School for A Course In Miracles

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

School for A Course In Miracles

“The universe of learning will open up before you in all its gracious simplicity.” T-14. II. 6:4
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Musings… The Holy Relationship ??

 

 

 

What is a holy relationship?

Where is the holy relationship??

In the ACIM supplement called the Song of Prayer, Jesus tells us not to place forgiveness in an earthly frame.

True forgiveness does not happen between bodies, but only in the mind.

The same is true with the holy relationship. It is not a relationship between bodies, but is an experience of our united holiness as Christ in our mind, in our internal relationship with the Holy Spirit.

To understand this, we must first understand what  ACIM means by mind… it is not our brain, but an internal place inside each of us where we either unconsciously choose the ego as our guide and teacher (the unholy relationship), or we consciously choose the Holy Spirit to help us change our perception of ourselves to what we truly are as Christ (the holy relationship).

Puppets in a puppet show can’t have a real relationship. It’s all happening in the mind of the puppeteer.
We as bodies can’t have a holy relationship. Bodies are just figures in a dream… like seemingly interacting puppets in a puppet show, guided by either  our relationship with the ego or by our relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Our belief that we are actually bodies having relationships  with other bodies the Course calls … special relationships.

The holy relationship of oneness is in our one mind, in which we are joined with all other seeming separated minds.
It is the relationship of our mind’s decision maker (the internal part of us that chooses between the ego or the Holy Spirit)… with the Holy Spirit, i.e. with our own Holiness, instead of a relationship with a separated ego ‘self.’

 

Seen that way, the compulsive desperation for a puppet or body to have a romantic relationship (or any kind of body-to-body relationship) with another body, as intense as it seems to be sometimes, gets pretty silly, and is an obvious major distraction from the ‘real deal’ in the mind.
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However, Jesus is not telling us not to have special relationships as puppets in a puppet show, as bodies in a dream…
but to allow the Holy Spirit to use those special relationships as classrooms, and teach us (as a decision maker in our mind) to wake up and direct our awareness to where the real holy relationship already is, and is already happening… in our own mind, and not between bodies.
Special relationships between bodies can seem sometimes loving or sometimes hateful, or even alternate between the two… to keep us preoccupied  and focused as separate selves in an unrecognized dream.
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The real ‘trap’ or goal of special love relationships (with the ego as puppeteer), as described in Chap. 15-16-17 of the Text, is not really to have a ‘loving’ relationship with someone that helps fill the ‘hole’ inside us. But it is to point a blaming finger at someone else (besides ourselves) when that relationship inevitably seems to let us down, whether through betrayal, abandonment, or death.
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Our own chosen belief then is that they robbed me of my peace. And thus we stay blind to our own inner choice to get rid of peace (first obstacle to peace in Chap. 19), and then blame that lack of peace on someone else. Thus the special love relationship is a huge attack or conspiracy against ourselves… to keep us from ever waking up to the beauty of our inner holy relationship with the Holy Spirit, with everyone and everything already included, already there internally in our mind.

 

 

 

 

The Holy Relationship: A Stream of Stars [CD]

See Ken Wapnick’s Seminar on “The Holy Relationship”

click here

 

 

 

 

Our major ACIM ‘classrooms’ are always our relationships, especially all the relationship challenges we are facing in this times of crises.

Jesus wants us to learn and practice his non-traditional process of forgiveness as outlined in the Course… his prescribed plan for forgiveness in all our relationships, changing them from special love and special hate into the holy relationship already in our mind.

He tells us… Seek not to change the world and your relationships in it, but seek to change your mind about the world and the relationships that you have. In our School’s online Text series on ACIM Chapters 15, 16, and 17, we have discussed what our ego-based special relationships look like, and how to transform them in our minds, with Jesus help… into  a reflection of something already real and holy.

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To see our SFACIM YouTube Video Series on the Text Chapters 15-16-17…

which includes our discussions of special love relationships and the holy relationship:

click here

 

Thursdays @ 5:30pm Mt. : Classes on Dr. Kenneth Wapnick Books on ACIM

Online Zoom Classes on Ken Wapnick’s books on A Course in Miracles: 

Click here for the Weekly Class Schedule.

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The video replays of these classes is available to all SFACIM monthly donors… for details, click here.

We suggest getting hard copies of the books, and not the download version… to be able to more easily follow along in class… The quickest way to get a hard copy of each book is on Amazon Prime.

 

 Ken Wapnick’s  Books on Thursdays

 

 

 

Musings: On ‘Idols’ in “A Course in Miracles”

Idols & Idolatry

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

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

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

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

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

  4. The Anti-Christ

 

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

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

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

 

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Use of Word “Idols” in the Course:

 

 

 

 

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

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

 

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

Ken Wapnick dark bkgnd

Five minute youtube clips on Ken Wapnick speaking about Christmas:

 

 

 

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and the New Year:

Also…

A New Kind of New Year’s Resolution :

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

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

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

 

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

And… A Tribute to Ken upon His Passing:

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

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

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

Jack B.

 

Musings… How Could the Separation Ever Have Happened??

 


(by Tim Wise)

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

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

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

 

 

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

(1) It’s An Assertion, Not a Question

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

 

(3) Ask for An Experience, Not An Explanation

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

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

 

https://youtu.be/_lQYJCYIIsA

For further discussion of our ‘leaving Heaven’

see Ken Wapnick’s CD set or MP3 download on

“The Four Splits” (click here),

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

“The 3 Steps of Forgiveness”:  click here

 

 

Musings: on Gratitude… and Thanksgiving

“Love makes no comparisons.

And gratitude can only be sincere if it be joined to love.”

(by Lyn Corona)

First, I want to make sure that we know what the ego is and the way that it sees the world.

The ego is the belief in separated, locatable self. The mind mistakenly identifies with the body believing it to be its home. Specialness is the main attribute of the ego, meaning that it sees the world and everything in it from a self-centered point of view. It’s all about ” me”.

From the ego’s point of view the world is one of two things: a prison house or a playground. As long as any perception supports the idea of a separate self, winner or loser, the ego is happy.

This lesson contrasts the ego’s notion of gratitude, which is based on differences and comparison, with the true and only reason to be grateful: love that is not of this world.

The lesson invites us to change our thinking so that our gratitude reflects truth. We can only be grateful for what is real. Love is truth and truth is Oneness. “Love makes no comparisons. And gratitude can only be sincere if it be joined to love.”

Our addiction to specialness (the disease of the ego) is exposed throughout the lessons of A Course in Miracles. This is not to shame us into changing behavior, but to help us see what needs seeing.  What remains hidden from our awareness cannot be gone beyond. It remains as a “block to the awareness of  love’s presence.”

Specialness is sickness. It is insanity and it is necessary to admit that we are insane before we can become happy learners. Separation is simply a wild idea in the mind that is taken seriously.

“Love Is the Way I Walk in Gratitude” also shows us the way we would see if we accepted Atonement which is the Course’s correction for insanity. What Atonement means is that we never separated from Oneness, never made a body, were never born and can never die. It means that the thought of separation in our mind had no effect.

Hear this: the thought of separation had no effect because it was not God’s Thought. God’s is the original thought and we cannot think apart from Him. The thought of separation is a secret, private thought that we believe to be true, therefore, we are the only ones that can change it.

Our only spiritual responsibility is to accept that the thought of separation had no effect, and that we have no power over God.

God is Love and Love has been defined by Him. The ego’s version of love is specialness. It is the belief that we can and did triumph over God.

 

 

Gratitude is to God because we could not/did not succeed in changing ourselves or reality. When this is accepted, as this lesson points out, we will be truly grateful. The ego’s version of gratitude– to be grateful because you are better off than someone else–  is “pitiful and deprecating”.

Note: A Course in Miracles uses metaphor—images and symbols—to help us understand our situation. For example, in this lesson it mentions “escape from prison.” These images and symbols refer to a condition in our mind.

Similarly the story of the Holy Spirit descending from God and blanketing us in love and whispering in our ear until we accept that we are loving and lovable is a story. The purpose is to open our minds and hearts to the possibility that love is all there is and has no opposite.

 

 

SFACIM Videos on

Thanksgiving & Gratitude:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, click here for Jim on Les. 123

“I thank my Father for His gifts to me” :

https://youtu.be/cBT1KxpYyhc

Carol Howe… Remembered and Honored

Carol Howe…

(edited from acim.org):

We’d like to honor the passing of Carol Howe on Monday, June 15, 2026… a beloved teacher of A Course in Miracles, a cherished friend to many of the early founders and stewards of the Foundation for Inner Peace, and a devoted presence in the Course community for many years.

Carol was more than a teacher. She was a bridge to the early history of the Course and to the people whose lives were dedicated to bringing it into the world. Through her friendships, teaching, writing, and generous spirit, she helped countless students deepen their understanding of the Course and its practical application in everyday life.

 

Many will also remember Carol’s authorship of Bill Thetford’s biography on Never Forget to Laugh. This book preserves Bill’s remarkable story and reflects something essential not only about Bill Thetford but about Carol as well: Both understood that a spiritual path need not be a solemn one. The ability to laugh, especially at the ego’s antics, is part of the healing.
 

Those who knew Carol would often speak of her warmth, her sincerity, her dedication to truth, and her unmistakable sense of humor. She carried the Course’s teachings with both depth and humanity, reminding us that awakening is not about becoming more serious, but more loving

As we remember Carol, we are grateful for all she gave, all she shared, and all she helped preserve. We imagine Bill and Carol, joining all those who went before them, looking at us and repeating the title of Bill’s biography: Never Forget to Laugh. And so, we shall not! 

Bruce Rawles interviews Carol three years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXxnUPO_tno

Happy New Year 2023 !!!

(by Lyn Corona)

“Make This Year Different by Making It All the Same.”

A new year’s resolution…

Jesus knows he is speaking to a ‘drowning man’ in A Course in Miracles. Every sentence is a lifeline. This one, “Make this year different by making all the same,” is given as a command. It will save us if we grab it, understand it, and do what he says.

The Course’s new year’s resolution comes at the end of Chapter 15, The Holy Instant, the holy instant being the time in which minds are joined in Christ’s love without body identity interference. It is also the chapter in which Jesus speaks about “the season” (Christmas) of his birth, and how we should celebrate it by joining him in holiness. Why not? What have we got to lose?

There always seems to be some justification for the lack of love we feel…some exception we would rather cling to than grab the lifeline of forgiveness. I could feel love if it weren’t for that situation, that person, that event, etc. That’s what we tell ourselves.

I recently attended a concert in which one of the songs was Meatloaf’s  “I Will Do Anything for Love.” It’s a powerful thought, but the chorus went like this:

“I will do anything for love, but I won’t do that THAT !”

Jesus’ New Year’s resolution requires that we look at all the “thats”. They are all the people that we won’t release to the Holy Spirit, but would prefer to use them to imprison ourselves as bodies, and them along with us. That will surely keep us from the love we say we would do anything for. That will surely keep us from our holiness.

Jesus introduces the resolution with this poignant recognition of our mutual imprisonment as bodies and our joint release in the holy instant in which there are no bodies. It goes like this:

“I give you (name of person) to the Holy Spirit as part of myself.

I know that you will be released, unless I want to use you to imprison myself.

In the name of my freedom I choose your release, because

I recognize that we will be released together.”

We either release or imprison. There is nothing in between. All our relationships could be made holy by giving them to the Holy Spirit who knows how to make of them something beautiful and fulfilling in contrast to the ego’s use to hurt and blame ourselves.

Image the the world in our minds if we were willing to not make any exceptions. What if everyone was seen the same… worthy of being released to love. It would indeed be a different world. This is what Jesus means when he says, “make this year different by making it all the same.” He asks us to give all our relationships, especially the ones we are using to victimize ourselves, to The One Who can show us our shared reality of holiness instead.

“Make this year different by making it all the same. And let all your relationships be made holy for you. This is our will. Amen.”

Happy New Year!

Lyn

Online Course Immersion One

Six Month Intensive from January thru June, 2023,

2nd & 4th Sundays  @ 9:30am-12pm Mt. Time

Designed for New “A Course in Miracles” Students…

and anyone desiring to immerse themselves in a profound understanding and practice of the Course.

Click here for info

What is my real purpose for this new year? 

click here

 

Ken Wapnick Videos on Death and Beyond… & Tim’s Recommended Movies about Transitioning Death

 

Ken Wapnick 5 minute videos on “Death”:

(click refresh if videos don’t appear)

 

 

click here

 

For Ken’s Foundation’s Youtube channel with over 200 (ten minute or less) videos: 

click here

 

 

Some thought-provoking movies about death and dying and the afterlife:

1) Ghost… the classic with Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, and Whoopi Goldberg

*** 2) Coco…. beautiful animated CGI flick about Day of the Dead

*** 3) Departures… wonderful Japanese movie about forgiveness and respect

* 4) Hearts and Souls… funny and insightful with Robert Downey Jr, where 4 dead souls “haunt” him and work out their unresolved issues thru him.

5) What Dreams May Come… Robin Williams looking for his wife in the afterlife

* 6) Meet Joe Black… Anthony Hopkins as the dying man and Brad Pitt as “Death,” who has come to get him.

** 7) Flatliners… unusual movie about a group of med students who take turns taking their lives and bringing each other back, and in so doing learn some powerful forgiveness lessons, with very young Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, and Julia Roberts. 

*** 8) Six Feet Under TV series… one of the best tv series ever! It’s about a family running a funeral home in LA and their many conversations with the dead folks they are working on…

* 9) All of Me… funny movie about souls inhabiting other bodies after death, with Lily Tomlin (the inhabiter) and Steve Martin (the inhabited)

10) One for The Angels… another classic: Ed Wynn meets Mr. Death in a 1959 Twilight Zone Show (Season 1, #2) on Netflix…   click here  

*** 11) Collateral Beauty… Ed Norton hires three actors to play Death (H. Mirren), Time, and Love to help his friend Will Smith get past his grieving. (A Tim & Lyn favorite!)

12) The Seventh Seal… Ingmar Bergman at his best, about a knight returning from Crusades and his interactions and conversations and chess game with Death.

13) Two X-Files Shows…  [1]”Tithonus” (6th Season, Eps. 10) about a photographer who can’t die:    https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B001DCEK96/ref=atv_dp_season_select_s6

* 14)  [2] “How The Ghost Stole Christmas” :(6th Season, Eps. 6)

Ed Asner and Lily Tomlin as two dead souls that haunt Mulder and Scully on Xmas Eve    : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001DCEKAU

15) Heaven Can Wait… clever and funny, with Warren Beatty as dead soul mistakenly taken and James Mason as angel-in-charge.

** 16) Sixth Sense… part horror flick/part moving drama about afterlife, with Bruce Willis (nominated for 6 Academy Awards)

* 17) Brand New Testament… Very very quirky movie where God’s daughter releases (on everyone’s cell phone) the date they are going to die….

* 18) A Little Bit of Heaven… with Kate Hudson as woman who finds out she is terminally ill.

19) PS I Love You… Wife finds letters (with helpful suggestions for her) from her dying husband to her… after he dies, with Hillary Swank, Gerald Butler, and Kathy Bates.

** 20) Biutiful….Inarritu directs, Bardem stars as the dying man

*** 21) Amour… touching movie about love between elderly French couple.  It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated in four other categories: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, and Best Director.

** 22 & 23) Dead Man Walking & The Green Mile… two very great movies about death row.

*** 24) Kodachrome… on Netflix,  movie with Ed Harris as disgruntled dying parent on road trip with his estranged son.

25) Whose Life Is It Anyway?… Richard Dreyfus as man who fights for his right to die.

(The above starred *** shows are particularly recommended!)

 

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