A Course In Miracles

A Course In Miracles (1972)
Dr. Helen Schucman

“The mind is very powerful and never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating. It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power surge that can literally move mountains. It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is arrogant, but that is not the real reason you do not believe it. You prefer to believe that your thoughts cannot exert real influence because you are actually afraid of them… There are no idle thoughts. All thinking produces form at some level.” ― A Course in Miracles

I have a conflicted relationship with this book. An uneasy, lifelong commitment, if you will. It's ... awkward.

If you've started at the beginning of this blog, you've gotten a clear sense by now (because I keep mentioning it) that I'm no fan of organized religions. And yet, the moment I heard Eckhart Tolle describe and then recommend this book during one of his seminars, I bought it and started it that day (Kindle!). Twp things might make that surprising, the first being that the book was written by channeling. Yeah, I know … "Channeling!?" … Weird. And, AND! the book's not just channeled but the channeled spirit is that of Jesus. Yes, that Jesus. How's that for some weirdness to challenge the ol' cultural conditioning? Needless to say, my egoic self was feeling a bit ... conflicted as I was reading this book.

“It is essential to remember that only the mind can create, and that correction begins at the thought level…spirit is already perfect and therefore does not require correction. The body does not exist except as a learning device for the mind.” ― A Course in Miracles

And yet this book is The Book that brought about the profound "re-awakening" that I posted about here. This was the book that filled my head with the practical instruction I was craving to better understand the awakening - and also a book full of references to "the Father" and "the Sonship" and "the Holy Spirit", phrases that grated on my anti-religion ear. I would literally have to stop reading every few pages, when the 'thou' and 'thine' and 'holies' were coming fast and furiously, and 'scrub' my mind; "ok, when I read 'the Father', I'll think 'Source, for 'God', I'll think 'Source', for 'the Sonship', I'll think 'all humanity'. I can do this!"

And then back in I'd go because I couldn't take it in fast enough. This book provided my first exposure to the story I was seeking about why this is all happening. Why a single Source consciousness would hide itself as individual minds, each cloaked in forgetfulness and living out a life against an illusory backdrop of time and egoic identity. Why leave an eternal paradise to experience separation and suffering? What's that about? What lesson is meant to be learned here? This book landed in my hands at the time I was becoming focused on these questions and the explanations and instructions the book offered effortlessly clicked into place. A Course in Miracles will be one of my key resources as I continue exploring my inner self.