Musings Archives • Page 6 of 6 • School for A Course In Miracles

School of Reason

March 12, 2010

“Above all else I want to see.”

Like any course A Course in Miracles offers an opportunity to learn something that is considered to be of value. The similarities probably begin and end there.

Unlike most educational opportunities it is not aimed at improving who you are or the world you seem to be living in. It may have those residual benefits but that is not the goal.

Changing the way in which you see is the aim of the Course. Most of humanity does not currently believe there is another world to see. Only by transforming the one looking is that shift accomplished. A student first has to decide if he or she wants to become a learner in this particular way—a way that has no particular gains to the personal self. Peace of mind and vision are attained by transcendence of the personal.

If you feel called to make this kind of change you won’t be able to stop your Self from following it. The “you” who thinks it is living in a world and likes it (sometimes), may resist. On the other hand no teacher can give you this desire. You have it or you don’t.

“The invitation” 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”.
The miracle is the “awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance.”

The Course undoes the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence. “It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to…….”

The Lessons, all three-hundred and sixty-five, do the work in a realm that you are not even aware of. Your contribution to the process is to learn how not to interfere.

Pursuing this calling can feel like turning traitor to the conventional wisdom of the world. It is of a different order in which we acknowledge we are all learners together, leaning toward love while discovering our equality.

The peace any one of us experiences is shared by all since minds are already joined. While it appear that one is turning his back on the world it is from a selfless and transcendent view that we can bring the inner peace and love to the world that it needs so badly.

In 2009 a small enthusiastic group of student/learners in the way of the Course joined together to start a school for serious students. Collectively, we logged well over 100 years of devotion to the Course’s teachings and the practice of forgiveness. We called it the School of Reason (now School for A Course in Miracles) . I am currently its Director.

A word about the faculty of the SFACIM: Each of the teachers has pursued their calling vigilantly. They have direct experience of the miracle that the required course promises. Each of them engaged in a two-year process of unlearning so that they could learn to see differently. They know what takes to sincerely practice forgiveness and to receive the benefits of peace. They can help you make the best use of time.

If you are undecided about your spiritual goal and whether our School might help you attain it, you may find it valuable to attend an event sponsored by the SFACIM, or drop in to one of our teacher’s classes. You will find these events and classes posted here on our website.

You may also find a purposeful conversation with any one of faculty helpful in clarifing your interest in attending.

We go together or not at all.

Musings: The True Shape of Being

February 19, 2010

The shape of our character in the dream is the expression of our intimate inner conversations.

Nothing borrowed will do.

The true shape of our own being must be the result of the laborious excavations of our depths and the treasures we find there.

In our giving ourselves away there is more at stake than just the possibility of the recognition of others. We work for our own sake.

The way in which we raise our family, tend our garden, compose a song, or manage an office is the way we teach ourselves that the God we have met within is not capable of anything but love.

Musings: The Decision Maker

February 18, 2010

That night Deepak Chopra was speaking to 2400 people in Calgary on non-violence. His goal was “to have at least 100 million people join him in a vow of non-violence in thought, speech and action”.

This is a worthwhile goal and I support it. But let’s be clear what that would mean for each of us if we really were to join him.

“The ego uses the body for attack, for pleasure and for pride”. Text, p.105.

The relationship between attack and who uses the body is the significant part of that statement. The ego uses the body for attack. There is another possibility.

There are two possible commanders of the body. You are not the body. You are the one that chooses the commander. That “you” is in the mind and to make it a little more palpable we’ll give that “you” a name. I’ve heard many names but none has really appealed to me. For now we will refer to it as The Decision Maker. If you come up with one that works better for you, be my guest.

The Decision Maker is your self just prior to the insane choice you made for the ego and its symbol—the body. You still are the decision maker. Instead of being the one run by the needs of the body you are the one who decides if you want to continue in that way.

Just to flesh this out a little more so you understand the choice, the ego is:

a false sense of self

the you that you think you are

the one that likes being an individual, self-centered, separate

the one who sees the world in terms of what it means for you

the little self– the one who is needy and afraid of just about everyone and everything

The false self (ego) uses the body for pleasure, pride, and for attack.

If the ego were not using your body attack, pleasure and pride would not be useful or appealing.

The other option is to put the body in the hands of The Teacher. The Teacher uses your body for another purpose, but you need to become a learner first. This is a good time to point out that “Humility will never ask that you remain content with littleness. But it does require that you be not content with less than greatness that comes not of you.” Text, p. 381.

Who/what is using your body?

Without changing the voice in command of the body, violence will continue. This is very important to understand because not seeing it is what it means to be caught in the dream of perception. You don’t think there is an alternative.

This is a decision that each of us eventually will make. All other attempts to bring peace to the world will fail.

More than likely if you are hearing this you are beginning to feel the disillusionment of being identified with the figure (body) in the dream. It’s not so hot being you anymore. You may even be a little bored with your self concept.

In letting go of our attachment to it there is nothing to defend.

When we stop defending we cannot be attacked. ( The famous relevant lesson in the Course is “If I defend myself I am attacked.”)

We only appear to be attacked because we are defending something that isn’t real. That is the meaning of:

“Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God”.

When we know God’s peace, we also know it envelops the world. The problem was only one of a false sense of self.

Musings: Teaching Love

February 15, 2010

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Teaching love would be an appropriate thought for that day. What does it mean to teach love?

A Course in Miracles tells you to teach only love for that is what you are. You can’t teach anything else without being false.

I started thinking about the time when I made Valentine cookies with my grandchildren. It was sweet in more ways than one. The cookies were beautiful but what I learned was even more delicious.

That day in the kitchen with the grand girls we made one hell of a mess. It could have offended my sense of order and challenged my ideas of how I should best spend my day. (After all it took an entire afternoon.)

To get the whole project up and running took considerable organization, and once all the decorating paraphernalia was laid out before us it took considerable patience to train the workers. In the end production was poor and there weren’t a lot of cookies to show for the effort. But there was love and there was laughter.

Why is it that our attitudes can remain so generous in one situation and not in others?

Teaching love does not equate with making valentine cookies any more than it does with having the perfect romantic dinner with your lover. You could do either and teach guilt the entire time. You could also do either and teach love. It’s all in the attitude. Teaching is attitude. It has nothing to do with the form of the relationship or the activity engaged in.

Teaching love means not being inconvenienced, burdened or offended in any way by the needs and actions of someone else. Not by the messes they make, the needs they have or the time they demand. Love sees that not the slightest bit of harm came to anyone. This leaves no cause for anything but love and laughter.

Annoyance or upset teaches guilt. It says I am not having a good time because of what you did. The mess you made, the time you took, the demands you made, the things you needed took my peace away. You hurt me. You are guilty and therefore not worthy of love so I’m going to withhold it from you.

Teaching love is a full-time job that goes on in every encounter.

I am using the harmless activity of baking cookies with my grandchildren as an example of how we might see all our relationships. Harmless. No one is trying to take our peace away. Yes, they make messes, want our time and attention, and need our help. We have the opportunity to teach love instead of guilt by seeing them worthy of it.

Helpful reminder from the Course: “Beware the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated.”

Musings: Becoming a Learner

February 21, 2009

The pleasure of helping others learn started in first grade. I attended a one-room schoolhouse/church/town library combined in rural New Hampshire. A huge black wood-burning stove was the unifying amenity in an otherwise stark room that housed 21 students, grades 1 through 4, and our little desks along with 1 teacher and her very large library desk.

Mrs. Amos, my teacher, was a tall, thin, very erect woman with flame red hair that she wore in a sausage roll at the nape of her neck. Gold wire rim glasses magnified her large, soft brown eyes making them appear to be out of proportion to her thin face. The low heeled lace-up brown shoes on her feet were practical and sturdy like Mrs. Amos herself.

Mrs. Amos gave me my first experience of loving to learn. She innately knew what each child needed to contribute to be an active participant and she gave them that chance. Pudgy Goodwin brought in the fire wood and stoked the stove satisfying his need to move a lot and also to offset his lack of interest in academics. Georgiana Greenwood had a garden in the south facing windows where she was experimenting with sprouting seeds under different conditions. Janet Pierce, trouble maker that she was, got the perfect job for her—taking care of the stinky pens that housed the mice, hamsters and gerbils.

You would think our humble little school would have lacked opportunity, but Mrs. Amos had a huge bag of tricks at her disposal, and she used them all. We listened to classical music on Friday afternoons (music appreciation) , followed by all 21 of us playing our Tonettes (band practice). Our art room consisted of a closet with an easel and shelves filled with paints that Mrs Amos bought with her own money. The art closet was a special place because we could only get 2 or 3 “artists” in there, and only if we shut the door. Once that was accomplished it was more like a hideout and it was here that I heard some things I had never heard about before.

Mrs. Amos gave me the task of tutoring classmates in reading. I loved words and they co-operated by almost never stumping me as to their pronunciation and meaning. It was here on the back stairway that led to the library on the second floor that I first felt the pleasure of helping others learn.

I am still a learner. What I want to learn has changed however. Thirty or so years ago A Course in Miracles showed up in my life. It told me that I didn’t know what I was. It seemed to me that was a pretty important thing to know and a serious question to ask. “What am I?”

Most of us ask a question having already decided the answer so we are not really learners at all. To ask this question sincerely we have to come to it with empty hands—no prior understanding, no intended outcome, no idea of how or when the answer will arrive and what it will mean for us.True humility calls for the reliquishment of all our assumptions. It is the admission that I do not know.

The most important question is “What am I?” Living in the mystery, not knowing the answer is an exercise in trust. This holy ground is where God has His Way with me and I experience the ultimate pleasure of His Will of perfect happiness for me.