Following Jesus in A Course in Miracles

It is a mistake, I think, to approach A Course in Miracles as if it were merely a light-hearted picnic en route to the Gates to Heaven. It is not that an emphasis on inner peace and joy is wrong per se, but that it can distract one from the actual forgiveness inherent in the course’s healing process.

To adopt A Course in Miracles as one’s spiritual path is to undertake a serious and challenging interior journey from grim forgetfulness to remembrance of God. It is to look closely at an interior landscape and thought system that resists being looked at and literally stops at nothing to avoid being seen for what it is.

Why does it so viciously and tenaciously defend itself from being known? Because it correctly perceives that to see it is to to simultaneously see what it is not and – because our longing for God, though hidden, is greater than our longing to be separate from God – exchange it for Truth. The ego knows it is doomed when we see it offers us nothing but pain.

Grandeur is of God, and only of Him. Therefore it is in you. Whenever you become aware of it, however dimly, you abandon the ego automatically, because in the presence of the grandeur of God the meaninglessness of the ego becomes perfectly apparent (T-9.VIII.1:1-3).

A Course in Miracles, through the text, workbook and Manual for Teachers, restores to our memory God’s grandeur, and the ego is dissolved accordingly.

But it does not go quietly nor willingly! And, for most of us, it does not go without the help of a devoted guide. Thus, the course, in addition to providing a means by which to remember God, provides a friend with whom to bring that means into application.

My brother you are part of God and part of me. When you have at last looked at the ego’s foundation without shrinking you will also have looked upon ours . . . I give you the lamp and I will go with you. You do not take this journey alone (T-11.In.4:1-2, 5-6).

In a sense, those words are metaphorical – Jesus is not actually going to show up with an oil lantern and escort us through our personal Boschian drama, the way a friend might walk with us through the streets of Boston or Baton Rouge with a flashlight and map.

On the other hand, if we cannot take those words literally – if we reduce them merely to a good idea – then we are quite likely bereft. So a question emerges and presses on us: How do we make contact with Jesus in a real and practical way with respect to “looking at the ego’s foundation without shrinking”?

To be with Jesus is not acquisitive but rather receptive. Why? Because he is already here: our inquiry of him makes it so.

The answer has to do with the reverence that naturally flows from giving careful and sustained attention to that question, which in part has to do with not rushing to answer it. It is easy to substitute intellectual verbosity for spiritual experience. One way to avoid that trap is to willingly stay in the insecurity of not-knowing, which in a sense is to trust not knowing – or to trust that we are not alone in the state of not-knowing.

In his Commentary on Jesus and the Blind Man, Tara Singh observed that “a sincere question has the ability to relate you to life instantly and brings you to the direct perception of Reality” (79).

Thus, it is not necessary to know but rather to inquire of Jesus in a serious and attentive way, and to bring all of one’s desire to awaken to bear on the inquiry. In a way, it is reminiscent of Lesson 27 in the ACIM workbook: “Above all else I want to see.” Think of nothing but your yearning to see, says Jesus, and vision will be given you because it is already given to you. But be honest: what else will you think of? What else do you want?

The real question is, how often will you remember? How much do you want today’s idea to be true? (W-pI.27.4:1-2).

So it is a question of our commitment, of the energy that we are ready and willing to bring to our practice. Part of studying A Course in Miracles means facing our unwillingness to practice A Course in Miracles. We are asked to give vision priority amongst our many competing desires (W-pI.27.1:2). Tara Singh said that when we do that – when we sincerely give attention to Jesus – then we are met by Jesus in the present moment, and there is nothing metaphorical about it.

If you are present, then the Master is here, because what He said is eternal and always accessible. In the present, the past and future meet. Jesus said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (79).

To give our attention to Jesus without expectation – I will perceive him this way, he will answer this way, et cetera – is to become radically open and Jesus responds to that openness in a real and tangible way. Our reverence – which is a form of gratitude that simplifies and purifies attention – makes it possible.

Nobody can give attention for us, and the internal egoic drama that must be undone will feel utterly personal for a long time. Yet a state comes when we begin to perceive – beyond the specificity of images an idols – the fear and guilt that is common to all of us and shared by all of us. But before that, we have to share the seeming specificity of our spiritual journey with Jesus. We look at what we are frightened to look at, and we ask him to look with us and – when we are ready to no longer be alone – he will be with us, and his presence will be transformative at every level. His presence is a transformed way of seeing; He is vision.

From insane wishes comes an insane world. From judgment comes a world condemned. And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world comes forth, with mercy for the holy Son of God, to offer him a kindly home where he can rest a while before he journeys on, and help his brothers walk ahead with him, and find the way to Heaven and to God (W-pII.325.1:4-6).

Thus, I don’t want to avoid the work of looking at the ego’s foundation, however intimidating and even terrifying it might seem. It is essential to our shared freedom, because only by looking at the foundation can the rest of the egoic edifice be toppled.

I also want to be clear that this work, this looking, is not a solo gig: A Course in Miracles repeats over and over that Jesus shares the way, that the Holy Spirit is within us, and that you and I are walking the path to Heaven together. Those are words that point to an important truth: we are not alone in any way and our companions are our salvation.

It is not necessary to know in advance what it means to avail oneself of Jesus’ help and to be so helped. In fact, it is more helpful to simply rest in the not-knowing. To be with Jesus is not acquisitive but rather receptive. Why? Because he is already here: our inquiry of him makes it so.

On Attention to Thought

When I say “give attention to thought” I mean literally sitting quietly and observing what is happening in the interior. A thought about moonlight arises and I look at it – does it have an edge? Where did it come from and where does it go? Can I stay with it? Does it respond to my direction?

The point of this exercise is twofold. First, it allows me to directly experience the truth of “the observer and the observed are one.” I am familiar with this through the writing of Krishnamurti, but it is not an idea that began with him, and it is not limited to him. It’s more in the nature of a fact, and it is a helpful fact to know in an experiential way.

In order to learn this – to experience it – I have to be able to perceive thought without judgment. That is, I have to let thought arise and be able to explore it without simultaneously saying “this thought is bad,” “this thought is shameful,” and “this thought is likely to be productive.”‘

For me, this is where A Course in Miracles has been especially helpful. I look at thought with the Holy Spirit and trust the Holy Spirit to guide me – I let the Holy Spirit do the judging. The part of my mind that longs to judge and separate steps back and allows the part of my mind that remembers God to lead the way.

Please understand that I am not saying this is the right way to use A Course in Miracles, or even that you should use it this way. I am simply talking about what works for me, what has been most helpful.

Sooner or later, when one is giving nonjudgmental attention to thought, one begins to see the way in which the looker – the questioner – is implicated in what is being seen and questioned. That is easy to write but hard to express: you really have to have the experience. It’s trippy at first but then it becomes natural; it’s just another way of thinking but one that is maybe a little more helpful because it’s not inherently separative. It perceive wholeness because it is wholeness; it’s not really trying to be or do anything else.

In other words, you become aware that thought is just looking at itself – that is all one movement – and the idea that there is a “you” watching or directing or whatever is just another part of that movement, neither more or less important than any other part.

[t]hought has come to attribute itself to an image of an observer, a thinker. This gives it much greater authority, because it then apparently comes from a being who should know what to think. On the other hand, if it’s just going on mechanically, it might have no more significance than a computer (David Bohm On Dialogue 81).

Most of us if we consider what Bohm is saying – that thought is essentially a machine, just reflexive – then we are going to resist it. Of course my thoughts matter! But that is just ego talking – ego insisting that its thoughts are reality. But as Tara Singh has pointed out over and over, thought is interpretative. It’s never the fact but always the perception, the interpretation of the fact.

So when we give attention with the Holy Spirit, we begin to right-size thought – we see what it can do and what it can’t do and – most importantly – we see that what we are in truth is not thought.

If you look closely at the lessons of A Course in Miracles, especially the earlier ones, they are often urging us to move beyond the shallow levels of thought to the thoughts that we think with God (see, for example, lesson 74). I am suggesting that what this means is simply that we let go of the egoic mode of thought – which is so heavily invested in and attached to the egoic I, the narrative I – and align our thoughts with Truth as God created it.

If we let go of judgment, and do so in a spirit of willingness to learn how God thinks, then quite quickly it will be given us to experience Truth in this way. Why? Because that is all that really is – everything else is the busy chatty smoke screen that we throw up. Stop giving attention to it, give it a while to dissipate, and see what remains.

Tara Singh gives a beautiful example of this in Moments Outside Time. He is taking a taxi through rural India for the airport, and the taxi breaks down. The driver leaves and there is Tara Singh, sitting by the road, clock ticking.

I observe anxiety entering into my nervous system and thought promoting horror. There is a part of the mind that is ever still; I can deal with emotion and senses (305).

That is a couple of wise and insightful sentences! He is recognizing the existence of anxiety – there is no denial – but simultaneously acknowledging that he has the inherent capacity to respond to it. He doesn’t have to be carried away by it; the anxiety is not what he is in truth.

That is why he can say that “to observe and be aware of what goes on within is one of the great gifts of Heaven” (305).

So when we give attention with the Holy Spirit, we begin to right-size thought – we see what it can do and what it can’t do and – most importantly – we see that what we are in truth is not thought. So we are no longer regulated by it, and thus, no longer regulated by what is external.

This takes time to learn and bring into application. It is not hard to learn, but undoing patterns and habits of thought that have built up over a lifetime – that have thousands of years of separative energy behind them – is not easy. A Course in Miracles is a way of saying that we are not alone – that Jesus has done this and is here now to be our model, and that the Holy Spirit is within us in a tangible way, and that it too has only the goal of helping us.

When this is all clear and operative, there is really nothing left but an exuberant gratitude, which of course is Love. “I stayed with the spirit of gratefulness all through,” said Taraji. “Since I would not deviate, all would have to be well” (306).

That is because all is well, because it was created perfectly. That is the gift we are learning to accept; that is the Truth which we are learning to align.

Alienation is not God’s Will

It is worth remembering that God’s will is not hidden, but that we have interposed our will before it, and thus are confused about what we are. A Course in Miracles is clear: alienation from awareness of God is not of God. It is simply the reflection of our decision to think apart from God.

God’s Will is your salvation. Would He not have given you the means to find it? If He wills you to have it, He must have made it possible and easy to obtain it (T-9.VII.1:1-3).

The confidence in those sentences is infectious, which it has to be because left to our own inclination, we make God a stern taskmaster who not only hides His Will but also makes it conditional. Failure, not success, becomes the salient characteristic of the relationship. But A Course in Miracles insists that what God is is not up to us and – more than that – that our ideas about God are wrong.

When I am attentive to the course’s clarity in this regard, and when I allows its confidence a place in my mind, there is great joy and gentle peace. A space opens in which I can remember that what God is and what I am are not separate but unified.

In other words, it becomes possible to remember love.

Thus, my practice of A Course in Miracles becomes: slow down, give attention, be grateful and love will extend itself through me, reminding me that I am not alone.

The course’s insistence that God is here and that opportunities to remember God’s will abound hinges on the simple truth that our brothers and sisters are everywhere around us (T-9.VII.1:4-6). Even when we are physically alone, they are with us. And they are the means by which God and love are remembered. Thus, you are my salvation, as I am yours, and this realization is what saves us (M-1.1:2).

Accept your brother in this world and accept nothing else, for in him you will find your creations because he created them with you. You will never know that you are co-creator with God until you learn that your brother is co-creator with you (T-9.VI.7:8-9).

Service is a form of attention given to our brothers and sisters, and all it sees is our mutual need to remember Christ. The form this attention takes in the world will vary – hugs, monetary donations, careful listening, leaving alone, baking cookies, building a house. Yet the content never varies. It is always love responding to the call for love. That is what it means to be home in God.

How do we know what form this love or attention should take? In a sense, we don’t. The ego can never know it, because the ego doesn’t offer love, and it doesn’t hear calls for love, and it isn’t interested in healing itself. This is why we need to be in relationship with the Holy Spirit, which does know, and will teach us, so long as we are humble and open and willing to learn.

The Holy Spirit – which is inherent in us as healed or unsplit mind – remembers God’s Will and naturally extends it, so long as we can get out of its way.

With the grandeur of God in you, you have chosen to be little and to lament your littleness. Within the system that dictated this choice the lament is inevitable (T-9.VII.6:5-6).

The ego shrinks us. Spirit enlarges and lifts us into love. When we are complaining and bitter, it is a sign that we are heeding the ego’s teaching. The answer is not to fix what seems to be the problem in the world. The answer is to listen to the Teacher who speaks for God and thus offers us a new way of seeing, one that is predicated on acceptance, forgiveness, and love.

The ego cannot help us out of this mess, because it made this mess, and needs this mess for its survival (e.g., T-9.VII.5:3). It is the ego who creates a sense of alienation from God; it is spirit who teaches that alienation is not God’s Will.

We need, then, a sense of quiet and attentiveness in which the Holy Spirit can come gently forward to remind us of our status as children of a loving God. In that reminder, we also remember that God’s Will is love. But not love on the world’s terms, which is always premised on getting something at another’s expense, but rather love on Heaven’s terms, which is premised on eternally giving everything away, which is the only way to actually have anything worth having.

It’s okay that this sound confusing or idealistic or naive. If we are being honest, it cannot really sound otherwise. To the ego, radical love and equality is nonsensical and even dangerous. It is only when we make space for the Holy Spirit that the clear and constructive wisdom of A Course in Miracles is revealed.

There is nothing complicated about awakening. It may be unfamiliar and even frightening at first, but it’s not complicated. It’s natural and certain because it has already happened. It already is. We are not inventing a new state; we are simply remembering the natural unity and harmony that already prevails, just outside our awareness.

So we slow down, give attention, manifest gratitude and notice the way love extends itself through us, enlarging our awareness in ways that make clear God’s love and our fundamental joy and peace.

In this gentle and holy mode of being, we are able to welcome the lost and forsaken, who are own self, and whose salvation is not separate from our own.

Understanding the Seventh Principle of Miracles

Miracles are everybody’s right, but purification is necessary first (T-1.I.7:1).

The seventh principle of A Course in Miracles is both lovely and confounding. It reflects the course’s semantic affinity for Christianity and – I say this carefully and lovingly – the Course’s sometimes maddening habit of being poetic and abstract to the point of convolution.

In traditional Christianity , to purify or become pure was to cleanse one’s body through ritual, usually washing of some kind. Baptism is a classic example. Washing one’s feet or hands before a meal or upon waking are another. These rituals can be very meaningful and helpful in religious context, but they are not what A Course in Miracles is taking about.

In the context of the Course, “purification” does not refer to the body. It has nothing to do with waking early, sleeping in hair shirts, becoming celibate or vegetarian, praying more, studying the Course more, washing up before prayer or anything like that.

Rather, purification reflects our increasing capacity to discern between the thoughts that we think with God – which are loving thoughts, which are extensions of Creation – and those that we think with the ego. Thoughts that have an egoic root induce guilt and fear, loneliness and angst, while those we think with God induce inner peace.

To become purified is simply to discern between ego and the Holy Spirit, and to give attention only to the latter.

Do not attept to give the Holy Spirit what He does not ask, or you will add the ego to Him and confuse the two. He asks but little. It is He Who adds the greatness and the might . . . It is your realization that you need do so little that enables Him to give so much (T-18.IV.1:6-8, 10).

Miracles reflect a shift away from thinking with the ego and towards thinking with God, through the Holy Spirit. This is a matter of giving attention to what is going on inside us, at the level of mind. The Course is about the interior rather than the exterior landscape.

When we are aware of our thoughts we naturally become aware of what impedes love because it is not love. We become aware of those habits of thinking that lock us into fear and guilt and we become interested in an alternative because we no longer want the pain and grief associated with thinking that way.

In a sense, when we do this, we are “purifying” our mind. We are bringing it into greater alignment with its natural inclination to love.

There is another aspect to this principle that bears mention. It emphasizes a critical idea in A Course in Miracles: miracles are inclusive. They are for everybody. To think otherwise is to confuse the healing intention of the Course.

It is easy to get caught up with traditional notions of “purity” and “purification.” They imply that we are insufficient and dirty, that some people are more spiritual than others, that a spiritual hierarchy has value (people who make rituals, people who enforce them) and so forth. But valuing this kind of thinking is really just another form of resistance. It is another way of keeping at bay the very help for which we long in our loneliness.

So as always, our focus is not on what keeps the mind looking at external problems but rather on what is inside of us: the egoic thoughts that one by one, two by two, we bring to the Holy Spirit in order that what is loving in them might be saved, and what is unloving might be set aside as illusory.

There is no peace in illusions: only in surrender of illusions that enable us to encounter reality as God created it.

ACIM and the Face of Jesus

Recently, someone raised a question about the historical Jesus and his relationship to A Course in Miracles. This subject has fascinated me for years; Jesus has held my attention for as long as I can remember. It’s interesting. It’s also important.

Yet as I tried to scribble out an answer, no answer came. Or rather it came but in a sort of disconnected way. It wanted to be a small book or a long poem and wrangling clarity proved too much to handle. Sometimes writing happens that way. You pick up and move on.

But the question itself did not move on and so earlier today, while doing a little video for another site, I just found myself rambling about Jesus and A Course in Miracles. When I was done I thought, what the heck? I’ll post it.

Basically, I am seeing three faces of Jesus: the first is historical. This is the man who walked around lower Palestine teaching and healing and who was subsequently executed by the Romans around Passover. John Crossan (and scholars like him) have gotten pretty close to a sense of who that man was, which requires a delicate and scholastic analysis. I’m grateful to them all.

The second Jesus is the traditional Christian Jesus – the one who emerged from the brief life of the historical man. It is hard sometimes to talk about this Jesus without offending people, and I do not want to hurt or offend anyone. I can say with relative confidence that I think the historical Jesus would by and large be disappointed with the church that emerged in his wake. It’s not that Christianity hasn’t had its moments – it clearly has, and will likely continue to for a time, but this was not in the end a positive or fruitful place for me to be (and it took a while to see that with some clarity).

Finally, there is the Jesus inherent in A Course in Miracles. Again, it’s easy to slip into conflict here. For me, the Jesus that allowed Helen Schucman to scribe such a beautiful, helpful scripture is not a man but a symbol. He is a symbol of love and complete surrender to the Holy Spirit. He is a symbol of our potential to remember perfectly our unity with God. I am not especially interested in past lives that revolve around the historical Jesus, and I am not troubled by whether or not the course is “real” or a scam because of Jesus. For me it works. And for me it offers a Jesus that is helpful in remembering that Heaven is both here and now. I know that others feel differently and I see no other way for it to be, given the breadth and depth of the subject and its importance. Like you – like all of us – I am figuring it out as I go.

Two other quick things: first, I believe that a personal relationship with Jesus is essential to one’s practice of A Course in Miracles. That relationship can take a lot of shapes and sizes and it can evolve over time but it is always deeply personal. Thus, when someone starts talking about Jesus, and what they’re saying doesn’t resonate for you in a helpful way, it’s okay – it’s more than okay – to just turn tail and leave. Certainly there are no hard feelings on my end.

I’m not especially interested in debates about Jesus. Dialogue – in the sense of a gentle, thoughtful and informed exchange of ideas – yes. But debate no. Why bother? The issue isn’t getting someone else to the right place viz. Jesus. The issue is ensuring that we are there. It’s an inside job and only you – and I – can do it.

The second thing is simply to say that these off-the-cuff videos I sometimes do are not intended as anything other than hopefully interesting and maybe helpful chats. I wish that we were sitting together drinking tea. Or that a lot of us were together in a circle sharing about the course. I have an idea someday that will happen but for now, this is what is.

Thus, as I hope is clear in the video, or at least in these quick notes, I am not trying to present myself as an authority on anything (other than, perhaps, the importance of recognizing one is not an authority on anything). I am just a student of A Course in Miracles with a wordy bent and a touch more intensity than is sometimes good for me. I’m glad you’re here, the oddities of electronic discourse notwithstanding. Without you, it wouldn’t mean a thing.

A Course in Miracles: Fear and Love

Fear has been on my mind lately – the undoing of fear, which is healing – and in particular how one looks at this issue from the perspective of A Course in Miracles. Ending fear feels like a practical problem to me – like building a house rather than waxing poetic about the joy of home.

There are times in my practice – I think this is generally true for all ACIM students – when a particular issue or challenge comes sharply into focus. These can be frightening moments but if we can hold them clearly – without judgment or panic – there is a potential for helpful undoing.

Right now, for me, I am seeing with great and uncomfortable clarity, how scared I am of being wrong. It is a specific fear that permeates my life in profound and far-reaching ways. There is literally not a single decision I make nor action I undertake that does not have at its root this question: what if I am wrong?

Obviously, I can only be so fearful because I believe that a) it is possible to be wrong and b) that serious, even fatal, consequences attend being wrong.

I am very very scared of being wrong.

In looking at this, I can also see a few other, related issues. First, I can see that without having actually addressed this fear specifically, I have through the years given a lot of attention to the apparent causes of it in a general way. Either or both of my parents have been candidates. The Catholic church has been a candidate. Certain teachers who exerted a lot of influence on my intellectual and artistic development have been candidates. I read too much Thoreau at a sensitive age, et cetera.

Basically, I have always wanted to find the person (or institution) who is to blame, as if laying blame at someone’s feet will somehow absolve me of the problem (and of my own responsibility to solve it).

That is the very essence of projection and denial and it does not work (e.g., T-6.II.3:7-8, T-2.II.2:5).

The other thing that I have done is try to idolize right and wrong as a spiritual law and actually make the right decision. In other words, I keep telling myself there is a right thing I can do, and when I do do it, God will at last bless me, and the fear that attends being wrong will be gone forever.

This has a certain Holy Grail appeal to it. There is something secret and hidden and hard to find but if I can just find it, then all will be well.

The problem with that attempted solution is that it requires a God whose love and beneficence is conditional. And only the ego bargains – not God (e.g., T-7.I.4:1-2, T-8.I.1:5).

So this is what happens: we make contact with fear and with the ways in which we have been neatly avoiding dealing with it. And then what? The problem is still there, the old ways of ignoring it don’t work, and we want to be attentive students of A Course in Miracles. What do we do?

There are a handful of sentences that always antagonized me in Chapter Two’s Fear and Conflict.

The correction of fear is your responsibility. When you ask for release from fear, you are implying that it is not. You should ask, instead, for help in the conditions that have brought the fear about. These conditions always entail a willingness to be separate. At that level you can help it (T-2.VI.4:1-5).

I was frustrated by this for a long time because it seemed unnecessarily cold to me. When I am freaked out by fear – frozen through – why won’t Jesus just take it away? It seems to be the compassionate thing to do. If you’re beyond duality, resting in perfect communion with God . . . help a brother out.

But A Course in Miracles is not content with comforting us in our victimhood. It is not about feeling better while perpetuating the same cycles of confusion about cause and effect. It aims at a deeper healing.

Jesus is saying that he would rather help us solve the problem at its source, than commiserate with us about its symptoms. To those of us who can’t get past the symptoms – the external manifestation of fear – this is highly frustrating. But it is actually a deeply loving position to take.

A problem cannot be solved if you do not know what it is. Even if it is really solved already you will still have the problem, because you will not recognize that it has been solved . . . If you would recognize that your only problem is separation, no matter what form it takes, you could accept the answer because you would see it relevance (W-pI.79.1:1-2, 6:2).

So let’s say that I’m scared to do a certain kind of professional writing. It would take a lot of time, energy and attention and I wouldn’t be able to work on other projects. Our family needs the money and so the stakes feel pretty high. If I’m right, it’s cool, but if I’m wrong . . .

In the traditional mode of problem-solving, I say to Jesus: here’s the fear. I’m scared to commit to this particular form of work and writing. I’m scared to commit because it might not work and I really can’t afford to not be paid right now.

It’s important to see how the problem has been set up here. I’m not really talking about fear so much as the symptoms of fear – money and work problems. I’m invested in a particular form. The “help” that I am really after is an assurance that the writing will pay off – preferably in a winning-the-lottery way. Anything less amounts to an unanswered prayer, a scheming and unloving God.

A Course in Miracles is not saying that approach to problems is a sin. But it is suggesting that there is another way – one that is more effective and more likely to yield the inner peace and joy we are after.

It is important for me to see – and to accept – that my focus on the external symptoms of fear are nothing more than a reflection of my willingness to be separate from God. In the passage I quoted, Jesus is saying that I am “much too tolerant of mind-wandering, and are passively condoning your mind’s miscreations” (T-2.VI.4:6). And he is asking if I am willing to consider that I am not separate, and thus become responsible for my happiness.

Our mind’s “miscreations” are essentially its projections, which are its thoughts that the body is real – that it can be sick, poor, abandoned and so forth. These thoughts are not real but so long as we focus on (tolerate) them, then we are distracted from the real problem which is always our decision to think apart from God, our “willingness to be separate.” So long as I see the problem in terms of money and writing projects and unpaid bills and so forth, I am miscreating.

All A Course in Miracles really does is help us retrain our minds to create, which is to think with God, which is to express or extend love. This isn’t something the ego does because there is nothing formal about it. This is about creation, and the ego is not a participant in creation.

How then do we apply this to what appears to be a specific form of fear – in my case, the fear of making “wrong” decisions?

First, we have to make a conscious decision to keep our focus on the real source of our fear, which is always our decision to be separate from God. This is hard to do! It is much easier to focus on what is external – the apparent truth that “right” and “wrong” are real and I have to choose between them and then pay whatever price is there to be paid, no matter how much grief it brings to me and my family.

This is part of the discipline of being a course student: staying with challenging psychological material at the inner level rather than projecting it. It takes attention and willingness and it’s not fun. There aren’t rainbows. It can feel stormy and dark for a long time. A long time.

Second, we have to try – no matter how much fumbling and stumbling is involved – to think with God. It is not a question of concentration but of accepting the fundamental equality and worthiness of all creation (T-4.IV.7:2).

Think honestly what you have thought that God would not have thought, and what you have not thought that God would have you think. Search sincerely for what you have done and left undone accordingly, and then what change your mind to think with God’s. This may seem hard to do, but it is much easier than trying to think against it (T-4.IV.2:4-6).

We want to remember  – to trust, really – that to think with God is deeply natural, while thinking against God is unnatural to the point of painful and terrifying.

Does thinking with God this way mean that our so-called problems will go away? After all, the Song of Prayer says, “There are decisions to make here, and they must be made whether they be illusions or not” (S-1.I.2:4).

Thinking with God – even the baby steps that we can manage at this stage of our development – brings us peace. Why? Because we are joining with truth. We are accepting – however dimly, however tenuously – the love inherent in us and in all creation. We are solving the problem at its source, rather than wasting time on the myriad of symptoms that arise and subside and arise again in the world.

It is true that when we are in this space of thinking with God – which is a space of peace – that we are less bothered by what is external. It is less real to us and more in the nature of an image we are looking at. The world doesn’t go away but it is transformed a little by our willingness to look with Jesus at the real source of our fear – our willingness to be separated from God.

And that is all Jesus is asking of us – that is all A Course in Miracles really aims at: a shift in thinking, a gentle adjustment in thought. It is hard at the outset – and might remain hard for a while – but if we can hold the course (pun fully intended), then peace is sure to attend.