A Course in Miracles

The major influence on my ‘ spiritual ‘ journey has been ” A Course in Miracles ” . This book was channelled by an American Jewish psychologist called Helen Schucman and was assisted in this work by a colleague, William Thetford . Even though it is never made clear it is assumed the source is Jesus . Putting aside my doubts concerning channelling I took the Course as instructed and found it to be the most truthful and powerful spiritual book, including the Bible and the Koran .

The book can be summed by the phrase found on the first page :

Nothing real can be threatened .
Nothing unreal exists .
Herein lies the peace of God .

Its main theme is that our physical World is not real and is actually a defence to prolong our separation from God . It claims our World is an attack on God and our egotistical Mind has set up various strategies to continue this separation . Through my own experiences and insights, I have found this to be true . In the preface it explains :

The world we see merely reflects our own internal frame of reference – the dominant ideas and emotions in our minds . “Projection makes perception”  . We look inside first, decide the kind of world we want to see and then project that world outside, making the truth as we see it . We make it true by our own interpretations of what it is we are seeing . If we are using perception to justify our own mistakes – our anger, our impulses to attack, our lack of love in whatever form it takes – we will see a world of evil, destruction, malice, envy and despair .

All this we must learn to forgive, not because we are being “good”  and “charitable”  but because what we are seeing is not true . We have distorted the world by our twisted defences, and are therefore seeing what is not there . As we learn to recognise our perceptual errors, we also learn to look past them or “forgive” . At the same time we are forgiving ourselves, looking past our distorted self concepts to the Self that God created in us and as us .

As the Course says, it is only one path among many and is mainly aimed at the Christian world . Don’t put be put off by whether Jesus is the source as it is the teachings that are important . If you are able to take A Course in Miracles  I would definitely recommend it but would add a rider to this advice – it won’t be easy .

PS : it is not an organised course which will cost you a lot of money . The Course is actually within a book – the only cost is the price of the book . In Britain it cost me £30- and it is not for profit .