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WHAT IS A COURSE IN MIRACLES?
Note: The introductory article to follow is an expanded version of “Our Point Of View.” Readers who have already read “Our Point Of View” may want to skip to the second and third introductory articles in this section. Webmaster
In recent years, “A Course In Miracles” has practically become a household term. But the fact is, few people know what it actually is. What follows is a concise overview of the Course in sixteen summary statements.
![What It Is:
1. A Course In Miracles defies classification. This is largely because it cuts across highly disparate spiritual, psychological and artistic paradigms simultaneously.
2. At the most basic level, A Course In Miracles is simply a three volume set of books: (1) a theoretical Text, (2) a Workbook For Students and (3) a Manual for Teachers. There are also two supplementary pamphlets.
3. At its core, the Course is a sophisticated discipline that directly addresses the love component of spiritual practice. Its central theme strikes at the heart of every human being’s primary wish––the wish to love others more fully. It offers nothing less than complete and immediate freedom from any and all suffering; and demonstrates how anyone, in any circumstance, can live a life characterized by an authentic, boundless joy. Its explicitly stated ultimate objective is complete awakening; toward this end, it prescribes countless practices, carefully assisting the practitioner at every stage of her development.
4. The Course is an astonishingly effective form of psychotherapy. Practitioners are able to make enduring, substantive changes in their relationships with other people. Few if any psychological tools embody the Course’s therapeutic power.
5. A Course In Miracles is a dogma-free transformative practice. One can hold any set of beliefs––be of any religious persuasion––practice any other spiritual path––and still derive the maximum degree of benefit from the practice of the Course.
6. Contrary to popular belief, the Course is not merely a set of lessons to be done at predetermined points during the day; rather, A Course In Miracles is a twenty-four hour, seven day-a-week, every minute of everyday, lifetime project.
7. The practices of the Course relentlessly zero-in on the practitioner’s actual day-to-day, moment-to-moment interpersonal encounters.
8. The Course is the quintessential “always/already” spiritual practice. 1 Always/already paths––also known as “paths of recognition”––teach that we’re already who we are trying to become. We engage in spiritual practice to remember, or recognize, who we already are (hence the term, “path of recognition”). According to this perspective, we’re already enlightened; practice is the means by which we recognize this pre-established fact. Paths of recognition are generally viewed as the apex of practice. 2
9. The single most important and yet, most difficult aspect of the Course is its all-inclusive component. The Course teaches that to understand the meaning of the term, “love”––to even perceive other people accurately or to know one’s own identity––one’s love must include everyone without exception. The Course teaches, “Hold back but…one offering, and love is gone.” 3
10. Forgiveness is the key practice and conceptual lynchpin of A Course In Miracles; however, the Course teaches a unique version of forgiveness, unrelated to either the Christian or dictionary definition. As students of the Course, we don’t forgive people for what they’ve done but rather, we practice forgiveness in order to realize, whatever events we assumed had occurred, never actually transpired. The Course teaches: “Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred.”4 At another point, the Course advises us to “Be willing to forgive [another] for what he did not do.” 5 Practitioners start out by forgiving others and end up realizing, in every instance, their grievances never had any basis in reality.
11. The Course is a seamless blend of conservative psychoanalytic theory, on the one hand, with a nondual spiritual system, on the other. A partial list of its basic tenets would include: dismantling the non-existent ego––what the Course refers to as “the undoing of what never was;” 6 the mind’s role in physical illness and death; the central role of responsibility and choice; the origin of fear; the illusory nature of anger; the etiology and treatment of depression; the relationship of the mind’s defensive mechanisms–particularly denial and projection–to our illusory sense of self-hatred; awakening within the dream (of this world); the identicality of sleeping and waking dreams; the “special relationship;” the illusion of needs; the nature of death; the Internal Teacher; the nature of love.
12. The Course is a stunning literary work of art. Hundreds of pages are written in a form of verse known as iambic pentameter also known as Shakespearean blank verse.
13. The Course is a relatively unexplored philosophical treatise addressing issues of metaphysics–particularly, the nature of reality, time, space and causality among other issues.
14. Contrary to popular views, the Course isn’t associated with the so-called “New Age” movement, historically or otherwise. Rather, A Course In Miracles represents a modern-day expression of the philosophia perennis 7 ––the universal core wisdom and principles underlying every great spiritual tradition the world has known.
15. The single most impressive feature of the Course is that it’s unequivocally effective. Through practice, students begin to perceive other people as they actually are––apart from their own projections––with love. Eventually, a sense of peace and authentic joy become consistent companions. Students begin to appreciate ideas that, in the past, may have seemed irrational––for example, the idea that death isn’t real; and that freedom from suffering is not only possible, it’s possible now, today, this very moment, through an act of choice.
16. Such changes in one’s internal life, however, are mere reflections of a more profound, all-encompassing transformation, described by the Course as “awakening from the dream” (of this world); further described as “awakening to reality;” and more fully elaborated as our return home. We return to a home that “always stands ready,” closer than our very breath.
Peter Solon, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Bellingham, Washington, USA
Ganj, Dharamsala, India
~
References
1. “Always/already” is a term popularized by the theoretical psychologist/philosopher Ken Wilber and appears throughout his published work.
2. See Dr. Walsh’s reference to Ken Wilber’s model (The Perennial Wisdom Of A Course In Miracles).
3. A Course In Miracles, T-24.I.1:4.
4. A Course In Miracles, W-pII.1.1:1.
5. A Course In Miracles, T-17.III.1:5.
6. A Course In Miracles, T-18.V.1:1.
7. Aldous Huxley (The Perennial Philosophy, 1945) popularized the term, “perennial philosophy” in his book of the same name. Huxley writes, “Philosophia Perennis – the phrase was coined by Leibniz; but the thing––the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man’s final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being––the thing is immemorial and universal.”](Basics1WhatIsACourseInMiracles_files/shapeimage_2.png)
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