What Is A Course in Miracles?

Healing is what healing does . . .

People ask sometimes, what is A Course in Miracles. It's not an easy question. There are stock answers (3-volume spiritual psychotherapy, repackaged gnosticism etc.) but those feel like descriptions from the outside.

Answering what A Course in Miracles is means trying to talk about what it does.

The course brought me into direct contact with the illusion of mind/body dualism and invited me to accept it as an illusion. When I did that, my practice changed. I began to identify with the Christ in me, which is the Christ in us.

This identification is a form of living in the world collectively, nonviolently and dialogically, the better to address our many blocks to - our many defenses against - "the awareness of love's presence" (T-in.1:7). It undoes the poisonous tendrils of separation. We become happy in natural, serious and sustainable ways. Everything is shared; nobody is excluded.

Identifying with Christ - becoming Christ-like - is self-fulfilling. We do nothing but get out of the way. And all that happens is that the illusion of needing anything to be different than it currently is, is undone. We wake up from the sleep of separation and remember the perfection we had forgotten. We see what is, and it is enough.

The means for awakening and remembering in this way are the Holy Spirit, the Holy Instant and Holy Relationship. In practice these eventually merge to become Holiness Itself. Holiness transforms us because it inspires and informs us. It shows us how to live. Holiness is what makes "living in the world collectively, nonviolently and dialogically" - possible. Otherwise it would be just another idealistic projection.

My own practice of A Course in Miracles is grounded in study and application. I am devoted to understanding the material and then living according to that understanding. I'm not especially good at this but I am clear that is the way. And the clarity is helpful.

For example, study seems to take place at the level of mind, while application takes place at the level of the body. A Course in Miracles basically endorses this division (e.g., T-31.VI.1:6, T-19.IV-D.5:4, T-1.I.20:1-2). But what clarity reveals is that the two cannot be meaningfully separated, i.e., there are no "levels."

Miracles - which unite us with Jesus in service of the Holy Spirit (T-1.III.3:4) - "make minds one in God" and "depend on cooperation" because we are, together, "the sum of all that God created" (T-1.I.19:1-2).

We learn to work together in these bodies in this world because we realize the way in which minds are called to join in the creation of peace and happiness for all. "Peace and happiness for all" is the manifestation of God. Nothing less is worthy of our attention.

I have also learned that if you only think and write about this stuff then it will easily be dismissed as naive and shallow. It will have the texture of New Age Utopian nonsense. But when you try to live by it - if you actually accept that your function is to "love in a loveless place" (T-14.IV.4:10) - then you will quickly realize its potential for healing. Love is real and its salvation is no joke.

So it is very important to live the life we are called by the Holy Spirit to live. That life is always right in front of us; it is always given. It's not a problem of discernment - it's a problem of attention. We pay attention and we crave attention; we never just give attention. What happens when we do?

Study introduced me to the Holy Spirit but then I had to actually listen and obey. I had to do what the Holy Spirit asked me to do. And here is the thing. This "doing" scared me. For me, before Love appeared as Love, it appeared as monstrous and chaotic. It appeared impossible. I was terrified.

So for a long time in practice I turned away from the Love to which my study directed me. Maybe if you don't flee - if you don't at least feel like fleeing - then you are not really approaching the Kingdom of Heaven. But if you persevere just a little then you will reach the juncture where you can "laugh happily" at what once seemed so terrifying (T-11.VIII.13:3).

Laughter is an important part of our spiritual practice! It reflects our realization that the "way is easy, sloping gently toward the bridge where freedom lies within the peace of God" (W-pII.200.8:4). This is a "stage of real peace, for here is Heaven’s state fully reflected" (M-4.I-A.8:5).

From here, the way to Heaven is open and easy. In fact, it is here. Who would “go” anywhere, if peace of mind is already complete? And who would seek to change tranquility for something more desirable? What could be more desirable than this? (M-4.I-A.8:6-10)

Do you see what happens in the first two sentences? "The way" dissolves in a state that is here now. There is nothing to seek and nowhere else to be. When we practice peace in the way specifically indicated for us by the Holy Spirit, enabled by the Holy Instant and enacted in Holy Relationship, then our shared peace first reflects and then actually becomes Heaven. What else could we want? Nothing is more desirable than the peace of being Christ with you. In that realization, the mind/body illusion is at last laid to rest. The reflection becomes the thing reflected. Our unity is perfection; it is Heaven.

Study makes clear the way and application becomes it. We cooperate with one another in bringing forth - in making manifest - peace and happiness. This is God's Will. This is the practice which reveals the One Relationship, the One Mind, and the One Love.

There is One Life and together we are it.

Those are some notes towards answering the question, what is A Course in Miracles.

~ Sean