A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume
by Dr. Helen Schucman
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Book Reviews of A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume
Book Review: Wonderful! (with minor issues with ACIM)
Summary: 4 Stars
A Course in Miracles (ACIM) is a landmark work that belongs on the top shelf of all libraries holding the truth of God, man and the universe. Although not a work of concise technical reasoning, it is nevertheless, a magnificant work of art with few, if any, peers. Being a student of metaphysics for over thirty years with some noteworthy demonstrations, I couldn't help but read this work three times simply out of pure enjoyment and will continue to do so. Its very clear explanations that our true identity has always been one, singular consciousness and never a material body is laid out fully from the preface to the end of the text. Also, ACIM is quite clear in the explanation that human sin and errors never happened and therefore, guilt was never valid in the imagined human's efforts at separating itself from the Oneness of God. Your sin, your error and your guilt never occurred but only in the dream brought on by a false identity temporarily believed to be you as a separate imagined ego outside of God, the only Life and Intelligence there is.
Without exposure and study of various other works on this subject especially the works of Mary Baker Eddy, Herbert Eustace and Ames Nowell, the student of ACIM may have some difficulty in understanding it. As with all subjects, they are quite easy and are not rocket science once understanding takes place (and neither is rocket science!). In an effort to aid the student of ACIM, I have summarized the following points and issues I observed in ACIM that may be helpful:
1. There are a number of contradictions swirling around who "you" are in this work. As an example, on page 17, para. 1, we find that "you" made the original mistake of separation, of believing an emptiness exists and that "you" can fill it by projecting your own thoughts, that "you" believe what is perfect can be imperfect, etc. Of course if "you" made all these errors, "you" would have much guilt and in great need of forgiveness for usurping God. However, page 63, para. 1, line 5 correctly states, "When you feel guilty, remember that the ego has indeed violated the laws of God, but you have not." Also, on page 506, para. 3, line 1 correctly states, "It is not you who are so vulnerable and open to attack that just a word, a little whisper that you do not like..." and on page 523, para 10, line 1 correctly states, "You need no forgiveness, for the wholly pure have never sinned." Why this separated ego, that is clearly not "you" is not introduced earlier as the source of the original mistakes listed back on page 17 is a mystery in logical reasoning. The separate ego is imagined, never happened and will never be "you". Assigning "you" as the source of the original errors just adds another layer the reader must remove after understanding God's perfect Son could never make a mistake and therefore, never needed to be forgiven.
2. This separate ego that is not "you" detailed above, can also logically explain the cause of the Big Bang universe that occurred long before "humans" and their guilt appeared in it, a "minor" detail ACIM has failed to address. Effect is always at one with and always exactly reflects its cause. When the imagined but insane mental entity claimed itself to be separated from the infinite, consciousness - Unity, the violent start of a counterfeit, inverted, objective universe began in a timeline of changing and evolving ideas existing subjectively in this "other mind". Because this imagined counterfeit universe is still dreamed within and surrounded by infinite Intelligence, higher levels of intelligent life were forced to evolve to the point where we are now - fully able to destroy its deathly illusion and regain the Unity and Singularity of Eternal and Harmonious Being.
3. It would be very helpful to the reader if the word "Atonement" used mostly in the front end of this book for some reason, was simply explained as the actual state of unity for all or simply, "at-one-ment".
4. There seems to be a couple of Buddist carry-over-thingies swirling around regarding the terms 'ego' and 'consciousness'. One is when ACIM casts the noun "ego" in a negative light and belonging only to the erroneous and imagined separate "ego". The noun "ego" simply identifies the consciousness or mind associated with the particular "self" at issue. (See Webster's Dictionary definition, ie., "ego: the self especially as contrasted with another self or the world.") Therefore, for God to be a Mind with an associated Self-awareness and consciousness as ACIM correctly surmises (but does not logically derive), God also must have an "ego" or "self" and in fact, is the only true Ego and Self in existence. The separate 'ego' is the counterfeit wannabe in its own stupid belief that its identity is a meat-sack within a birth-life-death nightmare-dream that never happened in contrast to the Genuine, Infinite, Impersonal Ego of Consciousness, Intelligence, Harmony and Eternal Individual Life that DID happen.
The other carry-over denounces consciousness as the domain of the ego in ACIM on page 42, paragraph 2. How consciousness is linked to the ego but not to the awareness of the Oneness of Being, that is, being able to "...know yourself as you are..." is unfathomable in common-sense reasoning. Perhaps the level of perception after the separation is best described as a mind darkened in doubt and confusion of not knowing the truth and therefore has only futile thinking and erring beliefs to contend with. Instead of a settled state of knowing the truth peacefully, the believed-to-be separated mind works feverishly via thinking and reasoning to re-establish the 'lost' truth. In all cases therefore, it would seem that consciousness is a baseline requirement for either 'knowing' or 'thinking/reasoning' activities to occur in Heaven or hell, respectively.
5. The excessive focus on your "brothers" can be a little confusing to the reader. Its use is understood and good when illustrating the Goldern Rule, that is, as you see, do unto, and judge others, so shall YOU BE, or simply put, what goes around comes around. Everything you see and experience is a reflection of you. Just ONE MIND generating its world and universe, right or wrong and all minds are the One Mind. However, when the constant and excessive focus is on all those "brothers out there" the reader may get confused with these numerous 'other minds and egos' running around especially when he reads, as contrasted by ACIM, the Son of God is not many sons but is one Son - the individual conscious awareness of One Life, of One Being, of One Ego, of One Self - of God Itself (or the only offspring or son a mind can have, to complete the metaphor.) Also, see Page 443, paras 7 - 9 regarding 'others' as hallucinations! You all are simply consciousness or spirit and are everywhere - One Being individually aware of Itself.
6. Use of the words "extension" and "create" can be a little misleading. As the infinity of Mind implies all has already been created, new creations or new extensions cannot logically occur but these ideas, new to the unfolding awareness, can always be newly revealed. Therefore, the word reveal should be sensed whenever the words "extend" or "extension" are read. The Father created and the Son reveals, or, saying the same thing another way, Intelligence created and Its Ideas of Itself (Its Creation) is revealed to Its Awareness of Itself. (See ACIM Pg 181, para 2, line 4, "Your creations add to Him as you do, but nothing is added that is different because everything has always been." When you become aware that 2 + 2 = 4, it is revealed to you but is not different because it has always been!)
7. The word "perception" and its variants are used to describe erroneous, human beliefs based on materialistic reasoning. In the Course, perception is refined as forgiveness reveals a bright, new world in the "happy dream". This is not the ascension and is as far as learning can go in order to prepare the mind for knowledge or a state of knowing, or the ascension. The word "knowledge" is used to describe the full understanding of the Oneness of Self in a universe or totality of Love uncontaminated with childish and idiotic human, materialistic beliefs and limited perceptions.
Book Review: Thank you Spirit...
Summary: 5 Stars
This book has over 600 pages of text, 365 lessons and a Teachers manual to help explain some of the difficult concepts. The unique thought system presented in this work can be summed up as, "If God exists and is real, then I am not real." Or, if you are so inclined, "If God exists and is real, then all that is not God is unreal." Both translate in my way of thinking the same. Either way, any perception of that which is real, is God. Any perception of that which changes, decays and dies, is unreal. The Holy Spirit in ACIM is only real while the ego exists and its sole purpose is to allow room for a vision of this world that is of God. The Course is adamant in its single minded interpretation that God has no opposite. Furthermore, it is single minded in its purpose of stating that what God creates is like God by extension and what is phrased by the sentence, "leaves not its Source". I love ACIM because it is not like any other thought system. "God" exists, nothing else does. We do not exist, not even as an illusion. We have never left God. We are not "dreaming", but we can only speak in terms that use words that when best described, we talk about this life as a "dream" or as an "illusion". It was only after intensive meditation during and after the Lessons of the Course that I was able to understand this one and only fact. Thinking about our dreams is really the very best description of our life. It is true that we are being dreamed, but just like in our dreams, the players are not real. This is the way it is with us and God. The Son of God forgot to laugh and went into a sleep (not really), the Holy Spirit was instantly created (by God) and while the Son of God was in a laughless moment the Holy Spirit's vision brought laughter back to the Son of God.
If you are asking, "What kind of God does ACIM teach? ACIM does not provide an answer, but assuredly it doesn't mean one among man's many faiths. How could it? How could the truth be anything we dream up? It should be understood that the verbiage is Christian (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), but it is also well-known that this is mere coincidence and has nothing to do with ACIM espousing that Christianity is the one true religion. Simply put, an American professor and psychologist in NYC (a Westerner) wrote ACIM upon hearing a voice in her head repeat the following words enough times that it became the Introduction to the book:
"This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. 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, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.
This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God."
Let me translate that opening paragraph for you:
"This is a course in miracles."
You can do miracles. Your definition of "miracle", of course, will first have to be changed. Once this change in your mind is made, you will reap the benefit of performing and witnessing real miracles. The miracle will be that nothing actually has changed outside of you, but only the thoughts you hold about what you have seen your whole life will change radically. When you see the world for the very first time, the way it really is, you will know your first miracle. You will never forget it, either.
"It is a required course."
The life you are leading right now is a required course. The contents of its curriculum must be learned by everyone, although the form of it is different for everyone.
"Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time."
The hardest lessons we see here in life (sin, disease and death) are not the real lessons. We cannot change those things (the curriculum), but must learn to change the way we perceive them. How much of this you elect to take (see with a new way of understanding life's purpose in sin, disease and eventually death) is up to you.
This is made clearer in the next sentence.
"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, which is your natural inheritance."
Look what is offered in the introduction? It offers up right away honesty for the reader to digest. Love, it states, is beyond what can be taught! Meditate on that for a second. But, then immediately states the core of its teaching and what can be done. We can be taught to simply remove something from our perception where we think a lack of love exists. ACIM calls this a "block to an awareness" of something there, in the midst of sin, disease and death, that is the presence of love.
"The opposite of love is fear,"
So we think.
"but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite."
Digest this fully and you will find that the block is removed.
If you have given serious thought to why you are who you are and why we are in the predicament we are in, you should read this book. You will find that the mind is a very pliable thing. Science is beginning to understand that the mind is a product of the brain. This may be so. We find that when we look deep inside, our physical being is under the guidance of something other than ourselves. This is compared to our psychological pain, which appears to be strongly correlated with our thought patterns. Can we use another way of thinking to bring more of something wanted into our lives? Perhaps bring more love and peace for ourselves, others and the world around us? This book, if properly understood, can give you the means of removing blocks to love's presence; I am witness to that and am eternally grateful.
Buy it today.
Book Review: Deepest and most profound book I've ever read
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the deepest and most profound book I've ever read. And I have a ridiculously large collection of books.
ACIM presents spiritual truths so concise and raw, so pure, that one must often spend days or weeks (or more) studying + praying + meditating upon a single passage. Then one may begin to achieve the first insights into the passage, and begin to apply it directly to one's life. With each insight revealed by each passage, you'll suddenly become aware and see the miraculous spiritual world which is true life (all else is a false dream).
This book DOES teach miracles. I will offer you an example.
Of course, in everyday life you cross paths with countless strangers. Many you may only meet for a moment, and never again. For example, you may exchange a few INCONSEQUENTIAL words with a grocery store cashier, who is a total "stranger," as pay for your groceries. And typically we rate such an interaction as "meaningless." We don't even think about it.
Let's now re-imagine our "inconsequential" daily interactions with others in a new, deeply spiritual and profound way, that transforms these interactions into most consequential MIRACLES.
That cashier who is ringing up your groceries, may be quite happy, OR she might be quite depressed and that very moment is thinking about how she'll commit suicide once she gets home that evening. Her soul may be in that much pain. She needs a miracle encounter, and without it she'll be dead later that evening.
First, you understand you can never personally "make" miracles happen. Miracles are never under your command. You can only ready your consciousness through purification, making yourself a willing channel / vehicle through which God performs miracles.
You begin by caring. You open your heart and you hold precious a deep concern for the well-being (and advancement) of other souls. That mindset helps you sense the pain of other souls, even when they hide it under many layers.
Next you read this book. It teaches you how to be a willing channel through which miracles can be worked. This is fundamentally NOT an intellectual exercise of simply reading a concept and thereby "knowing" it and thus becoming a "miracle worker." It doesn't work that way. This is a non-rational, non-intellectual workshop for your soul, a process that only begins when you read each passage in the book. Then comes convulsions of prayer and meditation in which you beg God to reveal the meaning of the passage to your heart. Beyond saying that, the process is intensely profound and simply cannot be put into words.
Let's return to our example involving the cashier.
You see, God KNOWS the precise sentiment and the exact few words you must communicate to that cashier, in order to MIRACULOUSLY lift her soul and prevent her suicide. This will not merely prevent her suicide that evening, but will transform her life in a matter of a few seconds. She will FOREVER think of herself on a higher level, valuing herself much more, and that will change her life. That is the miracle.
So you stand in line at the grocery checkout. Your heart is open, allowing you to sense the pain of another soul, in this case a total stranger ringing out your groceries. You have made yourself ready for this moment through prayer, meditation, and reading ACIM.
You look at the cashier, as one looks at a beautiful sunset, meditatively. You don't see her "depression." Instead you see a perfect, precious spirit; that is, you see some truth about the angelic nature of another, and God can help you let that person see that in your eyes.
Then in that moment of your love, and your deep willingness to help, your mind clears as you wait fearlessly for God to work a miracle through you. And God does.
You hear a few sentences come out of your mouth as you look lovingly at the cashier. You understand those words came from above. Those sentences were SO PERFECTLY MATCHED to meet the needs of the soul of that cashier in that moment, you could not possibly have originated those words in your intellect. Often the words will even reference secret events or feelings in the life of the stranger that you have no prior knowledge of!
The reaction of that person to your words is often most amazing, because the person you spoke to just experienced that you (a total stranger) has just looked into the hidden recesses of their heart and soul, and has seen secrets and pain, and has helped dissipate that pain in a most loving way, in an instant!
Often the total stranger will immediately break down into the happiest of tears of JOY. They may look up at you with tears streaming down their face, but with their face glowing with a huge, happy smile, as if you've just saved their life and they are eternally grateful. However, all the work was by God, acting through you.
You may find yourself spontaneously giving that person (a total "stranger") a warm hug and both sharing tears of joy - all done with countless strangers watching on, perplexed by it.
Then you walk out of the store. The miracle has happened and you know it will work magic in the life of that person blessed by it.
Now it often happens, not always, but sometimes, that you will meet that same person again many years later. It may be 20 years later. You'll be running an errand or whatever, and suddenly a "stranger" walks up to you and looks at you lovingly as if you are a long-lost sibling, and says with heartfelt intensity:
"You saved my life by speaking a few words to me in a grocery store! Thank you! I could NEVER forgot you!"
If you understand that example, and you have started to understand what is inside this most miraculous book!
NOTE: this review is NOT intended to suggest I understand most of what is in ACIM, or have in any sense "completed" the spiritual workshop that the Course is. Very optimistically, maybe I "understand" (intellectually) say 5% of the sentences in this book, and maybe (who knows) I've managed to start applying maybe 1% of the book into my daily life. And that's a lot. And that little is life-transforming. This is the kind of book you work with for multiple lifetimes. I'm not sure the concept of "completing" even applies to this book!
Book Review: If You Are reading this you are already on the way
Summary: 5 Stars
I cannot praise this work highly enough.
I doubt that there is a more powerful book on this planet.
I have studied the Course for over 12 years, and have done the Workbook
multiple times and I am gaining more peace from each day now than when I started. And it has been a very difficult road.
Eventually after 11 years of study and serious ill health, money and relationship stress on an ever-worsening scale I realised that the Course didn't say anything about having a great earth life in terms of outward trappings. You may or you may not.
So for those of you who are studying the Course seriously and your life just seems to have gotten worse and worse recognise
that maybe that means you are doing the Course correctly rather
than stuffing up as the ego would have you believe.
It happened that way for me.
Eventually I came to the conclusion that maybe I found the course because my life was already stinking and was predestined to be even worse and maybe some of the miracles I have offered have negated
some of that.
So if you are practicing miracles and working on the Course and your life is still not hunky-dorey or like mine is getting "worse" as the world defines it, realise that a "great life" on earth does not translate to an experience of peace and eternal bliss, and the Course is aimed at helping to recognise that we are already the recipients of the latter. We have just blocked it out of our consciousness by our fear of God.
If you don't believe that you are afraid of God, then ask yourself have you ever blamed God for something, even in the briefest instant, because if you have you have projected that God has done something bad to you or someone else, and by implication you would have to be afraid of him. The fact that God has NOT done anything bad to us, and yet we feel that way, is because of our own fear of how we will be punished for turning away from God.
Take heart, the ego, who we created and who then
created this world according to the Course, is NOT on your side.
People seem to think that they can have the perfect life according to some external world standard and maybe the Course will give it to them.
When that doesn't work they feel that they are a failure or haven't done the Course right.In my experience that couldn't be further from the truth. If the world is ultimately meaningless
it shouldn't really matter whether you have a healthy good looking body, nice car, clothes and house, because it is ALL an ego illusion.
It is more important to go with the inner peace aspect offered
by the Course. And that is what increases as you study it more.
Then you can live poorly as the world describes but be immeasurably content.
So remember to ask yourself when you think you aren't getting "results"
whether you are looking for results as the world describes or looking
for peace. Because when you don't get what you want in this world
you are thinking with the ego because you will have identified yourself as a victim.
But, if you study this book long enough you will eventually learn to move out of that projection. You cannot understand how liberating that
feels until you have experienced it, but I would never go back and I would suffer as the world defines many times over in order to have what I have now. The Course showed me how.
Book Review: A course in nihilism
Summary: 1 Stars
Me and one of my collegues (Happy Chappie, remember?) simply couldn't believe our eyes when we came across the ACIM on the web, more specifically the "daily lessons". We printed them out, put them up at the distribution center where we work, laughed at them, and so on.
I mean, the ACIM is more ridiculous than Prem Rawat or The Secret!
And then, maybe not so ridiculous. Maybe these ideas are dangerous.
The whole point of the ACIM is that this world is an illusion. Evil and suffering in particular are illusions. Everything is Love. This may sound like a splendid idea, until you reflect more closely on it. In fact, the ACIM is so naïve and simplistic, that it's difficult *not* to see the negative consequences of these ideas. For instance, if we hear about a war on TV or in the newspapers, we are supposed to repeat to ourselves: "This war does not exist. These bombs do not exist", and so on. Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Vietnam? That didn't exist?!
Nor, apparently, does anything else exist either. In another exercise, if somebody calls us, we are supposed to lift the telephone, place it on some distance from our ear and imagine that it, too, doesn't really exist...
Its obvious that this philosophy, if taken to its logical extreme, is entirely nihilistic. Worse, its sociopathic. If you start to treat your friends, family, children and neighbours (or victims of war in distant lands) as if they didn't exist, you probably need advanced psyhcotherapy ASAP.
Of course, I doubt very much that those who practice the ACIM exercises really are consistent. The author of the ACIM, Helen Schucman, sure wasn't. When a competing religious group published their own edition of the ACIM, Schucman's group quite simply sued them for copyright violation! Apparently, Dr. Schucman is convinced that at least copyright exists. Not to mention revenue from copyrighted books. In plain English, she and her followers were being hypocritical. Is anybody surprised?
Of course, the philosophical concept behind this kind of sollipsism isn't very convincing either. If everything is Love, and if we are all God, how can even the *illusion* of separation and suffering exist?
Personally, I think ideas like these ones can be used as a convenient way for privileged middle class people to find an excuse for not doing anything about the wrongs of our present society. If everything is an illusion, why bother with it? Of course, such people will be very selective in exactly what they percieve as "illusion" (world hunger? the plight of the spotted owl? lack of medical coverage for the poor?) and what they accept as real, say, the value of their house, or the possible revenue from selling a copyrighted book. Well, let's at least hope that these people percieve child abuse, rape or burglaries in their gated communities as real.
Don't count on it, however.
"A Course in Miracles" is a course in destructive nihilism, disguised as Divine Love.