A Course in Miracles: Big Shifts in Thinking

I perceive the rhythm and movement of A Course in Miracles as a subtle presence in my life – powerful but not overwhelming. It is reminiscent of a brook slowly carving away at the landscape, quiet and beautiful, and one only notices its transformational effects after months or even years .

In a sense, this is simply how I want to learn – and how I learn best. The course meets us where we are, but we also take it in the form and manner that works best for us. There is no use fighting this, no use resisting it. Part of accepting the Holy Spirit as a Teacher, and Jesus as a guide, means relinquishing our inclination to control outcomes and dictate means.

That said, there are certainly times in my life the course precipitates fairly significant – even dramatic – shifts in thinking. These moments are somewhat rare, but I am grateful for them indeed. They are in the nature of lightening flashes, quick and powerful, in the wake of which nothing is the same.

For me, one of those moments occurred early in my practice. One morning, while walking the dogs, I realized that the God to whom I prayed – and with whom I had been in relationship for well over three decades – had more in common with Jonathan Edwards (he of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God fame) than with the God inherent in A Course in Miracles.

This insight literally rocked me. Every time I turned toward familiar modes of prayer, there was nothing there. I felt weak and fluttery. I was embarrassed and chagrined. I was scared to move forward but even more scared to fall back to the familiar.

Driving home the other day past fields bright with dandelions it occurred to me that in many ways, I had finally integrated the course’s view of God: present, loving, trustworthy, kind and with whom I shared a powerfully creative Will. I don’t mean to suggest I’ve got it down perfect; only that I am not so torn between competing visions of God. I have settled on a belief system that empowers me to look closely and without fear and what still seems to obscure the divine.

So most of the time my practice is like a brook – steady, pulsing, strong, reliable – but then other times yes, it floods the banks, it pushes me hard where I need to go. I am grateful for that! As I am grateful for the quieter moments as well, all of them reminding me my Teacher knows the way.

The Peace of Christ (Is Not Contingent)

The peace of Christ is not contingent. Thus, our expression of it cannot be contingent either. To the extent I am offering love conditionally, I remain separate from Christ. And since there are no degrees in separation, to be estranged even a little is to be estranged wholly.

The paradox inherent in my practice of A Course in Miracles – which of course reflects my understanding of it – is that I must be simultaneously vigilant and passive. The decision to accept Christ is not made at the level of the brain but at the level of the mind. At that level, Christ is already is accepted. I need to see this, and this all I need to see. Vigilance reminds me of this. Passivity is the acknowledgement that I need do nothing more.

How, then, do I come to see my acceptance of Christ? It is revealed to me through the lens of attention. It is intimated at the level of form – in moonlight, in bluets, in the brook before dawn. Slowly, through my love of these forms, the Love that infuses them dawns on me. The light is revealed in an interior way. I no longer perceive the bluet only, but the very Godness of it.

In that moment, it is no longer about the bluet, nor the one who observes it, but simply the awareness of Love which inheres in all life because all life is God’s Creation. Reduced to words, this resembles an idea, but it happens beyond language. Writing it is a way of remembering, and perhaps a means of leaving notes for those who are seeking it, too.

There is nothing to do but patiently give attention to what appears, to what arises before us. This applies all forms: ideas, flowers, animals, friends, food. Our attention has power in it, and will relate us to awareness, which is effortless and boundless. In awareness, one simply perceives Christ as reality, perceives Christ as Love, perceives the peace that is the natural condition of life. There is no work in it, because there is no fragmentation in it. That is why it is peace and love. That is why it is reality.

Notice when you are attentive and when attention drifts. Notice when you are expressing love in ways that are conditional. These are deviations from love, but there is no virtue in berating ourselves about it. To notice what deviates is to heal it by bringing it back, through attention, to Christ. Find what never changes and identify with it: and learn how lovely you are in eternity.

Inquiry and A Course in Miracles

A spirit of inquiry is helpful in our practice of A Course in Miracles. Forgiveness requires honesty, often at levels to which we are unaccustomed to giving attention. The willingness to investigate – to ask questions – particularly outside the bounds of our spiritual and psychological comfort zones can be very fruitful. It can help facilitate insight.

I do not mean that as students of ACIM we are meant to indulge in emotional or spiritual archaeology, becoming Lara Crofts of the psyche or spirit. It is my experience that devotion to A Course in Miracles – studying the material, doing the lessons, participating in dialogues here and there – will naturally evoke more than enough ruins and skeletons to keep us busy.

Our goal is not to push forth boldly into territory marked unknown but to be patiently attentive to what shows up. And what can we expect will arrive? Memories, family stories, biology, world events, theological beliefs, fluctuations in personal economy, opinions and ideas, art, teachers, weather and cake.

It will all show up – the whole world, which includes your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, energies, ideals and so forth, will just show up. And piece by piece – for that is how we begin when we believe tacitly in separation – we will look into it. We will engage in inquiry.

Inquiry in this case really doesn’t mean much more than a level-headed study that does not rush to conclusions. If you are angry at the world bank, you can just look at it: your ideas about the bank, what it did or didn’t do, your feelings about global finace, fiscal equality. All of it. Just look and notice what is going on.

When we do this enough, we eventually begin to see that the external problems are really just symbols of an internal dilemma. So our attention will start to turn inward. We will notice that we are angry at China for failing to curb coal emissions and we will say: “oh, right. This is about concern that we leave a planet for my grand-children and that is really just fear.”

So then we are looking at fear. Or something else will bring up sorrow and so we will look not at the symbol but at the content it symbolizes.

So a spirit of inquiry – a habit of inquiry, a willingness to inquire – are all means by which we begin to deepen our capacity to make contact with the vast reservoirs of guilt that seem to roil just beneath the surface, keeping us separated from the Love that is God.

Contact with guilt is not made for its own sake; that would be masochistic. Rather, it is made so that with the Holy Spirit, it might be undone. I say “with the Holy Spirit” because it is essential we understand that we are not the undoers. We want to avoid all temptation to seize steering wheels or grab reins. A certain passivity is more than helpful here. In a sense, as we inquire, we are taking what we learn and offering it to the Holy Spirit – it is a simultaneous action really – and it is undone for us. So we are participants, but kind of the way that we are participants in a flower’s beauty. We have to stop and see it and smell it but we didn’t create it.

So that becomes part of our practice of A Course in Miracles: inquiry, which is attention give to what is, and what is is always shifting and changing. It is never not there, and we are never not without opportunities to learn and deepen and become grace-filled.

Honoring Tara Singh’s Vision of A Course in Miracles

Prior to teaching A Course in Miracles, Tara Singh undertook a three year silent retreat. He gave three years of his life to silence! Can you imagine that? The discipline it took, the commitment . . .

People ask me sometimes why I read Tara Singh so closely, and listen to him on tape and video, and say he is my teacher even though he is deceased, even though we never met. I give my attention to him because he had an intensity of devotion and a willingness to do what was required without questioning it. Most of us have so many reasons not to study today or not to pray. Christ is right here and we are so casual! We don’t want to know what is real and we are always going to get around to changing tomorrow. We think we are serious but could we be silent for three years? Do we have the resources internally?

To say “no” is not to beat ourselves up but rather to be honest, and to see what is going on with us without bringing ideals and evasion into it. So we are not serious yet, so what? If we can see it, then we can make a decision to do it differently, to end our casualness and come to clarity. Honesty is a gift because it always allows what is essential to be revealed. It has no secrets. It respects the truth too much.

He did not make silence an ideal. Rather, he made it a gift. It was not about him but about others! And so the need of his brothers and sisters could not be excluded, or it was no longer a gift.

One of the aspect of Tara Singh’s retreat into silence was that he sometimes spoke! Perhaps you think that makes him a hypocrite. But he talks about it briefly in Dialogues on A Course in Miracles. He says that when we would go out walking, people who needed directions would always find him – how do I get to this street? How do I find that park? He was amazed by this – that people with that need would always turn to him. He could walk down the beach surrounded by people playing and relaxing and recreating and not one of them would reach out, but as soon as somebody had a need then they would find him and ask him for help.

And he helped them. He gave what was asked. He did not see this as a compromise or hypocrisy.

But I never felt like I was “talking” in directing them because I was meeting a need. The need and the silence became one (265).

He goes on to say that at the relative level – at the level of the world at which most of us are engaged – there is always going to be contradiction. We can’t avoid it and shouldn’t expect to.

You see, Tara Singh is pointing us in a new direction. He is intimating a space that the wise always ask that we seek out and make our home. He did not make silence an ideal. Rather, he made it a gift. It was not about him but about others! And so the need of his brothers and sisters could not be excluded, or it was no longer a gift. Does that make sense? It won’t at the level of relative thought – where right and wrong are the law. But it is very clear at the level of love where our brothers and sisters are the means of salvation.

The clarity and love inherent in this brings me to tears. It is so simple and clear.

So the more I read and study Tara Singh, the more beautiful and helpful his example becomes. He is not admirable because he could stop talking for three years. He is admirable and helpful because the silence was at such a level it could include words that were offered in love. He could sustain the silence while helping those who were lost.

This is why I call him “Teacher.”

On Expression

Expression is natural. It is what arises without effort. It flows.

Expression does not begin with the one who expresses nor does it have any end. Expression may assume form but only as a function of its formlessness. Expression is not form but what infuses form.

What we call the self or ego is an impediment to expression. It is the effort to limit expression. This is why the artist Jasper Johns said – here paraphrased – that to be a great artist one has to give up everything, including the desire to be a great artist.

The self or ego is the belief that expression serves only self or ego. This leads to the belief that expression is always personal, always a reflection of the one who expresses. This in turn leads inevitably to a confused perception of expression, which can be summarized as seeing many expressions rather than expression reflected in many forms.

Thus one begins to distinguish between craft and the generative impulse. The former is technical and mechanical while the latter is inherent in all life. One can study and practice the former but one can only know the latter.

The authenticity of expression hinges on knowledge of the generative impulse. This knowledge begets an intimacy with Creation naturally informed by humility and gratitude and cannot not be shared. Expression forever points beyond the form it temporarily assumes in favor of the eternal impulse – the infinitely renewing all – that it is.

Expression forever offers itself. To perceive expression is indistinguishable from offering expression – they are one movement, whole only in each other.

Intelligence Beyond the Brain

Is there an intelligence beyond the brain? What does it mean to say this? And if there is such an intelligence, can it be related to A Course in Miracles? Will A Course in Miracles introduce us to this intelligence?

When I sit quietly and give attention to what can be observed, I see that another energy is sustaining life and that it has nothing to do with me. The trees are not growing because of what I do. The birds are not flying and feeding and building their nests under my direction. The movement of the sun and the moon, the falling rain – it is all so consistent, all so beautiful and all so perfectly independent of my self.

All that does not rely on the brain at all. Long before our brains were inventing language and monetary systems and governments and agriculture and so forth, the flowers were simply growing and going to seed and growing again. The seasons were emptying into one another. The stars were shining, the ocean rising and falling

I am not playing word games: you can call it evolution, or biology or chemistry or whatever you want, and I am still going to ask you: is it not a form of intelligence? Is there not an order to it? We don’t have to leap into theology, which is just another abstraction. We can just stay with our observation of how simple life is, and how orderly, and how little it asks of us. It’s not about science and it’s not about narrative. It just is. And giving attention to it is a very liberating, very empowering gift.

If we discern between the activity of the brain and the action of life, then we are beginning to see that there is in fact another intelligence and that we are related to it. A Course in Miracles, like plenty of other spiritual paths, will point us in its direction but it cannot take us there. It is like the old adage: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. We have to recognize our thirst. We have to make the decision to slake it.

Giving attention to what is relieves our unfulfillment and restores to our mind the fact of its wholeness.

What A Course in Miracles calls the mind is not the same thing as the brain. It is something else. When we look into it, we see that mind is not readily measurable. It is not confined. It has qualities of the eternal and the infinite. Again, we don’t need to go into God and Heaven and all of that – that abstraction, that philosophy, that theology. All of that is fodder for conflict. But we can make contact with this intelligence, this energy, flowing through mind. It is the easiest thing to do because we are that intelligence. We are that flow.

“Flows” is the right word here. Mind is not an organ; it is not an instrument. It is more in the nature of a movement, a flow. It has tidal qualities, reflective properties. It is not concerned with survival or improvement or status. It is not ambitious or greedy. It wants nothing because it has everything.

These are just words, of course, and words are just symbols. They are not the thing itself but only relative approximations, always subject to error. It’s okay. We are not really trying to anymore to explain anything or even to understand anything here. We are trying to know the experience of peace and joy which naturally inheres in Creation and so naturally inheres in us.

We are moving beyond words, and beyond learning, in favor of experience. We are atoning. We are letting go our attachment to separation.

When I mentioned earlier the energy – the life – that infuses the sunlight which infuses the lilac bush which lights up my mind . . . That life or energy is not external to me. Nor, really, is it internal. Rather, it is me. And you, too. There is nowhere this life and energy is not. Its currents enfold everything and all things unfold out of it. Call it “ground” or “God” or “Brahman” or “flux” and what it is doesn’t change one bit. What a gift to know such stability and grace, to no longer perceive oneself as apart from it!

A Course in Miracles cleared a space for me in which it became possible to learn how to give attention and thus perceive that which lies beyond language, that which lies beyond form, and that which lies beyond perception. It related me to the intelligence that underlies the flow of life, teaching me that I am not separate from that life but rather flow with it and through it as it flows through me. You too.

So I am grateful, indeed, and my gratitude keeps me close to awareness of God. Nothing is disturbed, nothing is disgraced.