A Course in Miracles Monk

For almost 15 years, from the moment I found it, I have been a devoted student of the spiritual path known as A Course in Miracles.

This has involved a sincere dedication to learning its underlying metaphysics, but above all seeking to live the principles of the Course. I prefer to live a quiet, monastic life, so an anonymous blog is how I have chosen to share some of the thoughts, lessons, and experiences along my path. Though diligent and sincere, I do not claim to know the Course metaphysics perfectly, – being a Course student is a lifelong, and highly individualized, process – so please read with that in mind, and always consult your inner teacher.

On a personal note, I cannot highly enough recommend the teachings of Kenneth Wapnick – you will see his influence throughout this blog. His workshops and writings have helped shape my study and practice of the Course, but it has been my personal experiences of his defenselessness and friendship that have most deeply impacted me, helping me to look upon my own defenses with ever-increasing patience and gentleness.

I hope you will find what I post here to be helpful in our shared goal: the journey without distance… the journey Home.

A Course in Miracles has to be one of the most misunderstood spiritualities in the entire world. Given its radical departure from mainstream Christianity, metaphorical use of language, and that it is written on many different levels, it’s easy to understand why. Part of the reason, however, is the failure of many students themselves to understand the teachings of the Course, or to adequately explain what it is when asked for a quick synopsis.

Imagine this: You’re at a dinner party, and while bent under the table picking up your napkin, someone makes a comment that sounds vaguely existential. You bolt upright! In your rush to ensure the metaphysical moment does not pass you by, you prematurely trumpet your interest by promptly banging your head hard enough to lift one leg of the table. When the cutlery stops jangling, you clear your throat, calmly tuck in your napkin, and proudly announce to everyone at the table, “It’s all an illusion.”

Inevitably, someone asks for further explanation, discovers you’re something called “an ACIM student”, and asks what that means. You can’t wait to tell them. Except… the words don’t come easily. You’re Christian, but not in the traditional sense. You’re religious, but not in the traditional sense. You’re spiritual, but not in the traditional sense. Just what are you, anyway? Well, you know you’re a “Holy Son of God”, but that sounds rather grandiose, if not mildly delusional. You believe in… well, suddenly you’re not quite sure what you believe in, exactly. You know you don’t believe in the reality of the world. Or sin. Or the devil. Or… or… It all makes so much sense when it’s in front of you, but – ack! – God’s Holy Kingdom for an easy, concise explanation!

Well here’s one: A Course in Miracles is a psychological approach to spirituality, focusing on forgiveness as the means to inner peace.

Ah, but to define true forgiveness. Now that’s a whole other dinner party!

On Christmas Day I had a nice experience (I don’t think it was the tryptophan) which left me with an even stronger conviction to not be satisfied with anything less than the peace of God.

In any spiritual path I think it would be safe to say there are three general phases:

1. Information gathering
2. Application
3. Experience (peace of God)

I spend a lot of time in phase one, and it is an important phase because if we read A Course in Miracles but don’t understand how to properly apply its principles, we could spend years not experiencing the third phase, which is the whole point of the Course.

I also spend a lot of time in phase two, and this is where I had the experience and realization I wanted to relate.

I was feeling some sort of strain or guilt or fear over something ‘minor’, forgave it, and in a few moments my mind felt very light, free, and joyful. In the midst of that experience I had the following thought:

Phase one feels good because reading that God loves me, that I am forever safe and innocent etc., is comforting. But it’s akin to a brief intellectual sugar high. When you stop reading and step back into the world, the comfort of the intellect quickly evaporates, and is soon forgotten. The answer isn’t to try and find the time for endless information gathering and reading. We cannot ‘understand our way to enlightenment’. True understanding is attendant with experience, it doesn’t precede it.

The real power of any authentic spiritual path is found in its application. Its teachings are precisely designed to help you when ‘the rubber meets the road’. When could application be more necessary and pertinent than in the midst of pain, guilt, or fear? These are the very moments such teachings are given to heal.

Without application, ideas are untapped potential… like the knowledge that a good meal is being prepared. You can smell the delicious aroma, but not having eaten yet, the joy is still more ephemeral and anticipatory. As pleasing as it is, you are still hungry.

The true feast occurs when you use the ideas.

Before that, ideas are merely comforting. When applied in a moment of fear, they become transcendental. It is here that their true gift is fully realized: the experience of God.

Only this experience can truly satiate us.

Dear everyone-of-me,

I want to write about a life-altering idea that left me feeling ecstatic last night: There is only one of us here.

A common question Course students ask is, ‘So… am I in your dream, or are you in mine? Who is the dreamer of the dream, me or you?’ The answer is me, because I’m me and I’m you. Or, stated another way, the answer is you. You are you, but I’m also you. We are all the same mind hidden behind the masks of different looking bodies. Everything I see is me, and everything you see is you, but there’s only one mind, and it’s both of us.

Most people in the world don’t consciously perceive each other in this way, due to a perception based on separation. But the unconscious mind knows there is only one mind, and only one of us here. What this means is that whenever we’ve judged ’someone else’, we’ve unwittingly sent a clear message straight to our powerful unconscious mind that we are worthy of condemnation. Every judgment or attack we’ve ever made, has been made on ourselves.

When I judge someone, this is how it sounds to my unconscious: ‘Hey Jamie, you are worthy of judgment and condemnation. You suck!’ This is the message I am sending to myself over and over as I judge anyone or anything. The next time you judge anyone or anything, stop for a moment and imagine saying those things directly to yourself. A Course in Miracles teaches, “There is a very simple way to find the door to true forgiveness, and perceive it open wide in welcome. When you feel that you are tempted to accuse someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think he did, for that is self-deception. Ask instead, ‘Would I accuse myself of doing this?’ Thus will you see alternatives for choice in terms that render choosing meaningful, and keep your mind as free of guilt and pain as God Himself intended it to be, and as it is in truth.” (Workbook, Lesson 134.)

With only one of us here, we cannot escape our own judgment because all judgment must then be self-judgment. But neither can we escape peace and happiness when we forgive!

This is what Jesus meant when he said, ‘Judge not that ye be not judged’, and what he means in the course when he teaches, ‘All gifts I give my brother are my own’, and ‘It can be but myself I crucify.’

Right now we are in need of mind training because the dynamic of attack has been so long-entrenched and well-learned that it is automatic at the unconscious level. In order to experience peace, we must learn to forgive automatically.

The way we do this, is by forgiving everyone we see.

If I forgive ‘them’, then that is how I will come to feel about myself. I will then experience myself as holy. That is how I will come to know myself!

It is not difficult to get in touch with your subconscious; look around you. It’s in plain sight right before your eyes. What you see is a process of your mind, showing you what you’ve chosen to identify with – innocence or guilt. Forgive what you see and you will heal your unconscious guilt in your mind.

Before now, having seen everyone as apart from us, we have attacked (’cause’) the idea of our shared identity or oneness, and thus have condemned ourselves to the seeming effects of that kind of perception. Fortunately, A Course in Miracles teaches us that what is not real can have no effects, and this seeming attack cannot be real because there can be no cause outside of God, who is Cause. Oneness, being a distinguishing aspect of Truth, means attack is impossible simply because there is nothing to attack – no subject/object relationship in which to execute, or give cause to an attack. Where there is no cause, the idea ‘forgive your brother for what he did not do’ becomes meaningful and relevant. Reinterpreted, it states: Forgive yourself for what you did not do (separate from God), by forgiving your brother for what he did not do. Our holy brother is where we place forgiveness that it may alight upon us, because it is in our brother that we see the symbol of separation and try to hide our resulting guilt. It only makes sense that the way home, the way to heal our faulty perception, is to now see in him oneness and innocence. Where we once projected guilt, we now embrace and forgive.

The simple answer then, is for us to see everyone as innocent and holy. It is the shortcut the course refers to as the holy relationship, in which it offers us the counsel, ‘I need do nothing’. It elaborates: ‘This is the special means this course is using to save you time. You are not making use of the course if you insist on using means which have served others well, neglecting what was made for you. Save time for me by only this one preparation, and practice doing nothing else.’

It means I do not need to perform some action to earn my salvation. I do not need to do penance to placate God’s supposed judgment of me. I do not need to fast and meditate under a tree for 100 years. I do not need to fight against sin or try and detach myself from the body. I need do nothing. My only need is to perceive my brother as innocent for just a single instant, and I ‘will accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation, or of struggle against temptation.’

“Here is the ultimate release which everyone will one day find in his own way, at his own time. You do not need this time. Time has been saved for you because you and your brother are together.” (Text, p.389)

The holy relationship is the perception that most closely resembles Knowledge, or the oneness of Heaven. This integrated, unifying, healed perception, takes us as far as perception can take us… to the happy dream, onto the real world, and finally into the waiting arms of God.

A Course in Miracles teaches, in many different ways, the concept of there only being one of us, so that we can recognize it in a way we might easily understand. Each of these workbook lessons have the same content and meaning:

- I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts
- I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing
- When I am healed, I am not healed alone
- I trust my brothers, who are one with me
- It can be but myself I crucify
- It can be but my gratitude I earn
- Only my condemnation injures me
- All gifts I give my brother are my own
- All gifts my brother gives belong to me
- Forgiveness lets me know minds are joined
- I can attack but my own sinlessness
- My sinless brother is MY GUIDE TO PEACE; my sinful brother is my guide to pain; and which I choose to see I will behold
- Peace be to me, the Holy Son of God; peace to my brother who is one with me
- Today I learn THE LAW OF LOVE; that what I give my brother is my gift to me

Think about the magnitude of what these lessons offer us! They are our guide to peace! They teach us the law of love! What could be more important, or more powerful? Or simpler?

“To perceive the healing of your brother as the healing of yourself is… the way to remember God.” (Text, p.218)

While it is true that A Course in Miracles is a theological and psychological masterpiece, it is not complicated. It dangles the keys to the Kingdom right in front of our eyes with this teaching! In fact, it places the key to salvation’s door squarely in the palm of our hand. The course proclaims again and again that our sinless brother is our guide to salvation. Forgive him, and the gift he returns will be the keys to the Kingdom. No wonder our brother is due our gratitude! He becomes the symbol of Christ that allows us to free our minds from the bondage of illusion. The decision to see our brother as sinless is our whole way out, because in our sinlessness does our salvation lie. As we begin to choose this perception, we finally begin to turn the key and unlock the long-barred door to the cell of our self-imprisonment.

Now we can see that every encounter is a holy encounter. Now we can see that when we ask in each situation, ‘What is it for?’… that the answer is: ‘To choose his (our) sinlessness.’ To choose union. Now, finally, we can be free! We make this choice with Love, or the Holy Spirit, or Jesus, or Christ, or true perception, or true vision, or the right mind. Whatever your preference, they are all the same.

It is one thing to accept this idea intellectually, but stop for a moment and experience it. It is truly life-altering! The teachings of A Course in Miracles are not just for the mind, but definitely for the heart as well. Try this exercise for a moment:

First, choose the person you love the most in the world, the person you see as the most loving, and thus the most innocent (and when you’re done, do it again with the person you most struggle to love). Imagine looking at this person with total love and adoration. See her looking back at you with soft eyes, returning your love and adoration. She is glowing and radiant – a bright, holy angel. Beautiful, golden light shines through and all around her, cascading from her in pulsing waves. It extends to warmly wrap itself all around you as she gently smiles at you with complete love. Your heart melts in her endlessly loving presence. Now look at the millions – billions! – of different people behind her, and surrounding you in every direction… and watch as they all morph into perfect replications of her, serenely smiling back at you, embracing and encompassing you in their love, for as far as you can see, and as deeply as you can feel. Then look again and see her, and all the replications of her, morph into you… and see yourself smiling back at you, loving you. Glowing. Beaming. Then watch as all the figures morph into Jesus, who continues smiling back at you, His Light enveloping everyone and everything. You glance in a nearby mirror, and even in the mirror Jesus is there smiling back at you with perfect peace, acceptance and love. You slowly close your eyes and surrender to the infinite Love of God.

You are a holy child of God, each of you.

I love everyone-of-me,
You

To be a student of A Course in Miracles is to be a student of the practice of forgiveness, which can be simplified down to three short steps: Identity, Cause, & Experience, or ICE.

(A little ICE can help you cool down when you feel hot under the collar, or reduce the swelling of a hot temper.)

Identity

When you are in your wrong-identity mind (’I am separate from God, and my brothers’) you imagine and experience all the things that come along with separation and attack; namely, guilt, fear, pain, sadness, anger etc.

The guilt and fear you feel for making this choice you project onto your brother. Why? Because your guilt is like a tracking device that constantly bleeps in your unconscious, and you just know on some awful level that God is searching for that tracking device and when He finds it He is going to absolutely destroy whoever is holding it at the time. So, in order to ensure your safety, you hide it on your brother’s person, or body. This is a constant strain, because for some darn reason, it keeps finding its way back to you… sorta like the old hot potato game. Tick tick tick. You always have to find another person to give it to in order to maintain your peace; you can’t maintain your peace because it keeps coming back to you! What a dilemma!

Cause

The obvious remedy, then, is to choose once again to remember your true identity, negating your terrible guilt, and the resultant need to unceasingly play the extremely stressful hot potato game. But how? The way to do this is to see your brother as a beloved Son of God.

“Say what? He’s the one being the jerk in this situation! I’m the obvious victim of his jerkdom. Why not me? Why don’t I, poor, poor, poor me, get to be the beloved Son of God??”

“Well, because at the moment it’s your brother who holds the tracking device/hot potato, and is guilty, evil and in capital B-I-G trouble. Don’t you remember sticking it in his pocket when he wasn’t looking?”

“Oh yeeeah.” Looks around. Whistles.

“Therefore, “To perceive the healing of your brother as the healing of yourself is…the way to remember God.” (Text, p.218) I know you’ve read this in the text at least 27 times. This is how you heal your mind.”

“Oh. I thought that was all theoretical mumbo jumbo. Sorrrrry.” Looks around. Whistles louder.

By this point you’ve invited Jesus, if only a little, into your mind, or you wouldn’t even be considering any of this. He will remind you that God is First Cause (stated in the most personal way: Your Cause), and that His Creations – i.e. your brother – cannot be apart from Him. So the reason for guilt (separation) is causeless! You forgive (recognize innocence through right-identity) your brother for what he did not do (separate his identity from God’s / did not take the peace of God away from you). This makes your brother free, and since you are one with him, you are freed right along with him. No one leaves the dream-prison alone; he takes all his brothers with him. You thought forgiving him meant you’d take him out of the prison, but when you forgive him He takes You out of the prison in return for the gift of right-identity you gave him.

The remembrance that You Are Your Father’s Son means you are in union not at odds with God. You are safe, eternal, peaceful, happy, loved, and all the good things that come along with being your Father’s Son.

This also means you are not who you thought you were (a character actor on the world stage), nor is your brother who you thought he was (some other actor on the same stage). This also means that the whole dang play was a farce, not a tragedy as you previously believed and experienced.

And not your typical farce either; the greatest farce of all time – the one where the actors never actually showed up or did anything at all, and all for a tremendous audience filled with fainting onlookers. Now that is funny!

Experience

When you look at your mistaken identity with Jesus, remember your Cause with Jesus, and look at what this means for you and your brother with Jesus, you experience a softening, a release, a letting go. A big, long, happy sigh. You experience Jesus’ mind — your right-identity mind. And it’s a nice place to be. No more guilt seen without nor within. Just a sense of perfection and wholeness, gentleness and safety.

You may find that it only lasts for 2.37 seconds, :) in which case another judgment has come up that says, ‘Tonight, one time only! This time it’s for real, and personal! The show must go on!’ You then get out some more ICE to cool things down, recognizing it’s just the same old stage you’ve already recognized as empty (of guilt) many times over. Are you really going to believe the narrator when he announces the 14,549th play, when no actors showed up for the first 14,548? Are you really going to pay the cost again?

If what seems to be happening on stage temporarily prevents you from offering Jesus a little willingness to see it differently, then forgive yourself for not forgiving it until you forgive it. :) No sense in beating yourself up and down, and black and blue with your wallet in addition to being angered and terrified of the dreadful play you’ve paid so dearly to watch, furious at yourself that you just can’t seem to leave the bleepin’ theatre! When you finally decide it’s not worth it, it’s only a brief instant until you remember you’re not the actor, the theatre-goer, not even the director now… you’re beyond all of those things. You are your Father’s Son.

Until that time, your goal is practice. Practice not being fooled when the same old narrator saunters out on stage in a different outfit, calling himself by a different name, disguising his voice, announcing a different and sure-to-be the scintillating can’t-miss play we’ve all been waiting for. This time with real actors! They will show up! This time, he promises!

It’s not going to happen; it never has and never could.

Learn to deftly forgive and laugh at these vain attempts to confuse your mind. Learn that that’s the ego’s only game: empty proclamations – the only game you ever need to see past, the only voice you ever need choose not to believe. He has a thousand costumes but only one shtick. No matter how loud and insistent his claims, it has always been an empty stage of nothingness. Sinlessness. Rejoice in this.

Soon, when you choose to no longer listen, he and his voice will vanish, and in his place a new figure will appear. It will be Jesus standing there. And behind him all your brothers. As one, they will reach out for you in total love, and you will join them, knowing there is nothing more you could ever want. In their embrace all pain is gone forever, and a flood of joy begins to overtake you, carrying you blissfully into the arms of God and His eternal Love.

At the moment I’m reading ‘The 50 Miracle Principles of A Course in Miracles’ by Ken Wapnick. Here is an excerpt:

“A Course in Miracles makes it very clear that it is not the only path (to God), that it is not the only form (pointing to) truth. It just says that it is a path. The course itself says of itself that it is ‘one form among many thousands.’ (M-1.4:1-2) But it is a specific path, which means that you really cannot combine it with anything else because it will not fit. The more that we explore what it is saying, the more we will recognize how radical it is.”

It is important to find a path that truly works for you, and stick to it. Drawing inspiration from other paths is fine, but each one has its own very specific application phase, which means things are likely to get murky, confused, erratic, inconsistent and so on, if we try to mix different/unique forms of application.

This is similar to learning a musical instrument. Imagine if becoming expert in any single instrument is tantamount to experiencing enlightenment. If the violin is your primary instrument it might be helpful to play around a bit on the guitar and piano because it enhances your love of music, helps you see common theoretical elements, and the fun you experience in making music might motivate you to make more of it with your primary instrument. But if you were to split your time in this way every day, it would take much longer to become masterful at the violin than if you devoted yourself to that one instrument and its particular set of technical and artistic challenges.

Each path to God is as worthy as any other. When we finally choose God is what we want, we can each choose our primary instrument and begin the way of the virtuoso.

Several times this past week I’ve experienced some of the deepest feelings of peace I’ve ever known.

Each experience had one thing in common: it came when I clearly saw myself as a student, with Jesus as my teacher, and the world as my classroom. When I take that mentality into every single moment, situation and event – when I ask, ‘How would you have me see this, Jesus? And this? And this?’ – I feel His love wrapped all around me like a soft, soothing blanket.

We do not learn the Course in a vacuum. It is a self-study course, but if you do the Course on your own, as an intellectual and ’spiritual’ undertaking, you’re missing the whole point. Jesus is the point. He is the miracle. Without Him, it is nothing, and becomes just another ego course. Jesus gives it its spirituality. And it is His Spirit that heals us.

The methodology is simple, but not easy. We are healed when we resign as our own teacher and invite His perception into our mind in exchange for our self-taught fearful perceptions. As we do this, His Holy perception gently flows across our mind like a cool mist in a long parched desert. This is the course in its entirety. His loving perception offers us everything.

Our only job is to humbly allow him His rightful place as our Teacher.

G.P.S. (normally meaning ‘Global Positioning System’) is a great forgiveness shortcut:

G. – any feeling of distress is always GUILT. G is to name/recognize the problem as what it really is.

P. – we tend to PROJECT this guilt outward. P is to remind us to take back ownership, remembering that the guilt is in our mind, not ‘out there.’

S. – we identify the cause of this guilt as our belief in SEPARATION, apply the atonement principle (’it never happened’) and look at this with Jesus as our teacher (navigator), exchanging our fearful perception for His loving perception. S is to identify the cause – and the appropriate place for the application of the solution – of all our seeming problems.

When we are frightened and lost we can use spiritual G.P.S. (God Positioning Sysytem) with Jesus as our navigator, and He will soon have us back on track, pointing us to the comfort and safety of Home.

Last night my wife, Bonnie, had what she described as ‘one of the most amazing spiritual experiences of her life.’ She doesn’t like to write, so the following post is my account of her description to me, having been given a final proofread by her:

I had an intensely clear and powerful dream wherein I was watching a filmstrip of events from my current life along with those from my many past lifetimes. There were probably close to three hundred animated images flashing one after another with vivid scenes of myself in different situations: war, poverty, hunger, birth, death, marriage, childhood, swimming in a pool and looking up at the sky with a really happy smile, parties, wealth, celebrations, jumping, falling, an accident where my leg was severed, pain, crying, laughing, and many more.

I recognized and remembered every scene as if I was right back in that lifetime, that very moment. The filmstrip was in black and white, and I could see each image clearly, with acute detail, and had an emotional response to each one. Although it all occurred with amazing speed – in about five seconds for all three hundred images – it seemed as if time stood still and I was re-experiencing each event in the present moment.

Watching the filmstrip was incredibly impactful and, as the images flew past my eyes, I felt both emotional and disturbed. Then, just as quickly, the screen suddenly went black, totally blank… like a visual dial-tone. I felt like I had hit a brick wall in my mind, coming to a sudden and complete stop which jolted me from my dream. Out of the darkness, I heard Jamie’s voice beside me in bed, which from his deep-sleep-breathing I immediately recognized as his ’sleep talking’ voice (he sleep talks regularly).

Seemingly on cue, he said, ‘Be grateful to yourself.’ My eyes widened in the darkness and my heart jumped.

He continued, ‘It seems like a lot of mixed images are affecting you, but everything you see is internal.’ I was astonished! It seemed like Jesus was lying beside me, speaking through Jamie, narrating and responding to what was happening in my mind.

Then he said, ‘Think of the transfer value.’ (This is a quote / idea from ‘A Course in Miracles’ with the implication being that one lesson truly learned could be applied to and heal all problems or situations, or in my case, to each image, event and lifetime in my filmstrip, healing them all.)

I thought back to the screen of flying images and the emotional rollercoaster ride it had been, and I instantly saw them as all the same! And I saw that I could basically wipe them and their effects away in one fell swoop by forgiving them as one singular illusion.

Laying there in the dark, a bright light began to expand in my mind. I felt very close to Jamie and to Jesus; enveloped in protection and love. I heard Jamie turn over so his face was away from me and he said in muffled tones, ‘You should listen to me. I am full of wisdom. I was sent to be your teacher.’

He mumbled a few more things I couldn’t understand before returning to silence.

Lost in deep thought, I lay quietly for some time before finally drifting back to sleep.

When we woke up in the morning and I told him the story, he vaguely remembered saying ‘Everything you see is internal’, but everything else was shadowy in his memory. What I’m left with is a keen and unequivocal awareness that minds are connected, that we’re all students and teachers to one another, and that Jesus is right next to us at all times, helping and loving us during every event and moment of our lives.

Here’s another approach to forgiveness using the principle, “Ideas leave not their source.” (Text, p.554) It involves two steps, and in both cases restores cause and effect to their proper place.

The first step involves looking at the misapplication of this idea as we see the world, and the second step as we see Heaven.

Step #1. World.

Guilt is in our minds, but we believe we can get rid of it by projecting it onto others, or other situations, circumstances, events (ideas CAN leave their source). This is why we made the world. When we look at this with the Holy Spirit and remember ‘ideas leave not their source’, we take back responsibility (cause) for the world we see, for having made it, for how we interpret it, and for how we experience it. But this recognition, that the guilt is in our minds, not ‘out there’, would not be healing unless we applied the same principle to Heaven.

Ideas leave not their source = (cause: mind, effect: world)

Step #2. Heaven.

We believe in the guilt in our minds, because we believe separation from God is possible and we accomplished it (ideas CAN leave their source). When we look at this with the Holy Spirit and remember ‘Ideas leave not their source’, we give causation back to God. We are a thought in God’s Mind, and God’s thoughts cannot leave His Mind. We thus begin to realize we have not done the impossible, are innocent of our imagined ’sin’, and are now safe to choose once again.

Ideas leave not their source = (cause: God, effect: us)