could it serve? What is it for? Salvation cannot make illusions real, nor solve a problem that does not exist. Perhaps you hope it can. Yet would you have God’s plan for the release of His dear Son bring pain to him, and fail to set him free?

(WB Lesson 96, p.169)

The Rules for Decision (at the beginning of Chap. 30, p.625) point out the practical value of setting our goal/purpose for the day, every day, by choosing with which inner teacher we wish to go through our day…

⁴ Throughout the day, at any time you think of it and have a quiet moment for reflection, tell yourself again the kind of day you want (guilt or forgiveness); the feelings you would have (conflictual or peaceful), the things you want to happen to you (seen through the eyes of the ego or the Holy Spirit), and the things you would experience (fear or love), and say:

If I make no decisions by myself, this is the day that will be given me.

(Text Ch. 30, p.626)

14 …The only question really is with what (whom) you choose to make them (decisions). That is really all. The first rule, then, is not coercion, but a simple statement of a simple fact. You will not make decisions by yourself whatever you decide. For they are made with idols (the ego) or with God (the Holy Spirit). And you ask help of anti-Christ or Christ, and which you choose will join with you and tell you what to do.

¹⁵ Your day is not at random. It is set by what you choose to live it with, and how the friend whose counsel you have sought perceives your happiness. You always ask advice before you can decide on anything. Let this be understood, and you can see there cannot be coercion here nor grounds for opposition… that you may be free.

(Text Ch. 30, p. 628)

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In any given moment…

there is only one of two possible purposes …

for anything we seem to do or don’t do.

Two Short Ken Wapnick CD sets, and Mp3 downloads…

that focus on “Purpose”

(click on pics below):

This section called “Forgiveness and The End of Time” from the Text (Chap. 29, section VI) is a beautiful rendering of the pivotal theme of purpose recurring throughout the Course. Understanding purpose and how it is applied opens up the seeming secrets of the Course, specifically with regard to forgiveness as a theoretical principle, and more importantly as a principle that can guide us in our daily lives. This workshop thus helps us understand our world, our relationships, and our experiences in terms of the underlying purpose of the ego. Forgiveness begins with our asking Jesus to help us replace our pact with the ego with a vow to him no longer to be afraid of his love.

This 2007 workshop explores the two purposes for the body. The ego uses the body to fulfill its strategy of mindlessness, wherein the mind’s decision for the ego and its thought system of sin and destruction is hidden behind projection. Thus does the body become the engine of destruction that symbolizes the death of God and His Son. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, shifts the body’s purpose from hate to forgiveness, so that it becomes the classroom in which we learn that nothing has occurred to change the sinlessness of God’s Son. As we choose again, the ego’s judgment becomes the Holy Spirit’s vision and we are healed.

Musings… The Power Of Your Mind & Your Decision Maker

June 1, 2020

“My Decision Maker”

What is it? Where is it? What are my options?

On Ken Wapnick’s Chart of Course Metaphysics, his diagram depicts ‘the how and why’ of believing we are in the world, and more importantly, how we ‘get back’ to our true Identity in Heaven. The primary and most important concept central to the whole chart is the decision maker (DM). Ken describes it as that internal part of us in our mind that chooses whether to take the tiny mad idea of separation seriously (the ego)… or not, and see it as silly (the Holy Spirit).

The reason why the “decision maker” is so pivotal is that is where all our seeming trouble started when we started believing we separated from God (i.e. ego)… so when we get back to the mind and specifically to our decision maker and choose again, our belief in our woes will end and we will experience peace.

So first off…. what is it? How would we describe this decision maker (DM)? Regretfully, after running to Ken Wapnick’s Glossary for ACIM for a quick pat answer… it was not there. He did describe the Course’s view of “decision” however:

Decision: the last remaining freedom as prisoners of this world is our power to decide; while unknown in Heaven, decision is necessary here as it was our decision to be separate from our Source that must be corrected; this is accomplished by choosing the Holy Spirit instead of the ego, right-mindedness instead of wrong-mindedness. (Ken Wapnick’s Glossary)

A couple things implied in the above definition… there seems to be a part of us that can and does decide, and it’s a decision between one of two choices, the ego or Holy Spirit. The inference in the last part above in Ken’s definition is that the choice takes place in our “mind,” where we pick an experience of right-mindedness, the Holy Spirit… or wrong-mindedness, the ego.

The Course itself only uses the phrase decision maker one time (Manual p.17, par.2, L.7)… although it is a reference to the ego making the body with its brain the decision maker instead of the mind, in order to protect the ego’s own anonymity from our awareness:

… it is obvious that decisions are of the mind, not of the body. If sickness is but a faulty problem-solving approach, it is a decision. And if it is a decision, it is the mind and not the body that makes it. The resistance to recognizing this is enormous, because the existence of the world as you perceive it depends on the body being “the decision-maker.” (Man. p.17)

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The DM is talked about (without being mentioned per se), in a number of places in the Course, as that part of our mind which chooses between one of two thought systems.

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Jesus does use a phrase twice that is synonymous with the decision maker: he refers to the mind as “the mechanism of decision.” Once in Chap. 8:

Your mind is the means by which you determine your own condition, because mind is “the mechanism of decision.” It is the power by which you separate or join, and experience pain or joy accordingly. My decision cannot overcome yours, because yours is as powerful as mine. If it were not so the Sons of God would be unequal. All things are possible through our joint decision, but mine alone cannot help you. Your will is as free as mine, and God Himself would not go against it. (Text p. 145, par.5)

And once in Chap. 12:

This world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless “laws,” and without meaning of any kind. For it is made out of what you do not want, projected from your mind because you are afraid of it. Yet this world is only in the mind of its maker, along with his real salvation. Do not believe it is outside of yourself, for only by recognizing where it is will you gain control over it. For you do have control over your mind, since the mind is “the mechanism of decision.”

¹⁰ If you will recognize that all the attack you perceive is in your own mind and nowhere else, you will at last have placed its source, and where it begins it must end. For in this same place also lies salvation. The altar of God where Christ is, is there.

From this place, where God and His Son dwell in peace and where you are welcome, you will look out in peace and behold the world truly. Yet to find the place, you must relinquish your investment in the world as you project it, allowing the Holy Spirit to extend the real world to you from the altar of God. (Text p.222, par.9-10)

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In the following two paragraphs from section V of Chap.31, p.658…. Jesus talks about the part of us (the decision maker aligned with the ego) that chooses between the two internal wrong minded images of ourselves that we project onto others and our seeming self as bodies in the world: a guilty victimizer or a seemingly innocent self (the victim: the ‘face’ of innocence)…

¹² There is an alternate about the thing that you must be (a victimizer or the victimized). You might, for instance, be the thing you (as an ego) chose to have your brother be. This shifts the concept of the self from what is wholly passive (victim), and at least makes way for active choice, and some acknowledgement that interaction must have entered in. There is some understanding that you chose for both of you, and what he represents has meaning that was given it by you. It also shows some glimmering of sight into perception’s law that what you see reflects the state of the perceiver’s (wrong) mind. Yet who was it that did the choosing first? If you are what you chose your brother be, alternatives were there to choose among, and someone (my internal decision maker) must have first decided on the one to choose, and let the other go.

¹³ Although this step has gains, it does not yet approach a basic question. Something (our decision maker) must have gone before these concepts of the not-self. And something (my DM) must have done the learning which gave rise to them. Nor can this be explained by either view. The main advantage of the shifting to the second (victimizer) from the first (victim) is that you somehow entered in the choice by your decision. But this gain is paid in almost equal loss, for now you stand accused of guilt for what your brother is. And you must share his guilt, because you chose it for him in the image of your own. While only he was treacherous before, now must you be condemned along with him. (Text p.658)

Lesson 152: “The power of decision is my own.”

Jesus could have alternatively said … The power of the decision maker is my own.

1. No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. And no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here, salvation is (in the mind at the level of the decision maker’s choice between ego and Holy Spirit). (Les. 152)

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Although the Course only uses the phrase decision maker one time, it does use the term “maker” 35 times. And it is in reference to our DM aligned with the ego and the story of separation we “make up.” Check out the first time ‘maker ‘ is used in the Course in Chap. 4:

They (the ego and the Holy Spirit) are therefore not in communication and can never be in communication. Nevertheless, the ego can learn, even though its maker (the decision maker in the mind) can be misguided (by itself)…

You dream of (you make-up) a separated ego and believe in a world that rests upon it. This is very real to you. You cannot undo it by not changing your mind about it (we as the decision maker need to choose Jesus or the HS instead). If you are willing to renounce the role of guardian of your thought system and open it to me, I (Jesus) will correct it very gently and lead you back to God. (Text p.53-54, par. 2 & 4)

In other places Jesus call us a ‘dream maker,’ a ‘concept maker,’ and an ‘image maker’ … all synonymous with the decision maker.

⁷ Concepts (of a made-up separated self) are learned. They are not natural. Apart from learning they do not exist. They are not given, so they must be made (up). Not one of them is true, and many come from feverish imaginations, hot with hatred and distortions born of fear. What is a concept but a thought to which its (decision) maker gives a meaning of his own? Concepts maintain the world. But they can not be used to demonstrate the world is real. For all of them are made within the world, born in its shadow, growing in its ways and finally “maturing” in its thought. They (self-concepts) are ideas of idols (of sin, guilt, fear), painted with the brushes of the world, which cannot make a single picture representing truth. (Text p.657 par.7)

4. You see the world that you have made, but you do not see yourself as the image maker. You cannot be saved from the world, but you can escape from its cause. This is what salvation means, for where is the world you see when its cause is gone? Vision already holds a replacement for everything you think you see now. Loveliness can light your images, and so transform them that you will love them, even though they were made of hate. For you will not be making them alone (our DM then is choosing the HS). (Les. 23, p.34, par.4)

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The main point and the most important part of Ken Wapnick’s Chart for us as a Son of God returning home is… our return in our awareness to that inner place in our mind where we make a new choice in teachers.

It is there we can be willing to hear Jesus, instead of the ego, tell us that he loves us. And that nothing happened, the atonement principle. In that experience we know it’s true… and then we can look out upon our seeming individual self and others in the world without judgement and condemnation.

Check out this SFACIM video on

“The Decision Maker”

click here

For Ken Wapnick’s further discussion of “The Decision Maker,” see this 2 CD set or MP3 download….

click here

Musings: The Five Laws of Chaos of The Ego

March 26, 2020

“The Five Laws of Chaos”

Discussed in Chap. 23 Sec. II of A Course in Miracles, these five chaotic “laws” are basically the laws or rules of the ego’s unhappy game of separation, The War Against Yourself (your true Self).

They, the “laws,” are put in quotes because as Jesus says they are not real laws but are simply made up descending rungs in an illusionary ladder, where we attempt to become a ‘something else,’ other than God’s One Son.

The problem is, Jesus continues, that we really do believe in them… and don’t realize we do.

He also says that once the first law is set in motion the other four automatically follow, and that you can’t have or believe in any one of them without the rest. It’s like a super slippery sliding board, where once you start you can’t stop till you crash at the bottom, ie. into the world we think we’re in.

Another way to look at these laws (or stages in our process of establishing an alternate ego identity)… is to review the Chart and see how these are the ego’s five steps that we seem to take away from our awareness and experience of our true Identity in Heaven. That separation and descent into hell is actually impossible to do (even tho part of us wants to believe we did), and the Course calls that fact the Atonement Principle.

of The Ego

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Here they are in a nutshell:

The Laws of Chaos

The first three laws take place internally in us in what the Course calls the wrong mind:

1) “The truth is different for everyone.”

Our belief in sin: Differences are real, and those differences are important! There is a hierarchy of illusions. (in defiance of the first miracle principle: there is no hierarchy of miracles.)

2) “Each one must sin, and therefore deserves attack and death.”

Our belief in guilt: we did really sin, it was really terrible, and we will be punished.

3) “For if God cannot be mistaken, He must accept His Son’s belief in what he is, and hate him for it.”

Our belief in fear: we make up a God that is as crazy as we are, and we should be afraid! For He also believes we have sinned and we will be punished. But: we simply made up a God in our separated “image and likeness,” and then we told Him how He should think and feel, especially about us.

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The 4th and 5th laws take place in the world (reflecting the first three laws of sin, guilt and fear in all our worldly relationships):

4) “This seeming law is the belief you have what you have taken.”

Special hates: In a savage world the kind cannot be kind. They must take or else be taken from, by others who are worse than themselves. The Course calls these our special hate relationships.

5) “The final principle…holds there is a substitute for love (as crazy as it sounds, the Course calls this substitute: Fear!).”

Special loves: That substitute is hidden in my brother’s body and personhood, and he must be destroyed, in sometimes seemingly subtle ways… to get it back. We do this in disguise with the “face of innocence,” a pretend niceness and disingenuous kindness, and without a real appreciation for our brothers or ourselves. I ‘need’ you to show me fear… that you ‘need’ me and are afraid that you will one day lose me, thru abandonment or death. (described in Ch. 31, Self-Concept vs. Self, p.656)

Ken Wapnick calls this substitute for love, not our true innocence as one Son of God, but the special innocence, special love or attention, that we as egos desperately need to sustain our individual made-up selves. To get this recognition of special innocence from others, we must cannibalize others to demand and ‘devour’ their time, energy, and regard. This process takes the forms of manipulation, control, threat, and compromise.

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Even in the world of time and space, so called “life” must eat other “life” in order to survive and maintain itself. This is simply a projection of the first law of chaos. My truth, or identity, is different from God’s truth.

And in order to be different and separate from our Father in Heaven, we believe we had to sever (kill) our connection with Him and steal (eat) a piece of His Life and run away with it. Thus the ego’s laws come full circle in the fourth, and especially fifth law of chaos… the special love relationship, the ego’s most boasted weapon. (Text p.341, par. 3).

I take, bargain, compromise with you… whatever it takes to get from you what I think i need… attention, esteem , ‘love,’ etc. in order to maintain and feel better about my chosen belief in this ego self.

Jesus tells us in Chapter 23:

¹⁸ “You would maintain, and think it true, that you do not believe these senseless laws, nor act upon them. And when you look at what they say, they cannot be believed.

Brother, you do believe them.

For how else could you perceive the form they take, with content such as this? Can any form of this be tenable? Yet you believe them for the form they take, and do not recognize the content. It never changes. Can you paint rosy lips upon a skeleton, dress it in loveliness, pet it and pamper it, and make it live? And can you be content with an illusion that you are living?

¹⁹ There is no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must be. In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. At best it seems like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is not life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere. Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusion stands; senseless, impossible and beyond all reason, and yet perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven. Illusions are but forms. Their content is never true.”

(par. 18-19 p. 493)

—————–

Think about these laws and notice your reaction to them. Do they even seem credible?

Does any one of them particularly stand out?

How would you describe each of them in your own words?

For further discussion of the “Laws of Chaos”… what they mean, how they play out in our special relationships, and most importantly how they can be acknowledged and released… listen to Ken Wapnick’s CD set or MP3 download @ facim.org,

**or read Ken’s comments in his insightful discourse “Journey through the Text,” Volume Three, p. 213-220…**

or see the SFACIM video on the Laws of Chaos: click here

The Ego Pandemic in Our Mind … and The ‘Vaccine’ : Forgiveness

March 11, 2020

A Forgiveness Refresher:

The Functional Solution to

The Belief in Virus, Disaster & Death in Our Mind

(click arrow below for replay of podcast)

Forgiveness: The Antidote for All Belief in Sickness

March 5, 2020

Tim uses Lessons #61-66 to describe how we use forgiveness to save the world from our own judgment & condemnation.

A Course in Miracles points out over and over how all sickness and disease and death in the world is simply a reflection of our own internal belief in separation from God. (It takes about two minutes into the recording to get past the background noise.)

Like Download

“The Real Virus:”

In this post we have replaced the word “problem” in Lesson 79 with the specific problem/issue of “sickness,” to present how the Course approaches all sickness in the world (including the coronavirus) as a reflection of the one and only perceived sickness in our mind: our belief in separation from Our Father in Heaven.

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“A Course in Miracles” Workbook Lesson 79 (p.141):

“Let me recognize the sickness (of belief in separation in my mind) so it can be healed.”

A sickness cannot be healed if you do not know what it is. Even if it is really healed already you will still have the (original and only) sickness, because you will not recognize that it has been healed. This is the situation of the world. The sickness of (belief in) separation, which is really the only sickness, has already been healed. Yet the healing is not recognized because the sickness is not recognized.

Everyone in this world seems to have his own special form of illness(es). Yet they are all the same, and must be recognized as one if the one solution that heals them all is to be accepted. Who can see that a sickness has been healed if he thinks the sickness is something else? Even if he is given the answer, he cannot see its relevance.

That is the position in which you find yourself now. You have the answer, but you are still uncertain about what the (real) sickness is. A long series of different sicknesses seem to confront you, and as one is settled the next one and the next arise. There seems to be no end to them. There is no time in which you feel completely free of some kind of illness and at peace.

The temptation to regard sicknesses as many is the temptation to keep the sickness of separation unsolved. The world seems to present you with a vast number of illnesses, each requiring a different answer. This perception places you in a position in which your healing of sickness must be inadequate, and failure is inevitable. (Just believing we are a body, healthy or not, is sick, projected from the unhealthy but made-up belief in our mind that we are separated from Our Father in Heaven.)

No one could solve all the sickness the world appears to hold. They seem to be on so many levels, in such varying forms and with such varied content, that they confront you with an impossible situation. Dismay and depression are inevitable as you regard them. Some spring up unexpectedly, just as you think you have resolved the previous ones. Others remain unsolved under a cloud of denial, and rise to haunt you from time to time, only to be hidden again but still unsolved.

All this complexity is but a desperate attempt not to recognize the (real and only) sickness (believing we are separate minds, projected onto separate bodies, healthy or not), and therefore not to let it be resolved. If you could recognize that your only sickness is separation (in the mind), no matter what form it takes (as healthy bodies or sick bodies), you could accept the answer because you would see its relevance. Perceiving the underlying constancy in all the sicknesses that seem to confront you, you would understand that you have the means to solve them all. And you would use the means, because you recognize the problem.

In our longer practice periods today we will ask what the (real) sickness is, and what is the answer to it. We will not assume that we already know. We will try to free our minds of all the many different kinds of ’sick’ we think we have. We will try to realize that we have only one sickness, which we have failed to recognize. We will ask what it is, and wait for the answer. We will be told. Then we will ask for the solution to it. And we will be told.

The exercises for today will be successful to the extent to which you do not insist on defining the sickness. Perhaps you will not succeed in letting all your preconceived notions go, but that is not necessary. All that is necessary is to entertain some doubt about the reality of your version of what your sicknesses are. You are trying to recognize that you have been given the answer by recognizing the problem (in the mind), so that the problem and the answer (the Holy Spirit tells us the our belief in separation is silly) can be brought together and you can be at peace.

The shorter practice periods for today will not be set by time, but by need. You will see many forms of sickness today, each one calling for an answer. Our efforts will be directed toward recognizing that there is only one sickness (belief in the ego) and one healing (The Holy Spirit). In this recognition are all sicknesses resolved. In this recognition there is peace.

Be not deceived by the form of sickness today. Whenever any forms of sickness seem to rise, tell yourself quickly:

Let me recognize the only sickness is in my mind so it can be healed.

Then try to suspend all judgment about what sickness is. If possible, close your eyes for a moment and ask what it is. You will be heard and you will be answered.

Video replay on dealing with CORONAVIRUS & OTHER DISASTERS…

For a two disc CD seminar or MP3 download

on sickness & healing,

see Ken Wapnick’s

“The Kindness of Healing”…

click here

SFACIM Online Course Meetings

… almost every day!

To help get us thru the “crazies,” in these current times…

click here

Musings: The Four Obstacles to My Peace of Mind

March 6, 2020

The Obstacles to Peace

(Chapter 19, Section IV, p. 406-424)

The Course tells us that there are basically four obstacles to finding our true peace of mind…

(with four correlating subheadings, delineated by an “i”):

A. The Desire to Get Rid of It (Peace)

i. The Attraction of Guilt

B. The Belief the Body Is Valuable for What It Offers (A place for our projected guilt, seen as the body’s pain or pleasure)

i. The Attraction of Pain

C. The Attraction of Death (not just death of the body, but belief in the idea of death)

i. The Incorruptible Body

D. The Fear of God (The fear of Love, the fear of sinlessness)

i. The Lifting of the Veil

The Titles Themselves

The first striking thing hits us as we begin to look at these titles above!

Jesus is telling us that the very qualities or feelings that we are attracted to… are not peace, not joy, and not love.

In our make-believe separated state, he literally says we are attracted to their opposites: we are really attracted to guilt, to pain, and to death. These unrecognized attractions to terrible stuff are three of our main obstacles to peace.

For many of us, is that even in our awareness? Do we really believe that?

But, what if it’s possibly true though?… How often have we tried at peace, love, or joy, and seemed to miss the mark? Or even if we felt them temporarily, the other shoe eventually dropped. What if just below our seeming conscious desires for peace and love… something else is going on in our minds. What if we are really trying to push real peace and love away? What if we are not upset, or attracted, or whatever, for the reasons that we consciously think? (WB Lesson #5)

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Then there’s the title of the fourth obstacle, “The Fear of God!” So it gets worse… even more insulting to our egos. Not only does Jesus tell us we are attracted to some real nasty things like pain and death, but then he says that what we are really fearful of isn’t the bad stuff, to which we are attracted, but God Himself. He says that we are not really seeking for God’s Love, but we have actually convinced ourselves we are afraid of It.

So once again is that possible? Is the Course correct, as the country western song laments… we are “lookin for love in all the wrong places”… because we are truly afraid to find it?

The Four Grand Self-Deceptions (Obstacles)

One way of looking at the four obstacles and their order is to review our Wapnick Chart and the Course’s story of how we got here in the world (or at least believing that we’re here)… and then we retrace the steps of our descent into the hell of the world (and the self-imposed obstacles to our return to Heaven), starting with where we think we are now:

We believe are bodies in a world, very vulnerable to the both physical and emotional attacks of others… obviously a not very peaceful state of existence to say the least. But it doesn’t look or feel like something we inwardly chose to be in. But what if it’s true, that my ego internal choice is constantly choosing to perceive a a state of conflict, so I can blame my lack of peace on someone else, and not realizeI chose it. And thus my desire to get rid of peace for that very purpose. And so what if it’s true, that I’m never feeling un-peaceful or upset for the conscious reason I think, that it’s somebody else’s fault? (See Les. # 5)
The convincing, convicting, and conniving guilt we made-up in our minds is projected (misplaced) onto the body, especially others bodies guilty of what they did to mine. The ‘proof’ lies in all the seeming pains and pleasures of our bodies: the belief that the body is valuable for what it offers (guilt galore!). We made up a universe of time and space with many individual bodies for this purpose. Yes I feel pain or pleasure, but it’s seems to be coming from something external to my personality and my body.We believe our pain comes from what other bodies are doing to us (or even what our own body is doing), but we never admit the pain might be coming from the source of guilt in our mind… thus “the attraction of pain.” The body’s seeming pain in the body keeps us distracted from pain’s real source, the guilt within which was made up to prove our separation from Peace. The body’s seeming pleasure (special love) is simply a set up to place the internal guilt on someone else when the special love eventually fails and seems to now be our source of pain.
And then the most insulting attraction of all… what Jesus calls our “dedication to death.” The internal belief in a spiritual death (the end of ourselves as spirit at one with our Heavenly Father) is now projected onto the death of our bodies with which we identify. It is the ultimate ‘proof’ that we left Heaven’s peace. There is and can be no death in heaven, only eternal Life at one with Itself. However once again, from a body’s point of view, our belief in death does not seem to be our choice nor our fault. We tell ourselves that we were born into bodies that simply die…we didn’t choose to do that… it just happens, or worse we blame it all on God. We believe death is real, but of course we don’t want to believe we are actually attracted to it, much less responsible for making the idea of it up in the first place. Death once again proves we pulled off the impossible, and left Heaven.
Finally, back to the ego’s beginning, the tiny mad idea of separation… We, identifying as a separated self (the ego), convince ourselves that we are now afraid of God. On one level we tell ourselves that He is going to punish us (ultimately with death, then hell) for what we did, i.e. leave Heaven. However on a deeper level, the Course tells us that we are not actually afraid of God’s wrath, but that we’re really afraid He’s not upset at all… because nothing really happened. That means no individual us, no bodies, no nothing… everything we think we are, believe in, and seem to react to, all nothing. Jesus constantly reminds us that we couldn’t and didn’t leave our true Identity in Heaven, even if some part of us seemed to want to. Chapter 13 (p.242, par.1-2) clearly tells us:

“You are not really afraid of crucifixion (we think crucifixion is the payment God demanded of His Son). Your real terror is of redemption.” The Atonement principle says separation didn’t and couldn’t happen. God’s experience of love and oneness in Heaven with His Son, which is our only true Identity, does not include or know any experience of a separated state.

It does all sound like Star Wars: In a time long long ago and in a galaxy far far away, we seemed to step outside of our true reality in Heaven and play around with the ‘tiny mad idea’ of being separate from Heaven’s Peace…in other words we toyed with “our desire to get rid of peace.” This started the ego’s make-believe ballgame of separation rolling… To insure believing we actually did separate and did leave our true state of peace, we then made up the feelings of sin, guilt, and fear…thus feelings which ‘prove’ to ourselves we did a really bad thing and did separate from our Father in Heaven. And then all that awareness was repressed, ‘forgotten,’ and the responsibility for our own lack of peace projected onto something or someone in the world.

It seems like we did this in some distant past, but we would be having a true experience of peace right now, if we were not still putting up theses unacknowledged blocks to our awareness right this moment. We need to work on this because it is happening right now.

—————————

Moving through and undoing (with the HS help) the four obstacles to peace are basically the letting go of believing ego’s story of the unholy trinity in our wrong mind: sin, guilt, and fear, that we told ourselves and accepted as reality:

1. sin (we threw Our True Identity as God’s One Son away),

2. guilt (the made-up pain we feel for doing just that, then projected onto the body and its ultimate death), and

3. fear (consciously of God’s punishment, but really of God’s Love)

So, through the process of forgiveness, we look at and uncover each of these stages (obstacles) and become willing to let each one go, not by ourselves, but with of ‘course’ the help of Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, by our side.

The Way Back:

The ACIM Forgiveness Process

The question that Jesus recommends that we learn to ask of the Holy Spirit, about anything is…”what is it for?”

From the ego’s point of view the purpose of our obstacles to peace are just that… self-chosen obstacles that are kept out of our conscious awareness, so it looks like we are running after and chasing peace, when we really are not… the Course says our self-accepted ego mantra becomes “Seek but do not find.”

The Holy Spirit’s reverse purpose, for the obstacles we made up, is to…

1. look at and acknowledge them

2. see their insanity, and the pain (the cost) for believing in them to maintain a separated identity in something that we’re not, and

3. be willing to ask for His help in seeing beyond those obstacles to the “real world” (an experience that our innocence and our brothers’ innocence is still intact, despite what we think we see and hear…)

The Starting Place

Two of the major themes that Jesus develops throughout this entire section (and especially in the section’s intro and the ‘Lifting of the Veil’ at the end) are that the way we move through and beyond each and every obstacle is…

With the Holy Spirit’s help, to have a Holy Relationship with the Holy Spirit in our minds. This then is reflected in our relationships with all our brothers.

He tells us that the first step in connecting with the Holy Spirit’s help is always to ask ourselves… are we willing to look past our judgements of each other, with His Help, to see the true innocence within? This begins the “Lifting of the Veil” of our belief in sin, guilt, and fear, and is specifically spelled out in the Text on p.421, par.8, line 7:

“But first, lift up your eyes and look on your brother in innocence born of complete forgiveness of his illusions, and through the eyes of faith (the HS) that sees them not.”

With each obstacle to peace, we used our brother’s body, personality, and actions as a scapegoat for our own inner choice to get rid of peace, and then blame our guilt and pain on him. To recognize that, by asking for the Holy Spirit’s help, is the only way back in in letting go of each of these obstacles to peace, these “blocks to the awareness of Love’s presence,” that we ourselves put there and then denied. (see the Course’s Introduction on p.1 in the Text)

Another way Jesus describes as the way to start this process is in the Text, p.441, par.9. He tells us don’t even ask how to see my my brother or myself without a body… but am I willing to see past my judgements and have an experience of his and my guiltlessness, the process of true forgiveness. (Click here for explanation of forgiveness in ACIM.)

Your question should not be, “How can I see my brother without the body?” Ask only, “Do I really wish to see him sinless?”… forget not that his sinlessness is (also) your escape from fear.

The second step in the process is… am I willing to see beyond my own seeming guilt for having thrown Heaven away? The same way I was willing to forgive my brother for what he did not do (cause me pain), am I willing to ask Jesus for help… to let go of believing I left him and my Father in Heaven for something else (a separate identity)? He did not go anywhere. And I simply pretended I did.

What if all that seeming separation is just not true?

Not recognizing that that has been my problem all along… not that I actually did separate from what I/ we truly are, but I only convinced myself I did. And then to ask for help to let that silly belief go “back into the nothingness from which it came.”

And then I begin to realize: that each of the obstacles to my peace of mind that seemed like real obstacles were never there, and were all made up.

For further discussion of the “Obstacles to Peace,” see Ken Wapnick’s CD set or MP3 Download on “Lifting of the Veil”

————-

**or Ken’s “Journey through the Text,” Volume Three, p.78-92.**

The Pandemic Crises: Recommended Videos on Sickness & Healing thru “A Course in Miracles”

February 14, 2020

Here are a few class replays on dealing with fear and sickness…

**by learning and practicing A Course in Miracles approach to healing and forgiveness, especially in this current milieu of all kinds of sickness and hospitalizations in the US and around the world…**

——————————–

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goJGFZGKj8U&t=381s

Saturdays thru April: Online Course Immersion 2025

February 6, 2020

On Saturdays, January thru April 2025, we are doing the SFACIM Immersion Program…

open only to registered Immersion participants.

For weekly online class information…

click here

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Course Immersion 2026

Online Course Immersion 2026

Five Month Intensive from January thru May, 2026,

Designed for those new to “A Course in Miracles” …

and anyone desiring to re-immerse themselves

in a profound understanding and practice of the Course.

———–

An ultimate in Course education and practice!

For more details about the …

School for A Course in Miracles

Immersion Program 2026

(Jan. thru May 2026)

Saturdays 9:30am to 11am Mt. Time

and how to register:

Below are links to earlier posts and insightful compositions

written by Lyn Corona

on various helpful topics in A Course in Miracles :

on Christmas

click here “The Way Home”

Death

click here “A Decision Not to Decide”

Dreams

click here “Field of Dreams”

click here “A Dream of Time & Space”

Ego

click here “Seek, But Do Not Find”

click here “Self Sabotaging Behavior”

click here “False Sense of Self”

Forgiveness

click here “What is it?”

click here “A Little Willingness”

click here “A Daily Practice”

Gratitude

click here “Make no comparisons.”

click here “Seeing the world forgiveness sees.”

———-

Happiness

click here “Perfect Happiness”

Healing

click here “Healing, not Fixing”

click here “What is healing anyway?”

Holy Spirit

click here “Teacher of Teachers”

Identity

click here “Our One True Self”

click here “What’s valuable really?”

click here “We are Love!”

click here “Get over yourself.”

click here “The Myth of Personhood”

click here “The Seeker”

click here “The True Shape of Being”

Immersion/ SFACIM

click here “Are changes required?”

click here “SFACIM… helping change the way we see”

An Invitation

click here “Curriculum Invitation”

click here “…to Love’s Presence”

click here “… to make a decision”

Jesus

click here “I will wait until you change your mind.”

click here “Jesus & Me”

Lyn (herself)

click here “Some History”

click here “Some Stories”

click here “Marcus Aurelius”

click here “Ken & Me”

click here “Teaching Love”

click here “Mrs. Amos”

Minds/ Bodies

click here “Only the Mind is real.”

click here “The Course is written to my mind, not my body.”

click here “Who’s Looking?”

Miracles

click here “Miracles are natural, the most natural thing of all.”

click here “Living in Miracles”

New Year’s Resolutions

click here “Make this year different by…”

Pain & Suffering

click here “Dealing with the illusion of pain”

Peace of Mind

**on various helpful topics in A Course in Miracles :**

**In any given moment there are only two possible purposes for anything we seem to do or don’t do…**

**The ego’s purpose is to see separation, feel pain and suffering, but blame/project the source of our pain on someone or something else.**

**(click here for further description of The Three Steps of Forgiveness.)**

**The Course uses the word purpose more than 700 times,**

**the word goal about 450 times,**

**Don’t bother me… I’m busy being peaceful!**