What is A Course in Miracles?
A Course in Miracles is a path of spiritual development that takes the form of an educational course. It has three volumes, the Text, the Workbook for Students, and the Manual for Teachers. I focus here on the Workbook for Students.
The reason that I call myself a student of A Course in Miracles, is because I spend time each day in studying its words. Its aim is to reeducate my basic perception of reality and to then teach me how best to extend this new perception to others. Yes, there are many other spiritual paths we can take, but this one holds a very special place in my life.
The terminology used in A Course in Miracles can be extremely off-putting for many. Yes, it uses Christian terminology. This in itself is problematic, because those who have grown up in the Christian faith, have certain ways of ‘seeing’ and/or understanding certain words, which might (or might not be) an incorrect perception of the word used, and those who have not grown up in the Christian faith, could even find the terminology offensive in terms of their own beliefs. All I am asking you to do is to create a blank canvas in your mind for the terminology used here. Hold no preconceived ideas about their meaning, but rather know that what you are about to begin learning, is beyond our current comprehension.
As per the CE edition of ACIM, a miracle is:
A divine healing of the mind, which takes place either through us or within us, in which someone is released from painful patterns of thinking that he or she has been locked into. The main usage is that miracles are ‘expressions of love’ (they are called this six times in the Course), in which one person expresses love to another, often in very ordinary ways, and thereby heals the perception of the other. A secondary usage refers to miracles healing our own minds: ‘A miracle is a correction factor introduced into false thinking by me. It acts as a catalyst, shaking up erroneous perception and snapping it into place’ (T-1.37.I:1-2).
‘The purpose of the workbook is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world.
The exercises are planned to help you generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is equally applicable to everyone and everything you see.
The overall aim of the exercises is to increase your ability to extend the ideas you will be practicing to include everything. This will require no effort on your part. The exercises themselves meet the conditions necessary for this kind of transfer.’ (W.In.4,7) (Foundation for Inner Peace edition)
