School for A Course In Miracles
"The universe of learning will open up before you."
and check out these selected Course readings given at Easter Time about the Resurrection:
Chap. 20, sections I & II p. 425-428 “The Gift of Lilies”
WB Les. 135 p. 256 par. 24-25-26 “This is my (our) Eastertime.”
Manual #28 “What is The Resurrection?” p.68-69
First, let’s be clear what a miracle is not.
A miracle is not an extraordinary external phenomenon like a vision of Jesus in a cloud. It’s not having a check show up in the mail that just covers the rent when the bank account is empty. It’s not even the spontaneous remission of a terminal disease.
Miracles are corrections in the mind for our errors in perception. (Think interpretation when you read perception.) Interpretations are perceptions. When your perceptions are unloving, you are misperceiving; something has gone wrong.
That something is what’s in the way of what is natural: the miracle. The miracle is always present. We are not aware of it because we have put something in the way that keeps it from our awareness. That something goes by many names: ego, false self, dream figure, phantom, to name just a few. Perception is distorted by the personal needs, wants and desires of the false self.
The body is not our home. A Course in Miracles teaches us that the body’s eyes don’t see and its ears don’t hear.
The senses merely report to the brain. The brain then interprets the data based upon what the mind wants to see. Having decided that we are a separate self everything the brain reports is interpreted to validate the separate self. It is a closed system.
The miracle is a way of changing your mind about yourself. You cannot do this without the help of a presence other than the ego in your mind. Call it what you will: Holy Spirit, Loving Presence, this presence is kind and knows what is in your best interests. It is your Self. Don’t be afraid of it; it is there to help you remember what you are.
You must have noticed that scarcity dominates the self centered point of view. Experiencing the lack that we have inflicted upon ourselves we seek outside for approval, acceptance, recognition, and respect. Because of our imagined needs, we don’t see anyone as they are but only as a means to fulfill our needs. It is this distorted way of perceiving that the miracle corrects.
By choosing the miracle we are turning toward the love we have been seeking outside ourselves. Instead of sacrificing others to our needs our relationships provide the opportunity for miracles.
The miracle is not something we do. Miracles are natural expressions of love. Without the interference of the ego’s getting mechanisms, impersonal love flows freely. It blesses everyone indiscriminately; in other words it makes no special selections as to who is worthy and who is not. The miracle teaches us what we are, not who we are.
The miracle-minded process looks something like this:
1. You fess up! You admit that something has gone wrong. You can’t recognize a solution to a problem that you don’t know you have. You are not experiencing the miracle; you need the miracle.
2. You take responsibility. The something wrong is with you. The problem is not “out there” in someone else. The problem is in the mind along with the answer.
3. You decide to become a learner. As a learner you can be taught. You make a right-minded decision to turn your unloving perceptions over to that Loving Presence for its point of view.
4. You do nothing. The miracle is just that; a miracle. It happens. It will show you that no one did anything to you; you were not harmed or hurt in any way.
Note: If you still find yourself trying to “do” the miracle yourself, you have not fully turned the problem over to the Loving Presence. If that’s the case, go back to step 3 and investigate as to what perceptions you still want to keep. Maybe you are not willing to let it go at this time. Then “unwillingness” is what you would bring to that Loving Presence.
Perhaps your trust in the Loving Presence is very weak at this point. Then lack of trust is the perception that you would offer for correction. Always begin where you are.
Consistent willingness to be a learner places your mind in its natural state of grace. It enables you to give without any sense of loss. As long as you perceive lovelessly you remain a learner.
I don’t feel that I am overstating my capabilities when I say that I am a learner. Not in the traditional way of accumulating information to gain some advantage, but out of a deep curiosity about what lies beyond a self-centered perspective from which most of us view the world.
I was eleven years old the first time I had an “unusual experience” that gave me my first taste of an alternative point of view. I lived in the country, 14 miles from town, and being an only child I spent a lot of time on my own in nature. This particular time I was engaged in a favorite pastime at which I had developed great skill.
There was a river that ran through our property, and when the water was low enough, the larger rocks were exposed so that I could jump from rock to rock in a steady rhythm, running upstream like a salmon. Only one foot at a time could land on each rock and the game was to go as fast as possible without loosing my balance and dumping into the river. This particular time I suddenly found myself located outside my body in a timeless zone that was perfectly still and peaceful while my physical body kept jumping rocks. I never forgot the experience.
I was a freshman in high school the first time I heard the word enlightenment. I had no idea what it meant, but I caught the scent, like a hound on the trail of something big. The next time I was at the local library I checked out the only two books that seemed somewhat related to the topic. I remember one of the authors was Alan Watts. Nothing I read in those books satisfied my desire to know what enlightenment was. I continued my search off and on for years, knowing someday I would find something that could explain enlightenment and the timeless zone that I knew was more real than anything I had experienced since the river.
It was in the latter part of the 70’s when A Course in Miracles came into my life. I had just finished reading Jane Robert’s mind-blowing The Nature of Personal Reality which set the stage for the entrance of the Course. I immediately recognized it as the answer to my questions about why I was here, what gives meaning and purpose to life, why I was suffering and how it could end. And also how to get to the timeless zone and stay there forever.
As a beginning student of A Course in Miracles, I developed my own practice of learning. I was living in the mountains about 40 miles west of Denver so I didn’t know there were such things as study groups. As far as I knew the Course was a self study program. The only help available was through asking the inner Teacher to show me the meaning of a lesson or a complicated passage from the text. I would ask and somewhere in the course of my day there would be an incident or an encounter that would give me the understanding. The Teacher became very real for me, always answering in some form I could understand.
I started offering classes, workshops and retreats on the Course in 1986 and with a few brief sabbaticals have continued to do so until this day. Over the years I established several centers for the study of the Course, have been an itinerant teacher traveling the U.S, and most recently joined with some of my colleagues in establishing the School of Reason (now School for A Course in Miracles for students and aspiring teachers of A Course in Miracles. I also began this blog. The point of all our doings, mine or anyone else’s, is that they are a curriculum for our learning and vehicles for sharing another way.
The most repeated lesson in A Course in Miracles is “I am not a body. I am free”. Thank God, I can finally say it and know that it is true and not just some fluke that happened on the river one day. We don’t reside in a body and on some level we all know that this is true. That shift, from body to mind, is what A Course in Miracles is all about. It is a shift from a self-centered point of view to a transcendent presence that is mind. It’s a miracle.
It is not only possible to be in the world but not of it; it is essential. Our lives can reflect the ease and freedom of our real residence out of time where we are whole eternal minds in perfect communication with a non-physical universe of spirit comprised only of intangible Love.
The step out of time and into eternity (the timeless zone) calls for humility and the willingness to learn another way. We have to admit that we don’t know how to get there from here. Instead of it happening accidentally, like it did for me on the river, we have the inner Teacher that knows the way, and unlike my early experience that did not last, we can learn to reside there forever.
Here, in this world, is where our transformation takes place. We don’t die to get to Heaven. We just wake up. Enlightenment is not a place to travel to. It is right here. Right now.
School for A Course in Miracles is organized under the non-profit (501(c)3, Ark of Peace, which was founded in 1990 by school director, Lyn Corona, for the purpose of extending the message of peace through forgiveness as presented by A Course in Miracles. Since the inception of the Ark of Peace, for a few years it had a retreat center called Heaven on Earth in Pine, Colorado; a Miracles Center (1991) on South Pearl, which later moved to 924 Logan St.; The Pearl Street Abbey, a residential community for teaching and learning the Course; The Satsang Cafe, with an upper room for Course classes; and now the School for A Course in Miracles (formerly School of Reason)and the Ken Wapnick Memorial Library– all to fulfill its mission to extend the teachings of the Course.
The problem with being human is that everything seems to be personal when it is not.
Suffering is the result of the personal self interpreting things in terms of itself: if it benefits “me”, it’s good; if it doesn’t benefit “me” it’s bad.
To the non-locatable Self, nothing is wrong; everything is as it is– no problem. Thoughts are just thoughts. Feelings are just feelings. Sensations are just sensations. They don’t belong to anyone. They are simply present without the interpreting mechanisms of the separate self. Just as the sky would not complain about clouds that appear in it, the Self cannot personalize nor object to what is still part of itself.
Miracles gradually shift our awareness from the body, that locatable, personal sense of a “me”, to spirit, that impersonal awareness that is Self. It is a gradual process so as not to arouse too much fear in the ego, causing it to turn suspicious and vicious. We are told early on in the text of A Course in Miracles that we will not be “hurled into reality.”
“Miracles transcend the body. They are sudden shifts into invisibility, away from the bodily level. That is why they heal.” – Miracle principle 17.
The belief that it is a sacrifice to give up the personal is based upon the belief that the personal actually exists. In fact, personhood is a mind-constructed fabrication of a separate self in relationship with other separate selves. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing is given up; there is only an illusion of giving up. The personal self never existed.
In writing about this I hope that some of the resistance to engaging in the lessons of the Course will be recognized, understood, and not made a big deal of. Perhaps you might even welcome the shift from the personal reference point to an all-encompassing awareness of what is. Instead of either pathologizing this shift or making it a special experience that belongs to a “someone” you may see this as natural, effortless, and available equally to everyone. This could be very helpful.
Relationships for a non-personal purpose are particularly confounding to the ego to which everything is “useful” for the purpose of validating the existence of personhood. “Me”, “I”, and “mine” make total sense to it. From the point of view of a separate self, love is the fulfillment of a longing to merge with another separate self.
Intimacy is the natural state of all relationships when the sense of a personal self is no longer believed. The non-locatable, impersonal Self recognizes itself everywhere in everything. Every encounter is a meeting with one Self directly, without any of the interference of personal interpretation. This is intimacy. It is devoid of the specialness that a personal point of view gives to everything.
To discover that joy and love are not personal and never did belong to someone is an extraordinarily liberating awareness. There is nothing to be gotten from anyone. Everything we could ever hope to find is already available. Clinging to our self-constructed sense of separateness that perceives through the body’s senses is all that keeps us from freedom. We cling because, in believing what we have made of ourselves, we also believe it would be a huge sacrifice to give it up. Again, nothing is given up. It is all smoke and mirrors.
Usually a question arises about being able to function without having a personal point of reference. The ego tells us that we will run amuck without its “guidance”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Life continues just as before only awareness of life is not through the sense organs of the body including the brain which interprets everything in a personal way.
Awareness is non-locatable and impersonal. It is. Everything gets done, only without the sense of a personal doer. The understanding that there never has been a personal doer does not suddenly interfere with functioning; it liberates functioning. The body proceeds without personal involvement. It is an enormous relief from the burden of credit and blame that the ego placed upon everything.
For most of us the falling away of the false personal self is a gradual process. Each lesson of A Course in Miracles, applied to situations in our life, will chip away at our belief in a separate self without arousing too much fear in the ego. Of course, sometimes it happens that the ego does become suspicious then vicious, counseling us to abandon the lessons and their skillful undoing entirely. It is my hope that those who come to Becoming Learners Together (now School for A Course in Miracles) will come to understand that there is nothing to fear in awakening from the dream of separateness.
If you only knew the power of the miracle to free you you would want to offer them. You can learn how. Right here. They can be applied to whatever your circumstances are, no matter where you find yourself, no matter what your history is. The only requirement is to want to learn another way of perceiving. Think of it as a science project if that is your interest. “Humans find another means of perceiving that shows there is another world!!!!”
Or think of it as the greatest love story ever told. “Woman finds her beloved and He gives her the universe.”
Is not the end of seeking and the finding of a treasure beyond your most pleasurable and satisfying imaginings a worthwhile endeavor?
Is not finding the never ending supply of love that can be given without measure a worthy function?
This is an invitation to learn how to work miracles. The only qualification is the willingness to see that your interests are not separate from another.
“Miracles are a way of earning release from fear.” Miracle principle # 28
“Miracles are examples of right thinking, aligning your perceptions with truth as God created it.” Miracle principle #36
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.
