ACIM Sparkly Edition
What is a Course in Miracles?
A Course in Miracles is a self-study course aimed at the transformation of your mind. Its only purpose is to teach you one very simple and specific lesson:
“Forgive and recognize another as yourself.”
Learning it will take you from doubt to certainty, from pain to joy and from limits to the unlimited. Learning it will heal you as well as all those with whom you share your healing.
Despite its enormous size (1250 pages), the course is quite simple. It expresses a hand full of very powerful ideas in many different ways. Do not let it overwhelm you with its size and language structure. The deeper into it you go, the simpler it will become.
The course contains three books. A text, which explains the thought system of the course, and what it means. The workbook, which contains 365 lessons aimed at helping you to apply this thought system and then to realize that it is true. Last but not least, a manual for teachers, which is meant to help clarify the function of a miracle worker and to answer some of the questions that both they and their students may have.
The course is written in Christian Terminology. It refers to God as God. To you as Christ, a son of God. And to your internal guide as The Holy Spirit. The other word used extensively is “Atonement”, which has a very old-school kinda of tone. Yet its meaning is benevolent and only means “The correction of perception”. It is not a word that implies punishment, or making up for one’s mistakes in the eyes of God.
Aside from these terms, the course is universal. Its message is simple. Forgiveness is the way to know yourself and God. However, the course has a very different definition of what forgiveness really is.
However many paths there may be, some are faster than others. The course is unique in its approach to non-duality and spiritual practice. It is not about symbols, rituals, or gimmicks. Its sole purpose is to help you learn the meaning of forgiveness and to experience all that forgiveness offers. The meaning of forgiveness as taught by the course is not what is generally thought of as forgiveness in the thinking of the world. Forgiveness is an act of mind, a choice between investment in what is true and not what is false. Forgiveness is for yourself, extended to all others, and that is the meaning of a “miracle”.
A course in miracles is not learned by the intellect. Intellect can provide a false sense of understanding, but one which is neither integrated nor experienced. Spirit is lived, not understood. Learning the course results in an experience of awakening, and until this experience is had, you can be sure it is not truly learned. Its purpose is the training and opening of your mind. It is not a course in spiritual philosophy.
In 2005 a district court judge ruled that the Course does not have a legal copyright owner. The course is now public domain. The complete court papers are available for download here; they contain a lot of great detail about how the course came into being.
