ACIM 10 min. video clips by Ken Wapnick

September 1, 2025

The Three Steps of Forgiveness in “A Course in Miracles”

March 29, 2023

The Three Steps of Forgiveness in ACIM:

1) “The world I see… is an outward picture of an inward condition.”

[from Ch.21, p. 445, par.1]

I start with my judgements of others:

What if the real source of my own pain/discomfort/anxiety is not coming from the world? What if it’s coming from somewhere deep inside me… a place the Course calls my mind?

What if it is coming from internally pushing away the Holy Spirit (the Course calls this the Voice for God) and choosing the ego instead (the voice for separation from God)? And now I somehow forget I even have a mind, much less that I’m choosing this wrong inner teacher, the ego. What if that’s why I’m really in a state of conflict, whether it’s anger, fear, depression, or whatever I’m feeling that’s not peace? What if it has nothing to do with anything external, even though I’m sure it is?

If it were possible to see past others’ sins and my judgements of them as the seeming source of my lack of peace, and realize that the origin of my conflicted feelings might just be coming from inside myself (and not anyone else)… would I be willing to ask the Holy Spirit’s help to see and realize that?

————

**Workbook Lesson #5 says ” I’m never upset for the reason I think.” What if that’s true?**

The Course reminds us: the seeming “outward” source of pain is simply my projection of my own inner guilt for pushing God out of my own awareness. The real source of all pain and guilt is always in my mind.

The ego has been described as… edging God out (e-g-o).

2) The Made-up Inner Condition of Separation, Inside in My Mind

I ‘shift’ in my awareness to my inner judgment of myself…

(not my ‘self ‘ in the world, but my seeming identity as a separated Son of God):

What if I could not really push Jesus or the Holy Spirit away and choose to be a make-believe separated self, even if I thought I wanted to?

What if in spite of all the bad I think I have done to others, to myself, to Jesus… all my hateful judgements, all ‘my stuff’… what if Jesus is in my mind right here, right now, smiling at me… telling me in his smile he still loves me and my innocence is still intact?

If it were possible to see past my own “sins” and my judgements of myself, and experience my true innocence as a son of God, would I be willing to ask the Holy Spirit’s help to do that?

When I’m willing to “go there” in my mind, and feel Jesus presence, I begin to realize that nothing I thought or did … has ever affected my true essence, or kept Jesus away.

**See Lesson # 34… “I could see peace (ie, experience peace in my mind), instead of this (choosing the ego and its belief in separation).“**

3) The State of Peace

I (the internal decision maker in my mind) then experience true peace.

True peace of mind then is experienced after the first 2 steps in which I ask and let the Holy Spirit to help me to recognize and remove my own made-up blocks to my awareness of peace …

the 1st block: my external blame and condemnation of others and…
the 2nd block: my own internal blame, guilt and self loathing.

I now begin to realize that God not only loves the other person’s true reality… but God also still loves my own true innocent self too!

And then, even tho I’m still seeing the images of seeming separation… I begin to experience an awareness that our seeming separated selves were not our true selves at all, and that we are actually still the same one Self, God’s innocent Son forever intact.

This recognition is the real miracle.

In the first two steps we need to willingly and actively ask Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit for help in the process of letting go of blame (first of others, then ourselves). In the third step we simply experience peace through the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit clears us of all our made-up pain from our belief in sin, guilt, and fear in the first two steps. These were our own make-believe “blocks to the awareness of love’s presence” (mentioned in the Course’s opening Introduction to the Text on page one).

The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence… (Text p. 1)

The Holy Spirit helps us to recognize and let go of our own blocks to knowing peace and love, which were simply our judgements of others and ourselves… then what’s left is our experience of true peace.

Course References to The Three Steps of Forgiveness:

Here are some Course places that mention the three steps…

1) WB Les. 23 p.34

I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts (my judgments of others and myself).

This first reference, par. 5 sentence two, is the shortest but probably the most succinct:

par. 5:

The idea for today introduces the thought that you are not trapped in the world you see, because its cause can be changed. This change requires, first, that the cause be identified (Step One), and then let go (Step Two), so that it can be replaced (Step Three). The first two steps in this process require your cooperation. The final one does not. Your images have already been replaced. By taking the first two steps, you will see that this is so.

———–

2) WB les. 52 p.84 par.2

I see only the past.

As I look about, I condemn the world I look upon. I call this seeing. [I realize] I hold the past against everyone and everything, making them my enemies (Step One). When I have forgiven myself [by letting Jesus tell me he still loves me] (Step Two) and remembered Who I am, I will bless everyone and everything I see. There will be no past, and therefore no enemies. And I will look with love on all that I failed to see before. (Step Three)

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3) WB les. 56 p. 92 par.2

Above all else I want to see.

Recognizing that what I see reflects what I think I am (Step One), I realize that vision is my greatest need. The world I see attests [reflects] the fearful nature of the self-image I have made [a separated self in my mind] . If I would remember who I am, it is essential that I let this image of myself go (Step Two). As it is replaced by truth, vision will surely be given me. And with this vision, I will look upon the world and on myself with charity and love. (Step Three)

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4) Text p.90 par.6

I must have decided wrongly, because I am not at peace. (Step One)
I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.
I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace.(Step Two)
I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him.
I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me. (Step Three)

———–

5) Text p.131 par.5

⁵ Do not be afraid of the ego. It depends on your mind, and as you made it [the ego] by believing in it, so you can dispel it by withdrawing belief from it. Do not project the responsibility for your belief in it [the ego] onto anyone else, or you will preserve the belief. When you are willing to accept sole responsibility for the ego’s existence you will have laid aside all anger and all attack, because they come from an attempt to project responsibility for your own errors (Step One). But having accepted the errors as yours, do not keep them. Give them (our beliefs in sin, guilt and fear, and that we are a separated self) over quickly to the Holy Spirit to be undone completely (Step Two), so that all their effects will vanish from your mind and from the Sonship as a whole (Step Three).

———–

*** 6) Manual p.86 par.6 (Lyn Corona’s favorite on 3 steps)

This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out (Step One) is seen within (Step Two), and there forgiveness lets it disappear (Step Three). For there the altar to the Son is set, and there his Father is remembered. Here are all illusions brought to truth and laid upon the altar. What is seen outside must lie beyond forgiveness, for it seems to be forever sinful. Where is hope while sin is seen as outside (Step One)? What remedy can guilt expect? But seen within your mind, guilt and forgiveness for an instant lie together, side by side, upon one altar (Step Two). There at last are sickness and its single remedy joined in one healing brightness (Step Three). God has come to claim His Own. Forgiveness is complete.

There are other references that we may find that will stand out to each of us… and when in doubt, ask Jesus for help to lead us somewhere in the Course he may want us to look.

One, Two, Three…

Another way of briefly describing the three steps of forgiveness is the following…

What if the real source of my not feeling peaceful or happy… is not something external in your behavior or even my own behavior… no matter how bad that behavior may seem.
What if the real problem is internal in my mind… where I simply have chosen to believe I could push Jesus and peace away… and that’s why I’m unhappy.
When I allow myself to hear Jesus tell me your innocence and real identity as God’s Son is still intact, and so is my own, then I truly feel his love and presence and I know what he’s telling me is true. And from this happy and safe place, I will intuitively know what to do next, in any given situation.

² Real choice (in the mind) is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. All its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There is no choice in its (the world’s) alternatives. Seek not escape from problems here. The world was made that problems could not be escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to gain that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not what will the ending be, but when it comes. (Ch. 31, p. 653, par. 2)

**Ken Wapnick used to say that projecting our internal made-up guilt onto the world and our bodies… was “a maladaptive solution to a non-existent problem.”**

The solution that didn’t work (maladaptive) was projecting our guilt onto others to try to get rid of it. All that did was reinforce our inner unrecognized belief that guilt was alive and well inside us…

**The real problem was always our own belief in sin and guilt in our own mind (which was actually made-up, ie. ‘non-existent’ in the first place).**

I can actually ask Jesus to help me see and experience that he didn’t go anywhere. He is still right here, right now, loving the real me (meaning all of us joined as one)… loving us in spite of all our seeming ‘sins’ and differences. We are forgiven for what we didn’t do, and could never do… that is, separate from him and God.

**This is the Course’s uniquely non-traditional, yet practical process of forgiveness.**

For further discussion on the three forgiveness steps,

check out Ken Wapnick’s CD set or MP3 download on

“The Meaning of Forgiveness”

(click here)

SFACIM Video: on “What forgiveness is / what forgiveness isn’t…”

Suggested Donations for Live Online Classes

January 20, 2020

Beginning Thanksgiving day 2020, we will suggest monthly donations from class participants to be able to receive a link to regularly attend one or more of our five weekly online live SFACIM Classes (except Monday’s Free Back to Basics Class for beginners) …

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Musings… Holy Spirit: “The Who, What, and Why” in A Course in Miracles

January 1, 2020

A Discussion of The Holy Spirit

(by Tim)

The phrase Holy Spirit is used

more than nine hundred times in the book A Course in Miracles.

Then there are countless references to the Holy Spirit, such as Him, Himself, Whom, Whose, etc. Not to mention hundreds of other Course names also describe Him… including Counselor, Appointed Friend, and Voice for God.

So who is this “masked man?” Is He even a person as such? And why is there so much emphasis on Him in the Course?

Jesus tends to use many Christian terms in the Course; however he redefines them all in terms of how he sees us and the world and our purpose of letting go of our seemingly separated identity. This certainly includes how and how often he refers to the Holy Spirit (HS). In Chapter 5, sec.III titled “The Guide to Salvation,” Jesus makes these compelling statements:

“The Holy Spirit is the bridge for the transfer of perception to knowledge…”

“The Holy Spirit is the idea of healing. Being thought, the idea gains as it is shared.”

“The Holy Spirit is God’s Answer to the ego.”

^“The Holy Spirit is the Mediator between the interpretations of the ego and the knowledge of the spirit.”

“The ego is the symbol of separation, just as the Holy Spirit is the symbol of peace.”

“The Holy Spirit is the perfect Teacher. He uses only what your mind already (seemingly) understands to teach you that you (really) do not understand it.”

“Look as the Holy Spirit looks, and understand as He understands.”

I recall many times Ken Wapnick would call the HS the ‘memory of God and God’s Son that we took with us into the separation.’ These new thoughts surrounding our view of the Holy Spirit extend and expand our traditional Christian experience of the HS as a dove at Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist, or the the tongues of fire that descended upon the Apostles in the upper room at Pentecost.

As we sit with and consider these Course ideas about the Holy Spirit, we begin to see and become open to an active, aware… experience of “something else,” something different and profound and transcending. The real answer to our own crying out…. “there must be another way,” than what we have been doing on our own, because it hasn’t really worked.

Our willingness and desire to “look as the Holy Spirit looks, and understand as He understands” starts to change the way we see and understand everything, especially ourselves.

Tim Wise Podcast Replay of

“The Cohesiveness of The Holy Spirit’s Thought System”

(click here)

School for A Course in Miracles:

Many Weekly Online Classes

(you can attend from anywhere in the world using the free Zoom app …)

click here for information

Ken Wapnick’s Seminars on “The Holy Spirit”

(click on images below for access to MP3 downloads)

Musings… The Holy Relationship ??

February 7, 2019

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.

___________________________

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.

———————-

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.

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

Musings… How Could the Separation Ever Have Happened??

September 25, 2018

(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),

——————————–

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

“The 3 Steps of Forgiveness”: click here

Musings: on Gratitude… and Thanksgiving

August 30, 2018

“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

Happy New Year 2023 !!!

June 10, 2018

(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

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Is It Your Time? … A Letter from The Director:

July 16, 2017

**Welcome to the website for School for A Course in Miracles, a school dedicated to helping students understand and apply the teachings of A Course in Miracles.**

Changing the way in which we see is the aim of A Course in Miracles. Most of humanity does not yet believe there is another way to look at the world that brings peace. Peace is an internal affair that has nothing to do with external circumstances. Only by transforming the one looking is that change possible.

A student must first decide if he or she wants to become a learner in this way—a way that offers no particular gains to the personal self. Peace of mind is an effect of the transcendence of the personal by shifting from self interests to shared interests.

If you feel called to make this kind of change you won’t be able to stop your Self from following that call. It is as if an internal alarm clock has gone off and it’s time to wake up. Often it goes off when you become disillusioned with your own ability to find lasting happiness.

“The invitation”, that calling to venture beyond a self-centered point of view, goes on all the time. You choose when you are ready to hear it. “Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what to take at a given time.”

**The curriculum is the miracle. “It is a required course”. What is meant by required is that everyone must eventually turn within to learn how to change their mind.**

The Course undoes the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence. The Lessons, all three-hundred and sixty five, do the work in a realm that you may not even be aware of, a non-place the Course calls the mind. You learn how not to interfere with, or block, your awareness of your true self.

In 2007, a small enthusiastic group of teachers/learners of the Course joined together to start a school for serious students who wanted to accelerate their learning. As a group, we had collectively logged well over 100 years of devotion to the practice of forgiveness. At that time we called ourselves the School of Reason. The name was later changed to School for A Course in Miracles.

As the Director of the School, I would like to share a word about the faculty. Each of the teachers has pursued their calling vigilantly, sometimes for more than forty years. They have direct experience of the miracle that the required course promises so they can’t be fooled by the substitutes the personal self likes to claim. They know what it takes to sincerely practice forgiveness and to receive the benefits of peace. They know how to help you make the best use of time.

If you are undecided about your spiritual goal and whether the SFACIM might help you attain it, you may find it valuable to attend a regularly scheduled Introduction to A Course in Miracles sponsored by the School. You will find these events and classes posted on our website.

We are here only to be truly helpful.

Sincerely and with love,

Lyn Corona
Director, School for A Course in Miracles

Contact Lyn at lyncorona@msn.com

Topic Index for SFACIM Website Posts…

May 24, 2017

More than 150 short videos (roughly 10 min. each) on every possible ACIM topic you can think of…

More on Ken and his Foundation:

The Three Steps of Forgiveness in ACIM:

1) “The world I see… is an outward picture of an inward condition.”

[from Ch.21, p. 445, par.1]

I start with my judgements of others:

What if the real source of my own pain/discomfort/anxiety is not coming from the world? What if it’s coming from somewhere deep inside me… a place the Course calls my mind?

Workbook Lesson #5 says ” I’m never upset for the reason I think.” What if that’s true?

The Course reminds us: the seeming “outward” source of pain is simply my projection of my own inner guilt for pushing God out of my own awareness. The real source of all pain and guilt is always in my mind.

The ego has been described as… edging God out (e-g-o).

2) The Made-up Inner Condition of Separation, Inside in My Mind

(not my ‘self ‘ in the world, but my seeming identity as a separated Son of God):

What if I could not really push Jesus or the Holy Spirit away and choose to be a make-believe separated self, even if I thought I wanted to?

What if in spite of all the bad I think I have done to others, to myself, to Jesus… all my hateful judgements, all ‘my stuff’… what if Jesus is in my mind right here, right now, smiling at me… telling me in his smile he still loves me and my innocence is still intact?

If it were possible to see past my own “sins” and my judgements of myself, and experience my true innocence as a son of God, would I be willing to ask the Holy Spirit’s help to do that?

When I’m willing to “go there” in my mind, and feel Jesus presence, I begin to realize that nothing I thought or did … has ever affected my true essence, or kept Jesus away.

See Lesson # 34… “I could see peace (ie, experience peace in my mind), instead of this (choosing the ego and its belief in separation).“

3) The State of Peace

I (the internal decision maker in my mind) then experience true peace.

True peace of mind then is experienced after the first 2 steps in which I ask and let the Holy Spirit to help me to recognize and remove my own made-up blocks to my awareness of peace …

I now begin to realize that God not only loves the other person’s true reality… but God also still loves my own true innocent self too!

And then, even tho I’m still seeing the images of seeming separation… I begin to experience an awareness that our seeming separated selves were not our true selves at all, and that we are actually still the same one Self, God’s innocent Son forever intact.

This recognition is the real miracle.

In the first two steps we need to willingly and actively ask Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit for help in the process of letting go of blame (first of others, then ourselves). In the third step we simply experience peace through the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit clears us of all our made-up pain from our belief in sin, guilt, and fear in the first two steps. These were our own make-believe “blocks to the awareness of love’s presence” (mentioned in the Course’s opening Introduction to the Text on page one).

The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence… (Text p. 1)

The Holy Spirit helps us to recognize and let go of our own blocks to knowing peace and love, which were simply our judgements of others and ourselves… then what’s left is our experience of true peace.

Course References to The Three Steps of Forgiveness:

Here are some Course places that mention the three steps…

1) WB Les. 23 p.34

I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts (my judgments of others and myself).

This first reference, par. 5 sentence two, is the shortest but probably the most succinct:

par. 5:

———–

2) WB les. 52 p.84 par.2

I see only the past.

———–

3) WB les. 56 p. 92 par.2

Above all else I want to see.

———–

4) Text p.90 par.6

———–

5) Text p.131 par.5

———–

*** 6) Manual p.86 par.6 (Lyn Corona’s favorite on 3 steps)

There are other references that we may find that will stand out to each of us… and when in doubt, ask Jesus for help to lead us somewhere in the Course he may want us to look.

One, Two, Three…

Another way of briefly describing the three steps of forgiveness is the following…

Ken Wapnick used to say that projecting our internal made-up guilt onto the world and our bodies… was “a maladaptive solution to a non-existent problem.”

The solution that didn’t work (maladaptive) was projecting our guilt onto others to try to get rid of it. All that did was reinforce our inner unrecognized belief that guilt was alive and well inside us…

The real problem was always our own belief in sin and guilt in our own mind (which was actually made-up, ie. ‘non-existent’ in the first place).

This is the Course’s uniquely non-traditional, yet practical process of forgiveness.

For further discussion on the three forgiveness steps,

check out Ken Wapnick’s CD set or MP3 download on

“The Meaning of Forgiveness”

SFACIM Video: on “What forgiveness is / what forgiveness isn’t…”

Beginning Thanksgiving day 2020, we will suggest monthly donations from class participants to be able to receive a link to regularly attend one or more of our five weekly online live SFACIM Classes (except Monday’s Free Back to Basics Class for beginners) …

$10 offering per an individual class: Suggested individual class offering will be $10 a class.

$35 a month donation: we will send out the link for 2-3 classes a week to all those donating $35 or more a month to the School, and include unlimited access to over 250 unlisted video replays on our School Youtube site. (about $6 donation per class plus unlisted replays access)

$45 a month donation: We will send out a link to all classes every week (except Immersion) to all those donating at least $45 monthly, and include unlimited access to over 250 unlisted video replays on our School Youtube site. (about $3 donation a class plus unlisted replays access)

$18 a month for Youtube Replay access only: Suggested donation for access to replays of over 250 unlisted videos (without access to weekly online live classes) will be $18 a month.

Immersion Students (all access): All those currently in Immersion II and those registered for Immersion One 2021 will have (included in their tuition) access to all weekly classes and all 250-plus unlisted youtube replays.

Monday’s Back to Basics online live class for beginners (open to everyone) will remain donation-free.

If finances are tight, no one is turned away from our weekly classes due to lack of funds…

Whatever donation you can make is greatly appreciated and goes to sharing A Course in Miracles study and practice in all our weekly online School for ACIM classes during the current pandemic crisis.

And many thanks to all those who have and are supporting this undertaking!

A Discussion of The Holy Spirit

The phrase Holy Spirit is used

more than nine hundred times in the book A Course in Miracles.

Then there are countless references to the Holy Spirit, such as Him, Himself, Whom, Whose, etc. Not to mention hundreds of other Course names also describe Him… including Counselor, Appointed Friend, and Voice for God.

So who is this “masked man?” Is He even a person as such? And why is there so much emphasis on Him in the Course?

Tim Wise Podcast Replay of

“The Cohesiveness of The Holy Spirit’s Thought System”

School for A Course in Miracles:

Many Weekly Online Classes

(you can attend from anywhere in the world using the free Zoom app …)

click here for information

Ken Wapnick’s Seminars on “The Holy Spirit”

(click on images below for access to MP3 downloads)

What is a holy relationship?

**Workbook Lesson #5 says ” I’m never upset for the reason I think.” What if that’s true?**

**See Lesson # 34… “I could see peace (ie, experience peace in my mind), instead of this (choosing the ego and its belief in separation).“**

**Ken Wapnick used to say that projecting our internal made-up guilt onto the world and our bodies… was “a maladaptive solution to a non-existent problem.”**

**The real problem was always our own belief in sin and guilt in our own mind (which was actually made-up, ie. ‘non-existent’ in the first place).**

**This is the Course’s uniquely non-traditional, yet practical process of forgiveness.**

**$18 a month for Youtube Replay access only: Suggested donation for access to replays of over 250 unlisted videos (without access to weekly online live classes) will be $18 a month.**

**Monday’s Back to Basics online live class for beginners (open to everyone) will remain donation-free.**

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