VII. Distortions of Miracle Impulses, P 4
4 This is a course in mind training. All learning involves attention and study at some level. Some of the later parts of the course rest too heavily on these earlier sections not to require their careful study. You will also need them for preparation. Without this, you may become much too fearful of what is to come to make constructive use of it. However, as you study these earlier sections, you will begin to see some of the implications that will be amplified later on.
Journal
I think that sometimes people have some confusion around the idea we read later in the Course which says that “You need do nothing.” It is true that we need do nothing to be who we really are. We are divine beings, children of God and heirs to all that is God. That is a done deal and needs nothing from us. However, there is quite a bit of work we need to do to remember that this is true, to let go of all the ideas we have put in the place of truth. There is much we need to do to reach a state of full willingness to accept the truth.
Jesus did a bang up job on putting this Course together. He gave us an excellent text that begins with these important chapters. I remember when I started reading the Text that I was absolutely intrigued with what I found here, but that it seemed a bit disjointed and seemed to be often jumping around from topic to topic right in the middle of a paragraph. Later it smoothed out and became beautiful to read.
However, now that I am going back and reading carefully from a fuller understanding, I realize that these first few chapters are giving us the necessary information for the Course. One reason it didn’t always make sense to me is that I did not at first understand how it all comes together. Now I see that it is actually perfect, and I know that the Course is written in kind of a spiral of information. It comes back to the central ideas repeatedly and each time goes deeper and adds more information.
As Jesus says, this is a course in mind training. My mind has been systematically trained to believe that everything my eyes are showing me is true, and nothing else is true. I’ve been trained to think that I am small and separate and very vulnerable and that I must always be on the defense because it’s a matter of “me or them.”
Now with A Course in Miracles, everything I have ever believed is being turned upside down. My mind needs to be trained differently to accept and use what I am being given. Without this training I will not be able to experience my life differently and having glimpsed something better but not having access to it, I will be more confused and distressed than before.
I have been using A Course in Miracles for a long time now, but I it has taken me quite awhile to fully absorb what it says and even longer to put it to work in my life on a consistent basis. It was only in the last few years that I have made what I have learned through the Course my single unified purpose. Using this information in my life, practicing it every single day in every circumstance without exception, is the way my life has changed. I have always been the Son of God, perfect, powerful, loving and beloved. Now I am beginning to believe that and to act like it is true.
Doing this study of the Text, paragraph by paragraph, and sharing it with those who are also ready to wake up, is helping me move more completely into the truth of who I am. Sometimes I cannot believe how lucky I am to have found this information and to have made that choice to put it to work in my life. I think how easy it would have been those years ago to have missed this opportunity. Considering the mess I was, it’s an obvious miracle that I did choose to study the Course.
But then, it could not have happened any other way. This is my story, my script, and while it seems I am making it all happening, I am actually just watching it unfold, and choosing how I feel about it. I don’t know why I bother to read fiction or watch movies. Life is the most extraordinary and interesting story out there. I can hardly wait to see what happens in the next moment. Whatever it is, I am learning to say yes to it. I am learning to trust the writer of the script and to know that it is there to support my awakening, or to let me continue to dream, whichever I choose. I am safe, and I am free.