April 1, 2025
Bill Pautler
A Course In Miracles
Part 1
My Orchid April 2, 2025
Photo by Author
— A Course In Miracles
Photo by Author
I am
currently plowing my way through A Course In Miracles (ACIM) again. If you haven’t heard of this book, let me
give you a quick introduction. The
book was written by Helen Schucman between 1965 and 1972 and published in
1976. The Foundation for Inner Peace is
the organization associated with the book.
The Foundation says on their website that “A Course In Miracles
is a unique spiritual self-study program designed to awaken us to the truth of
our oneness with God and Love.” As I read this book I underline in pencil, all
the wisdom that jumps out at me. I feel
like I could underline the whole thing.
This is some dense spiritual laden text.
As I read it, I wondered how could anybody write this? Well Helen Schucman said this book was
dictated to her word for word by ‘inner dictation’ (today it would probably be
referred to as channeled) from Jesus Christ.
In the ACIM introduction
it states three things that I think are interesting:
A)
“This
is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time
you take it is voluntary. Free Will does not mean that you can establish the
curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given
time.”
B)
That the aim of the teachings is “…..removing
the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural
inheritance. The opposite of love is fear….”
C)
“This
course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.”
So, I am
going to comment on the three above statements.
Statement
A
“This is a
course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you
take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the
curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given
time.”
The concept
that ACIM is a required course made me chuckle inside. Pretty bold statement, but I took it very
seriously. I believe we are Infinite
beings. I also believe that the Garden
of Eden story in the Bible is an explanation of our relationship to God. The Garden of Eden is equivalent to being in
the magnificent presence of God. In the
presence of God, we have no knowledge of lack.
We are bathed in the ever-present love, peace and wisdom of our
Creator. But how can you really comprehend
something if you are completely immersed in it? Does a fish really know water? Can
you really know love without knowing grief?
Grief is the loss of love, right?
So, I believe we choose to leave the loving presence of God and come to
earth for a lifetime to experience the contrast. And in experiencing the contrast we gain a
more in-depth knowledge of God which allows us to become better gods. Better sons and daughters of God.
We have the
nature of our Creator because it is our Creator that animates us and brings
consciousness to all life throughout the universe. So, we are creators by nature. Coming to Earth is a way for us to practice being
creators. By choosing to come into this
dense, slow-moving environment, we are veiled from the full magnificence of
God’s love. And therefore, our journey
allows us to experience the spectrum of the Creator’s love. The
pain of creating in disharmony and the peace of creating in wholeness.
God also
gave us freewill, because She didn’t want us to be slaves. She wanted us to become just like Her,
manifesting in perfection. So, what
better environment to learn all this than a heavy time-based environment like
Earth? Where effort and disappointment are our lessons.
So, if we
are infinite eternal beings and we are learning to create in wholeness and
holiness, then the fact that we have been offered a required course in
creating miracles is fascinating, humbling and exciting. And as always, it comes to each of us in the
Divine Timing that is appropriate for us.
My Divine
Timing was 2011, when my friend Tina gave me this book.
Photo by Author
If we have been truly offered a required course, we should
probably go ahead and take it. Why wait
to learn the miraculous tools we have been offered and the ability to create peace
and wisdom in our lives?
Statement
B
That the aim
of the teachings is “…..removing the blocks to the awareness of love's
presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear….”
If you have
read my book or some of my writings, you will know that I resonate with this
statement deeply. Our false belief
systems block our awareness of the presence of love. I remember the first time, as a Catholic,
that I went into the Unity Church bookstore some 20+ years ago. I felt like a traitor. My uber Catholic belief system had limited my
perception that other religious traditions also had God truth in them. And I remember just a few years ago I went
to the occult store in Birmingham. I
felt very uncomfortable. But in that store,
I found a book on the Kabbalah. That
book helped me hugely.
Our false beliefs
block our access to our inherit nature, which is God’s nature. In our purest, unadulterated form we are the
nature of God, because it is God that animates us. The spiritual path is a path of
subtraction. Subtracting every false
belief until it is only us dwelling in the presence of God. That is the definition of what some
religions call the ‘examination of conscience’.
Reflecting on your thoughts, words and deeds to see if they are bringing
about holiness and wholeness.
I could go
on and on about fear and love. But I
have always believed the Bible quote “There is no fear in perfect love”. The phrase “do not be afraid” is reiterated
in the New Testament over 50 times. All
phrases that are repeated are repeated because someone thinks they are important.
So there are
2 ways we can get rid of fear. Just use the old carrot and stick method. Go after the carrot by embracing deeply the
energy of love or keep switching ourselves with fear until we get really tired of
living in the fruitless energy of fear.
Statement
C
“This course
can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.”
My ability
to explain Statement C is currently under development, so this elucidation is
going to be short. I do know that
nothing that is solid and whole can truly be threatened. If I truly have an agape love for my wife,
my child, my friend no thing that is outside of me can take that away.
I also know,
that once we heavily trend toward love of ourselves, the peace of God becomes
the energy we live in and operate out of.
Once that peace settles in deeply, nothing on this earth is threatening
any longer.
Summary
Maybe it is
time for us to do our required course work.
Why put off the peace of God that surpasses all understanding?
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Be mindful, aware and enjoy our
journey ……. Live a SageLife
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Namaste, the Divine in me honors the Divine in you!
Much love bill
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