Welcome to the first blog on my new web site. My intention is to stimulate your interest in an extraordinary book called, “A Course in Miracles” (ACIM). It has been available since 1975. The author is not identified per se but the content of the book represents itself as being the words of Jesus. Each blog will be based on material from ACIM.

You grow up wanting to learn how to make your way in the world, wanting to succeed, or even excel, in some arena of the world. So you adopt the world’s beliefs and try to play by its rules. Maybe you succeed for a while. But sometimes something goes awry and your dreams collapse leaving you lost and in despair. Perhaps you get up and try again. Even if something is gained for a while, you must ask yourself if it really satisfied you. At some point do you finally realize that you have given yourself over to nothingness?

All (the world’s) roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. Seek not escape from problems here. The world was made that problems could not be escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given…. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not what will the ending be, but when it comes. T 31.IV.2.

If this is happening in your life, it is time to make a change. There are roads other than those offered by the world, and the path taught in “A Course in Miracles” (ACIM) is one of them. On it you will encounter gentle lessons and can move forward in peace at your own pace. You may feel your earlier efforts were just wasted time and effort but ACIM teaches that you are always learning, as stated in the 14th Chapter of the Text of ACIM.

Learning is living here, as creating is being in Heaven. T 14.III.3. In that sense what you did earlier was not a waste of time. ACIM also teaches that nothing real is ever lost and that letting go of nothingness is not a loss. It says this very succinctly in the Introduction of ACIM:

Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.

But our minds insist otherwise, and God allows us our illusions. Sometimes we sink deeper and deeper into monotony or despair, still believing that our “pot of gold” is out there in the world somewhere.

When you let your mind be drawn to bodily concerns, to things you buy, to eminence as valued by the world, you ask for sorrow, not for happiness. This course does not attempt to take from you the little that you have. It does not try to substitute utopian ideas for satisfactions which the world contains. There are no satisfactions in the world. W 133.2

In the gospels Jesus told us to love not the world or the things in the world. He is saying this again in ACIM in an expanded form that makes it more difficult to avoid its truth. Eventually you will leave this world but according to ACIM, this will not automatically happen when you die (as you might expect). This will not happen until truth has replaced all illusions in your mind and you awaken.

The world is not left by death but by truth, T 3.VII.6.

If your body “dies” before then, you will have to have more experiences in the world until your learning is done and you awaken. This can be thought of as reincarnation if you wish or you can think of it as occurring in an alternative universe if you prefer. How you conceptualize it does not matter. But you must learn what you really want and what you really are. This can take a while but it need not take more than a single lifetime in the world if you utilize the teachings of ACIM because it’s part of a celestial speed-up. The Plan of Atonement is the method and the Holy Spirit is the Guide.

Everything said in this video is based on the teachings of A Course in Miracles.

Visit our Miracle Publishers Bookstore to see the full collection of books on this subject:

1. A Basic Guide to Miracles (available as an audio book as well as a paperback book)
2. A Practical Guide to A Course in Miracles, Volumes I, II and III.
3. A Non-Traditional Approach to A Course in Miracles
4. Of Miracles and Threads of Time
5. The Text of A Course in Miracles, Condensed and Highlighted, Chapter by Chapter
6. The Union of The Law of One and A Course in Miracles