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A Course In Miracles is a spiritual teaching of pure love and forgiveness, written down by Helen Shucman as she heard the words dictated by Jesus. It is 3 books in one: a text that offers the theory of pure non-duality, a workbook to apply it in daily life, and a manual for teachers. It was presented in classic Shakespearean blank verse with Christian references, partly, it is believed, to be legible for future ages, and also to offer correction to traditional Christianity. It uses the masculine to reference God, and the Holy Spirit–or the Voice for God–and Christ, only for purposes of consistency with the understanding that they are genderless and really all one.

Gary Renard became a student of the Course after numerous remarkable visitations by his teachers who helped him offer Jesus’ message from the Course in a modern conversational format and offers clarification to many of the common mistakes made by students and teachers. Gary’s sense of humor, and the lightness his teachers bring to this advanced form of spirituality is so refreshing that it slips in the keys to secret of the Universe as disarmingly as a good joke!

3-part spiritual practice:

In the “Disappearance of the Universe“, Gary Renard’s teachers, two of Jesus’ disciples, now ascended masters, describe a silent prayer meditation practiced by Jesus 2000 years ago.

They suggested this meditation as one of a 3-part practice designed to accelerate the undoing of the ego by releasing the unconscious guilt that keeps us stuck in the cycle of reincarnation, as a way of hiding in the Universe of form and the belief that we chose to separate from God.

The practical results to this doing this work become obvious when you realize that peace, love, and true forgiveness brought into any area of your life have immediate benefits, not the least of which being peace of mind and a renewed passion to contribute toward positive change in whatever walk of life you’re in. Obviously, the world could use some change for the better, but the true power that results from practicing the Course is changing how you see the world and the people in your life. The focus is on affecting change at the level of cause (the mind and your thoughts) rather than effect (the world of illusory form). This is the only place of true change, since it undoes the unconscious guilt where it originated.

Meditate morning and evening for just 5 minutes in silent joining with God and you may find, over time, that the results can lead to direct inspiration in regards to your life purpose and any major decisions. On a day to day practical level, you may find that committing to this practice helps you become more peaceful throughout the day, and the things that used to really get to you, just don’t upset you anymore.

When you notice this, you’ll have solid evidence that this is working to undo the guilt and anger in your unconscious mind, and it will have lasting effects in your daily life. Your interactions with people become more harmonious and you will feel directly guided at times as to the best course of action in every moment of the day.
It has been revealed in A Course In Miracles that prayer as Jesus taught and practiced it, was intended to be done in silence as a joining of your mind with God’s. Becoming one with His love answers all worldly problems. Thinking of your complete oneness with God, rather than seeing Him as outside of you helps to put you in ‘one-mindedness’ or right-mindedness, as the Course describes, by choosing the Holy Spirit as our teacher and interpreter.

Apply Advanced Forgiveness to whatever disturbs you during the day. This isn’t about forgiving some guilty ____ for what you think they’ve done, but overlooking it by seeing who they truly are in their innocence, and so forgiving what never happened. It is a quantum approach to applying non-duality to every situation recognizing that you are not a victim. Pure non-duality, as presented in the Course, is the awareness that what God created is whole, and completely perfect and so cannot have any counterpart or opposite. At this level of awareness, the truth is revealed that you, as Christ, are one with God and there cannot be anyone or anything separate from the one.

You can start practicing this true forgiveness now, even though you seem to be experiencing separation in a body, by letting the Course retrain the mind to recognize there’s really no one outside of you making you feel the way you do. Seeing with true spiritual sight means seeing everyone as innocent and everything in the world as meaningless, except to offer it to the Holy Spirit for reinterpretation. This is the keystone to the work of getting home, where you remember you’ve been dreaming and you are really safe at home with God. Peace is the result of practicing this level of forgiveness, returning your mind to heaven, where God’s Peace is always the natural condition.

Einstein understood that what we’re seeing with the body’s eyes is an optical illusion of reality. In short, the only real problem is the belief that we’ve separated from our Source and are wandering around inside a body observing a real world. The one correction is to forgive the images we’ve made up since the beginning of time, whether they are bodies, trees, or universes. Here, the cycle of birth and death ends, and your immortality is all that remains.

A Course in Miracles describes our particular dilemma in this way: “You are safe at home in God, dreaming of exile, but perfectly capable of awakening to reality.” The key that Jesus found to waking up was to choose reality instead of the dream. He thought of everyone he saw as perfectly innocent and whole, not a part of God, but one with God. Eventually the guilt that had him perceiving incorrectly and judging others as separate from him and God was undone and he was able to think of them as pure Spirit and eventually experience that reality for himself. This practice of advanced forgiveness he offers through the Course is designed to be a fast track home, to reawaken to what he is–perfect and constant love–and to our mutual inheritance.

A good forgiveness example was offered by Gary’s teachers for times when someone is pushing your buttons: “You are Christ, whole and innocent. All is forgiven and released.” See them released into the light of pure Spirit and you are also being released from guilt and separation.

Ask the the Holy Spirit to guide you through the day as the final part of the 3-step practice. It is very simple, but not always easy to follow. Every morning upon awakening, hand over your day to Holy Spirit (the Bridge between your mind and God’s) to guide you through the day. When you don’t have time to ask, trust that His Wisdom will be there to guide you.

The ego is based on the fearful belief that you separated from God, projecting itself outside God and into bodies, and holding on to the guilt of separation in the split mind at an unconscious level. Projecting this guilt on to others is the only way we can sense some relief from this condition. Unfortunately it doesn’t last. The ego will continue to try to place it’s terrible burden of guilt outside itself and so never bring healing to the split mind that created it. The only way out of this is to undo the ego by choosing true forgiveness with the Holy Spirit, overlooking the belief in separation, thereby returning your mind to God.

This is a life-long practice for most, since the unconscious guilt must be removed gently by the Holy Spirit or we would be overwhelmed. But the immediate results from practicing forgiveness–ever expanding peace and more awareness of God’s Love–are constant reminders that your mind is being healed–forever. I’ve noticed the benefits also include a feeling of taking yourself more lightly. May your feet tread softly through the dream as you become a passerby!

– Jonathan Joshua

Body symptoms have been up for me lately. The Course teaches that my body is a symptom (of separation)! When I asked for information, I had to be redirected to asking the ‘right’ question. “Do I want to let Holy Spirit be in charge of my life, including my health?” According to Arten & Pursah, and the Course; all illness, pain, and suffering begins in my mind due to the unconscious guilt from the mistaken belief it denied God. It is here that correction is to be applied, but an overview of my devious methods to create these effects was helpful. DU Chapter 10 ‘Healing the Sick’. (Forgive me ahead of time for indulging my conversations with mySelf. I won’t know if you don’t read it, only if you don’t forgive me ) just joshing.

I just looked up indulgence in wikipedia: ‘the full or partial remission of temporal punishment due for sins which have already been forgiven. The indulgence is granted by the church after the sinner has confessed and received absolution.’ On second thought, I’d rather not receive any indulgence, thank-you very much.

My ego has been feeling threatened by the shift in perceptual reality from bodies to Spirit. By handing over my health to Holy Spirit, He will take charge of it all, including inspiration as to what ‘magic’ (medicine, exercise, etc.) would be helpful after forgiving the situation I made up to hide my guilt in. But the big one, letting God’s Love back in, so I can begin to trust in Him for everything, brought up the old unworthiness delusion. I’m often lax in this area, as was obvious in that I wasn’t even aware this was the subject I needed to ask help with! When they say the guilt behind our suffering is unconscious, they mean it!

The ego feels unworthy because it thinks it should be punished for defying God. (silly-willy). It projects this belief on to the body and the world and situations, then screams ‘abandonment!’ whenever things don’t go its way. It’s really accessing this unconscious guilt around separation from God and trying to mete out its own punishment by investing in the temporal: bodies, special relationships, validation, money, or power. These are its gods, and if I root for them, I’m in for a big disappointment! When the idols crash, as the ego knows they must, it tries to convince me I did something wrong: ‘that’s why they got angry and withheld the goods!’ It infers punishment by God. ‘You musta done something wrong; now you’re gonna get it!’ Here cometh the God of Abraham! And so starts the vicious cycle of unworthiness all over again.
I interjected at this point. ‘So how do I see this correctly!? What if I realize the ego is meaningless?’

From the silence: “Once you sided with the ego during the first split, you were bound to a script that must be played all the way out. It is possible to save time, however. But not by letting the ego analyze itself. That only reinforces your belief in its reality.”

So, like getting the cliff notes to a bad play, I could come to the instructor with a forgiving attitude and tell him “Confessions of a Madman” should have closed after the first night. The cliff notes being the ability of Holy Spirit to collapse time if I do my homework, I could get a passing grade even if I did leave right after intermission. (Bill Thetford, co-scribe of the Course with Helen Shucman, actually toyed with a musical based on the Course, “Call Me Mad” instead of Madam. Helen would come in with her operatic voice in a duet with Bill and they had them rolling in the aisles, even if it was just s friends living room).

Out of the silence, again: “How to see this correctly? No one is unworthy of God’s Love. You are that love! Put Holy Spirit in charge; keep forgiving and joining in silence until your experience reveals this is true.”
So I guess it would be curtains for the ego and it’s dark play?

The ego’s investment in images of bodies and personalities are used by Holy Spirit as vehicles for his communicating to our right mind that we are neither. And all the world’s just a stage. But we have to ask, or hand in our 3-d glasses to Him at some point during the last act, for him to correct our vision. Then they get used for his purposes and the final draft of the script gets rewritten into a comedy! The lines are the same, but the actors have changed and now we all get to laugh at our tiny, mad idea of separation–like watching a Godzilla movie, originally mis-created to terrify my tiny, mad ego.

My ego perpetuates the B-Movie with thoughts of self- (and other-) judgment to hide it’s sinister game. They go right to me, since there’s no one else out there. Self-judgment (my favorite poison of choice) results in apathy and depression; rage and vengeance from judging others. Now I can see ‘therapist’ Bob Newhart’s advice (on his comedy clip on Mad TV) to just ‘stop it!’ as more than a quick fix. “We but do this to ourselves.” The choice has always been mine.

Opening up to receiving love in the world can help support ‘true worthiness’ at the level of effect, but joining with God in silence, and inviting His Love into my mind by loving Him as best I can, goes to cause. There, I can see that I must give the Love I want to remember I have it, and so begin to receive healing for those damned unconscious blocks to It’s awareness. All little needs are contained in this one. I am so grateful to Arten & Pursah in The Disappearance of the Universe for demonstrating how to ‘pray’ in silence by joining with God and forgetting the things we think we need by getting ‘lost’ in His Love (our one need, and our inheritance to be rediscovered). [DUp351]

A lot of mental wandering, I know, for something that Mother Theresa practiced without a second thought! Babies get it too, but for whatever reason, I need to be led by the hand in this area, a bit like a toddler! As I visualize taking J’s (or the Holy Spirit’s) hand, I am reminded to offer love at every opportunity, no matter how weakly at first, to make practice become habit. Thanks for helping me remember to ask for help. I have it on good authority it’ll come right back to you!
So, as the curtain falls, I most humbly take my leave (cancel actual Hamlet ending).

Actually, at my wits end, I offer my love to you. May it continue to strengthen as I ask His Wits to rule this unruly mind.
Yours, in true worthiness,

Jonathan